We were then in about five degrees of North Latitude, the trades had failed us, and the doldrums claimed their share of bracing and hauling, giving us little time for any other work. Every ripple on the brazen sea called for a different angle of the yards, and in dead calm we lay with our head yards braced sharp up and the after yards square, the courses guyed out from the masts by slap lines and bowlines. During the day a vertical sun beat down on our bare deck in unmerciful fashion, lifting the scorching pitch from the seams and all but addling our senses with the heat. The mates became more and more exacting, every job palled, and the stuffy, unpalatable food of the fo'c'sle stuck in our throats. The vessel was a chip of hell floating on the unforgiving ocean; riveted for days, that stretched to weeks, amid the patches of rusty sea weed, a thousand feet across, that tangled about the rudder post, great sun-scorched fragments of the dead Sargasso Sea.

And all of this time we knew that the Southern branch of the Equatorial Current was sending us back to the W. N. W. at the rate of several miles a day!

In watch below, choking with the heat, we lay tossing sleeplessly in our bunks while the sickly smell of the bilges came up from the fore peak through the wind sails let down to ventilate the hold. Cockroaches throve in added millions, and we were treated to our first rations of weevily tack. The little white worms seemed to be everywhere. The cracker hash was riddled with them as Chow selected the rottenest bread for this purpose. Most of us developed boils, and the dark brown taste, left by the vile food, resulted in a general loss of appetite. The heat even forced the rats from the hold and on a dark night we could hear them scampering about under the fo'c'sle head. The healthy sea tan of the temperate zone left our faces, and we became peevish and morose.

Some of us tried to forget our misery by reading the books sent aboard by the Seamen's Friend Society, others whiled away the hot watches below, when sleep was impossible, by making wonderful models of ships in bottles, almost a lost art nowadays, and revived on board the Fuller by Frenchy. Most of these works of art found resting places behind the bars of waterfront saloons in Honolulu.

One blessing that came to us in this hell afloat was the fact that the mates winked at the snatching of a few hours' sleep during the night watches on deck, otherwise there is no telling how some of us would have survived.

Our fo'c'sle scuttle butt soured, and Old Smith of the starboard watch emptied it one Sunday morning and charred the inside with a bundle of rope yarns to which he set fire. He told us how water gets bad in the tropics, and then how its own impurities destroy themselves. "The bugs scoff each other and die," and, went on Smithy, "they drops to the bottom of the butt, like white skeletons, and the water is as clean and good as ever."

About this time considerable activity went on forward among the old sailors in both watches. One dog watch, men from both sides of the fo'c'sle went aft and interviewed the captain.

"We are near the line," said Frenchy to me shortly afterward. "Don't make any fuss about what goes on, and you'll get off easy," he cautioned.

There were quite a few of us who had never crossed the equator, and the preparations in the dog watches augured ill for those who chose to resist the just tribute demanded by Father Neptune of all green sailors who, in those days, ventured across the magic bounds.

A fair slant of wind had helped us along for a few days, when the Old Man called Jimmy aft and imparted important information.

At eight bells in the afternoon watch, as all hands were mustering in the waist, a hoarse hail from forward greeted us.

"Ship Ahoy! Ship Ahoy!" came the deep bass summons from a point beneath the bow.

"Forward, there! Who hails us?" answered the captain, who stood out on the poop, replying to the voice from forward.

"Father Neptune hails us, Captain," answered Hitchen, returning from the bow. "He asks if there are any of his children on board who would receive his blessing on their heads."

"Aye, bring him on board," ordered the skipper, a broad grin lighting his features, and the two mates reflected the feeling aft by joining in the smiles.

A noise of trudging along the deck followed, the King of the Sea, his own whiskers hidden behind a broad beard of rope yarns, a bright red harpoon in his right hand serving as a trident, and a large razor, made of hoop iron, stuck in his belt, walked aft. He was draped in the folds of an old boat sail, and for all of his regal trimmings we recognized the famous Jimmy. A retinue followed, rigged out in true deepwater style, and carrying a tub between them, which was deposited on deck just aft of the mainmast.

"Captain," said Neptune, "I am told as 'ow you 'ave green 'ands on board who 'ave to be shaved."

"Yes, Your Majesty, we have some with the hayseed still in their whiskers," answered the skipper.

"Bring 'em forth!" thundered the King, unlimbering his razor and passing the trident to the safe keeping of his wife, Amphitrite, in the person of Axel, who towered two feet above the head of the King.

However, what Jimmy lacked in stature he made up in efficiency, and in the imperious glance of scorn with which he greeted eight of us who were lined up for his inspection.

Old Smith grabbed me by the neck; I was seated on the bottom of an upturned bucket at the feet of the King.

"Your name?" demanded His Majesty, and as I was about to answer a filthy swab of soapsuds and grease was thrust in my mouth and smeared over my face and the shaving began, ending by a back somersault into the tub of water behind.

"Next!" called Neptune in true barber shop style, and so, in turn, each of the green hands went through the ordeal; the least willing getting the most attention. Scouse and Joe were among the lubbers, and were accorded special rites to the vast amusement of all hands. Australia wound up the entertainment by handing Scouse and Joe pieces of gunny sack, smeared with black paint, with which to wipe their faces.

"All right now!" called the mate, after the skipper had left the deck. "Turn to and clean up," and we were back again to the rigid discipline of the sea, relaxed for a brief hour to let King Neptune hold his sway.

After crossing the line we picked up the first whisperings of the S. E. trades, that soon began to blow steadily and ushered in another busy stage of the voyage. The refreshing wind and falling temperature brought renewed vigor to our jaded crew. Although we had commenced to feel the lack of fresh provisions, scurvy did not bother us, possibly owing to the regular issue of lime juice, but the constant repetition of salt pork and salt beef, the weevily hard tack, and the abominable slumgullion, a stew made from canned mutton, made us crave for something decent to eat.

Frenchy often drove us to the verge of distraction with his stories of the cooks at home in Dunkirk, until we finally had to put the ban on that sort of discourse. Again, we landed several bonitas teeming with energy, and, after the silver coin test, all hands fell to with a will, myself included. We also hooked a shark and hauled him on board by a "handy billy" snatched to the fore rigging.

The regular routine of setting up shrouds and stays preparatory to entering the heavy weather off the Horn, now began in earnest. We had left New York with a full set of new hemp lanyards in our lower rigging. The lanyard knots were turned in in a slovenly manner, with a lubberly disregard for appearances, that proved an eyesore to Captain Nichols. We cast new knots in these, and set up all standing rigging anew; a long, interesting job that initiated us into the mysteries of "rackings" and the "Spanish windlass," and the practical workings of the various "purchases" and "burtons"; the "luff tackles," and the "gun tackles."

The mate was the leading spirit in these proceedings, staying on deck practically all day to supervise the work. As we would set up one pair of shrouds to port and another to starboard, bringing them to a "full due," the mate was always there to say when to clap on the racking and "come up" on the rigging luffs.

How the mate stood it often amazed me, for he was very lively at night, but toward the end of this work the second mate would stand his last dog watch for him, giving our first officer a six hour spell of sleep every other day. What this means on a watch and watch racket, sailors who have traveled the long voyage route will know.

The real sailors came to the fore during this time in both watches, and Frenchy, Brenden, and Marshall, of our side, with Smith, Axel, and Hitchen of the starboard watch, proved their rightful claim to the full rating of A. B. Mr. Stoddard, who was a bit weak on his marline spike seamanship, though a good watch officer, made up for things by the way he bawled about and hurried and scurried his watch during the time the mate was on deck. His men hated him thoroughly and we were glad that he had very little to do with us.

Aboard a real shipshape and Bristol fashion deepwaterman of the old school, if there be any such left today, everything is done according to the custom of the sea. From the main truck to the keel, from the outermost end of the flying jibboom to the last band on the spanker, the ancient art of seamanship has decreed the exact way in which certain things shall be done. The deadeyes carry their knots inboard, forward to starboard, and aft to port. The lanyard lengths are justly proportioned to the length of the stay they extend, so the required "give" will be right, and the shroud pairs, stays, and backstays, are passed over the mast heads and rest upon the trestle trees, in due and proper form; the same in all ships worthy of the name.

Nations differ in their customs, and likewise in their rigs. No Italian ship can sail the sea with a straight martingale, and no other ship would venture forth with one that was anything but true.

For weeks at a time, after our entry into the southern trades, it was hardly necessary to touch a brace except for the sweating up each night in the last dog watch, when a swig or two on the ropes would bring back any slack that had worked around the pins. The job of setting up standing rigging completed, we turned our attention to the running gear. We rove off new whips on all the braces, using an eye splice that was a favorite with the mate, being tucked after the manner of a sailmaker's splice, that is, the continuity of the strands of the rope was preserved, the appearance of the whips being very trim.

The tops'l downhauls were rove off with new rope, and the gear of all the lower stays'ls, lower tops'ls and courses was overhauled and replaced where needed.

As we began to lift the Southern Cross and the trades left us, we again shifted sail, an all day job that this time fell on a Sunday, and when completed found us under our best suit of canvas ready for that storm corner of the voyage, Cape Horn. We overhauled the rudder tackles, reeving new purchases "with the sun," as indeed all purchases are rove. Oil bags were made, shaped like beech nuts, bound with ratline stuff, and fitted with a stout becket. By filling these with heavy non-freezing animal or vegetable oil and puncturing them with a sail needle, they afforded the best means for spreading oil on the waters in time of storm.

One sail in particular that we bent at this time made a great impression on me; this was a heavy storm spencer made of dark hemp canvas, soft and pliable even when wet, unlike the stiff white American cotton stuff that rips out your finger nails when fighting the bellying folds, tough as sheet iron, as it slams out from a bucking yard. The main spencer was evidently an acquisition from some Asiatic or European voyage. It bent to an iron jackstay, and furled in to the mast with a set of brails, being cut "leg-o'-mutton," the sheet hauling aft to big eyebolts on either side of the waist.

Double lashings were passed on all of the lifeboat gripes. Rolling and jumper tackles were got ready for the lower and tops'l yards, to relieve the stress on yards and parrals, and straps and whips were prepared, and laid aside, for use as preventer braces should the necessity arise. In these preparations on the Fuller we had a foresight of what to expect when off the dreaded Cape; at the same time we were certain that no vessel was ever better or more intelligently groomed for heavy weather.

These preparations carried us well down to the latitude of the River Plate; here we were warned by the wise ones to expect some weather, which was not long in coming.

Our watch had just gone below at midnight, when a sou'wester zipped in from the distant land, a live whole gale, sweetened with the breath of the Patagonian prairies that stretched for leagues beneath its origin. The starboard watch started to shorten sail, but by four bells in the midwatch things were getting so far ahead of them that all hands were called, and we tumbled out in the midst of a Bedlam of thrashing gear and general confusion.

Most of the port watch were ordered aloft to take in the fore upper tops'l, thrashing in its gear, while the ship plunged ahead under lower tops'ls, reefed fore course and stays'ls. The starboard watch were completing the job of furling the main tops'l, and with two of our men to help, were about to tackle the mains'l.

I was on the fore upper tops'l yard, with Frenchy at the lee yardarm, and Scouse in between me and the mast. We were just passing the last of the sea gaskets, when the lower tops'l yard seemed to lift up in the air with a sudden jump for we were standing on it, instead of on the footropes of the upper tops'l. A great smashing below us, and the loud impact of something big and hard banging against the yard under our feet, sent us clambering to the upper stick for our lives.

"Lee fore sheet's adrift!" someone shouted. There was a rush in to the mast to escape the heavy spectacle iron, and the cluster of flying clew garnet blocks, and the next thing we knew we were ordered to lay out on the fore yard and secure the sail.

"Lay down and secure fores'l!" came the order from the mate, who stood on the fo'c'sle head, back to the gale, bellowing up his instructions.

Six of us slid down to the top and out on the jumping foreyard. The buntlines and leechlines were finally hauled home, and we got our gaskets about the flying iron. A weird morning light was then breaking in the east and as our watch below was gone, all hands remained on deck for morning coffee after we hove her to under lower tops'ls, fore and main storm stays'ls, and trys'l.

The Pampero gave us a taste of real weather, and came as an actual relief after the long monotonous passage through the trades and doldrums.