38Talk:

I think you mean Richard Henry Dana, not Charles W. Dana.

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 4:51 PM, Richard French <NoReply_French@fer3.com> wrote:

I thought you might enjoy the disdainful description of a 'spouter' by Charles W. Dana, in Two Years Before the Mast" - not much similarity to the Charles W. Morgan on our voyage, at least!

-Dick French

Tuesday, Nov. 10th.  Going ashore, as usual, in the gig, just before

sundown, to bring off the captain, we found, upon taking in the captain

and pulling off again, that our ship, which lay the farthest out, had

run up her ensign.  This meant "Sail ho!" of course, but as we were

within the point we could see nothing. "Give way, boys!  Give way!  Lay

out on your oars, and long stroke!" said the captain; and stretching to

the whole length of our arms, bending back again, so that our backs

touched the thwarts, we sent her through the water like a rocket.  A

few minutes of such pulling opened the islands, one after another, in

range of the point, and gave us a view of the Canal, where was a ship,

under top-gallant sails, standing in, with a light breeze, for the

anchorage.  Putting the boat's head in the direction of the ship, the

captain told us to lay out again; and we needed no spurring, for the

prospect of boarding a new ship, perhaps from home, hearing the news

and having something to tell of when we got back, was excitement enough

for us, and we gave way with a will.  Captain Nye, of the Loriotte, who

had been an old whaleman, was in the stern-sheets, and fell mightily

into the spirit of it.  "Bend your backs and break your oars!" said he.

"Lay me on, Captain Bunker!"  "There she flukes!" and other

exclamations, peculiar to whalemen.  In the meantime, it fell flat

calm, and being within a couple of miles of the ship, we expected to

board her in a few moments, when a sudden breeze sprung up, dead ahead

for the ship, and she braced up and stood off toward the islands, sharp

on the larboard tack, making good way through the water.  This, of

course, brought us up, and we had only to "ease larboard oars; pull

round starboard!" and go aboard the Alert, with something very like a

flea in the ear. There was a light land-breeze all night, and the ship

did not come to anchor until the next morning.  As soon as her anchor

was down, we went aboard, and found her to be the whaleship, Wilmington

and Liverpool Packet, of New Bedford, last from the "off-shore ground,"

with nineteen hundred barrels of oil.  A "spouter" we knew her to be as

soon as we saw her, by her cranes and boats, and by her stump

top-gallant masts, and a certain slovenly look to the sails, rigging,

spars and hull; and when we got on board, we found everything to

correspond,--spouter fashion.  She had a false deck, which was rough

and oily, and cut up in every direction by the chimes of oil casks; her

rigging was slack and turning white; no paint on the spars or blocks;

clumsy seizings and straps without covers, and homeward-bound splices

in every direction.  Her crew, too, were not in much better order.  Her

captain was a slab-sided, shamble-legged Quaker, in a suit of brown,

with a broad-brimmed hat, and sneaking about decks, like a sheep, with

his head down; and the men looked more like fishermen and farmers than

they did like sailors.

Though it was by no means cold weather, (we having on only our red

shirts and duck trowsers,) they all had on woollen trowsers--not blue

and shipshape--but of all colors--brown, drab, grey, aye, and green,

with suspenders over their shoulders, and pockets to put their hands

in.  This, added to guernsey frocks, striped comforters about the neck,

thick cowhide boots, woollen caps, and a strong, oily smell, and a

decidedly green look, will complete the description.  Eight or ten were

on the fore-topsail yard, and as many more in the main, furling the

topsails, while eight or ten were hanging about the forecastle, doing

nothing.  This was a strange sight for a vessel coming to anchor; so we

went up to them, to see what was the matter. One of them, a stout,

hearty-looking fellow, held out his leg and said he had the scurvy;

another had cut his hand; and others had got nearly well, but said that

there were plenty aloft to furl the sails, so they were sogering on the

forecastle.  There was only one "splicer" on board, a fine-looking old

tar, who was in the bunt of the fore-topsail.  He was probably the only

sailor in the ship, before the mast.  The mates, of course, and the

boat-steerers, and also two or three of the crew, had been to sea

before, but only whaling voyages; and the greater part of the crew were

raw hands, just from the bush, as green as cabbages, and had not yet

got the hay-seed out of their heads.  The mizen topsail hung in the

bunt-lines until everything was furled forward.  Thus a crew of thirty

men were half an hour in doing what would have been done in the Alert

with eighteen hands to go aloft, in fifteen or twenty minutes.

We found they had been at sea six or eight months, and had no news to

tell us; so we left them, and promised to get liberty to come on board

in the evening, for some curiosities, etc.  Accordingly, as soon as we

were knocked off in the evening and had got supper, we obtained leave,

took a boat, and went aboard and spent an hour or two.  They gave us

pieces of whalebone, and the teeth and other parts of curious sea

animals, and we exchanged books with them--a practice very common among

ships in foreign ports, by which you get rid of the books you have read

and re-read, and a supply of new ones in their stead, and Jack is not

very nice as to their comparative value.

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--

James Revell Carr, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology
Department of Music Studies
School of Music, Theater and Dance
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
336-334-5030

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