It was in the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that we
made good our escape from the bay. The vessel we sought
lay with her main-topsail aback about a league from the land,
and was the only object that broke the broad expanse of the
ocean.

On approaching, she turned out to be a small, slatternly looking
craft, her hull and spars a dingy black, rigging all slack and
bleached nearly white, and every thing denoting an ill state of
affairs aboard. The four boats hanging from her sides proclaimed
her a whaler. Leaning carelessly over the bulwarks
were the sailors, wild, haggard-looking fellows in Scotch caps
and faded blue frocks; some of them with cheeks of a mottled
bronze, to which sickness soon changes the rich berry-brown
of a seaman's complexion in the tropics.

On the quarter-deck was one whom I took for the chief mate.
He wore a broad-brimmed Panama hat, and his spy-glass was
leveled as we advanced.

When we came alongside, a low cry ran fore and aft the
deck, and every body gazed at us with inquiring eyes. And
well they might. To say nothing of the savage boat's crew,
panting with excitement, all gesture and vociferation, my own
appearance was calculated to excite curiosity. A robe of the
native cloth was thrown over my shoulders, my hair and beard
were uncut, and I betrayed other evidences of my recent adventure.
Immediately on gaining the deck, they beset me on

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

all sides with questions, the half of which I could not answer,
so incessantly were they put.

As an instance of the curious coincidences which often befall
the sailor, I must here mention, that two countenances before
me were familiar. One was that of an old man-of-war's-man,
whose acquaintance I had made in Rio de Janeiro, at which
place touched the ship in which I sailed from home. The
other was a young man, whom, four years previous, I had frequently
met in a sailor boarding-house in Liverpool. I remembered
parting with him at Prince's Dock Gates, in the
midst of a swarm of police-officers, truckmen, stevedores, beggars,
and the like. And here we were again:—years had rolled
by, many a league of ocean had been traversed, and we were
thrown together under circumstances which almost made me
doubt my own existence.

But a few moments passed ere I was sent for into the cabin
by the captain.

He was quite a young man, pale and slender, more like a
sickly counting-house clerk than a bluff sea-captain. Bidding
me be seated, he ordered the steward to hand me a glass of
Pisco.[1] In the state I was, this stimulus almost made me delirious;
so that of all I then went on to relate concerning my
residence on the island I can scarcely remember a word.
After this I was asked whether I desired to “ship;” of course I
said yes; that is, if he would allow me to enter for one cruise,
engaging to discharge me, if I so desired, at the next port. In
this way men are frequently shipped on board whalemen in
the South Seas. My stipulation was acceded to, and the ship's
articles handed me to sign.

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

The mate was now called below, and charged to make a “well
man” of me; not, let it be borne in mind, that the captain felt
any great compassion for me, he only desired to have the benefit
of my services as soon as possible.

Helping me on deck, the mate stretched me out on the windlass
and commenced examining my limb; and then doctoring
it after a fashion with something from the medicine-chest, rolled
it up in a piece of an old sail, making so big a bundle, that
with my feet resting on the windlass, I might have been taken
for a sailor with the gout. While this was going on, some one
removing my tappa cloak slipped on a blue frock in its place;
and another, actuated by the same desire to make a civilized
mortal of me, flourished about my head a great pair of sheepshears,
to the imminent jeopardy of both ears, and the certain
destruction of hair and beard.

The day was now drawing to a close, and, as the land faded
from my sight, I was all alive to the change in my condition.
But how far short of our expectations is oftentimes the fulfillment
of the most ardent hopes. Safe aboard of a ship—so long
my earnest prayer—with home and friends once more in prospect,
I nevertheless felt weighed down by a melancholy that
could not be shaken off. It was the thought of never more
seeing those, who, notwithstanding their desire to retain me
a captive, had, upon the whole, treated me so kindly. I was
leaving them forever.

So unforeseen and sudden had been my escape, so excited
had I been through it all, and so great the contrast between
the luxurious repose of the valley, and the wild noise and motion
of a ship at sea, that at times my recent adventures had all
the strangeness of a dream; and I could scarcely believe that
the same sun now setting over a waste of waters, had that very
morning risen above the mountains and peered in upon me as
I lay on my mat in Typee.

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

Going below into the forecastle just after dark, I was inducted
into a wretched “bunk” or sleeping-box built over another.
The rickety bottoms of both were spread with several
pieces of a blanket. A battered tin can was then handed me,
containing about half a pint of “tea”—so called by courtesy,
though whether the juice of such stalks as one finds floating
therein deserves that title, is a matter all ship-owners must settle
with their consciences. A cube of salt beef, on a hard round
biscuit by way of platter, was also handed up; and without
more ado, I made a meal, the salt flavor of which, after the
Nebuchadnezzar fare of the valley, was positively delicious.

While thus engaged, an old sailor on a chest just under me
was puffing out volumes of tobacco smoke. My supper finished,
he brushed the stem of his sooty pipe against the sleeve of
his frock, and politely waved it toward me. The attention was
sailor-like; as for the nicety of the thing, no man who has
lived in forecastles is at all fastidious; and so, after a few
vigorous whiffs to induce repose, I turned over and tried
my best to forget myself. But in vain. My crib, instead of
extending fore and aft, as it should have done, was placed
athwartships, that is, at right angles to the keel; and the
vessel going before the wind, rolled to such a degree, that
every time my heels went up and my head went down, I
thought I was on the point of turning a somerset. Beside this,
there were still more annoying causes of inquietude; and,
every once in a while, a splash of water came down the open
scuttle, and flung the spray in my face.

At last, after a sleepless night, broken twice by the merciless
call of the watch, a peep of daylight struggled into view from
above, and some one came below. It was my old friend with
the pipe.

“Here, shipmate,” said I, “help me out of this place, and let
me go on deck.”

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

“Halloa, who's that croaking?” was the rejoinder, as he
peered into the obscurity where I lay. “Ay, Typee, my king
of the cannibals, is it you! But I say, my lad, how's that spar
of your'n? the mate says it's in a devil of a way; and last night
set the steward to sharpening the handsaw: hope he won't
have the carving of ye.”

Long before daylight we arrived off the bay of Nukuheva,
and making short tacks until morning, we then ran in, and sent
a boat ashore with the natives who had brought me to the ship.
Upon its return, we made sail again, and stood off from the
land. There was a fine breeze; and, notwithstanding my bad
night's rest, the cool, fresh air of a morning at sea was so bracing,
that, as soon as I breathed it, my spirits rose at once.

Seated upon the windlass the greater portion of the day,
and chatting freely with the men, I learned the history of the
voyage thus far, and every thing respecting the ship and its
present condition.

These matters I will now throw together in the next chapter.

eaf274.n1

[1] This spirituous liquor derives its name from a considerable town in
Peru, where it is manufactured in large quantities. It is well known along
the whole western coast of South America, whence some of it has been
exported to Australia. It is very cheap.

p274-031 CHAPTER II. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE SHIP.

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

First and foremost, I must give some account of the Julia
herself; or “Little Jule,” as the sailors familiarly styled her.

She was a small barque of a beautiful model, something more
than two hundred tons, Yankee-built and very old. Fitted for
a privateer out of a New England port during the war of
1812, she had been captured at sea by a British cruiser, and,
after seeing all sorts of service, was at last employed as a government
packet in the Australian seas. Being condemned,
however, about two years previous, she was purchased at auction
by a house in Sydney, who, after some slight repairs, dispatched
her on the present voyage.

Notwithstanding the repairs, she was still in a miserable
plight. The lower masts were said to be unsound; the standing
rigging was much worn; and, in some places, even the
bulwarks were quite rotten. Still, she was tolerably tight, and
but little more than the ordinary pumping of a morning served
to keep her free.

But all this had nothing to do with her sailing; at that, brave
Little Jule, plump Little Jule, was a witch. Blow high, or
blow low, she was always ready for the breeze; and when she
dashed the waves from her prow, and pranced, and pawed the
sea, you never thought of her patched sails and blistered hull.
How the fleet creature would fly before the wind! rolling, now
and then, to be sure, but in very playfulness. Sailing to windward,
no gale could bow her over: with spars erect, she looked
right up into the wind's eye, and so she went.

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

But after all, Little Jule was not to be confided in. Lively
enough, and playful she was, but on that very account the
more to be distrusted. Who knew, but that like some vivacious
old mortal all at once sinking into a decline, she might,
some dark night, spring a leak and carry us all to the bottom.
However, she played us no such ugly trick, and therefore, I
wrong Little Jule in supposing it.

She had a free, roving commission. According to her
papers she might go whither she pleased—whaling, sealing,
or any thing else. Sperm whaling, however, was what she
relied upon; though, as yet, only two fish had been brought
alongside.

The day they sailed out of Sydney Heads, the ship's company,
all told, numbered some thirty-two souls; now, they
mustered about twenty; the rest had deserted. Even the
three junior mates who had headed the whale boats were
gone; and of the four harpooners, only one was left, a wild
New Zealander, or “Mowree,” as his countrymen are more
commonly called in the Pacific. But this was not all. More
than half the seamen remaining were more or less unwell from
a long sojourn in a dissipated port; some of them wholly unfit
for duty, one or two dangerously ill, and the rest managing to
stand their watch though they could do but little.

The captain was a young cockney, who, a few years before,
had emigrated to Australia, and, by some favoritism or other,
had procured the command of the vessel, though in no wise competent.
He was essentially a landsman, and though a man of education,
no more meant for the sea than a hair-dresser. Hence
every body made fun of him. They called him “The Cabin
Boy,” “Paper Jack,” and half a dozen other undignified names.
In truth, the men made no secret of the derision in which
they held him; and as for the slender gentleman himself, he
knew it all very well, and bore himself with becoming

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

meekness. Holding as little intercourse with them as possible, he
left every thing to the chief mate, who, as the story went,
had been given his captain in charge. Yet, despite his apparent
unobtrusiveness, the silent captain had more to do with
the men than they thought. In short, although one of your
sheepish-looking fellows, he had a sort of still, timid cunning,
which no one would have suspected, and which, for that very
reason, was all the more active. So the bluff mate, who
always thought he did what he pleased, was occasionally made
a tool of; and some obnoxious measures which he carried out,
in spite of all growlings, were little thought to originate with
the dapper little fellow in nankeen jacket and white canvas
pumps. But, to all appearance, at least, the mate had every
thing his own way; indeed, in most things this was actually
the case; and it was quite plain that the captain stood in awe
of him.

So far as courage, seamanship, and a natural aptitude for
keeping riotous spirits in subjection were concerned, no man
was better qualified for his vocation than John Jermin. He
was the very beau-ideal of the efficient race of short, thickset
men. His hair curled in little rings of iron gray all
over his round, bullet head. As for his countenance, it was
strongly marked, deeply pitted with the small-pox. For the
rest, there was a fierce little squint out of one eye; the nose
had a rakish twist to one side; while his large mouth, and
great white teeth, looked absolutely sharkish when he laughed.
In a word, no one, after getting a fair look at him, would
ever think of improving the shape of his nose, wanting in
symmetry if it was. Notwithstanding his pugnacious looks,
however, Jermin had a heart as big as a bullock's; that you
saw at a glance.

Such was our mate; but he had one failing: he abhorred all
weak infusions, and cleaved manfully to strong drink. At all

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

times he was more or less under the influence of it. Taken in
moderate quantities, I believe, in my soul, it did a man like
him good; brightened his eyes, swept the cobwebs out of his
brain, and regulated his pulse. But the worst of it was, that
sometimes he drank too much, and a more obstreperous fellow
than Jermin in his cups, you seldom came across. He was
always for having a fight; but the very men he flogged loved
him as a brother, for he had such an irresistibly good-natured
way of knocking them down, that no one could find it in his
heart to bear malice against him. So much for stout little
Jermin.

All English whalemen are bound by law to carry a physician,
who, of course, is rated a gentleman, and lives in the cabin,
with nothing but his professional duties to attend to; but incidentally
he drinks “flip” and plays cards with the captain.
There was such a worthy aboard of the Julia; but, curious to
tell, he lived in the forecastle with the men. And this was the
way it happened.

In the early part of the voyage the doctor and the captain
lived together as pleasantly as could be. To say nothing of
many a can they drank over the cabin transom, both of them had
read books, and one of them had traveled; so their stories never
flagged. But once on a time they got into a dispute about politics,
and the doctor, moreover, getting into a rage, drove home an
argument with his fist, and left the captain on the floor literally
silenced. This was carrying it with a high hand; so he was
shut up in his state-room for ten days, and left to meditate on
bread and water, and the impropriety of flying into a passion.
Smarting under his disgrace, he undertook, a short time after
his liberation, to leave the vessel clandestinely at one of the
islands, but was brought back ignominiously, and again shut
up. Being set at large for the second time, he vowed he would
not live any longer with the captain, and went forward with

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

his chests among the sailors, where he was received with open
arms, as a good fellow and an injured man.

I must give some further account of him, for he figures largely
in the narrative. His early history, like that of many other heroes,
was enveloped in the profoundest obscurity; though he
threw out hints of a patrimonial estate, a nabob uncle, and an
unfortunate affair which sent him a-roving. All that was known,
however, was this. He had gone out to Sydney as assistant-surgeon
of an emigrant ship. On his arrival there, he went back
into the country, and after a few months' wanderings, returned
to Sydney penniless, and entered as doctor aboard of the Julia.

His personal appearance was remarkable. He was over six
feet high—a tower of bones, with a complexion absolutely colorless,
fair hair, and a light, unscrupulous gray eye, twinkling
occasionally with the very devil of mischief. Among the crew,
he went by the name of the Long Doctor, or, more frequently
still, Doctor Long Ghost. And from whatever high estate
Doctor Long Ghost might have fallen, he had certainly at some
time or other spent money, drunk Burgundy, and associated
with gentlemen.

As for his learning, he quoted Virgil, and talked of Hobbes
of Malmsbury, beside repeating poetry by the canto, especially
Hudibras. He was, moreover, a man who had seen the world.
In the easiest way imaginable, he could refer to an amour he
had in Palermo, his lion hunting before breakfast among the
Caffres, and the quality of the coffee to be drunk in Muscat;
and about these places, and a hundred others, he had more anecdotes
than I can tell of. Then such mellow old songs as he sang,
in a voice so round and racy, the real juice of sound. How
such notes came forth from his lank body was a constant marvel.

Upon the whole, Long Ghost was as entertaining a companion
as one could wish; and to me in the Julia, an absolute
godsend.

p274-036 CHAPTER III. FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE JULIA.

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

Owing to the absence of any thing like regular discipline,
the vessel was in a state of the greatest uproar. The captain,
having for some time past been more or less confined to the
cabin from sickness, was seldom seen. The mate, however,
was as hearty as a young lion, and ran about the decks making
himself heard at all hours. Bembo, the New Zealand harpooner,
held little intercourse with any body but the mate, who
could talk to him freely in his own lingo. Part of his time he
spent out on the bowsprit, fishing for albicores with a bone
hook; and occasionally he waked all hands up of a dark
night dancing some cannibal fandango all by himself on the
forecastle. But, upon the whole, he was remarkably quiet,
though something in his eye showed he was far from being
harmless.

Doctor Long Ghost, having sent in a written resignation as
the ship's doctor, gave himself out as a passenger for Sydney,
and took the world quite easy. As for the crew, those who
were sick seemed marvelously contented for men in their condition;
and the rest, not displeased with the general license,
gave themselves little thought of the morrow.

The Julia's provisions were very poor. When opened, the
barrels of pork looked as if preserved in iron rust, and diffused
an odor like a stale ragout. The beef was worse yet; a mahogany-colored
fibrous substance, so tough and tasteless, that I

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

almost believed the cook's story of a horse's hoof with the shoe
on having been fished up out of the pickle of one of the casks.
Nor was the biscuit much better; nearly all of it was broken
into hard, little gunflints, honey-combed through and through,
as if the worms usually infesting this article in long tropical
voyages, had, in boring after nutriment, come out at the antipodes
without finding any thing.

Of what sailors call “small stores,” we had but little. “Tea,”
however, we had in abundance; though, I dare say, the Hong
merchants never had the shipping of it. Beside this, every
other day we had what English seamen call “shot soup”—
great round peas, polishing themselves like pebbles by rolling
about in tepid water.

It was afterward told me, that all our provisions had been
purchased by the owners at an auction sale of condemned navy
stores in Sydney.

But notwithstanding the wateriness of the first course of
soup, and the saline flavor of the beef and pork, a sailor
might have made a satisfactory meal aboard of the Julia had
there been any side dishes—a potato or two, a yam, or a
plantain. But there was nothing of the kind. Still, there was
something else, which, in the estimation of the men, made
up for all deficiencies; and that was the regular allowance of
Pisco.

It may seem strange, that in such a state of affairs the captain
should be willing to keep the sea with his ship. But the
truth was, that by lying in harbor, he ran the risk of losing
the remainder of his men by desertion; and as it was, he still
feared that, in some outlandish bay or other, he might one day
find his anchor down, and no crew to weigh it.

With judicious officers the most unruly seamen can at sea be
kept in some sort of subjection; but once get them within a cable's
length of the land, and it is hard restraining them. It is

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

time, they must have recreated themselves sufficiently, and
would be glad to return to their duty.

So to Hytyhoo, with all our canvas spread, and coquetting
with the warm, breezy Trades we bowled along; gliding up
and down the long, slow swells, the bonettas and albicores frolicking
round us.

p274-039 CHAPTER IV. A SCENE IN THE FORECASTLE.

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

I had scarcely been aboard of the ship twenty-four hours,
when a circumstance occurred, which, although noways picturesque,
is so significant of the state of affairs, that I can not forbear
relating it.

In the first place, however, it must be known, that among the
crew was a man so excessively ugly, that he went by the ironical
appellation of “Beauty.” He was the ship's carpenter;
and for that reason was sometimes known by his nautical cognomen
of “Chips.” There was no absolute deformity about
the man; he was symmetrically ugly. But ill favored as he
was in person, Beauty was none the less ugly in temper; but
no one could blame him; his countenance had soured his heart.
Now Jermin and Beauty were always at sword's points. The
truth was, the latter was the only man in the ship whom the
mate had never decidedly got the better of; and hence the
grudge he bore him. As for Beauty, he prided himself upon
talking up to the mate, as we shall soon see.

Toward evening there was something to be done on deck
and the carpenter who belonged to the watch was missing
“Where's that skulk, Chips?” shouted Jermin down the fore
castle scuttle.

“Taking his ease, d'ye see, down here on a chest, if you want
to know,” replied that worthy himself, quietly withdrawing his
pipe from his mouth. This insolence flung the fiery little mate
into a mighty rage; but Beauty said nothing, puffing away

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

with all the tranquillity imaginable. Here it must be remembered
that, never mind what may be the provocation, no prudent
officer ever dreams of entering a ship's forecastle on a
hostile visit. If he wants to see any body who happens to be
there, and refuses to come up, why he must wait patiently
until the sailor is willing. The reason is this. The place is
very dark; and nothing is easier than to knock one descending
on the head, before he knows where he is, and a very long
while before he ever finds out who did it.

Nobody knew this better than Jermin, and so he contented
himself with looking down the scuttle and storming. At last
Beauty made some cool observation which set him half wild.

“Tumble on deck,” he then bellowed—“come, up with you,
or I'll jump down and make you.” The carpenter begged him
to go about it at once.

No sooner said than done: prudence forgotten, Jermin was
there; and by a sort of instinct, had his man by the throat before
he could well see him. One of the men now made a rush
at him, but the rest dragged him off, protesting that they should
have fair play.

“Now, come on deck,” shouted the mate, struggling like a
good fellow to hold the carpenter fast.

“Take me there,” was the dogged answer, and Beauty wriggled
about in the nervous grasp of the other like a couple of
yards of boa-constrictor.

His assailant now undertook to make him up into a compact
bundle, the more easily to transport him. While thus occupied,
Beauty got his arms loose, and threw him over backward.
But Jermin quickly recovered himself, when for a time they
had it every way, dragging each other about, bumping their
heads against the projecting beams, and returning each other's
blows the first favorable opportunity that offered. Unfortunately,
Jermin at last slipped and fell; his foe seating himself on

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

his chest, and keeping him down. Now this was one of those
situations in which the voice of counsel, or reproof, comes with
peculiar unction. Nor did Beauty let the opportunity slip.
But the mate said nothing in reply, only foaming at the mouth
and struggling to rise.

Just then a thin tremor of a voice was heard from above.
It was the captain; who, happening to ascend to the quarter-deck
at the commencement of the scuffle, would gladly have returned
to the cabin, but was prevented by the fear of ridicule. As the
din increased, and it became evident that his officer was in serious
trouble, he thought it would never do to stand leaning
over the bulwarks, so he made his appearance on the forecastle,
resolved, as his best policy, to treat the matter lightly.

“Why, why,” he began, speaking pettishly, and very fast,
“what's all this about?—Mr. Jermin, Mr. Jermin—carpenter,
carpenter; what are you doing down there? Come on deck;
come on deck.”

Whereupon Doctor Long Ghost cries out in a squeak, “Ah!
Miss Guy, is that you? Now, my dear, go right home, or
you'll get hurt.”

“Pooh, pooh! you, sir, whoever you are, I was not speaking
to you; none of your nonsense. Mr. Jermin, I was talking
to you; have the kindness to come on deck, sir; I want to
see you.”

“And how, in the devil's name, am I to get there?” cried
the mate, furiously. “Jump down here, Captain Guy, and
show yourself a man. Let me up, you Chips! unhand me, I
say! Oh! I'll pay you for this, some day! Come on, Captain
Guy!”

At this appeal, the poor man was seized with a perfect
spasm of fidgets. “Pooh, pooh, carpenter; have done with
your nonsense! Let him up, sir; let him up! Do you hear?
Let Mr. Jermin come on deck!”

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

“Go along with you, Paper Jack,” replied Beauty; “this
quarrel's between the mate and me; so go aft, where you
belong!”

As the captain once more dipped his head down the scuttle
to make answer, from an unseen hand, he received, full in the
face, the contents of a tin can of soaked biscuit and tealeaves.
The doctor was not far off just then. Without waiting
for any thing more, the discomfited gentleman, with both
hands to his streaming face, retreated to the quarter-deck.

A few moments more, and Jermin, forced to a compromise,
followed after, in his torn frock and scarred face, looking for
all the world as if he had just disentangled himself from some
intricate piece of machinery. For about half an hour both
remained in the cabin, where the mate's rough tones were
heard high above the low, smooth voice of the captain.

Of all his conflicts with the men, this was the first in which
Jermin had been worsted; and he was proportionably enraged.
Upon going below — as the steward afterward told us — he
bluntly informed Guy that, for the future, he might look out
for his ship himself; for his part, he was done with her, if that
was the way he allowed his officers to be treated. After many
high words, the captain finally assured him, that the first fitting
opportunity the carpenter should be cordially flogged; though,
as matters stood, the experiment would be a hazardous one.
Upon this Jermin reluctantly consented to drop the matter for
the present; and he soon drowned all thoughts of it in a can
of flip, which Guy had previously instructed the steward to
prepare, as a sop to allay his wrath.

Nothing more ever came of this.

p274-043 CHAPTER V. WHAT HAPPENED AT HYTYHOO.

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

Less than forty-eight hours after leaving Nukuheva, the blue,
looming island of St. Christina greeted us from afar. Drawing
near the shore, the grim, black spars and waspish hull of a
small man-of-war craft crept into view; the masts and yards
lined distinctly against the sky. She was riding to her anchor
in the bay, and proved to be a French corvette.

This pleased our captain exceedingly, and, coming on deck,
he examined her from the mizzen rigging with his glass. His
original intention was not to let go an anchor; but, counting
upon the assistance of the corvette in case of any difficulty, he
now changed his mind, and anchored alongside of her. As
soon as a boat could be lowered, he then went off to pay his
respects to the commander, and, moreover, as we supposed, to
concert measures for the apprehension of the runaways.

Returning in the course of twenty minutes, he brought along
with him two officers in undress and whiskers, and three or four
drunken obstreperous old chiefs; one with his legs thrust into
the armholes of a scarlet vest, another with a pair of spurs on
his heels, and a third in a cocked hat and feather. In addition
to these articles, they merely wore the ordinary costume of
their race—a slip of native cloth about the loins. Indecorous
as their behavior was, these worthies turned out to be a deputation
from the reverend the clergy of the island; and the object
of their visit was to put our ship under a rigorous “Taboo,”
to prevent the disorderly scenes and facilities for desertion

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

which would ensue, were the natives—men and women—allowed
to come off to us freely.

There was little ceremony about the matter. The priests
went aside for a moment, laid their shaven old crowns together,
and went over a little mummery. Whereupon, their leader
tore a long strip from his girdle of white tappa, and handed it
to one of the French officers, who, after explaining what was
to be done, gave it to Jermin. The mate at once went out to
the end of the flying jib boom, and fastened there the mystic
symbol of the ban. This put to flight a party of girls who had
been observed swimming toward us. Tossing their arms about,
and splashing the water like porpoises, with loud cries of
“taboo! taboo!” they turned about and made for the shore.

The night of our arrival, the mate and the Mowree were to
stand “watch and watch,” relieving each other every four hours;
the crew, as is sometimes customary when lying at an anchor,
being allowed to remain all night below. A distrust of the men,
however, was, in the present instance, the principal reason for
this proceeding. Indeed, it was all but certain, that some kind
of attempt would be made at desertion; and, therefore, when
Jermin's first watch came on at eight bells (midnight) — by
which time all was quiet — he mounted to the deck with a
flash of spirits in one hand, and the other in readiness to assail
the first countenance that showed itself above the forecastle
scuttle.

Thus prepared, he doubtless meant to stay awake; but for
all that, he before long fell asleep; and slept with such hearty
good-will too, that the men who left us that night might have
been waked up by his snoring. Certain it was, the mate
snored most strangely; and no wonder, with that crooked
bugle of his. When he came to himself it was just dawn, but
quite light enough to show two boats gone from the side. In
an instant he knew what had happened.

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

Dragging the Mowree out of an old sail where he was napping,
he ordered him to clear away another boat, and then
darted into the cabin to tell the captain the news. Springing
on deck again, he dove down into the forecastle for a couple
of oarsmen, but hardly got there before there was a cry, and a
loud splash heard over the side. It was the Mowree and the
boat—into which he had just leaped to get ready for lowering—
rolling over and over in the water.

The boat having at nightfall been hoisted up to its place
over the starboard quarter, some one had so cut the tackles
which held it there, that a moderate strain would at once part
them. Bembo's weight had answered the purpose, showing
that the deserters must have ascertained his specific gravity to a
fibre of hemp. There was another boat remaining; but it was
as well to examine it before attempting to lower. And it was
well they did; for there was a hole in the bottom large enough
to drop a barrel through: she had been scuttled most ruthlessly.

Jermin was frantic. Dashing his hat upon deck, he was
about to plunge overboard and swim to the corvette for a
cutter, when Captain Guy made his appearance and begged
him to stay where he was. By this time the officer of the
deck aboard the Frenchman had noticed our movements, and
hailed to know what had happened. Guy informed him
through his trumpet, and men to go in pursuit were instantly
promised. There was a whistling of a boatswain's pipe, an
order or two, and then a large cutter pulled out from the man-of-war's
stern, and in half a dozen strokes was alongside.
The mate leaped into her, and they pulled rapidly ashore.

Another cutter, carrying an armed crew, soon followed.

In an hour's time the first returned, towing the two whale
boats, which had been found turned up like tortoises on the
beach.

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

Noon came, and nothing more was heard from the deserters.
Meanwhile Doctor Long Ghost and myself lounged about, cultivating
an acquaintance, and gazing upon the shore scenery.
The bay was as calm as death; the sun high and hot; and
occasionally a still gliding canoe stole out from behind the
headlands, and shot across the water.

And all the morning long our sick men limped about the
deck, casting wistful glances inland, where the palm-trees
waved and beckoned them into their reviving shades. Poor
invalid rascals! How conducive to the restoration of their
shattered health would have been those delicious groves! But
hard-hearted Jermin assured them, with an oath, that foot of
theirs should never touch the beach.

Toward sunset a crowd was seen coming down to the water.
In advance of all were the fugitives—bareheaded—their frocks
and trowsers hanging in tatters, every face covered with blood
and dust, and their arms pinioned behind them with green thongs.
Following them up, was a shouting rabble of islanders, pricking
them with the points of their long spears, the party from the
corvette menacing them in flank with their naked cutlasses.

The bonus of a musket to the King of the Bay, and the
promise of a tumbler full of powder for every man caught, had
set the whole population on their track; and so successful was
the hunt, that not only were that morning's deserters brought
back, but five of those left behind on a former visit. The
natives, however, were the mere hounds of the chase, raising
the game in their coverts, but leaving the securing of it to the
Frenchmen. Here, as elsewhere, the islanders have no idea
of taking part in such a scuffle as ensues upon the capture of a
party of desperate seamen.

The runaways were at once brought aboard, and, though
they looked rather sulky, soon came round, and treated the
whole affair as a frolicsome adventure.

p274-047 CHAPTER VI. WE TOUCH AT LA DOMINICA.

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

Fearful of spending another night in Hytyhoo, Captain
Guy caused the ship to be got under way shortly after dark.

The next morning, when all supposed that we were fairly
embarked for a long cruise, our course was suddenly altered for
La Dominica, or Hivarhoo, an island just north of the one we
had quitted. The object of this, as we learned, was to procure,
if possible, several English sailors, who, according to the commander
of the corvette, had recently gone ashore there from an
American whaler and were desirous of shipping aboard of one
of their own country vessels.

We made the land in the afternoon, coming abreast of a
shady glen opening from a deep bay, and winding by green
defiles far out of sight. “Hands by the weather-main-brace!”
roared the mate, jumping up on the bulwarks; and in a moment
the prancing Julia, suddenly arrested in her course,
bridled her head like a steed reined in, while the foam flaked
under her bows.

This was the place where we expected to obtain the men; so
a boat was at once got in readiness to go ashore. Now it was
necessary to provide a picked crew—men the least likely to
abscond. After considerable deliberation on the part of the
captain and mate, four of the seamen were pitched upon as the
most trustworthy; or rather they were selected from a choice
assortment of suspicious characters as being of an inferior order
of rascality.

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

Armed with cutlasses all round—the natives were said to be
an ugly set—they were followed over the side by the invalid
captain, who, on this occasion, it seems, was determined to signalize
himself. Accordingly, in addition to his cutlass, he wore
an old boarding belt, in which was thrust a brace of pistols.
They at once shoved off.

My friend Long Ghost had, among other things which looked
somewhat strange in a ship's forecastle, a capital spy-glass, and
on the present occasion we had it in use.

When the boat neared the head of the inlet, though invisible
to the naked eye, it was plainly revealed by the glass; looking
no bigger than an egg-shell, and the men diminished to pigmies.

At last, borne on what seemed a long flake of foam the tiny
craft shot up the beach amid a shower of sparkles. Not a soul
was there. Leaving one of their number by the water, the
rest of the pigmies stepped ashore, looking about them very
circumspectly, pausing now and then hand to ear, and peering
under a dense grove which swept down within a few paces of
the sea. No one came, and to all appearances every thing was
as still as the grave. Presently, he with the pistols, followed
by the rest flourishing their bodkins, entered the wood and
were soon lost to view. They did not stay long; probably
anticipating some inhospitable ambush were they to stray any
distance up the glen.

In a few moments they embarked again, and were soon riding
pertly over the waves of the bay. All of a sudden the captain
started to his feet—the boat spun round, and again made for
the shore. Some twenty or thirty natives armed with spears
which through the glass looked like reeds, had just come out
of the grove, and were apparently shouting to the strangers not
to be in such a hurry, but return and be sociable. But they
were somewhat distrusted, for the boat paused about its length

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

from the beach, when the captain standing up in its head delivered
an address in pantomime, the object of which seemed
to be, that the islanders should draw near. One of them
stepped forward and made answer, seemingly again urging the
strangers not to be diffident, but beach their boat. The captain
declined, tossing his arms about in another pantomime. In the
end he said something which made them shake their spears;
whereupon he fired a pistol among them, which set the whole
party running; while one poor little fellow, dropping his spear
and clapping his hand behind him, limped away in a manner
which almost made me itch to get a shot at his assailant.

Wanton acts of cruelty like this are not unusual on the part
of sea captains landing at islands comparatively unknown.
Even at the Pomotu group, but a day's sail from Tahiti, the
islanders coming down to the shore have several times been
fired at by trading schooners passing through their narrow
channels; and this too as a mere amusement on the part of the
ruffians.

Indeed, it is almost incredible, the light in which many sailors
regard these naked heathens. They hardly consider them human.
But it is a curious fact, that the more ignorant and
degraded men are, the more contemptuously they look upon
those whom they deem their inferiors.

All powers of persuasion being thus lost upon these foolish
savages, and no hope left of holding further intercourse, the
boat returned to the ship.

p274-050 CHAPTER VII. WHAT HAPPENED AT HANNAMANOO.

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

On the other side of the island was the large and populous
bay of Hannamanoo, where the men sought might yet be found.
But as the sun was setting by the time the boat came alongside,
we got our off-shore tacks aboard and stood away for an
offing. About daybreak we wore, and ran in, and by the time
the sun was well up, entered the long, narrow channel dividing
the islands of La Dominica and St. Christina.

On one hand was a range of steep green bluffs hundreds of
feet high, the white huts of the natives here and there nestling
like birdsnests in deep clefts gushing with verdure. Across
the water, the land rolled away in bright hillsides, so warm
and undulating, that they seemed almost to palpitate in the sun.
On we swept, past bluff and grove, wooded glen and valley,
and dark ravines lighted up far inland with wild falls of water.
A fresh land-breeze filled our sails, the embayed waters were
gentle as a lake, and every blue wave broke with a tinkle
against our coppered prow.

On gaining the end of the channel we rounded a point, and
came full upon the bay of Hannamanoo. This is the only harbor
of any note about the island, though as far as a safe anchorage
is concerned it hardly deserves the title.

Before we held any communication with the shore, an incident
occurred which may convey some further idea of the character
of our crew.

Having approached as near the land as we could prudently,

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

our headway was stopped, and we awaited the arrival of a
canoe which was coming out of the bay. All at once we got
into a strong current, which swept us rapidly toward a rocky
promontory forming one side of the harbor. The wind had
died away; so two boats were at once lowered for the purpose
of pulling the ship's head round. Before this could be done,
the eddies were whirling upon all sides, and the rock so near,
that it seemed as if one might leap upon it from the mast-head.
Notwithstanding the speechless fright of the captain, and the
hoarse shouts of the unappalled Jermin, the men handled the
ropes as deliberately as possible, some of them chuckling at the
prospect of going ashore, and others so eager for the vessel to
strike, that they could hardly contain themselves. Unexpectedly
a countercurrent befriended us, and assisted by the boats
we were soon out of danger.

What a disappointment for our crew! All their little plans
for swimming ashore from the wreck, and having a fine time of
it for the rest of their days, thus cruelly nipt in the bud.

Soon after, the canoe came alongside. In it were eight or
ten natives, comely, vivacious-looking youths, all gesture and
exclamation; the red feathers in their headbands perpetually
nodding. With them also came a stranger, a renegado from
Christendom and humanity—a white man, in the South Sea
girdle, and tattooed in the face. A broad blue band stretched
across his face from ear to ear, and on his forehead was
the taper figure of a blue shark, nothing but fins from head to
tail.

Some of us gazed upon this man with a feeling akin to horror,
no ways abated when informed that he had voluntarily
submitted to this embellishment of his countenance. What an
impress! Far worse than Cain's—his was perhaps a wrinkle,
or a freckle, which some of our modern cosmetics might have
effaced; but the blue shark was a mark indelible, which all the

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

waters of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, could never
wash out. He was an Englishman, Lem Hardy he called himself,
who had deserted from a trading brig touching at the island
for wood and water some ten years previous. He had gone
ashore as a sovereign power, armed with a musket and a bag
of ammunition, and ready, if need were, to prosecute war on
his own account. The country was divided by the hostile
kings of several large valleys. With one of them, from whom
he first received overtures, he formed an alliance, and became
what he now was, the military leader of the tribe, and war-god
of the entire island.

His campaigns beat Napoleon's. In one night-attack, his
invincible musket, backed by the light infantry of spears and
javelins, vanquished two clans, and the next morning brought
all the others at the feet of his royal ally.

Nor was the rise of his domestic fortunes at all behind the
Corsican's: three days after landing, the exquisitely tattooed
hand of a princess was his; receiving along with the damsel as
her portion, one thousand fathoms of fine tappa, fifty double-braided
mats of split grass, four hundred hogs, ten houses in
different parts of her native valley, and the sacred protection of
an express edict of the Taboo, declaring his person inviolable
forever.

Now, this man was settled for life, perfectly satisfied with his
circumstances, and feeling no desire to return to his friends.
“Friends,” indeed, he had none. He told me his history.
Thrown upon the world a foundling, his paternal origin was as
much a mystery to him as the genealogy of Odin; and, scorned
by every body, he fled the parish workhouse when a boy,
and lanched upon the sea. He had followed it for several
years, a dog before the mast, and now he had thrown it up
forever.

And for the most part, it is just this sort of men—so many

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

of whom are found among sailors—uncared for by a single
soul, without ties, reckless, and impatient of the restraints
of civilization, who are occasionally found quite at home
upon the savage islands of the Pacific. And, glancing at
their hard lot in their own country, what marvel at their
choice?

According to the renegado, there was no other white man on
the island; and as the captain could have no reason to suppose
that Hardy intended to deceive us, he concluded that the
Frenchmen were in some way or other mistaken in what they
had told us. However, when our errand was made known to the
rest of our visitors, one of them, a fine, stalwart fellow, his face
all eyes and expression, volunteered for a cruise. All the wages
he asked, was a red shirt, a pair of trowsers, and a hat,
which were to be put on there and then; beside a plug of
tobacco and a pipe. The bargain was struck directly; but
Wymontoo afterward came in with a codicil, to the effect that
a friend of his, who had come along with him, should be given
ten whole sea-biscuits, without crack or flaw, twenty perfectly
new and symmetrically straight nails, and one jackknife. This
being agreed to, the articles were at once handed over, the
native receiving them with great avidity, and in the absence of
clothing, using his mouth as a pocket to put the nails in. Two
of them, however, were first made to take the place of a pair
of ear-ornaments, curiously fashioned out of bits of whitened
wood.

It now began breezing strongly from seaward, and no time
was to be lost in getting away from the land; so after an affecting
rubbing of noses between our new shipmate and his countrymen,
we sailed away with him.

To our surprise, the farewell shouts from the canoe, as we
dashed along under bellied royals, were heard unmoved by
our islander; but it was not long thus. That very evening,

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

when the dark blue of his native hills sunk in the horizon, the
poor savage leaned over the bulwarks, dropped his head upon
his chest, and gave way to irrepressible emotions. The ship
was plunging hard, and Wymontoo, sad to tell, in addition to
his other pangs, was terribly sea-sick.

p274-055 CHAPTER VIII. THE TATTOOERS OF LA DOMINICA.

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

For a while leaving Little Jule to sail away by herself, I will
here put down some curious information obtained from Hardy.

The renegado had lived so long on the island, that its customs
were quite familiar; and I much lamented that, from the shortness
of our stay, he could not tell us more than he did.

From the little intelligence gathered, however, I learned to
my surprise that, in some things, the people of Hivarhoo, though
of the same group of islands, differed considerably from my
tropical friends in the valley of Typee.

As his tattooing attracted so much remark, Hardy had a good
deal to say concerning the manner in which that art was practiced
upon the island.

Throughout the entire cluster the tattooers of Hivarhoo enjoyed
no small reputation. They had carried their art to the
highest perfection, and the profession was esteemed most honorable.
No wonder, then, that like genteel tailors, they rated
their services very high; so much so, that none but those belonging
to the higher classes could afford to employ them. So
true was this, that the elegance of one's tattooing was in most
cases a sure indication of birth and riches.

Professors in large practice lived in spacious houses, divided
by screens of tappa into numerous little apartments, where
subjects were waited upon in private. The arrangement
chiefly grew out of a singular ordinance of the Taboo, which
enjoined the strictest privacy upon all men, high and low, while

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

under the hands of a tattooer. For the time, the slightest intercourse
with others is prohibited, and the small portion of
food allowed, is pushed under the curtain by an unseen hand.
The restriction with regard to food, is intended to reduce the
blood, so as to diminish the inflammation consequent upon puncturing
the skin. As it is, this comes on very soon, and takes
some time to heal; so that the period of seclusion generally
embraces many days, sometimes several weeks.

All traces of soreness vanished, the subject goes abroad; but
only again to return; for, on account of the pain, only a small
surface can be operated upon at once; and as the whole body
is to be more or less embellished by a process so slow, the studios
alluded to are constantly filled. Indeed, with a vanity
elsewhere unheard of, many spend no small portion of their
days thus sitting to an artist.

To begin the work, the period of adolescence is esteemed
the most suitable. After casting about for some eminent tattooer,
the friends of the youth take him to his house, to have the outlines
of the general plan laid out. It behooves the professor to
have a nice eye, for a suit to be worn for life should be well
cut.

Some tattooers, yearning after perfection, employ, at large
wages, one or two men of the commonest order—vile fellows,
utterly regardless of appearances, upon whom they first try
their patterns and practice generally. Their backs remorselessly
scrawled over, and no more canvas remaining, they are
dismissed, and ever after go about, the scorn of their countrymen.

Hapless wights! thus martyred in the cause of the Fine Arts.

Beside the regular practitioners, there are a parcel of shabby,
itinerant tattooers, who, by virtue of their calling, stroll unmolested
from one hostile bay to another, doing their work dogcheap
for the multitude. They always repair to the various

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

religious festivals, which gather great crowds. When these are
concluded, and the places where they are held vacated even by
the tattooers, scores of little tents of coarse tappa are left standing,
each with a solitary inmate, who, forbidden to talk to his
unseen neighbors, is obliged to stay there till completely healed.
The itinerants are a reproach to their profession, mere
cobblers, dealing in nothing but jagged lines and clumsy
patches, and utterly incapable of soaring to those heights of
fancy attained by the gentlemen of the faculty.

All professors of the arts love to fraternize; and so, in Hannamanoo,
the tattooers came together in the chapters of their
worshipful order. In this society, duly organized, and conferring
degrees, Hardy, from his influence as a white, was a sort of
honorary Grand Master. The blue shark, and a sort of Urim
and Thummim engraven upon his chest, were the seal of his
initiation. All over Hivarhoo are established these orders of
tattooers. The way in which the renegado's came to be founded
is this. A year or two after his landing there happened to
be a season of scarcity, owing to the partial failure of the bread-fruit
harvest for several consecutive seasons. This brought
about such a falling off in the number of subjects for tattooing,
that the profession became quite needy. The royal ally of
Hardy, however, hit upon a benevolent expedient to provide
for their wants, at the same time conferring a boon upon many
of his subjects.

By sound of conch-shell it was proclaimed before the palace,
on the beach, and at the head of the valley, that Noomai, King
of Hannamanoo, and friend of Hardee-Hardee, the white,
kept open heart and table for all tattooers whatsoever; but to
entitle themselves to this hospitality, they were commanded to
practice without fee upon the meanest native soliciting their
services.

Numbers at once flocked to the royal abode, both artists and

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

sitters. It was a famous time; and the buildings of the palace
being “taboo” to all but the tattooers and chiefs, the sitters bivouacked
on the common, and formed an extensive encampment.

The “Lora Tattoo,” or the Time of Tattooing, will be long remembered.
An enthusiastic sitter celebrated the event in
verse. Several lines were repeated to us by Hardy, some of
which, in a sort of colloquial chant he translated nearly thus:

eaf274.n2

[2] The coloring matter is inserted by means of a shark's tooth attached
to the end of a short stick, which is struck upon the other end with a small
mallet of wood.

p274-059 CHAPTER IX. WE STEER TO THE WESTWARD—STATE OF AFFAIRS.

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

The night we left Hannamanoo was bright and starry, and
so warm, that when the watches were relieved, most of the men,
instead of going below, flung themselves around the foremast.

Toward morning, finding the heat of the forecastle unpleasant,
I ascended to the deck where every thing was noiseless. The
Trades were blowing with a mild, steady strain upon the canvas,
and the ship heading right out into the immense blank of
the Western Pacific. The watch were asleep. With one foot
resting on the rudder, even the man at the helm nodded, and the
mate himself, with arms folded, was leaning against the capstan.

On such a night, and all alone, revery was inevitable. I
leaned over the side, and could not help thinking of the strange
objects we might be sailing over.

But my meditations were soon interrupted by a gray, spectral
shadow cast over the heaving billows. It was the dawn,
soon followed by the first rays of the morning. They flashed
into view at one end of the arched night, like—to compare great
things with small—the gleamings of Guy Fawkes's lantern in
the vaults of the Parliament House. Before long, what seemed
a live ember rested for a moment on the rim of the ocean, and
at last the blood-red sun stood full and round in the level East,
and the long sea-day began.

Breakfast over, the first thing attended to was the formal
baptism of Wymontoo, who, after thinking over his affairs during
the night, looked dismal enough.

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

There were various opinions as to a suitable appellation.
Some maintained that we ought to call him “Sunday,” that
being the day we caught him; others, “Eighteen Forty-two,”
the then year of our Lord; while Doctor Long Ghost remarked,
that he ought, by all means, to retain his original name,—Wymontoo-Hee,
meaning (as he maintained), in the figurative language
of the island, something analogous to one who had got
himself into a scrape. The mate put an end to the discussion
by sousing the poor fellow with a bucket of salt water, and be-stowing
upon him the nautical appellation of “Luff.”

Though a certain mirthfulness succeeded his first pangs at
leaving home, Wymontoo—we will call him thus—gradually
relapsed into his former mood, and became very melancholy.
Often I noticed him crouching apart in the forecastle, his strange
eyes gleaming restlessly, and watching the slightest movement
of the men. Many a time he must have been thinking of his
bamboo hut, when they were talking of Sydney and its dancehouses.

We were now fairly at sea, though to what particular cruising-ground
we were going, no one knew; and, to all appearances,
few cared. The men, after a fashion of their own, began
to settle down into the routine of sea-life, as if every thing was
going on prosperously. Blown along over a smooth sea, there
was nothing to do but steer the ship, and relieve the “lookouts”
at the mast-heads. As for the sick, they had two or three more
added to their number—the air of the island having disagreed
with the constitutions of several of the runaways. To crown
all, the captain again relapsed, and became quite ill.

The men fit for duty were divided into two small watches,
headed respectively by the mate and the Mowree; the latter,
by virtue of his being a harponeer, succeeding to the place
of the second mate, who had absconded.

In this state of things whaling was out of the question; but

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

in the face of every thing, Jermin maintained that the invalids
would soon be well. However that might be, with the same
pale blue sky overhead, we kept running steadily to the
westward. Forever advancing, we seemed always in the
same place, and every day was the former lived over again.
We saw no ships, expected to see none. No sign of life was
perceptible but the porpoises and other fish sporting under the
bows like pups ashore. But, at intervals, the gray albatros,
peculiar to these seas, came flapping his immense wings over
us, and then skimmed away silently as if from a plague-ship.
Or flights of the tropic bird, known among seamen as the
“boatswain,” wheeled round and round us, whistling shrilly
as they flew.

The uncertainty hanging over our destination at this time,
and the fact that we were abroad upon waters comparatively
little traversed, lent an interest to this portion of the cruise
which I shall never forget.

From obvious prudential considerations the Pacific has been
principally sailed over in known tracts, and this is the reason
why new islands are still occasionally discovered, by exploring
ships and adventurous whalers, notwithstanding the great number
of vessels of all kinds of late navigating this vast ocean. Indeed,
considerable portions still remain wholly unexplored; and
there is doubt as to the actual existence of certain shoals, and
reefs, and small clusters of islands vaguely laid down in the
charts. The mere circumstance, therefore, of a ship like ours
penetrating into these regions, was sufficient to cause any reflecting
mind to feel at least a little uneasy. For my own part,
the many stories I had heard of ships striking at midnight upon
unknown rocks, with all sail set, and a slumbering crew, often
recurred to me, especially, as from the absence of discipline,
and our being so short-handed, the watches at night were
careless in the extreme.

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

But no thoughts like these were entertained by my reckless
shipmates; and along we went, the sun every evening setting
right ahead of our jib boom.

For what reason the mate was so reserved with regard to
our precise destination was never made known. The stories
he told us, I, for one, did not believe; deeming them all a
mere device to lull the crew.

He said we were bound to a fine cruising ground, scarcely
known to other whalemen, which he had himself discovered
when commanding a small brig upon a former voyage. Here,
the sea was alive with large whales, so tame, that all you had
to do was to go up and kill them: they were too frightened to
resist. A little to leeward of this was a small cluster of islands,
where we were going to refit, abounding with delicious fruits,
and peopled by a race almost wholly unsophisticated by intercourse
with strangers.

In order, perhaps, to guard against the possibility of any
one finding out the precise latitude and longitude of the spot
we were going to, Jermin never revealed to us the ship's place
at noon, though such is the custom aboard of most vessels.

Meanwhile, he was very assiduous in his attention to the
invalids. Doctor Long Ghost having given up the keys of the
medicine-chest, they were handed over to him; and, as physician,
he discharged his duties to the satisfaction of all. Pills
and powders, in most cases, were thrown to the fish, and in
place thereof, the contents of a mysterious little quarter cask
were produced, diluted with water from the “butt.” His
draughts were mixed on the capstan, in cocoa-nut shells
marked with the patients' names. Like shore doctors, he did
not eschew his own medicines, for his professional calls in the
forecastle were sometimes made when he was comfortably tipsy:
nor did he omit keeping his invalids in good-humor, spinning
his yarns to them, by the hour, whenever he went to see them.

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

Owing to my lameness, from which I soon began to recover,
I did no active duty, except standing an occasional “trick” at
the helm. It was in the forecastle chiefly, that I spent my
time, in company with the Long Doctor, who was at great
pains to make himself agreeable. His books, though sadly
torn and battered, were an invaluable resource. I read them
through again and again, including a learned treatise on the
yellow fever. In addition to these, he had an old file of
Sydney papers, and I soon became intimately acquainted with
the localities of all the advertising tradesmen there. In particular,
the rhetorical flourishes of Stubbs, the real-estate
auctioneer, diverted me exceedingly, and I set him down as
no other than a pupil of Robins the Londoner.

Aside from the pleasure of his society, my intimacy with
Long Ghost was of great service to me in other respects. His
disgrace in the cabin only confirmed the good-will of the
democracy in the forecastle; and they not only treated him in
the most friendly manner, but looked up to him with the
utmost deference, besides laughing heartily at all his jokes
As his chosen associate, this feeling for him extended to me,
and gradually we came to be regarded in the light of distinguished
guests. At meal-times we were always first served,
and otherwise were treated with much respect.

Among other devices to kill time, during the frequent calms,
Long Ghost hit upon the game of chess. With a jackknife,
we carved the pieces quite tastefully out of bits of wood, and
our board was the middle of a chest-lid, chalked into squares,
which, in playing, we straddled at either end. Having no
other suitable way of distinguishing the sets, I marked mine
by tying round them little scarfs of black silk, torn from an old
neck handkerchief. Putting them in mourning this way, the
doctor said, was quite appropriate, seeing that they had reason
to feel sad three games out of four. Of chess, the men never

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

could make head nor tail; indeed, their wonder rose to such a
pitch, that they at last regarded the mysterious movements of
the game with something more than perplexity; and after puzzling
over them through several long engagements, they came
to the conclusion that we must be a couple of necromancers.

p274-065 CHAPTER X. A SEA-PARLOR DESCRIBED, WITH SOME OF ITS TENANTS.

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

I may as well give some idea of the place in which the doctor
and I lived together so sociably.

Most persons know that a ship's forecastle embraces the
forward part of the deck about the bowsprit: the same term,
however, is generally bestowed upon the sailors' sleeping-quarters,
which occupy a space immediately beneath, and are partitioned
off by a bulkhead.

Planted right in the bows, or, as sailors say, in the very eyes
of the ship, this delightful apartment is of a triangular shape,
and is generally fitted with two tiers of rude bunks. Those of
the Julia were in a most deplorable condition, mere wrecks,
some having been torn down altogether to patch up others; and
on one side there were but two standing. But with most of the
men it made little difference whether they had a bunk or not,
since, having no bedding, they had nothing to put in it but
themselves.

Upon the boards of my own crib I spread all the old canvas
and old clothes I could pick up. For a pillow, I wrapped an
old jacket round a log. This helped a little the wear and tear
of one's bones when the ship rolled.

Rude hammocks made out of old sails were in many cases
used as substitutes for the demolished bunks; but the space
they swung in was so confined, that they were far from being
agreeable.

The general aspect of the forecastle was dungeon-like and

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

dingy in the extreme. In the first place, it was not five feet
from deck to deck, and even this space was encroached upon
by two outlandish cross-timbers bracing the vessel, and by the
sailors' chests, over which you must needs crawl in getting
about. At meal-times, and especially when we indulged in
after-dinner chat, we sat about the chests like a parcel of tailors.

In the middle of all, were two square, wooden columns, denominated
in marine architecture “Bowsprit Bitts.” They
were about a foot apart, and between them, by a rusty chain,
swung the forecastle lamp, burning day and night, and forever
casting two long black shadows. Lower down, between the
bitts, was a locker, or sailors' pantry, kept in abominable disorder,
and sometimes requiring a vigorous cleaning and fumigation.

All over, the ship was in a most dilapidated condition; but in
the forecastle it looked like the hollow of an old tree going to
decay. In every direction the wood was damp and discolored,
and here and there soft and porous. Moreover, it was hacked
and hewed without mercy, the cook frequently helping himself
to splinters for kindling-wood from the bitts and beams. Overhead,
every carline was sooty, and here and there deep holes
were burned in them, a freak of some drunken sailors on a
voyage long previous.

From above, you entered by a plank, with two cleets, slanting
down from the scuttle, which was a mere hole in the deck.
There being no slide to draw over in case of emergency, the
tarpaulin temporarily placed there, was little protection from
the spray heaved over the bows; so that in any thing of a
breeze the place was miserably wet. In a squall, the water
fairly poured down in sheets like a cascade, swashing about,
and afterward spirting up between the chests like the jets of a
fountain.

Such were our accommodations aboard of the Julia; but bad

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

as they were, we had not the undisputed possession of them.
Myriads of cockroaches, and regiments of rats disputed the
place with us. A greater calamity than this can scarcely befall
a vessel in the South Seas.

So warm is the climate that it is almost impossible to get rid
of them. You may seal up every hatchway, and fumigate the
hull till the smoke forces itself out at the seams, and enough
will survive to repeople the ship in an incredibly short period.
In some vessels, the crews of which after a hard fight have
given themselves up, as it were, for lost, the vermin seem to
take actual possession, the sailors being mere tenants by sufferance.
With Sperm Whalemen, hanging about the Line, as
many of them do for a couple of years on a stretch, it is infinitely
worse than with other vessels.

As for the Julia, these creatures never had such free and
easy times as they did in her crazy old hull; every chink and
cranny swarmed with them; they did not live among you, but
you among them. So true was this, that the business of eating
and drinking was better done in the dark than in the light of
day.

Concerning the cockroaches, there was an extraordinary phenomenon,
for which none of us could ever account.

Every night they had a jubilee. The first symptom was an
unusual clustering and humming among the swarms lining the
beams overhead, and the inside of the sleeping-places. This
was succeeded by a prodigious coming and going on the part
of those living out of sight. Presently they all came forth; the
larger sort racing over the chests and planks; winged monsters
darting to and fro in the air; and the small fry buzzing in heaps
almost in a state of fusion.

On the first alarm, all who were able darted on deck; while
some of the sick who were too feeble, lay perfectly quiet—the
distracted vermin running over them at pleasure. The

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

performance lasted some ten minutes, during which no hive ever
hummed louder. Often it was lamented by us that the time of
the visitation could never be predicted; it was liable to come
upon us at any hour of the night, and what a relief it was, when
it happened to fall in the early part of the evening.

Nor must I forget the rats: they did not forget me. Tame
as Trenck's mouse, they stood in their holes peering at you like
old grandfathers in a doorway. Often they darted in upon us
at meal-times, and nibbled our food. The first time they approached
Wymontoo, he was actually frightened; but becoming
accustomed to it, he soon got along with them much better than
the rest. With curious dexterity he seized the animals by
their legs, and flung them up the scuttle to find a watery grave.

But I have a story of my own to tell about these rats. One
day the cabin steward made me a present of some molasses,
which I was so choice of, that I kept it hid away in a tin can in
the farthest corner of my bunk. Faring as we did, this molasses
dropped upon a biscuit was a positive luxury, which I
shared with none but the doctor, and then only in private.
And sweet as the treacle was, how could bread thus prepared
and eaten in secret be otherwise than pleasant.

One night our precious can ran low, and in canting it over in
the dark, something besides the molasses slipped out. How long
it had been there, kind Providence never revealed; nor were
we over anxious to know; for we hushed up the bare thought
as quickly as possible. The creature certainly died a luscious
death, quite equal to Clarence's in the butt of Malmsey.

p274-069 CHAPTER XI. DOCTOR LONG GHOST A WAG—ONE OF HIS CAPERS.

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

Grave though he was at times, Doctor Long Ghost was a
decided wag.

Every one knows what lovers of fun sailors are ashore—afloat,
they are absolutely mad after it. So his pranks were duly appreciated.

The poor old black cook! Unlashing his hammock for the
night, and finding a wet log fast asleep in it; and then waking
in the morning with his woolly head tarred. Opening his coppers,
and finding an old boot boiling away as saucy as could
be, and sometimes cakes of pitch candying in his oven.

Baltimore's[3] tribulations were indeed sore; there was no
peace for him day nor night. Poor fellow! he was altogether
too good-natured. Say what they will about easy-tempered
people, it is far better, on some accounts, to have the temper
of a wolf. Who ever thought of taking liberties with gruff
Black Dan!

The most curious of the doctor's jokes, was hoisting the men
aloft by the foot or shoulder, when they fell asleep on deck during
the night-watches.

Ascending from the forecastle on one occasion, he found
every soul napping, and forthwith went about his capers.
Fastening a rope's end to each sleeper, he rove the lines
through a number of blocks, and conducted them all to the

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

windlass; then, by heaving round cheerily, in spite of cries and
struggles, he soon had them dangling aloft in all directions by
arms and legs. Waked by the uproar, we rushed up from below,
and found the poor fellows swinging in the moonlight
from the tops and lower yard-arms, like a parcel of pirates gibbeted
at sea by a cruiser.

Connected with this sort of diversion, was another prank of his.
During the night some of those on deck would come below to
light a pipe, or take a mouthful of beef and biscuit. Sometimes
they fell asleep; and being missed directly that any thing
was to be done, their shipmates often amused themselves by
running them aloft with a pulley dropped down the scuttle from
the fore-top.

One night, when all was perfectly still, I lay awake in the
forecastle; the lamp was burning low and thick, and swinging
from its blackened beam; and with the uniform motion of the
ship, the men in the bunks rolled slowly from side to side; the
hammocks swaying in unison.

Presently I heard a foot upon the ladder, and, looking up,
saw a wide trowsers' leg. Immediately, Navy Bob, a stout, old
Triton, stealthily descended, and at once went to groping in the
locker after something to eat.

Supper ended, he proceeded to load his pipe. Now, for a
good comfortable smoke at sea, there never was a better place
than the Julia's forecastle at midnight. To enjoy the luxury,
one wants to fall into a kind of dreamy revery, only known to
the children of the weed. And the very atmosphere of the
place, laden as it was with the snores of the sleepers, was inducive
of this. No wonder, then, that after a while Bob's head
sunk upon his breast; presently his hat fell off, the extinguished
pipe dropped from his mouth, and the next moment he lay out
on the chest as tranquil as an infant.

Suddenly an order was heard on deck, followed by the

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

trampling of feet and the hauling of rigging. The yards were
being braced, and soon after the sleeper was missed; for there
was a whispered conference over the scuttle.

Directly a shadow glided across the forecastle and noiselessly
approached the unsuspecting Bob. It was one of the watch
with the end of a rope leading out of sight up the scuttle.
Pausing an instant, the sailor pressed softly the chest of his
victim, sounding his slumbers; and then hitching the cord to
his ankle, returned to the deck.

Hardly was his back turned, when a long limb was thrust
from a hammock opposite, and Doctor Long Ghost, leaping
forth warily, whipped the rope from Bob's ankle, and fastened it
like lightning to a great lumbering chest, the property of the
man who had just disappeared.

Scarcely was the thing done, when lo! with a thundering
bound, the clumsy box was torn from its fastenings, and banging
from side to side, flew toward the scuttle. Here it jammed;
and thinking that Bob, who was as strong as a windlass,
was grappling a beam and trying to cut the line, the jokers on
deck strained away furiously. On a sudden, the chest went
aloft, and striking against the mast, flew open, raining down on
the heads of the party a merciless shower of things too numerous
to mention.

Of course the uproar roused all hands, and when we hurried
on deck, there was the owner of the box, looking aghast at its
scattered contents, and with one wandering hand taking the
altitude of a bump on his head.

eaf274.n3

[3] He was so called from the place of his birth, being a runaway Maryland
slave.

p274-072 CHAPTER XII. DEATH AND BURIAL OF TWO OF THE CREW.

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

The mirthfulness, which, at times, reigned among us, was in
strange and shocking contrast with the situation of some of the
invalids. Thus, at least, did it seem to me, though not to others.

But an event occurred about this period, which, in removing
by far the most pitiable cases of suffering, tended to make less
grating to my feelings the subsequent conduct of the crew.

We had been at sea about twenty days, when two of the
sick who had rapidly grown worse, died one night within an
hour of each other.

One occupied a bunk right next to mine, and for several
days had not risen from it. During this period he was often
delirious, starting up and glaring around him, and sometimes
wildly tossing his arms.

On the night of his decease, I retired shortly after the middle
watch began, and waking from a vague dream of horrors, felt
something clammy resting on me. It was the sick man's hand.
Two or three times during the evening previous, he had thrust
it into my bunk, and I had quietly removed it; but now I
started and flung it from me. The arm fell stark and stiff, and
I knew that he was dead.

Waking the men, the corpse was immediately rolled up in
the strips of blanketing upon which it lay, and carried on deck.
The mate was then called, and preparations made for an instantaneous
burial. Laying the body out on the forehatch, it was
stitched up in one of the hammocks, some “kentlege” being

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

placed at the feet instead of shot. This done, it was borne to
the gangway, and placed on a plank laid across the bulwarks.
Two men supported the inside end. By way of solemnity, the
ship's headway was then stopped by hauling aback the main-top-sail.

The mate, who was far from being sober, then staggered up,
and holding on to a shroud, gave the word. As the plank
tipped, the body slid off slowly, and fell with a splash into the
sea. A bubble or two, and nothing more was seen.

“Brace forward!” The main-yard swung round to its
place, and the ship glided on, while the corpse, perhaps, was
still sinking.

We had tossed a shipmate to the sharks, but no one would
have thought it, to have gone among the crew immediately
after. The dead man had been a churlish, unsocial fellow,
while alive, and no favorite; and now that he was no more,
little thought was bestowed upon him. All that was said, was
concerning the disposal of his chest, which, having been always
kept locked, was supposed to contain money. Some one volunteered
to break it open, and distribute its contents, clothing
and all, before the captain should demand it.

While myself and others were endeavoring to dissuade them
from this, all started at a cry from the forecastle. There could
be no one there but two of the sick, unable to crawl on deck.
We went below, and found one of them dying on a chest. He
had fallen out of his hammock in a fit, and was insensible. The
eyes were open and fixed, and his breath coming and going
convulsively. The men shrunk from him; but the doctor,
taking his hand, held it a few moments in his, and suddenly
letting it fall, exclaimed, “He's gone!” The body was instantly
borne up the ladder.

Another hammock was soon prepared, and the dead sailor
stitched up as before. Some additional ceremony, however,

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

was now insisted upon, and a Bible was called for. But none
was to be had, not even a Prayer Book. When this was
made known, Antone, a Portuguese, from the Cape-de-Verd
Islands, stepped up, muttered something over the corpse of his
countryman, and, with his finger, described upon the back of
the hammock the figure of a large cross; whereupon it received
the dead-lanch.

These two men both perished from the proverbial indiscretions
of seamen, heightened by circumstances apparent; but
had either of them been ashore under proper treatment, he
would, in all human probability, have recovered.

Behold here the fate of a sailor! They give him the last toss,
and no one asks whose child he was.

For the rest of that night there was no more sleep. Many
stayed on deck until broad morning, relating to each other those
marvelous tales of the sea which the occasion was calculated
to call forth. Little as I believed in such things, I could not
listen to some of these stories unaffected. Above all was I
struck by one of the carpenter's.

On a voyage to India, they had a fever aboard, which carried
off nearly half the crew in the space of a few days. After this
the men never went aloft in the night-time, except in couples.
When top-sails were to be reefed, phantoms were seen at the
yard-arm ends; and in tacking ship, voices called aloud from
the tops. The carpenter himself, going with another man to
furl the main-top-gallant-sail in a squall, was nearly pushed
from the rigging by an unseen hand; and his shipmate swore
that a wet hammock was flirted in his face.

Stories like these were related as gospel truths, by those
who declared themselves eye-witnesses.

It is a circumstance not generally known, perhaps, that,
among ignorant seamen, Finlanders, or Finns, as they are more
commonly called, are regarded with peculiar superstition. For

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

some reason or other, which I never could get at, they are supposed
to possess the gift of second sight, and the power to
wreak supernatural vengeance upon those who offend them.
On this account they have great influence among sailors, and
two or three with whom I have sailed at different times, were
persons well calculated to produce this sort of impression, at
least upon minds disposed to believe in such things.

Now, we had one of these sea-prophets aboard; an old,
yellow-haired fellow, who always wore a rude seal-skin cap
of his own make, and carried his tobacco in a large pouch
made of the same stuff. Van, as we called him, was a quiet,
inoffensive man, to look at, and, among such a set, his occasional
peculiarities had hitherto passed for nothing. At this
time, however, he came out with a prediction, which was none
the less remarkable from its absolute fulfillment, though not
exactly in the spirit in which it was given out.

The night of the burial he laid his hand on the old horse-shoe
nailed as a charm to the foremast, and solemnly told us
that, in less than three weeks, not one quarter of our number
would remain aboard the ship—by that time they would have
left her forever.

Some laughed; Flash Jack called him an old fool; but
among the men generally it produced a marked effect. For
several days a degree of quiet reigned among us, and allusions
of such a kind were made to recent events, as could be attributed
to no other cause than the Finn's omen.

For my own part, what had lately come to pass was not
without its influence. It forcibly brought to mind our really
critical condition. Doctor Long Ghost, too, frequently revealed
his apprehensions, and once assured me that he would give
much to be safely landed upon any island around us.

Where we were, exactly, no one but the mate seemed to
know, nor whither we were going. The captain—a mere cipher

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

—was an invalid in his cabin; to say nothing more of so many
of his men languishing in the forecastle.

Our keeping the sea under these circumstances, a matter
strange enough at first, now seemed wholly unwarranted; and
added to all, was the thought, that our fate was absolutely in
the hand of the reckless Jermin. Were any thing to happen to
him, we would be left without a navigator, for, according to
Jermin himself, he had, from the commencement of the voyage,
always kept the ship's reckoning, the captain's nautical knowledge
being insufficient.

But considerations like these, strange as it may seem, seldom
or never occurred to the crew. They were alive only to superstitious
fears; and when, in apparent contradiction to the Finn's
prophecy, the sick men rallied a little, they began to recover
their former spirits, and the recollection of what had occurred
insensibly faded from their minds. In a week's time, the unworthiness
of Little Jule, as a sea vessel, always a subject of
jest, now became more so than ever. In the forecastle, Flash
Jack, with his knife, often dug into the dank, rotten planks
ribbed between us and death, and flung away the splinters
with some sea joke.

As to the remaining invalids, they were hardly ill enough to
occasion any serious apprehension, at least for the present, in
the breasts of such thoughtless beings as themselves. And
even those who suffered the most, studiously refrained from
any expression of pain.

The truth is, that among sailors as a class, sickness at sea is
so heartily detested, and the sick so little cared for, that the
greatest invalid generally strives to mask his sufferings. He
has given no sympathy to others, and he expects none in return.
Their conduct, in this respect, so opposed to their
generous-hearted behavior ashore, painfully affects the landsman
on his first intercourse with them as a sailor.

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

Sometimes, but seldom, our invalids inveighed against their
being kept at sea, where they could be of no service, when
they ought to be ashore and in the way of recovery. But—
“Oh! cheer up—cheer up, my hearties!”—the mate would
say. And after this fashion he put a stop to their murmurings.

But there was one circumstance, to which heretofore I have
but barely alluded, that tended more than any thing else to
reconcile many to their situation. This was the receiving
regularly, twice every day, a certain portion of Pisco, which
was served out at the capstan, by the steward, in little tin
measures called “tots.”

The lively affection seamen have for strong drink is well
known; but in the South Seas, where it is so seldom to be
had, a thorough-bred sailor deems scarcely any price too dear
which will purchase his darling “tot.” Nowadays, American
whalemen in the Pacific never think of carrying spirits as a
ration; and aboard of most of them, it is never served out
even in times of the greatest hardships. All Sydney whalemen,
however, still cling to the old custom, and carry it as a
part of the regular supplies for the voyage.

In port, the allowance of Pisco was suspended; with a view,
undoubtedly, of heightening the attractions of being out of
sight of land.

Now, owing to the absence of proper discipline, our sick,
in addition to what they took medicinally, often came in for
their respective “tots” convivially; and, added to all this, the
evening of the last day of the week was always celebrated by
what is styled on board of English vessels, “The Saturday-night
bottles.” Two of these were sent down into the forecastle,
just after dark; one for the starboard watch, and the
other for the larboard.

By prescription, the oldest seamen in each claims the treat
as his, and, accordingly, pours out the good cheer and passes

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

it round like a lord doing the honors of his table. But the
Saturday-night bottles were not all. The carpenter and
cooper, in sea parlance, Chips and Bungs, who were the
“Cods,” or leaders of the forecastle, in some way or other,
managed to obtain an extra supply, which perpetually kept
them in fine after-dinner spirits, and, moreover, disposed them
to look favorably upon a state of affairs like the present.

But where were the sperm whales all this time? In good
sooth, it made little matter where they were, since we were in
no condition to capture them. About this time, indeed, the
men came down from the mast-heads, where, until now, they
had kept up the form of relieving each other every two hours.
They swore they would go there no more. Upon this, the
mate carelessly observed, that they would soon be where lookouts
were entirely unnecessary, the whales he had in his eye
(though Flash Jack said they were all in his) being so tame,
that they made a practice of coming round ships, and scratching
their backs against them.

Thus went the world of waters with us, some four weeks or
more after leaving Hannamanoo.

p274-079 CHAPTER XIII. OUR DESTINATION CHANGED.

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

It was not long after the death of the two men, that Captain
Guy was reported as fast declining, and in a day or two more,
as dying. The doctor, who previously had refused to enter the
cabin upon any consideration, now relented, and paid his old
enemy a professional visit.

He prescribed a warm bath, which was thus prepared. The
skylight being removed, a cask was lowered down into the
cabin, and then filled with buckets of water from the ship's coppers.
The cries of the patient, when dipped into this rude bath,
were most painful to hear. They at last laid him on the transom,
more dead than alive.

That evening, the mate was perfectly sober, and coming forward
to the windlass, where we were lounging, summoned aft
the doctor, myself, and two or three others of his favorites; when,
in the presence of Bembo the Mowree, he spoke to us thus:

“I have something to say to ye, men. There's none but
Bembo here as belongs aft, so I've picked ye out as the best
men for'ard to take counsel with, d'ye see, consarning the ship.
The captain's anchor is pretty nigh atrip; I shouldn't wonder
if he croaked afore morning. So what's to be done? If we
have to sew him up, some of those pirates there for'ard may
take it into their heads to run off with the ship, because there's
no one at the tiller. Now, I've detarmined what's best to be
done; but I don't want to do it unless I've good men to back me,
and make things all fair and square if ever we get home again.”

We all asked what his plan was.

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]