The Story of a Strange Career: Being the Autobiography of a Convict. Various

Table of Contents

      I was in the habit of walking around the docks of the East and North Rivers in New York and looking at the shipping. Fronting the river were a number of shipping offices for sailors, and some of them had a placard offering eighty dollars advance for men for the whaling service. So, one day, I went into one of the offices and stated my desires. I was very cordially received. That evening, with several others, I was sent to New Bedford, Mass. On our arrival there we were assigned to a sailors' boarding-house. In about two weeks afterward I was shipped on board the Courier, for a three years' cruise in the South Pacific Ocean, for the capture of sperm whales. I was to get one barrel of oil for myself out of every one hundred and ninety that we should capture. Sperm oil was worth about two dollars a gallon. No petroleum had been discovered at that time.

      I was furnished with a seaman's outfit, which, with my board bill and expenses, amounted exactly to eighty dollars; that was the advance. I signed an agreement that the captain should pay that amount out of the first money due me. Captain Coffin, four mates, and four boat-steerers were the officers of the ship, with twenty-eight men before the mast, a cooper, blacksmith, carpenter, cook, and steward—forty-two men on the vessel, and the captain's wife and little boy.

      The night before we sailed I wrote to my father and mother and let them know what I had done. I thought at the time that I knew more than they did. Well, the older I grow, the more I realize what a fool I have been all my life, and never a greater one than I am now at the age of sixty-two.

      One morning early we weighed anchor, and were soon out of sight of land; then the voyage began in earnest. Much to my surprise, we had to take turns perched up aloft for two hours at a time on the top-gallant cross-trees, looking out for whales. Why, I never thought there was a whale within five thousand miles of New Bedford at that time, but I was mistaken. They are sometimes captured in sight of the harbour. The boat-steerers were kept busy fixing up their harpoons and lances, getting the boats ready, coiling the lines in the tubs etc. In the meantime the mates were watching the crew very closely to see which men were the most active.

      After we were at sea about ten days all hands were called aft to the mizzen-mast. Then the mates, each in turn, picked out one man for his own boat's crew. Being light and active, I was made stroke-oarsman of the first mate's boat, and a lively job it proved to be, too. Soon we got in the warm latitudes and calm days, and then the boats would be lowered in order to give the crews exercise and practice in rowing. It was hard work, but we soon became expert oarsmen.

      One day we sighted the Cape Verde Islands, and sailed among them for a few days. Boats were sent ashore; rotten tobacco—outfit quality—was traded to the natives for fruit; then I got in my work, so far as the fruit went. The ship then steered for the Island of Martinbas-Trinidado, 21° south latitude, for the purpose of ascertaining whether our chronometers were still correct, by comparing our observations with the longitude of the island, as that is known to a certainty.

      Trinity Rock, as it is called also, is uninhabited, quite barren, and only a few miles in circumference. That is the place where we had our first adventure. The first mate's boat was to take the crew, with the captain, his wife and child, also three old muskets and ammunition, and land them in a seaman-like manner on the island. The boat's party with the old army muskets were to kill a number of mythical goats on land.

      We pulled close to the shore, just outside of the heavy surf, trying to find a safe place to land. Finally we came to an opening in the reef. Inside, the water looked smooth and inviting, and there was also a nice sandy beach. To the left of the reef was the wreck of a French ship, the bowsprit pointing straight up into the air. While looking at the wreck, we saw a large green turtle just ahead of the boat. Then visions of turtle soup with our goat's meat dawned upon us. It chanced, though, that in trying to capture that turtle we made a great mistake, for just at that time a very-heavy surf came over the reef and capsized our boat. Things were badly mixed for a time. Boat, oars, men, and the captain's wife and child were going in every direction. Finally things quieted down a little, and we landed on the beach. We got the boat and what oars we could, and then took a rest on the burning hot sand. The weather being very warm, the boat's crew all wore leather slippers and no stockings. We had to run up and down on the sand with our bare feet, as the aforesaid slippers were lost when the boat went over. I picked hard little short thorns out of my feet for days afterward. They came from dried-up vines that grew in the sand.

      The beach was honeycombed with large holes, and each hole contained a big yellow land-crab. Every step we took, snap would go a big pair of claws for our feet. We had also lost our straw hats, so we had the full benefit of the sun on our bare heads. A number of wild land birds of a good, healthy size would swoop down upon us. It was anything but a pleasure at that time, and the muskets being lost also, the captain and mate changed their minds about the goat business.

      The cause of our disaster was made clear to us in a short time. The surf for about ten minutes would run low, and then would be followed by three tremendous rollers in succession. It was the latter that wrecked us on a barren island. We soon got tired of life on shore. The question was how to get away.

      In the meantime, while we were on the goat expedition, the second mate's boat had left the ship on a fishing excursion. They anchored the boat near shore, outside the surf, and were hauling the fish in at a lively rate. We needed their assistance. As the mate still had his shoes on his feet, he went quite a distance down the beach and made signals for the boat to follow him back. When they got opposite to us we explained the situation. By watching for a good chance, they pulled in quickly and threw us the end of a harpoon-line, and got outside of the reef. We fastened the line to the bow of our boat, and when a low surf came in launched it, were towed out by the other boat, and arrived on board the ship very much disgusted with the whole business.

      The old Courier's yards were braced around and we were off for Cape Horn, 56° south latitude. One day, it being quite calm, the lookouts at the mast-head noticed a lot of sea-gulls flying around in a circle, and under them something floating in the water. We thought it might be a dead whale, so the mate's boat was lowered. We found it to be an old cask, which must have been in the water for years, as it was thickly covered with barnacles.

      We towed the cask to the ship and hoisted it on board. As it came out of the sea we noticed that the staves were completely honeycombed by the sea-worms. The water was spurting out as if it were a sprinkling-pot. We had just got it over the ship's rail when it burst, and the contents fell on the deck. It proved to be palm-oil, probably from some vessel in the African trade that had been wrecked. It had, no doubt, drifted many thousands of miles. We saved two barrels of oil out of our catch.

      The weather soon began to get much cooler, and storms were frequent; then we began to see the albatross and Cape Horn pigeons. The latter is about the size of a domestic pigeon, but has webbed feet and a hooked bill, and is the only wild bird having variegated plumage, no two being marked alike. We caught quite a number of the albatross, some measuring seventeen feet from tip to tip of wing. We caught them with large fishhooks baited with a big piece of salt pork. The bait would float on the surface of the water. We had them walking all over the decks, as they cannot fly unless they run on water to give them a good start. The large webbed feet make excellent money pouches when dried and properly dressed.

      In the month of January, midsummer in the southern hemisphere, we sighted Staten Land, the extreme southern point of South America, and ordinarily designated as Cape Horn. For the first time we then saw the Pacific Ocean, "so near and yet so far," for just at this time we were struck by a heavy northwest gale. A close-reefed main top-sail and storm stay-sail was all we could carry with the ship headed as close to the wind as possible, so as to ride over the mountain-like waves. The helm was lashed hard down, as there was no steerage way.

      There we were, drifting to the south for about three weeks before the gale broke, and we were able to make sail on the ship. It was daylight for twenty-two hours, and the other two hours of the twenty-four could not be called dark. Such days would be delightful for farmers in this part of the world. Soon after the storm we got fair winds, and were on our cruising grounds off the southern coast of Chile and northern part of Patagonia (the new boundary