Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities 44

Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities 44

CHAPTER XXII.

 

 

Saturday, the 13th of September, 1851, at five o'clock in the evening,

we went on board the Carolina, then lying at the wharf, and all

ready for sea. She was a propeller of six hundred tons, built as a

two-decker, but had afterwards been raised by her present proprietors,

who, in their disinterested anxiety to promote the comfort of their

passengers, would gladly have gone on adding story to story till she

was as high as the Astor House or the Tower of Babel, if they could

only have devised a plan for making her as firm as either of those

centres of wealth and fashion. She seemed now as crowded as a well

filled pincushion; but it is a curious though well authenticated fact,

and one of which the various steamboat companies have not failed to

take advantage, that five hundred passengers returning from California

occupy little more room than half that number from the Atlantic

States; either because the disappointment that most of them meet with

operates like the prick of a pin on an inflated bladder, or because,

and this I apprehend is after all the true reason, the hot and arid

temperature of that country so dries up the fluids and juices of the

body that it gradually wizzles away till it is reduced to the same

condition as a mummy or dried apple.

 

Be this as it may, on looking round among my fellow passengers I saw

many who seemed to feel as if they could easily creep into a rat-hole;

and, for my own part, if it had not been for the belt round my waist,

I have no doubt I could have squeezed through a crack or into a

bottle without the slightest inconvenience. But gaunt, and wizzled,

and woe-begone as was the appearance of our company, it was nothing to

what was brought about by a few weeks' confinement on shipboard; so

that if the voyage had been long enough, a good sized pea-pod would

have furnished a craft amply sufficient for our shrunken mortality.

 

The Carolina went to sea with four hundred passengers, of whom nearly

three-fourths were in the steerage. The accommodations provided for

this class consisted of a large cabin on the lower deck, and a smaller

one directly above it, both furnished with berths similar to those

of a river steamboat, with this difference, that though scarcely

any wider, they were intended to be occupied by two persons. In

cold weather this would have been hardly tolerable, and the reader

can imagine the delights of such intimate fellowship in the sultry

sluggish air of the tropics. After one or two trials I gave up in

despair, and spreading my blankets on deck, slept there every night

during the remainder of the voyage. At least half of my companions had

the same choice--we made the vast Pacific our bed-chamber, and strewed

the lofty deck of our steamer thicker than leaves in Vallambrosa.

By eight o'clock every spot was occupied, and it was then almost

impossible to cross the deck, especially in rough weather, without

tripping over some unlucky nose, or flattening it level with the

astonished cheeks. The ship now became silent as the dawn of creation,

except the hoarse coffee-mill grinding of the propeller, and the

palpable stillness of the passing ripple. We could almost hear the

stars twinkling in the sky, and the hum-top spin of the round-faced

moon. This was delightful--delicious--enchanting--excessively

fine--but several hours later, about the time that the milk-cart

rattles o'er the stony street, and the fisherman's horn splits the

dull ear of night--when the punctual plodding Phoebus, climbing his

eastern ladder, streaks the wide horizon with his floating golden

hair--a mimic deluge, commencing at the forecastle, comes drowning

out our little world. Onto the hencoops! up into the rigging! down

into the steerage! every man for himself, and the long crawling hose,

a veritable sea-serpent, take the hindmost! "Oh! preserve us!" cries

some heavy dreamer, striking out as if to swim--"oh--ah--whooo! I

thought the ship was sinking;" and now wide awake, "Bless us! if I

don't wish she would."

 

This was pleasant weather, but sometimes it rained and blew. Then the

labouring ship, making more angles with the horizon than Sir Isaac

Newton ever dreamed of, rolled our loose disjointed bodies crunching

over the oaken planks--the sullen soddening rain hung every bristle on

our blankets with conglobing drops--or a phosphorescent wave drenched

us to the skin, filling our eyes, our mouths, our pockets, with its

briny flood. If all the resolutions made at such times should be kept,

few would ever trust themselves again to the treacherous element.

 

The first four days of our voyage passed pleasantly enough. The sea

was smooth, the sky was fair, a favouring breeze pushed us gently

on our way, and we ran in that time nearly nine hundred miles. The

thoughts of home with which all were occupied, though they produced a

silence and reserve strangely in contrast with the noisy hilarity of

the voyage out, at the same time disposed all to bear the hardships

and annoyances incident to their situation with patience and good

humour. We became by degrees, like a barrel of apples, shaken and

jolted into our places until we were able to move about the deck

without displacing another at every step. The prospect of a speedy

run, and the hope of beating the Panama that was to start two days

after us, heightened the general satisfaction.

 

But this scene was changed with the capricious suddenness of a play.

The fifth night I had spread my blankets on a hencoop, and fell asleep

with the stars burning undimmed in the firmament. I was awakened

about midnight by a dismal uproar for which no place on land is big

enough unless it be the desert of Sahara, or one of our western

prairies. A sudden squall had sprung up from the south, directly in

our teeth. The canvass awnings stretched across the deck twisted and

writhed as if in torture. The sailors, at the hoarse cry of "all hands

ahoy," came trampling along the deck, knocking down the stupid wakers

who sat upright on their blankets like half animated right angles, and

rubbed their sleepy eyes. Two hundred piles of bedding at one and the

same moment seemed endowed with the power of locomotion, and began to

walk, and creep, and tumble towards the steerage.

 

And now the mighty Pacific seemed bent on showing us what she could do

with our cockle-shell of a boat. After the first angry burst, as if

sounding the charge, she went to work with a coolness and deliberation

well suited to her royalty and power. She tossed us from one hand

to another with stunning violence. Her winds blew not wearily, but

with that fierce energy as if they had just been let loose from their

stalls. The sea went up, and the sky came down, as if, like the man in

the iron cage, we were to be crushed between the walls of our dungeon.

A sensation of sea-sickness--of stupidity--of utter loathing and yet

desire of life--of wet clothes clinging heavily to the shrunken,

shivering body--of breathing an atmosphere half air half water--a

feeling as if one had fins and scales--a constant holding on to hats,

or watching them with strange melancholy as they fly away in the

distance--these things, together with a dreamy, ill-defined sublimity

over all, make up a storm at sea.

 

But this was not the end. Our ship, after skilfully dodging for a

long time the tremendous blows aimed at her by the furious waves, at

length received such a punch in the breast as seemed fairly to knock

the breath out of her body. No outward injury was at first discovered,

but she bled inwardly and had evidently sprung a dangerous leak. I

was sitting like a perpendicular mummy on the deserted quarter-deck,

about two o'clock in the morning, watching the dim billows that sent

a constant flood of foam over the bows, when St. John came up, and

steadying himself by my chair, informed me in a sepulchral whisper

that there were ten feet of water in the hold, that the leak was

gaining fast, and threatened to put out the fires. Instinctively I

put my hand to the leathern belt around my waist, and groaned aloud.

Was it for this that I had braved the hardships of a six months'

voyage and the sickness and toil of two years in the mines? Was it

for this that I had spoilt forever the beauty of my hands and the

delicacy of my complexion? Had I stood day after day in those ice-cold

rivers, like a man with his feet on the pole and his head under the

equator--had I swallowed doses innumerable of oil and laudanum, of

blue mass and quinine, only to feed the fishes at last? If I had got

nothing, it would have been less matter; but as it was, how I hated

the ugly shark who would gulp me at a single mouthful, the richest

supper since Cleopatra's pearl. I got up, and unrolling myself from

my blankets, walked forward and looked down the hatchway above the

furnaces. A red and angry glare from the crevices around the doors

showed a mass of water black as pitch rolling and swashing with the

motion of the vessel within a foot of the fires. It was Phlegethon

shedding its baleful light on the dark and melancholy Styx. A group

of passengers stood leaning against the iron railing, watching with

strange interest the firemen below standing knee deep in the inky

flood, and still plying their task with sullen resolution. As they

threw open the clanging doors, we caught glimpses of the fires burning

with a fierceness of purpose that seemed to defy the ocean to put it

out; but still the insidious element crept on, and we already heard

the ominous hiss like the skirmishes before a great battle, as the

foremost of the assailants dashed against the bars of the furnace.

 

If the waters prevailed, as they were sure to do in this unequal

contest, our only hope of salvation was gone; for the pump attached

to the engine, though sadly out of order, and able to work but

about half the time, was still superior in effective service to the

united strength of all in the ship. As long as that could be kept in

operation there was no danger of the leak gaining upon us, and it

was owing simply to its having partially failed, that the state of

affairs now looked so threatening. One of the passengers, "a darned

bluenose," as he was styled by the ungrateful Yankees whose lives he

had volunteered to save at the risk of his own, had ventured out under

the bowsprit and nailed some canvass over the principal leak; but

there was another he could not reach, and the situation of which was

not exactly known. One declared it was under the engine--another, with

equal confidence, asserted that it was somewhere about the bows. It

was now discovered that the ship was known to be leaky when we sailed;

the first mate had said that they had been obliged to keep the pumps

going even while she lay at the wharf--the engineer confirmed this

story, and added, moreover, that the engine was in an equally unsafe

condition. It had in some way broken loose from its fastenings and

threatened to knock a hole through the ship's bottom, but by tying it

up with ropes they were enabled to maintain a sufficient weight of

steam to keep the ship's head to the wind; and in this situation we

lay for several days without making a single mile.

 

Still the services of the engine were indispensible to our safety, and

it was necessary under such a pressing emergency to take immediate

measures for its relief. Two of the passengers descended into the

hold and took their station by the side of the firemen. Others were

ranged at convenient intervals on the slender iron ladders that led

to the upper decks--a large number of buckets were provided, and the

work commenced. The undertaking was greatly impeded by the rolling and

pitching of the ship that rendered it at times extremely difficult to

maintain a footing upon the ladders, and now and then threw half a

bucket of water, that had nearly reached the top, down onto the heads

of those below.

 

But now the anxious question arose, would they be able to lower the

water in the hold or even to prevent its rising higher. For a long

time the scale hung in doubtful balance, but at last the cheerful news

was shouted up to us that the water was lowered about an inch. It

was now suggested to draw the supply for the boilers from within the

ship instead of taking that without. The pump used for this purpose

was accordingly set in operation, and by the united powers of men and

steam all fear of immediate danger was at length removed. The storm

had spent its violence, the sea became smooth, and in a few days we

arrived at Acapulco, where the Panama had gone in just before us.

Like her we will also improve the opportunity, and gladly escaping

from these boisterous scenes of alarm and confusion, take refuge in

the quiet haven of more serene and peaceful meditations. Wars and

battles, though occupying so large a space in history, are after all

far less deserving of our sober study than the more domestic narrative

of private firesides; and I trust the reader will turn with equal

satisfaction from storm and shipwreck to the individual interests of

our little community.

 

I take it for granted that all will agree with me in considering the

subject on which we are about entering, of paramount importance;

and this conviction, while it inflames my desire, at the same time

heightens my sense of my inability to do justice to a question of such universality of interest.