SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD (completed 2+3)

[Captain Joshua Slocum]

SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD
By Captain Joshua Slocum

TO THE ONE WHO SAID: "THE 'SPRAY' WILL COME BACK."

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

A blue-nose ancestry with Yankee proclivities - Youthful fondness for the sea
- Master of the ship Northern Light - Loss of the Aquidneck - Return home
from Brazil in the canoe Liberdade - The gift of a "ship" - The rebuilding
of the Spray - Conundrums in regard to finance and calking - The launching
of the Spray - No foolish counsellors

CHAPTER II

Failure as a fisherman - A voyage around the world projected - From Boston to
Gloucester - Fitting out for the ocean voyage - Half of a dory for a ship's
boat - The run from Gloucester to Nova Scotia - A shaking up in home waters -
Among old friends.

CHAPTER III

Good-by to the American coast - Off Sable Island in a fog - In the open sea -
The man in the moon takes an interest in the voyage - The first fit of
loneliness - The Spray encounters La Vaguisa - A bottle of wine from the
Spaniard - A bout of words with the captain of the Java - The steamship
Olympia spoken - Arrival at the Azores.

CHAPTER IV

Squally weather in the Azores - High living - Delirious from cheese and plums
- The pilot of the Pinta - At Gibraltar - Compliments exchanged with the
British navy - A picnic on the Morocco shore.

CHAPTER V

Sailing from Gibraltar with the assistance of her Majesty's tug - The Spray's
course changed from the Suez Canal to Cape Horn - Chased by a Moorish pirate -
A comparison with Columbus - The Canary Islands - The Cape Verde Islands -
Sea life - Arrival at Pernambuco - A bill against the Brazilian government -
Preparing for the stormy weather of the cape.

SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD

CHAPTER I

A blue-nose ancestry with Yankee proclivities - Youthful fondness for the sea
- Master of the ship Northern Light - Loss of the Aquidneck - Return home
from Brazil in the canoe Liberdade - The gift of a "ship" - The rebuilding
of the Spray -Conundrums in regard to finance and calking - The launching of
the Spray.

In the fair land of Nova Scotia, a maritime province, there is a ridge called
North Mountain, overlooking the Bay of Fundy on one side and the fertile
Annapolis valley on the other. On the northern slope of the range grows the
hardy spruce-tree, well adapted for ship-timbers, of which many vessels of
all classes have been built. The people of this coast, hardy, robust, and
strong, are disposed to compete in the world's commerce, and it is nothing
against the master mariner if the birthplace mentioned on his certificate be
Nova Scotia. I was born in a cold spot, on coldest North Mountain, on a cold
February 20, though I am a citizen of the United States - a naturalized
Yankee, if it may be said that Nova Scotians are not Yankees in the truest
sense of the word. On both sides my family were sailors; and if any Slocum
should be found not seafaring, he will show at least an inclination to
whittle models of boats and contemplate voyages.

My father was the sort of man who, if wrecked on a desolate island, would
find his way home, if he had a jack-knife and could find a tree. He was a
good judge of a boat, but the old clay farm which some calamity made his was
an anchor to him. He was not afraid of a capful of wind, and he never took a
back seat at a camp-meeting or a good, old-fashioned revival.

As for myself, the wonderful sea charmed me from the first. At the age of
eight I had already been afloat along with other boys on the bay, with
chances greatly in favor of being drowned. When a lad I filled the important
post of cook on a fishing-schooner; but I was not long in the galley, for the
crew mutinied at the appearance of my first duff, and "chucked me out" before
I had a chance to shine as a culinary artist. The next step toward the goal
of happiness found me before the mast in a full-rigged ship bound on a
foreign voyage. Thus I came "over the bows," and not in through the cabin
windows, to the command of a ship.

My best command was that of the magnificent ship Northern Light , of which I
was part-owner. I had a right to be proud of her, for at that time - in the
eighties - she was the finest American sailing-vessel afloat. Afterward I
owned and sailed the Aquidneck , a little bark which of all man's handiwork
seemed to me the nearest to perfection of beauty, and which in speed, when
the wind blew, asked no favors of steamers, I had been nearly twenty years a
shipmaster when I quit her deck on the coast of Brazil, where she was
wrecked. My home voyage to New York with my family was made in the canoe
Liberdade , without accident.

My voyages were all foreign. I sailed as freighter and trader principally to
China, Australia, and Japan, and among the Spice Islands. Mine was not the
sort of life to make one long to coil up one's ropes on land, the customs and
ways of which I had finally almost forgotten. And so when times for
freighters got bad, as at last they did, and I tried to quit the sea, what
was there for an old sailor to do? I was born in the breezes, and I had
studied the sea as perhaps few men have studied it, neglecting all else. Next
in attractiveness, after seafaring, came ship-building. I longed to be master
in both professions, and in a small way, in time, I accomplished my desire.
>From the decks of stout ships in the worst gales I had made calculations as
to the size and sort of ship safest for all weather and all seas. Thus the
voyage which I am now to narrate was a natural outcome not only of my love of
adventure, but of my lifelong experience.

One midwinter day of 1892, in Boston, where I had been cast up from old
ocean, so to speak, a year or two before, I was cogitating whether I should
apply for a command, and again eat my bread and butter on the sea, or go to
work at the shipyard, when I met an old acquaintance, a whaling-captain, who
said: "Come to Fairhaven and I'll give you a ship. But," he added, "she wants
some repairs." The captain's terms, when fully explained, were more than
satisfactory to me. They included all the assistance I would require to fit
the craft for sea. I was only too glad to accept, for I had already found
that I could not obtain work in the shipyard without first paying fifty
dollars to a society, and as for a ship to command - there were not enough
ships to go round. Nearly all our tall vessels had been cut down for coal-
barges, and were being ignominiously towed by the nose from port to port,
while many worthy captains addressed themselves to Sailors' Snug Harbor.

The next day I landed at Fairhaven, opposite New Bedford, and found that my
friend had something of a joke on me. For seven years the joke had been on
him. The "ship" proved to be a very antiquated sloop called the Spray, which
the neighbors declared had been built in the year 1. She was affectionately
propped up in a field, some distance from salt water, and was covered with
canvas. The people of Fairhaven, I hardly need say, are thrifty and
observant. For seven years they had asked, "I wonder what Captain Eben Pierce
is going to do with the old Spray?" The day I appeared there was a buzz at
the gossip exchange: at last some one had come and was actually at work on
the old Spray. "Breaking her up, I s'pose?" "No; going to rebuild her." Great
was the amazement. "Will it pay?" was the question which for a year or more I
answered by declaring that I would make it pay.

My ax felled a stout oak-tree near by for a keel, and Farmer Howard, for a
small sum of money, hauled in this and enough timbers for the frame of the
new vessel. I rigged a steam-box and a pot for a boiler. The timbers for
ribs, being straight saplings, were dressed and steamed till supple, and then
bent over a log, where they were secured till set. Something tangible
appeared every day to show for my labor, and the neighbors made the work
sociable. It was a great day in the Spray shipyard when her new stem was set
up and fastened to the new keel. Whaling-captains came from far to survey it.
With one voice they pronounced it "A 1," and in their opinion "fit to smash
ice." The oldest captain shook my hand warmly when the breast-hooks were put
in, declaring that he could see no reason why the Spray should not "cut in
bow-head" yet off the coast of Greenland. The much-esteemed stem-piece was
from the butt of the smartest kind of a pasture oak. It afterward split a
coral patch in two at the Keeling Islands, and did not receive a blemish.
Better timber for a ship than pasture white oak never grew. The breast-hooks,
as well as all the ribs, were of this wood, and were steamed and bent into
shape as required. It was hard upon March when I began work in earnest; the
weather was cold; still, there were plenty of inspectors to back me with
advice. When a whaling-captain hove in sight I just rested on my adz awhile
and "gammed" with him.

New Bedford, the home of whaling-captains, is connected with Fairhaven by a
bridge, and the walking is good. They never "worked along up" to the shipyard
too often for me. It was the charming tales about arctic whaling that
inspired me to put a double set of breast-hooks in the Spray , that she might
shunt ice.

The seasons came quickly while I worked. Hardly were the ribs of the sloop up
before apple-trees were in bloom. Then the daisies and the cherries came soon
after. Close by the place where the old Spray had now dissolved rested the
ashes of John Cook, a revered Pilgrim father. So the new Spray rose from
hallowed ground. From the deck of the new craft I could put out my hand and
pick cherries that grew over the humble grave. The planks for the new vessel,
which I soon came to put on, were of Georgia pine an inch and a half thick.
The operation of putting them on was tedious, but, when on, the calking was
easy. The outward edges stood slightly open to receive the calking, but the
inner edges were so close that I could not see daylight between them. All the
butts were fastened by through bolts, with screw-nuts tightening them to the
timbers, so that there would be no complaint from them. Many bolts with screw-
nuts were used in other parts of the construction, in all about a thousand.

It was my purpose to make my vessel stout and strong.

Now, it is a law in Lloyd's that the Jane repaired all out of the old until
she is entirely new is still the Jane. The Spray changed her being so
gradually that it was hard to say at what point the old died or the new took
birth, and it was no matter. The bulwarks I built up of white-oak stanchions
fourteen inches high, and covered with seven-eighth-inch white pine. These
stanchions, mortised through a two-inch covering-board, I caulked with thin
cedar wedges. They have remained perfectly tight ever since. The deck I made
of one-and-a-half-inch by three-inch white pine spiked to beams, six by six
inches, of yellow or Georgia pine, placed three feet apart. The deck-
inclosures were one over the aperture of the main hatch, six feet by six, for
a cooking-galley, and a trunk farther aft, about ten feet by twelve, for a
cabin. Both of these rose about three feet above the deck, and were sunk
sufficiently into the hold to afford head-room. In the spaces along the sides
of the cabin, under the deck, I arranged a berth to sleep in, and shelves for
small storage, not forgetting a place for the medicine-chest. In the midship
hold, that is, the space between cabin and galley, under the deck, was room
for provision of water, salt beef, etc., ample for many months.

The hull of my vessel being now put together as strongly as wood and iron
could make her, and the various rooms partitioned off, I set about "calking
ship." Grave fears were entertained by some that at this point I should fail.
I myself gave some thought to the advisability of a "professional calker."
The very first blow I struck on the cotton with the calking-iron, which I
thought was right, many others thought wrong. "It'll crawl!" cried a man from
Marion, passing with a basket of clams on his back. "It'll crawl!" cried
another from West Island, when he saw me driving cotton into the seams. Bruno
simply wagged his tail. Even Mr. Ben J - - , a noted authority on whaling-
ships, whose mind, however, was said to totter, asked rather confidently if I
did not think "it would crawl." "How fast will it crawl?" cried my old
captain friend, who had been towed by many a lively sperm-whale. "Tell us how
fast," cried he, "that we may get into port in time."

However, I drove a thread of oakum on top of the cotton, as from the first I
had intended to do. And Bruno again wagged his tail. The cotton never
"crawled." When the calking was finished, two coats of copper paint were
slapped on the bottom, two of white lead on the topsides and bulwarks. The
rudder was then shipped and painted, and on the following day the Spray was
launched. As she rode at her ancient, rust-eaten anchor, she sat on the water
like a swan.

The Spray's dimensions were, when finished, thirty-six feet nine inches long,
over all, fourteen feet two inches wide, and four feet two inches deep in the
hold, her tonnage being nine tons net and twelve and seventy-one hundredths
tons gross.

Then the mast, a smart New Hampshire spruce, was fitted, and likewise all the
small appurtenances necessary for a short cruise. Sails were bent, and away
she flew with my friend Captain Pierce and me, across Buzzard's Bay on a
trial-trip - all right. The only thing that now worried my friends along the
beach was, "Will she pay?" The cost of my new vessel was $553.62 for
materials, and thirteen months of my own labor. I was several months more
than that at Fairhaven, for I got work now and then on an occasional whale-
ship fitting farther down the harbor, and that kept me the overtime.

CHAPTER II

Failure as a fisherman - A voyage around the world projected - From Boston to
Gloucester - Fitting out for the ocean voyage - Half of a dory for a ship's
boat - The run from Gloucester to Nova Scotia - A shaking up in home waters -
Among old friends.

I spent a season in my new craft fishing on the coast, only to find that I
had not the cunning properly to bait a hook. But at last the time arrived to
weigh anchor and get to sea in earnest. I had resolved on a voyage around the
world, and as the wind on the morning of April 24,1895, was fair, at noon I
weighed anchor, set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had
been moored snugly all winter. The twelve-o'clock whistles were blowing just
as the sloop shot ahead under full sail. A short board was made up the harbor
on the port tack, then coming about she stood seaward, with her boom well off
to port, and swung past the ferries with lively heels. A photographer on the
outer pier at East Boston got a picture of her as she swept by, her flag at
the peak throwing its folds clear. A thrilling pulse beat high in me. My step
was light on deck in the crisp air. I felt that there could be no turning
back, and that I was engaging in an adventure the meaning of which I
thoroughly understood. I had taken little advice from any one, for I had a
right to my own opinions in matters pertaining to the sea. That the best of
sailors might do worse than even I alone was borne in upon me not a league
from Boston docks, where a great steamship, fully manned, officered, and
piloted, lay stranded and broken. This was the Venetian. She was broken
completely in two over a ledge. So in the first hour of my lone voyage I had
proof that the Spray could at least do better than this full-handed
steamship, for I was already farther on my voyage than she. "Take warning,
Spray, and have a care," I uttered aloud to my bark, passing fairylike
silently down the bay.

The wind freshened, and the Spray rounded Deer Island light at the rate of
seven knots.

Passing it, she squared away direct for Gloucester to procure there some
fishermen's stores. Waves dancing joyously across Massachusetts Bay met her
coming out of the harbor to dash them into myriads of sparkling gems that
hung about her at every surge. The day was perfect, the sunlight clear and
strong. Every particle of water thrown into the air became a gem, and the
Spray, bounding ahead, snatched necklace after necklace from the sea, and as
often threw them away. We have all seen miniature rainbows about a ship's
prow, but the Spray flung out a bow of her own that day, such as I had never
seen before. Her good angel had embarked on the voyage; I so read it in the
sea.

Bold Nahant was soon abeam, then Marblehead was put astern. Other vessels
were outward bound, but none of them passed the Spray flying along on her
course. I heard the clanking of the dismal bell on Norman's Woe as we went
by; and the reef where the schooner Hesperus struck I passed close aboard.
The "bones" of a wreck tossed up lay bleaching on the shore abreast. The wind
still freshening, I settled the throat of the mainsail to ease the sloop's
helm, for I could hardly hold her before it with the whole mainsail set. A
schooner ahead of me lowered all sail and ran into port under bare poles, the
wind being fair. As the Spray brushed by the stranger, I saw that some of his
sails were gone, and much broken canvas hung in his rigging, from the effects
of a squall.

I made for the cove, a lovely branch of Gloucester's fine harbor, again to
look the Spray over and again to weigh the voyage, and my feelings, and all
that. The bay was feather-white as my little vessel tore in, smothered in
foam. It was my first experience of coming into port alone, with a craft of
any size, and in among shipping. Old fishermen ran down to the wharf for
which the Spray was heading, apparently intent upon braining herself there. I
hardly know how a calamity was averted, but with my heart in my mouth,
almost, I let go the wheel, stepped quickly forward, and downed the jib. The
sloop naturally rounded in the wind, and just ranging ahead, laid her cheek
against a mooring-pile at the windward corner of the wharf, so quietly, after
all, that she would not have broken an egg. Very leisurely I passed a rope
around the post, and she was moored. Then a cheer went up from the little
crowd on the wharf. "You couldn't 'a' done it better," cried an old skipper,
"if you weighed a ton!" Now, my weight was rather less than the fifteenth
part of a ton, but I said nothing, only putting on a look of careless
indifference to say for me, "Oh, that's nothing"; for some of the ablest
sailors in the world were looking at me, and my wish was not to appear green,
for I had a mind to stay in Gloucester several days. Had I uttered a word it
surely would have betrayed me, for I was still quite nervous and short of
breath.

I remained in Gloucester about two weeks, fitting out with the various
articles for the voyage most readily obtained there. The owners of the wharf
where I lay, and of many fishing-vessels, put on board dry cod galore, also a
barrel of oil to calm the waves. They were old skippers themselves, and took
a great interest in the voyage. They also made the Spray a present of a
"fisherman's own" lantern, which I found would throw a light a great distance
round. Indeed, a ship that would run another down having such a good light
aboard would be capable of running into a light-ship. A gaff, a pugh, and a
dip-net, all of which an old fisherman declared I could not sail without,
were also put aboard. Then, top, from across the cove came a case of copper
paint, a famous antifouling article, which stood me in good stead long after.
I slapped two coats of this paint on the bottom of the Spray while she lay a
tide or so on the hard beach.

For a boat to take along, I made shift to cut a castaway dory in two
athwartships, boarding up the end where it was cut. This half-dory I could
hoist in and out by the nose easily enough, by hooking the throat-halyards
into a strop fitted for the purpose. A whole dory would be heavy and awkward
to handle alone. Manifestly there was not room on deck for more than the half
of a boat, which, after all, was better than no boat at all, and was large
enough for one man. I perceived, moreover, that the newly arranged craft
would answer for a washing-machine when placed athwartships, and also for a
bath-tub. Indeed, for the former office my razeed dory gained such a
reputation on the voyage that my washerwoman at Samoa would not take no for
an answer. She could see with one eye that it was a new invention which beat
any Yankee notion ever brought by missionaries to the islands, and she had to
have it.

The want of a chronometer for the voyage was all that now worried me. In our
newfangled notions of navigation it is supposed that a mariner cannot find
his way without one; and I had myself drifted into this way of thinking. My
old chronometer, a good one, had been long in disuse. It would cost fifteen
dollars to clean and rate it. Fifteen dollars! For sufficient reasons I left
that timepiece at home, where the Dutchman left his anchor. I had the great
lantern, and a lady in Boston sent me the price of a large two-burner cabin
lamp, which lighted the cabin at night, and by some small contriving served
for a stove through the day.

Being thus refitted I was once more ready for sea, and on May 7 again made
sail. With little room in which to turn, the Spray , in gathering headway,
scratched the paint off an old, fine-weather craft in the fairway, being
puttied and painted for a summer voyage. "Who'll pay for that?" growled the
painters. "I will," said I. "With the main-sheet," echoed the captain of the
Bluebird , close by, which was his way of saying that I was off. There was
nothing to pay for above five cents' worth of paint, maybe, but such a din
was raised between the old "hooker" and the Bluebird , which now took up my
case, that the first cause of it was forgotten altogether. Anyhow, no bill
was sent after me.

The weather was mild on the day of my departure from Gloucester. On the point
ahead, as the Spray stood out of the cove, was a lively picture, for the
front of a tall factory was a flutter of handkerchiefs and caps. Pretty faces
peered out of the windows from the top to the bottom of the building, all
smiling bon voyage. Some hailed me to know where away and why alone. Why?
When I made as if to stand in, a hundred pairs of arms reached out, and said
come, but the shore was dangerous! The sloop worked out of the bay against a
light southwest wind, and about noon squared away off Eastern Point,
receiving at the same time a hearty salute - the last of many kindnesses to
her at Gloucester. The wind freshened off the point, and skipping along
smoothly, the Spray was soon off Thatcher's Island lights. Thence shaping her
course east, by compass, to go north of Cashes Ledge and the Amen Rocks, I
sat and considered the matter all over again, and asked myself once more
whether it were best to sail beyond the ledge and rocks at all.

I had only said that I would sail round the world in the Spray , "dangers of
the sea excepted," but I must have said it very much in earnest. The "charter-
party" with myself seemed to bind me, and so I sailed on. Toward night I
hauled the sloop to the wind, and baiting a hook, sounded for bottom-fish, in
thirty fathoms of water, on the edge of Cashes Ledge. With fair success I
hauled till dark, landing on deck three cod and two haddocks, one hake, and,
best of all, a small halibut, all plump and spry. This, I thought, would be
the place to take in a good stock of provisions above what I already had; so
I put out a sea-anchor that would hold her head to windward. The current
being southwest, against the wind, I felt quite sure I would find the Spray
still on the bank or near it in the morning. Then "stradding" the cable and
putting my great lantern in the rigging, I lay down, for the first time at
sea alone, not to sleep, but to doze and to dream.

I had read somewhere of a fishing-schooner hooking her anchor into a whale,
and being towed a long way and at great speed. This was exactly what happened
to the Spray - in my dream! I could not shake it off entirely when I awoke
and found that it was the wind blowing and the heavy sea now running that had
disturbed my short rest. A scud was flying across the moon. A storm was
brewing; indeed, it was already stormy. I reefed the sails, then hauled in my
sea-anchor, and setting what canvas the sloop could carry, headed her away
for Monhegan light, which she made before daylight on the morning of the 8th.
The wind being free, I ran on into Round Pond harbor, which is a little port
east from Pemaquid. Here I rested a day, while the wind rattled among the
pine-trees on shore. But the following day was fine enough, and I put to sea,
first writing up my log from Cape Ann, not omitting a full account of my
adventure with the whale.

The Spray , heading east, stretched along the coast among many islands and
over a tranquil sea. At evening of this day, May 10, she came up with a
considerable island, which I shall always think of as the Island of Frogs,
for the Spray was charmed by a million voices. From the Island of Frogs we
made for the Island of Birds, called Gannet Island, and sometimes Gannet
Rock, whereon is a bright, intermittent light, which flashed fitfully across
the Spray's deck as she coasted along under its light and shade. Thence
shaping a course for Briar's Island, I came among vessels the following
afternoon on the western fishing-grounds, and after speaking a fisherman at
anchor, who gave me a wrong course, the Spray sailed directly over the
southwest ledge through the worst tide-race in the Bay of Fundy, and got into
Westport harbor in Nova Scotia, where I had spent eight years of my life as a
lad.

The fisherman may have said "east-southeast," the course I was steering when
I hailed him; but I thought he said "east-northeast," and I accordingly
changed it to that. Before he made up his mind to answer me at all, he
improved the occasion of his own curiosity to know where I was from, and if I
was alone, and if I didn't have "no dorg nor no cat." It was the first time
in all my life at sea that I had heard a hail for information answered by a
question. I think the chap belonged to the Foreign Islands. There was one
thing I was sure of, and that was that he did not belong to Briar's Island,
because he dodged a sea that slopped over the rail, and stopping to brush the
water from his face, lost a fine cod which he was about to ship. My islander
would not have done that. It is known that a Briar Islander, fish or no fish
on his hook, never flinches from a sea. He just tends to his lines and hauls
or "saws." Nay, have I not seen my old friend Deacon W. D - -, a good man of
the island, while listening to a sermon in the little church on the hill,
reach out his hand over the door of his pew and "jig" imaginary squid in the
aisle, to the intense delight of the young people, who did not realize that
to catch good fish one must have good bait, the thing most on the deacon's
mind.

I was delighted to reach Westport. Any port at all would have been delightful
after the terrible thrashing I got in the fierce sou'west rip, and to find
myself among old schoolmates now was charming. It was the 13th of the month,
and 13 is my lucky number - a fact registered long before Dr. Nansen sailed
in search of the north pole with his crew of thirteen. Perhaps he had heard
of my success in taking a most extraordinary ship successfully to Brazil with
that number of crew. The very stones on Briar's Island I was glad to see
again, and I knew them all. The little shop round the corner, which for
thirty-five years I had not seen, was the same, except that it looked a deal
smaller. It wore the same shingles - I was sure of it; for did not I know the
roof where we boys, night after night, hunted for the skin of a black cat, to
be taken on a dark night, to make a plaster for a poor lame man? Lowry the
tailor lived there when boys were boys. In his day he was fond of the gun. He
always carried his powder loose in the tail pocket of his coat. He usually
had in his mouth a short dudeen; but in an evil moment he put the dudeen,
lighted, in the pocket among the powder. Mr. Lowry was an eccentric man.

At Briar's Island I overhauled the Spray once more and tried her seams, but
found that even the test of the sou'west rip had started nothing. Bad weather
and much head wind prevailing outside, I was in no hurry to round Cape Sable.
I made a short excursion with some friends to St. Mary's Bay, an old cruising-
ground, and back to the island. Then I sailed, putting into Yarmouth the
following day on account of fog and head wind. I spent some days pleasantly
enough in Yarmouth, took in some butter for the voyage, also a barrel of
potatoes, filled six barrels of water, and stowed all under deck. At
Yarmouth, too, I got my famous tin clock, the only timepiece I carried on the
whole voyage. The price of it was a dollar and a half, but on account of the
face being smashed the merchant let me have it for a dollar.

CHAPTER III

Good-by to the American coast - Off Sable Island in a fog - In the open sea -
The man in the moon takes an interest in the voyage - The first fit of
loneliness - The Spray encounters La Vaguisa - A bottle of wine from the
Spaniard - A bout of words with the captain of the Java - The steamship
Olympia spoken - Arrival at the Azores.

I now stowed all my goods securely, for the boisterous Atlantic was before
me, and I sent the topmast down, knowing that the Spray would be the
wholesomer with it on deck. Then I gave the lanyards a pull and hitched them
afresh, and saw that the gammon was secure, also that the boat was lashed,
for even in summer one may meet with bad weather in the crossing.

In fact, many weeks of bad weather had prevailed. On July 1, however, after a
rude gale, the wind came out nor'west and clear, propitious for a good run.
On the following day, the head sea having gone down, I sailed from Yarmouth,
and let go my last hold on America. The log of my first day on the Atlantic
in the Spray reads briefly: "9:30 A.M. sailed from Yarmouth. 4:30 P.M. passed
Cape Sable; distance, three cables from the land. The sloop making eight
knots. Fresh breeze N.W." Before the sun went down I was taking my supper of
strawberries and tea in smooth water under the lee of the east-coast land,
along which the Spray was now leisurely skirting.

At noon on July 3 Ironbound Island was abeam. The Spray was again at her
best. A large schooner came out of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, this morning,
steering eastward. The Spray put her hull down astern in five hours. At 6:45
P.M. I was in close under Chebucto Head light, near Halifax harbor. I set my
flag and squared away, taking my departure from George's Island before dark
to sail east of Sable Island.

There are many beacon lights along the coast. Sambro, the Rock of
Lamentations, carries a noble light, which, however, the liner Atlantic , on
the night of her terrible disaster, did not see. I watched light after light
sink astern as I sailed into the unbounded sea, till Sambro, the last of them
all, was below the horizon. The Spray was then alone, and sailing on, she
held her course. July 4, at 6 A.M., I put in double reefs, and at 8:30 A.M.
turned out all reefs. At 9:40 P.M. I raised the sheen only of the light on
the west end of Sable Island, which may also be called the Island of
Tragedies. The fog, which till this moment had held off, now lowered over the
sea like a pall. I was in a world of fog, shut off from the universe. I did
not see any more of the light. By the lead, which I cast often, I found that
a little after midnight I was passing the east point of the island, and
should soon be clear of dangers of land and shoals. The wind was holding
free, though it was from the foggy point, south-southwest. It is said that
within a few years Sable Island has been reduced from forty miles in length
to twenty, and that of three lighthouses built on it since 1880, two have
been washed away and the third will soon be engulfed.

On the evening of July 5 the Spray , after having steered all day over a
lumpy sea, took it into her head to go without the helmsman's aid. I had been
steering southeast by south, but the wind hauling forward a bit, she dropped
into a smooth lane, heading southeast, and making about eight knots, her very
best work. I crowded on sail to cross the track of the liners without loss of
time, and to reach as soon as possible the friendly Gulf Stream. The fog
lifting before night, I was afforded a look at the sun just as it was
touching the sea. I watched it go down and out of sight. Then I turned my
face eastward, and there, apparently at the very end of the bowsprit, was the
smiling full moon rising out of the sea. Neptune himself coming over the bows
could not have startled me more. "Good evening, sir," I cried; "I'm glad to
see you." Many a long talk since then I have had with the man in the moon; he
had my confidence on the voyage.

About midnight the fog shut down again denser than ever before. One could
almost "stand on it." It continued so for a number of days, the wind
increasing to a gale. The waves rose high, but I had a good ship. Still, in
the dismal fog I felt myself drifting into loneliness, an insect on a straw
in the midst of the elements. I lashed the helm, and my vessel held her
course, and while she sailed I slept.

During these days a feeling of awe crept over me. My memory worked with
startling power. The ominous, the insignificant, the great, the small, the
wonderful, the commonplace - all appeared before my mental vision in magical
succession. Pages of my history were recalled which had been so long
forgotten that they seemed to belong to a previous existence. I heard all the
voices of the past laughing, crying, telling what I had heard them tell in
many corners of the earth.

The loneliness of my state wore off when the gale was high and I found much
work to do. When fine weather returned, then came the sense of solitude,
which I could not shake off. I used my voice often, at first giving some
order about the affairs of a ship, for I had been told that from disuse I
should lose my speech. At the meridian altitude of the sun I called aloud,
"Eight bells," after the custom on a ship at sea. Again from my cabin I cried
to an imaginary man at the helm, "How does she head, there?" and again, "Is
she on her course?" But getting no reply, I was reminded the more palpably of
my condition. My voice sounded hollow on the empty air, and I dropped the
practice. However, it was not long before the thought came to me that when I
was a lad I used to sing; why not try that now, where it would disturb no
one? My musical talent had never bred envy in others, but out on the
Atlantic, to realize what it meant, you should have heard me sing. You should
have seen the porpoises leap when I pitched my voice for the waves and the
sea and all that was in it. Old turtles, with large eyes, poked their heads
up out of the sea as I sang "Johnny Boker," and "We'll Pay Darby Doyl for his
Boots," and the like. But the porpoises were, on the whole, vastly more
appreciative than the turtles; they jumped a deal higher. One day when I was
humming a favorite chant, I think it was "Babylon's a-Fallin'," a porpoise
jumped higher than the bowsprit. Had the Spray been going a little faster she
would have scooped him in. The sea-birds sailed around rather shy.

July 10, eight days at sea, the Spray was twelve hundred miles east of Cape
Sable. One hundred and fifty miles a day for so small a vessel must be
considered good sailing. It was the greatest run the Spray ever made before
or since in so few days. On the evening of July 14, in better humor than ever
before, all hands cried, "Sail ho!" The sail was a barkantine, three points
on the weather bow, hull down.

Then came the night. My ship was sailing along now without attention to the
helm. The wind was south; she was heading east. Her sails were trimmed like
the sails of the nautilus. They drew steadily all night. I went frequently on
deck, but found all well. A merry breeze kept on from the south. Early in the
morning of the 15th the Spray was close aboard the stranger, which proved to
be La Vaguisa of Vigo, twenty-three days from Philadelphia, bound for Vigo. A
lookout from his masthead had spied the Spray the evening before. The
captain, when I came near enough, threw a line to me and sent a bottle of
wine across slung by the neck, and very good wine it was. He also sent his
card, which bore the name of Juan Gantes. I think he was a good man, as
Spaniards go. But when I asked him to report me "all well" (the Spray passing
him in a lively manner), he hauled his shoulders much above his head; and
when his mate, who knew of my expedition, told him that I was alone, he
crossed himself and made for his cabin. I did not see him again. By sundown
he was as far astern as he had been ahead the evening before.

There was now less and less monotony. On July 16 the wind was northwest and
clear, the sea smooth, and a large bark, hull down, came in sight on the lee
bow, and at 2:30 P.M. I spoke the stranger. She was the bark Java of Glasgow,
from Peru for Queenstown for orders. Her old captain was bearish, but I met a
bear once in Alaska that looked pleasanter. At least, the bear seemed pleased
to meet me, but this grizzly old man! Well, I suppose my hail disturbed his
siesta, and my little sloop passing his great ship had somewhat the effect on
him that a red rag has upon a bull. I had the advantage over heavy ships, by
long odds, in the light winds of this and the two previous days.

The wind was light; his ship was heavy and foul, making poor headway, while
the Spray , with a great mainsail bellying even to light winds, was just
skipping along as nimbly as one could wish. "How long has it been calm about
here?" roared the captain of the Java , as I came within hail of him. "Dunno,
cap'n," I shouted back as loud as I could bawl. "I haven't been here long."
At this the mate on the forecastle wore a broad grin. "I left Cape Sable
fourteen days ago," I added. (I was now well across toward the Azores.)
"Mate," he roared to his chief officer - "mate, come here and listen to the
Yankee's yarn. Haul down the flag, mate, haul down the flag!" In the best of
humor, after all, the Java surrendered to the Spray.

The acute pain of solitude experienced at first never returned. I had
penetrated a mystery, and, by the way, I had sailed through a fog. I had met
Neptune in his wrath, but he found that I had not treated him with contempt,
and so he suffered me to go on and explore.

In the log for July 18 there is this entry: "Fine weather, wind south-
southwest. Porpoises gamboling all about. The S.S. Olympia passed at 11:30
A.M., long. W. 34 degrees 50'."

"It lacks now three minutes of the half-hour," shouted the captain, as he
gave me the longitude and the time. I admired the businesslike air of the
Olympia ; but I have the feeling still that the captain was just a little too
precise in his reckoning. That may be all well enough, however, where there
is plenty of sea-room. But over-confidence, I believe, was the cause of the
disaster to the liner Atlantic , and many more like her. The captain knew too
well where he was. There were no porpoises at all skipping along with the
Olympia ! Porpoises always prefer sailing-ships. The captain was a young man,
I observed, and had before him, I hope, a good record.

Land ho! On the morning of July 19 a mystic dome like a mountain of silver
stood alone in the sea ahead. Although the land was completely hidden by the
white, glistening haze that shone in the sun like polished silver, I felt
quite sure that it was Flores Island. At half-past four P.M. it was abeam.
The haze in the meantime had disappeared. Flores is one hundred and seventy-
four miles from Fayal, and although it is a high island, it remained many
years undiscovered after the principal group of the islands had been
colonized.

Early on the morning of July 20 I saw Pico looming above the clouds on the
starboard bow. Lower lands burst forth as the sun burned away the morning
fog, and island after island came into view. As I approached nearer,
cultivated fields appeared, "and oh, how green the corn!" Only those who have
seen the Azores from the deck of a vessel realize the beauty of the mid-ocean
picture.

At 4:30 P.M. I cast anchor at Fayal, exactly eighteen days from Cape Sable.
The American consul, in a smart boat, came alongside before the Spray reached
the breakwater, and a young naval officer, who feared for the safety of my
vessel, boarded, and offered his services as pilot. The youngster, I have no
good reason to doubt, could have handled a man-of-war, but the Spray was too
small for the amount of uniform he wore. I could never make out. But I
forgive him.

It was the season for fruit when I arrived at the Azores, and there was soon
more of all kinds of it put on board than I knew what to do with. Islanders
are always the kindest people in the world, and I met none anywhere kinder
than the good hearts of this place. The people of the Azores are not a very
rich community. The burden of taxes is heavy, with scant privileges in
return, the air they breathe being about the only thing that is not taxed.
The mother-country does not even allow them a port of entry for a foreign
mail service. A packet passing never so close with mails for Horta must
deliver them first in Lisbon, ostensibly to be fumigated, but really for the
tariff from the packet. My own letters posted at Horta reached the United
States six days behind my letter from Gibraltar, mailed thirteen days later.

The day after my arrival at Horta was the feast of a great saint. Boats
loaded with people came from other islands to celebrate at Horta, the
capital, or Jerusalem, of the Azores. The deck of the Spray was crowded from
morning till night with men, women, and children. On the day after the feast
a kind-hearted native harnessed a team and drove me a day over the beautiful
roads all about Fayal, "because," said he, in broken English, "when I was in
America and couldn't speak a word of English, I found it hard till I met some
one who seemed to have time to listen to my story, and I promised my good
saint then that if ever a stranger came to my country I would try to make him
happy." Unfortunately, this gentleman brought along an interpreter, that I
might "learn more of the country." The fellow was nearly the death of me,
talking of ships and voyages, and of the boats he had steered, the last thing
in the world I wished to hear. He had sailed out of New Bedford, so he said,
for "that Joe Wing they call 'John.'" My friend and host found hardly a
chance to edge in a word. Before we parted my host dined me with a cheer that
would have gladdened the heart of a prince, but he was quite alone in his
house. "My wife and children all rest there," said he, pointing to the
churchyard across the way. "I moved to this house from far off," he added,
"to be near the spot, where I pray every morning."

I remained four days at Fayal, and that was two days more than I had intended
to stay. It was the kindness of the islanders and their touching simplicity
which detained me. A damsel, as innocent as an angel, came alongside one day,
and said she would embark on the Spray if I would land her at Lisbon. She
could cook flying-fish, she thought, but her forte was dressing bacalhao. Her
brother Antonio, who served as interpreter, hinted that, anyhow, he would
like to make the trip. Antonio's heart went out to one John Wilson, and he
was ready to sail for America by way of the two capes to meet his friend. "Do
you know John Wilson of Boston?" he cried. "I knew a John Wilson," I said,
"but not of Boston." "He had one daughter and one son," said Antonio, by way
of identifying his friend. If this reaches the right John Wilson, I am told
to say that "Antonio of Pico remembers him."

CHAPTER IV

Squally weather in the Azores - High living - Delirious from cheese and plums
- The pilot of the Pinta - At Gibraltar - Compliments exchanged with the
British navy - A picnic on the Morocco shore.

I set sail from Horta early on July 24. The southwest wind at the time was
light, but squalls came up with the sun, and I was glad enough to get reefs
in my sails before I had gone a mile. I had hardly set the mainsail, double-
reefed, when a squall of wind down the mountains struck the sloop with such
violence that I thought her mast would go. However, a quick helm brought her
to the wind. As it was, one of the weather lanyards was carried away and the
other was stranded. My tin basin, caught up by the wind, went flying across a
French school-ship to leeward. It was more or less squally all day, sailing
along under high land; but rounding close under a bluff, I found an
opportunity to mend the lanyards broken in the squall. No sooner had I
lowered my sails when a four-oared boat shot out from some gully in the
rocks, with a customs officer on board, who thought he had come upon a
smuggler. I had some difficulty in making him comprehend the true case.
However, one of his crew, a sailorly chap, who understood how matters were,
while we palavered jumped on board and rove off the new lanyards I had
already prepared, and with a friendly hand helped me "set up the rigging."
This incident gave the turn in my favor. My story was then clear to all. I
have found this the way of the world. Let one be without a friend, and see
what will happen!

Passing the island of Pico, after the rigging was mended, the Spray stretched
across to leeward of the island of St. Michael's, which she was up with early
on the morning of July 26, the wind blowing hard. Later in the day she passed
the Prince of Monaco's fine steam-yacht bound to Fayal, where, on a previous
voyage, the prince had slipped his cables to "escape a reception" which the
padres of the island wished to give him. Why he so dreaded the "ovation" I
could not make out. At Horta they did not know. Since reaching the islands I
had lived most luxuriously on fresh bread, butter, vegetables, and fruits of
all kinds. Plums seemed the most plentiful on the Spray , and these I ate
without stint. I had also a Pico white cheese that General Manning, the
American consul-general, had given me, which I supposed was to be eaten, and
of this I partook with the plums. Alas! by night-time I was doubled up with
cramps. The wind, which was already a smart breeze, was increasing somewhat,
with a heavy sky to the sou'west.

Reefs had been turned out, and I must turn them in again somehow. Between
cramps I got the mainsail down, hauled out the earings as best I could, and
tied away point by point, in the double reef. There being sea-room, I should,
in strict prudence, have made all snug and gone down at once to my cabin. I
am a careful man at sea, but this night, in the coming storm, I swayed up my
sails, which, reefed though they were, were still too much in such heavy
weather; and I saw to it that the sheets were securely belayed. In a word, I
should have laid to, but did not. I gave her the double-reefed mainsail and
whole jib instead, and set her on her course. Then I went below, and threw
myself upon the cabin floor in great pain. How long I lay there I could not
tell, for I became delirious. When I came to, as I thought, from my swoon, I
realized that the sloop was plunging into a heavy sea, and looking out of the
companionway, to my amazement I saw a tall man at the helm. His rigid hand,
grasping the spokes of the wheel, held them as in a vise. One may imagine my
astonishment. His rig was that of a foreign sailor, and the large red cap he
wore was cockbilled over his left ear, and all was set off with shaggy black
whiskers. He would have been taken for a pirate in any part of the world.
While I gazed upon his threatening aspect I forgot the storm, and wondered if
he had come to cut my throat. This he seemed to divine. "Senor," said he,
doffing his cap,

"I have come to do you no harm." And a smile, the faintest in the world, but
still a smile, played on his face, which seemed not unkind when he spoke. "I
have come to do you no harm. I have sailed free," he said, "but was never
worse than a contrabandista. I am one of Columbus's crew," he continued. "I
am the pilot of the Pinta come to aid you. Lie quiet, senor captain," he
added, "and I will guide your ship to-night. You have a calentura , but you
will be all right tomorrow." I thought what a very devil he was to carry
sail. Again, as if he read my mind, he exclaimed: "Yonder is the Pinta ahead;
we must overtake her. Give her sail; give her sail! Vale, vale, muy vale! "
Biting off a large quid of black twist, he said: "You did wrong, captain, to
mix cheese with plums. White cheese is never safe unless you know whence it
comes. Quien sabe , it may have been from leche de Capra and becoming
capricious - "

"Avast, there!" I cried. "I have no mind for moralizing."

I made shift to spread a mattress and lie on that instead of the hard floor,
my eyes all the while fastened on my strange guest, who, remarking again that
I would have "only pains and calentura," chuckled as he chanted a wild song:

High are the waves, fierce, gleaming, High is the tempest roar! High the sea-
bird screaming! High the Azore!

I suppose I was now on the mend, for I was peevish, and complained: "I detest
your jingle. Your Azore should be at roost, and would have been were it a
respectable bird!" I begged he would tie a rope-yarn on the rest of the song,
if there was any more of it. I was still in agony. Great seas were boarding
the Spray , but in my fevered brain I thought they were boats falling on
deck, that careless draymen were throwing from wagons on the pier to which I
imagined the Spray was now moored, and without fenders to breast her off.
"You'll smash your boats!" I called out again and again, as the seas crashed
on the cabin over my head. "You'll smash your boats, but you can't hurt the
Spray. She is strong!" I cried.

I found, when my pains and calentura had gone, that the deck, now as white as
a shark's tooth from seas washing over it, had been swept of everything
movable. To my astonishment, I saw now at broad day that the Spray was still
heading as I had left her, and was going like a racehorse. Columbus himself
could not have held her more exactly on her course. The sloop had made ninety
miles in the night through a rough sea. I felt grateful to the old pilot, but
I marveled some that he had not taken in the jib. The gale was moderating,
and by noon the sun was shining. A meridian altitude and the distance on the
patent log, which I always kept towing, told me that she had made a true
course throughout the twenty-four hours. I was getting much better now, but
was very weak, and did not turn out reefs that day or the night following,
although the wind fell light.

I just put my wet clothes out in the sun when it was shining, and lying down
there myself, fell asleep. Then who should visit me again but my old friend
of the night before, this time, of course, in a dream. "You did well last
night to take my advice," said he, "and if you would, I should like to be
with you often on the voyage, for the love of adventure alone." Finishing
what he had to say, he again doffed his cap and disappeared as mysteriously
as he came, returning, I suppose, to the phantom Pinta. I awoke much
refreshed, and with the feeling that I had been in the presence of a friend
and a seaman of vast experience. I gathered up my clothes, which by this time
were dry, then, by inspiration, I threw overboard all the plums in the vessel.

July 28 was exceptionally fine. The wind from the northwest was light and the
air balmy. I overhauled my wardrobe, and bent on a white shirt against
nearing some coasting-packet with genteel folk on board. I also did some
washing to get the salt out of my clothes. After it all I was hungry, so I
made a fire and very cautiously stewed a dish of pears and set them carefully
aside till I had made a pot of delicious coffee, for both of which I could
afford sugar and cream. But the crowning dish of all was a fish-hash, and
there was enough of it for two. I was in good health again, and my appetite
was simply ravenous. While I was dining I had a large onion over the double
lamp stewing for a luncheon later in the day. High living to-day!

In the afternoon the Spray came upon a large turtle asleep on the sea. He
awoke with my harpoon through his neck, if he awoke at all. I had much
difficulty in landing him on deck, which I finally accomplished by hooking
the throat-halyards to one of his flippers, for he was about as heavy as my
boat. I saw more turtles, and I rigged a burton ready with which to hoist
them in; for I was obliged to lower the mainsail whenever the halyards were
used for such purposes, and it was no small matter to hoist the large sail
again. But the turtle-steak was good. I found no fault with the cook, and it
was the rule of the voyage that the cook found no fault with me. There was
never a ship's crew so well agreed. The bill of fare that evening was turtle-
steak, tea and toast, fried potatoes, stewed onions; with dessert of stewed
pears and cream.

Sometime in the afternoon I passed a barrel-buoy adrift, floating light on
the water. It was painted red, and rigged with a signal-staff about six feet
high. A sudden change in the weather coming on, I got no more turtle or fish
of any sort before reaching port. July 31 a gale sprang up suddenly from the
north, with heavy seas, and I shortened sail. The Spray made only fifty-one
miles on her course that day. August 1 the gale continued, with heavy seas.
Through the night the sloop was reaching, under close-reefed mainsail and
bobbed jib. At 3 P.M. the jib was washed off the bowsprit and blown to rags
and ribbons. I bent the "jumbo" on a stay at the night-heads. As for the jib,
let it go; I saved pieces of it, and, after all, I was in want of pot-rags.

On August 3 the gale broke, and I saw many signs of land. Bad weather having
made itself felt in the galley, I was minded to try my hand at a loaf of
bread, and so rigging a pot of fire on deck by which to bake it, a loaf soon
became an accomplished fact. One great feature about ship's cooking is that
one's appetite on the sea is always good - a fact that I realized when I
cooked for the crew of fishermen in the before-mentioned boyhood days. Dinner
being over, I sat for hours reading the life of Columbus, and as the day wore
on I watched the birds all flying in one direction, and said, "Land lies
there."

Early the next morning, August 4, I discovered Spain. I saw fires on shore,
and knew that the country was inhabited. The Spray continued on her course
till well in with the land, which was that about Trafalgar. Then keeping away
a point, she passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, where she cast anchor at
3 P. M. of the same day, less than twenty-nine days from Cape Sable. At the
finish of this preliminary trip I found myself in excellent health, not
overworked or cramped, but as well as ever in my life, though I was as thin
as a reef-point.

Two Italian barks, which had been close alongside at daylight, I saw long
after I had anchored, passing up the African side of the strait. The Spray
had sailed them both hull down before she reached Tarifa. So far as I know,
the Spray beat everything going across the Atlantic except the steamers.

All was well, but I had forgotten to bring a bill of health from Horta, and
so when the fierce old port doctor came to inspect there was a row. That,
however, was the very thing needed. If you want to get on well with a true
Britisher you must first have a deuce of a row with him. I knew that well
enough, and so I fired away, shot for shot, as best I could. "Well, yes," the
doctor admitted at last, "your crew are healthy enough, no doubt, but who
knows the diseases of your last port?" - a reasonable enough remark. "We
ought to put you in the fort, sir!" he blustered; "but never mind. Free
pratique, sir! Shove off, cockswain!" And that was the last I saw of the port
doctor.

But on the following morning a steam-launch, much longer than the Spray ,
came alongside, - or as much of her as could get alongside, - with
compliments from the senior naval officer, Admiral Bruce, saying there was a
berth for the Spray at the arsenal. This was around at the new mole. I had
anchored at the old mole, among the native craft, where it was rough and
uncomfortable. Of course I was glad to shift, and did so as soon as possible,
thinking of the great company the Spray would be in among battle-ships such
as the Collingwood , Balfleur , and Cormorant , which were at that time
stationed there, and on board all of which I was entertained, later, most
royally.

"'Put it thar!' as the Americans say," was the salute I got from Admiral
Bruce, when I called at the admiralty to thank him for his courtesy of the
berth, and for the use of the steam-launch which towed me into dock. "About
the berth, it is all right if it suits, and we'll tow you out when you are
ready to go. But, say, what repairs do you want? Ahoy the Hebe , can you
spare your sailmaker? The Spray wants a new jib. Construction and repair,
there! will you see to the Spray ?

Later in the day came the hail: " Spray ahoy! Mrs. Bruce would like to come
on board and shake hands with the Spray. Will it be convenient to-day!"
"Very!" I joyfully shouted.

On the following day Sir F. Carrington, at the time governor of Gibraltar,
with other high officers of the garrison, and all the commanders of the
battle-ships, came on board and signed their names in the Spray's log-book.
Again there was a hail, " Spray ahoy!" "Hello!" "Commander Reynolds's
compliments. You are invited on board H.M.S. Collingwood , 'at home' at 4:30
P.M. Not later than 5:30 P.M." I had already hinted at the limited amount of
my wardrobe, and that I could never succeed as a dude. "You are expected,
sir, in a stovepipe hat and a claw-hammer coat!" "Then I can't come." "Dash
it! come in what you have on; that is what we mean." "Aye, aye, sir!" The
Collingwood's cheer was good, and had I worn a silk hat as high as the moon I
could not have had a better time or been made more at home. An Englishman,
even on his great battle-ship, unbends when the stranger passes his gangway,
and when he says "at home" he means it.

That one should like Gibraltar would go without saying. How could one help
loving so hospitable a place? Vegetables twice a week and milk every morning
came from the palatial grounds of the admiralty. " Spray ahoy!" would hail
the admiral. " Spray ahoy!" "Hello!" "To-morrow is your vegetable day, sir."
"Aye, aye, sir!"

I rambled much about the old city, and a gunner piloted me through the
galleries of the rock as far as a stranger is permitted to go. There is no
excavation in the world, for military purposes, at all approaching these of
Gibraltar in conception or execution. Viewing the stupendous works, it became
hard to realize that one was within the Gibraltar of his little old Morse
geography.

Before sailing I was invited on a picnic with the governor, the officers of
the garrison, and the commanders of the war-ships at the station; and a royal
affair it was. Torpedo-boat No. 91, going twenty-two knots, carried our party
to the Morocco shore and back. The day was perfect - too fine, in fact, for
comfort on shore, and so no one landed at Morocco. No. 91 trembled like an
aspen-leaf as she raced through the sea at top speed. Sublieutenant Boucher,
apparently a mere lad, was in command, and handled his ship with the skill of
an older sailor. On the following day I lunched with General Carrington, the
governor, at Line Wall House, which was once the Franciscan convent. In this
interesting edifice are preserved relics of the fourteen sieges which
Gibraltar has seen.

On the next day I supped with the admiral at his residence, the palace, which
was once the convent of the Mercenaries. At each place, and all about, I felt
the friendly grasp of a manly hand, that lent me vital strength to pass the
coming long days at sea. I must confess that the perfect discipline, order,
and cheerfulness at Gibraltar were only a second wonder in the great
stronghold. The vast amount of business going forward caused no more
excitement than the quiet sailing of a well-appointed ship in a smooth sea.
No one spoke above his natural voice, save a boatswain's mate now and then.
The Hon. Horatio J. Sprague, the venerable United States consul at Gibraltar,
honored the Spray with a visit on Sunday, August 24, and was much pleased to
find that our British cousins had been so kind to her.

CHAPTER V

Sailing from Gibraltar with the assistance of her Majesty's tug - The Spray's
course changed from the Suez Canal to Cape Horn - Chased by a Moorish pirate -
A comparison with Columbus - The Canary Islands-The Cape Verde Islands - Sea
life - Arrival at Pernambuco - A bill against the Brazilian government -
Preparing for the stormy weather of the cape.

Monday, August 25, the Spray sailed from Gibraltar, well repaid for whatever
deviation she had made from a direct course to reach the place. A tug
belonging to her Majesty towed the sloop into the steady breeze clear of the
mount, where her sails caught a volant wind, which carried her once more to
the Atlantic, where it rose rapidly to a furious gale. My plan was, in going
down this coast, to haul offshore, well clear of the land, which hereabouts
is the home of pirates; but I had hardly accomplished this when I perceived a
felucca making out of the nearest port, and finally following in the wake of
the Spray.

Now, my course to Gibraltar had been taken with a view to proceed up the
Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal, down the Red Sea, and east about,
instead of a western route, which I finally adopted. By officers of vast
experience in navigating these seas, I was influenced to make the change.
Longshore pirates on both coasts being numerous, I could not afford to make
light of the advice. But here I was, after all, evidently in the midst of
pirates and thieves! I changed my course; the felucca did the same, both
vessels sailing very fast, but the distance growing less and less between us.
The Spray was doing nobly; she was even more than at her best; but, in spite
of all I could do, she would broach now and then. She was carrying too much
sail for safety. I must reef or be dismasted and lose all, pirate or no
pirate. I must reef, even if I had to grapple with him for my life.

I was not long in reefing the mainsail and sweating it up - probably not more
than fifteen minutes; but the felucca had in the meantime so shortened the
distance between us that I now saw the tuft of hair on the heads of the crew,
- by which, it is said, Mohammed will pull the villains up into heaven, - and
they were coming on like the wind. From what I could clearly make out now, I
felt them to be the sons of generations of pirates, and I saw by their
movements that they were now preparing to strike a blow. The exultation on
their faces, however, was changed in an instant to a look of fear and rage.
Their craft, with too much sail on, broached to on the crest of a great wave.
This one great sea changed the aspect of affairs suddenly as the flash of a
gun. Three minutes later the same wave overtook the Spray and shook her in
every timber.

At the same moment the sheet-strop parted, and away went the main-boom,
broken short at the rigging. Impulsively I sprang to the jib-halyards and
down-haul, and instantly downed the jib. The head-sail being off, and the
helm put hard down, the sloop came in the wind with a bound. While shivering
there, but a moment though it was, I got the mainsail down and secured
inboard, broken boom and all. How I got the boom in before the sail was torn
I hardly know; but not a stitch of it was broken. The mainsail being secured,
I hoisted away the jib, and, without looking round, stepped quickly to the
cabin and snatched down my loaded rifle and cartridges at hand; for I made
mental calculations that the pirate would by this time have recovered his
course and be close aboard, and that when I saw him it would be better for me
to be looking at him along the barrel of a gun. The piece was at my shoulder
when I peered into the mist, but there was no pirate within a mile. The wave
and squall that carried away my boom dismasted the felucca outright. I
perceived his thieving crew, some dozen or more of them, struggling to
recover their rigging from the sea. Allah blacken their faces!

I sailed comfortably on under the jib and forestaysail, which I now set. I
fished the boom and furled the sail snug for the night; then hauled the
sloop's head two points offshore to allow for the set of current and heavy
rollers toward the land. This gave me the wind three points on the starboard
quarter and a steady pull in the headsails. By the time I had things in this
order it was dark, and a flying-fish had already fallen on deck. I took him
below for my supper, but found myself too tired to cook, or even to eat a
thing already prepared. I do not remember to have been more tired before or
since in all my life than I was at the finish of that day. Too fatigued to
sleep, I rolled about with the motion of the vessel till near midnight, when
I made shift to dress my fish and prepare a dish of tea. I fully realized
now, if I had not before, that the voyage ahead would call for exertions
ardent and lasting. On August 27 nothing could be seen of the Moor, or his
country either, except two peaks, away in the east through the clear
atmosphere of morning. Soon after the sun rose even these were obscured by
haze, much to my satisfaction.

The wind, for a few days following my escape from the pirates, blew a steady
but moderate gale, and the sea, though agitated into long rollers, was not
uncomfortably rough or dangerous, and while sitting in my cabin I could
hardly realize that any sea was running at all, so easy was the long,
swinging motion of the sloop over the waves. All distracting uneasiness and
excitement being now over, I was once more alone with myself in the
realization that I was on the mighty sea and in the hands of the elements.
But I was happy, and was becoming more and more interested in the voyage.

Columbus, in the Santa Maria , sailing these seas more than four hundred
years before, was not so happy as I, nor so sure of success in what he had
undertaken. His first troubles at sea had already begun. His crew had
managed, by foul play or otherwise, to break the ship's rudder while running
before probably just such a gale as the Spray had passed through; and there
was dissension on the Santa Maria , something that was unknown on the Spray.

After three days of squalls and shifting winds I threw myself down to rest
and sleep, while, with helm lashed, the sloop sailed steadily on her course.

September 1, in the early morning, land-clouds rising ahead told of the
Canary Islands not far away. A change in the weather came next day: storm-
clouds stretched their arms across the sky; from the east, to all
appearances, might come a fierce harmattan, or from the south might come the
fierce hurricane. Every point of the compass threatened a wild storm. My
attention was turned to reefing sails, and no time was to be lost over it,
either, for the sea in a moment was confusion itself, and I was glad to head
the sloop three points or more away from her true course that she might ride
safely over the waves. I was now scudding her for the channel between Africa
and the island of Fuerteventura, the easternmost of the Canary Islands, for
which I was on the lookout. At 2 P.M., the weather becoming suddenly fine,
the island stood in view, already abeam to starboard, and not more than seven
miles off. Fuerteventura is twenty-seven hundred feet high, and in fine
weather is visible many leagues away.

The wind freshened in the night, and the Spray had a fine run through the
channel. By daylight, September 3, she was twenty-five miles clear of all the
islands, when a calm ensued, which was the precursor of another gale of wind
that soon came on, bringing with it dust from the African shore. It howled
dismally while it lasted, and though it was not the season of the harmattan,
the sea in the course of an hour was discolored with a reddish-brown dust.
The air remained thick with flying dust all the afternoon, but the wind,
veering northwest at night, swept it back to land, and afforded the Spray
once more a clear sky. Her mast now bent under a strong, steady pressure, and
her bellying sail swept the sea as she rolled scuppers under, courtesying to
the waves. These rolling waves thrilled me as they tossed my ship, passing
quickly under her keel. This was grand sailing.

September 4, the wind, still fresh, blew from the north-northeast, and the
sea surged along with the sloop. About noon a steamship, a bullock-droger,
from the river Plate hove in sight, steering northeast, and making bad
weather of it. I signaled her, but got no answer. She was plunging into the
head sea and rolling in a most astonishing manner, and from the way she yawed
one might have said that a wild steer was at the helm.

On the morning of September 6 I found three flying-fish on deck, and a fourth
one down the fore-scuttle as close as possible to the frying-pan. It was the
best haul yet, and afforded me a sumptuous breakfast and dinner.

The Spray had now settled down to the tradewinds and to the business of her
voyage. Later in the day another droger hove in sight, rolling as badly as
her predecessor. I threw out no flag to this one, but got the worst of it for
passing under her lee. She was, indeed, a stale one! And the poor cattle, how
they bellowed! The time was when ships passing one another at sea backed
their topsails and had a "gam," and on parting fired guns; but those good old
days have gone. People have hardly time nowadays to speak even on the broad
ocean, where news is news, and as for a salute of guns, they cannot afford
the powder. There are no poetry-enshrined freighters on the sea now; it is a
prosy life when we have no time to bid one another good morning.

My ship, running now in the full swing of the trades, left me days to myself
for rest and recuperation. I employed the time in reading and writing, or in
whatever I found to do about the rigging and the sails to keep them all in
order. The cooking was always done quickly, and was a small matter, as the
bill of fare consisted mostly of flying-fish, hot biscuits and butter,
potatoes, coffee and cream - dishes readily prepared.

On September 10 the Spray passed the island of St. Antonio, the
northwesternmost of the Cape Verdes, close aboard. The landfall was
wonderfully true, considering that no observations for longitude had been
made. The wind, northeast, as the sloop drew by the island, was very squally,
but I reefed her sails snug, and steered broad from the highland of
blustering St. Antonio. Then leaving the Cape Verde Islands out of sight
astern, I found myself once more sailing a lonely sea and in a solitude
supreme all around. When I slept I dreamed that I was alone. This feeling
never left me; but, sleeping or waking, I seemed always to know the position
of the sloop, and I saw my vessel moving across the chart, which became a
picture before me.

One night while I sat in the cabin under this spell, the profound stillness
all about was broken by human voices alongside! I sprang instantly to the
deck, startled beyond my power to tell. Passing close under lee, like an
apparition, was a white bark under full sail. The sailors on board of her
were hauling on ropes to brace the yards, which just cleared the sloop's mast
as she swept by. No one hailed from the white-winged flier, but I heard some
one on board say that he saw lights on the sloop, and that he made her out to
be a fisherman. I sat long on the starlit deck that night, thinking of ships,
and watching the constellations on their voyage.

On the following day, September 13, a large four-masted ship passed some
distance to windward, heading north.

The sloop was now rapidly drawing toward the region of doldrums, and the
force of the trade-winds was lessening. I could see by the ripples that a
counter-current had set in. This I estimated to be about sixteen miles a day.
In the heart of the counter-stream the rate was more than that setting
eastward.

September 14 a lofty three-masted ship, heading north, was seen from the
masthead. Neither this ship nor the one seen yesterday was within signal
distance, yet it was good even to see them. On the following day heavy rain-
clouds rose in the south, obscuring the sun; this was ominous of doldrums. On
the 16th the Spray entered this gloomy region, to battle with squalls and to
be harassed by fitful calms; for this is the state of the elements between
the northeast and the southeast trades, where each wind, struggling in turn
for mastery, expends its force whirling about in all directions. Making this
still more trying to one's nerve and patience, the sea was tossed into
confused cross-lumps and fretted by eddying currents. As if something more
were needed to complete a sailor's discomfort in this state, the rain poured
down in torrents day and night. The Spray struggled and tossed for ten days,
making only three hundred miles on her course in all that time. I didn't say
anything!

On September 23 the fine schooner Nantasket of Boston, from Bear River, for
the river Plate, lumber-laden, and just through the doldrums, came up with
the Spray , and her captain passing a few words, she sailed on. Being much
fouled on the bottom by shell-fish, she drew along with her fishes which had
been following the Spray , which was less provided with that sort of food.
Fishes will always follow a foul ship. A barnacle-grown log adrift has the
same attraction for deep-sea fishes. One of this little school of deserters
was a dolphin that had followed the Spray about a thousand miles, and had
been content to eat scraps of food thrown overboard from my table; for,
having been wounded, it could not dart through the sea to prey on other
fishes. I had become accustomed to seeing the dolphin, which I knew by its
scars, and missed it whenever it took occasional excursions away from the
sloop. One day, after it had been off some hours.

It returned in company with three yellowtails, a sort of cousin to the
dolphin. This little school kept together, except when in danger and when
foraging about the sea. Their lives were often threatened by hungry sharks
that came round the vessel, and more than once they had narrow escapes. Their
mode of escape interested me greatly, and I passed hours watching them. They
would dart away, each in a different direction, so that the wolf of the sea,
the shark, pursuing one, would be led away from the others; then after a
while they would all return and rendezvous under one side or the other of the
sloop. Twice their pursuers were diverted by a tin pan, which I towed astern
of the sloop, and which was mistaken for a bright fish; and while turning, in
the peculiar way that sharks have when about to devour their prey, I shot
them through the head.

Their precarious life seemed to concern the yellowtails very little, if at
all. All living beings, without doubt, are afraid of death. Nevertheless,
some of the species I saw huddle together as though they knew they were
created for the larger fishes, and wished to give the least possible trouble
to their captors. I have seen, on the other hand, whales swimming in a circle
around a school of herrings, and with mighty exertion "bunching" them
together in a whirlpool set in motion by their flukes, and when the small fry
were all whirled nicely together, one or the other of the leviathans, lunging
through the center with open jaws, take in a boat-load or so at a single
mouthful. Off the Cape of Good Hope I saw schools of sardines or other small
fish being treated in this way by great numbers of cavally-fish. There was
not the slightest chance of escape for the sardines, while the cavally
circled round and round, feeding from the edge of the mass.

It was interesting to note how rapidly the small fry disappeared; and though
it was repeated before my eyes over and over, I could hardly perceive the
capture of a single sardine, so dexterously was it done.

Along the equatorial limit of the southeast trade winds the air was heavily
charged with electricity, and there was much thunder and lightning. It was
hereabout I remembered that, a few years before, the American ship Alert was
destroyed by lightning. Her people, by wonderful good fortune, were rescued
on the same day and brought to Pernambuco, where I then met them.

On September 25, in the latitude of 5 degrees N., longitude 26 degrees 30'
W., I spoke the ship North Star of London. The great ship was out forty-eight
days from Norfolk, Virginia, and was bound for Rio, where we met again about
two months later. The Spray was now thirty days from Gibraltar.

The Spray's next companion of the voyage was a swordfish, that swam
alongside, showing its tall fin out of the water, till I made a stir for my
harpoon, when it hauled its black flag down and disappeared. September 30, at
half-past eleven in the morning, the Spray crossed the equator in longitude
29 degrees 30' W. At noon she was two miles south of the line. The southeast
trade-winds, met, rather light, in about 4 degrees N., gave her sails now a
stiff full sending her handsomely over the sea toward the coast of Brazil,
where on October 5, just north of Olinda Point, without further incident, she
made the land, casting anchor in Pernambuco harbor about noon: forty days
from Gibraltar, and all well on board. Did I tire of the voyage in all that
time? Not a bit of it! I was never in better trim in all my life, and was
eager for the more perilous experience of rounding the Horn.

It was not at all strange in a life common to sailors that, having already
crossed the Atlantic twice and being now half-way from Boston to the Horn, I
should find myself still among friends. My determination to sail westward
from Gibraltar not only enabled me to escape the pirates of the Red Sea, but,
in bringing me to Pernambuco, landed me on familiar shores. I had made many
voyages to this and other ports in Brazil. In 1893 I was employed as master
to take the famous Ericsson ship Destroyer from New York to Brazil to go
against the rebel Mello and his party. The Destroyer , by the way, carried a
submarine cannon of enormous length.

In the same expedition went the Nictheroy , the ship purchased by the United
States government during the Spanish war and renamed the Buffalo. The
Destroyer was in many ways the better ship of the two, but the Brazilians in
their curious war sank her themselves at Bahia. With her sank my hope of
recovering wages due me; still, I could but try to recover, for to me it
meant a great deal. But now within two years the whirligig of time had
brought the Mello party into power, and although it was the legal government
which had employed me, the so-called "rebels" felt under less obligation to
me than I could have wished.

During these visits to Brazil I had made the acquaintance of Dr. Perera,
owner and editor of "El Commercio Jornal," and soon after the Spray was
safely moored in Upper Topsail Reach, the doctor, who is a very enthusiastic
yachtsman, came to pay me a visit and to carry me up the waterway of the
lagoon to his country residence. The approach to his mansion by the waterside
was guarded by his armada, a fleet of boats including a Chinese sampan, a
Norwegian pram, and a Cape Ann dory, the last of which he obtained from the
Destroyer. The doctor dined me often on good Brazilian fare, that I might, as
he said, "salle gordo" for the voyage; but he found that even on the best I
fattened slowly.

Fruits and vegetables and all other provisions necessary for the voyage
having been taken in, on the 23d of October I unmoored and made ready for
sea. Here I encountered one of the unforgiving Mello faction in the person of
the collector of customs, who charged the Spray tonnage dues when she
cleared, notwithstanding that she sailed with a yacht license and should have
been exempt from port charges. Our consul reminded the collector of this and
of the fact - without much diplomacy, I thought - that it was I who brought
the Destroyer to Brazil. "Oh, yes," said the bland collector; "we remember it
very well," for it was now in a small way his turn.

Mr. Lungrin, a merchant, to help me out of the trifling difficulty, offered
to freight the Spray with a cargo of gunpowder for Bahia, which would have
put me in funds; and when the insurance companies refused to take the risk on
cargo shipped on a vessel manned by a crew of only one, he offered to ship it
without insurance, taking all the risk himself. This was perhaps paying me a
greater compliment than I deserved. The reason why I did not accept the
business was that in so doing I found that I should vitiate my yacht license
and run into more expense for harbor dues around the world than the freight
would amount to. Instead of all this, another old merchant friend came to my
assistance, advancing the cash direct.

While at Pernambuco I shortened the boom, which had been broken when off the
coast of Morocco, by removing the broken piece, which took about four feet
off the inboard end; I also refitted the jaws. On October 24,1895, a fine day
even as days go in Brazil, the Spray sailed, having had abundant good cheer
and joy.

Making about one hundred miles a day along the coast, I arrived at Rio de
Janeiro November 5, without any event worth mentioning, and about noon cast
anchor near Villaganon, to await the official port visit. On the following
day I bestirred myself to meet the highest lord of the admiralty and the
ministers, to inquire concerning the matter of wages due me from the beloved
Destroyer. The high official I met said: "Captain, so far as we are
concerned, you may have the ship, and if you care to accept her we will send
an officer to show you where she is." I knew well enough where she was at
that moment. The top of her smoke-stack being awash in Bahia.

It was more than likely that she rested on the bottom there. I thanked the
kind officer, but declined his offer.

The Spray , with a number of old shipmasters on board, sailed about the
harbor of Rio the day before she put to sea. As I had decided to give the
Spray a yawl rig for the tempestuous waters of Patagonia, I here placed on
the stern a semicircular brace to support a jigger mast. These old captains
inspected the Spray's rigging, and each one contributed something to her
outfit. Captain Jones, who had acted as my interpreter at Rio, gave her an
anchor, and one of the steamers gave her a cable to match it. She never
dragged Jones's anchor once on the voyage, and the cable not only stood the
strain on a lee shore, but when towed off Cape Horn helped break combing seas
astern that threatened to board her.

To succeed, however, in anything at all, one should go understandingly about
his work and be prepared for every emergency. I see, as I look back over my
own small achievement, a kit of not too elaborate carpenters' tools, a tin
clock, and some carpet-tacks, not a great many, to facilitate the enterprise
as already mentioned in the story. But above all to be taken into account
were some years of schooling, where I studied with diligence Neptune's laws,
and these laws I tried to obey when I sailed overseas; it was worth the
while. And now, without having wearied my friends, I hope, with detailed
scientific accounts, theories, or deductions, I will only say that I have
endeavored to tell just the story of the adventure itself. This, in my own
poor way, having been done, I now moor ship, weather-bitt cables, and leave
the sloop Spray, for the present, safe in port.

One day you will work out why you have been sent this.

THE END

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