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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44413 ***
+
+THE SEA ROVERS
+
+[Illustration: A GLOUCESTER FISHERMAN]
+
+
+
+
+THE SEA ROVERS
+
+_By_ RUFUS ROCKWELL WILSON
+
+Author of "Rambles in Colonial Byways," etc.
+
+_ILLUSTRATED BY MAY FRATZ_
+
+NEW YORK
+B. W. DODGE AND COMPANY
+1906
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1906
+
+BY
+
+B. W. DODGE AND COMPANY
+
+New York
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                               PAGE
+   I. GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK             1
+
+  II. AN OCEAN FLYER'S CREW             28
+
+ III. THE MAN-OF-WARSMAN                61
+
+  IV. SOLDIERS WHO SERVE AFLOAT         94
+
+   V. THE POLICE OF THE COAST          121
+
+  VI. THE OCEAN PILOT                  149
+
+ VII. THE DEEP-SEA DIVER               169
+
+VIII. THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER            198
+
+ IX. LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE           231
+
+  X. WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA         254
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+                                       FACING PAGE
+A GLOUCESTER FISHERMAN--_Frontispiece_
+
+THE CAPTAIN OF AN OCEAN LINER                   42
+
+A MAN-OF-WARSMAN                                76
+
+AN OFFICER IN THE REVENUE CUTTER SERVICE       128
+
+PILOT SIGNALING A VESSEL                       156
+
+A DIVER READY TO DESCEND                       180
+
+A LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER                            214
+
+A LIFE-SAVER ON PATROL                         242
+
+
+
+
+THE SEA ROVERS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK
+
+
+A glorious vision is Gloucester harbor, whether seen under the radiant
+sun of a clear June morning or through the haze and smoke of a mellow
+October afternoon. Gloucester town lies on a range of hills around the
+harbor, and fortunate is the man who chances to see it as the background
+to a stirring marine picture when on a still summer's morning a fleet of
+two or three hundred schooners is putting to sea after a storm,
+spreading their white duck against the blue sky and fanning gently
+hither and thither, singly or in picturesque groups, before the catspaws
+or idly drifting to eastward, stretching in a long line beyond
+Thatcher's Island and catching the fresh breeze that darkens the
+distant offing. Here the green of their graceful hulls, the gilt
+scrollwork on the bows and the canvas on the tall, tapering masts are
+reflected as in a mirror on the calm surface; or beyond they are seen
+heeling over to the first breath of the incoming sea wind that ruffles
+the glinting steel of the sheeny swell, forming as a whole a scene of
+inexhaustible variety and beauty.
+
+Such a spectacle gives the stranger fitting introduction to Gloucester,
+for from earliest times the men of the gray old town have been followers
+of the sea. It was three years after the landing of the Pilgrims at
+Plymouth that the first Englishman settled on Cape Ann, at the place now
+called Gloucester, which took its name from the old English cathedral
+city whence many of its settlers had come. America's Gloucester
+doubtless seems young to the mother town, which is of British origin and
+was built before the Romans crossed from Gaul; but, despite the great
+cathedral in the English town and the importance in the clerical world
+of the prelates and church dignitaries who found livings there, the
+Yankee town was for many years a place of more consequence in the world
+of trade and profit than the English Gloucester has ever been.
+
+Founded as a rendezvous where fishermen could cure their fish and fit
+out for their trips, in the old days Gloucester in Massachusetts had
+fishing and whaling fleets, and her boats not only went out on the Banks
+in search of cod, but to the far limits of the North and South Seas they
+sailed to bring back rich cargoes of whale oil. Her fleets ventured into
+every sea from which profit could be brought, and boys born in the town
+or its neighbors three or four generations agone all looked forward to a
+half dozen cruises as a matter of course, just as the modern boy knows
+that he must go to school and learn to read and write. It was a rough
+school to which the youth of Gloucester and Cape Ann went, but it was a
+good one. They learned there to be brave and manly, and seafaring
+broadened the minds of men who had they stayed at home would have been
+sadly provincial and narrow.
+
+Thus the history of Gloucester centers in the fisheries. The yarns most
+often told at her firesides are of hairbreadth escapes at sea; her
+legends and romances have a flavor of the salt waves about them; her
+rugged granite shore is marked with the scenes of memorable shipwrecks
+and storms; her town records are the records of fleets that have gone
+down on the Banks, of pinks and schooners that have foundered on the
+Georges, of heroes that have toiled for their families and fought the
+grim battle of life with the fogs, the lightning and the swooping
+billows of the sou'wester, and with the ice, the hail and the short,
+savage cross seas and terrible blast of the raging nor'wester, while
+their children have cried for their absent fathers and their wives have
+lain awake through long, dreary nights, burning the light in the window
+and straining their eyes to see through the gloom of the storm the long
+expected vessel and the beloved forms that perhaps have already gone
+down at sea.
+
+The discovery of petroleum struck the Gloucester whaling industry a blow
+from which it has never recovered, but the town's fisheries are still in
+thriving condition. Four hundred fishing vessels of sufficient
+consequence to be registered hail at the present time from Gloucester.
+The number of men employed in these vessels, the majority of which are
+as speedy and well built as pleasure yachts, is upward of 5,000. Many of
+the fishermen are from the British provinces and make excellent skippers
+and sailors, while Sweden, Norway and the Azore Islands contribute a
+large number, who are, as a rule, orderly, capable and industrious. They
+fare well as compared with the fishermen of other days or with men now
+before the mast of the merchant service, and fresh pies, biscuits,
+fowls, eggs and like delicacies are frequently seen in the forecastle of
+a Gloucester banker.
+
+The mackerel fishermen bound for the Georges Banks usually leave
+Gloucester as early as the last of February, but those bound to other
+waters with the cod, halibut and haddock fishermen do not start until
+later. The cod are caught chiefly on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland,
+where the watch lights of the Gloucester men twinkle in the midnight
+gloom in company with those of the French fishers of Miquelon and St.
+Pierre. Mackerel are also caught in the Bay of St. Lawrence, off Cape
+North, Sidney and the Magdalen Islands, where the fishermen often linger
+until late in the fall and are sometimes assailed by heavy gales among
+those inhospitable shores, without sea room, on a lee shore and no safe
+port to run to. The haddock and halibut are oftener caught on Brown's
+Bank and within the waters of New England. There are several modes of
+fitting out for the fisheries, but the one most often followed is for
+the owner of a vessel to charter her to ten or fifteen men on shares, he
+finding the stores and the nets and the men paying for the provisions,
+hooks and lines and for the salt necessary to cure their proportion of
+the fish.
+
+The crew of a banker is usually composed of a dozen to eighteen men,
+including the skipper, or captain, who exercises no direct control over
+the others, but is recognized by them as the principal personage on
+board. The average Gloucester fisherman is a splendid though rough
+specimen of an American. You may know him by his free-and-easy manner
+and his swinging gait. His costume when at work is a red or blue flannel
+shirt of the thickest material, admirably adapted to absorb and exclude
+the chilling fogs in which he passes so much of his time, a heavy
+tarpaulin or sou'wester, generally his own handiwork, pilot-cloth
+trousers and heavy cowhide boots completing his attire. His face
+bespeaks a serious but cheerful and contented spirit, the result of a
+philosophical, half careless dependence upon luck.
+
+Generous and fearless in his address, he is of simple and economical
+habits and, like most men of large stature, almost peculiar in a placid
+good humor which seldom leaves him. Always ready for any fortune, the
+fisherman tries to look upon the bright side of life and draw whatever
+there may be of pleasure from his hazardous calling. But among the
+bankers are occasional roystering, devil-may-care fellows, whose never
+ending practical jokes and offhand manner serve to enliven the little
+vessel and dispel the tedium of the voyage to the Banks.
+
+The Grand Bank extends north and south about six hundred miles and east
+and west some two hundred, lying to the southeast of Newfoundland. Its
+shape cannot be easily defined, but the form denoted by the soundings
+give it somewhat the resemblance of New Holland. To the southward it
+narrows to a point, presenting abrupt edges, which in some places drop
+into almost fathomless water. This, as well as the adjacent banks of St.
+Pierre, Bank Querau and the Flemish Cap, abound with fish of various
+kinds, which at stated seasons adopt this as a shoaling place or grand
+rendezvous. The most numerous of these are the cod, which thrive here so
+amazingly that the unceasing industry of many hundreds of vessels
+through two centuries has in no way diminished their numbers. The
+fishery is not confined to the Banks, but extends to the shores and
+harbors of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton. The fish affect
+sandy bottom. In winter they retire into deep water, but in March and
+April reappear and fatten rapidly from the time of their arrival on the
+Banks.
+
+Fishing begins as soon as the smacks reach the Banks. In other years all
+cod were caught by means of handlines, and some fish are still taken
+that way. The most, however, are now taken by trawls, which were
+introduced about 1860 and were first used by the French. A trawl
+consists of a line some 3,000 feet in length, to which are attached
+short ones about a yard long, on each of which is a hook. The short
+lines are placed about six feet apart, so that each trawl has about 500
+hooks. Attached to each end of the line by a rope is a buoy, sometimes
+only an empty powder keg or a mackerel kit. In the head of the buoy is a
+pole three feet long, upon which is a small flag to attract the
+attention of the owner when in search of it. To each end of the line is
+fastened a small anchor.
+
+The hooks are baited with squid, herring or other small fish, if they
+can be secured. To bait a trawl requires from an hour and a half to two
+hours. When it is ready it is placed in a tub made of a half barrel. The
+long line is coiled up in the center and the bait lies next to the sides
+of the tub. One man uses from two to six trawls, which are usually
+visited in a dory very early each morning and once or twice during the
+day. When one buoy is reached the end of the trawl to which it is
+attached is drawn up, the hooks examined and the fish taken off. By
+means of trawls a man may catch more in a single night than by a week's
+hard work with hand lines.
+
+Each man keeps tally of his fish as he hauls them in to the dory by
+cutting out the tongues--the number of tongues giving the account of the
+fish taken. As soon as the day's catch has been taken aboard the
+schooner the crew divide themselves into throaters, headers, splitters,
+salters and packers, and the operation known as splitting and salting
+begins. The business of the throater is to cut with a sharp pointed
+knife across the throat of the fish to the bone and rip open the bowels.
+He then passes it quickly to the header, who with a sudden wrench pulls
+off the head and tears out the entrails, passing the fish instantly to
+the splitter. At the same time separating the liver, he throws the
+entrails overboard. The splitter with one cut lays the fish open from
+head to tail and with another cut takes out the backbone. After
+separating the sounds, which are placed with the tongues and packed in
+barrels as a great delicacy, the backbone follows the entrails
+overboard. Such is the amazing quickness of the operations of heading
+and splitting that a good workman will often decapitate and take out the
+entrails and backbone of six fish in a minute. After the catch has been
+washed off with buckets of pure water from the ocean the fish are passed
+to the salters and thence to the packers in the hold. The task of the
+salters is a most important one, as the value of the voyage depends
+upon their care and judgment. They take the fish one by one, spread
+them, back uppermost, in layers, distributing a proper quantity of salt
+between each. Packing in bulk, or "kench," as the fishermen term it, is
+intrusted only to the most experienced hands.
+
+When the day's catch has been cared for in the manner just described the
+watch is set and all but two men turn in. These watches are regulated in
+such a manner that every man is on deck his part of the night hours.
+Breakfast is served at 3 o'clock in the morning, and off the men go
+again to their trawls. If it is foggy dinner is announced by the report
+of a ten-pound gun from the schooner. It is then about 10 o'clock. After
+dinner the fishers are away again and back about 4, when the fish which
+have been caught are split and salted as on the previous day. The only
+thing that relieves the monotony on board a Gloucester fishing smack is
+stormy weather or the coming of Sunday. This day is kept holy.
+
+Leaving the Grand Banks, let us cross over to the Georges Banks, where
+in the months of spring and summer we shall find Gloucester hand-liners,
+with crews of from eight to ten men fishing for mackerel. Every man is
+at the rail, as he fishes from the deck of the vessel. The tide runs so
+strong that nine-pound leads are necessary. Attached to each lead is a
+horse, a slingding, or spreader, and a pair of large hooks. Sometimes
+when fishing in thirty fathoms of water the great strength of the tide
+forces the men to pay out from sixty to ninety fathoms of line before
+the lead touches bottom. In front of each man, driven into the rail, is
+a wooden pin. This is termed the soldier, and it has an important duty.
+Every inch of the line is hauled across it. Were it not for these rail
+pins the lines would continually be fouled with one another.
+
+When a smack's crew chance upon a fresh school of mackerel their hooks
+have only to touch the water to be seized and swallowed. No time is lost
+in unhooking, but each fisherman hauls as fast as his hands can move
+until the fish appears in sight, when with one motion he is swung
+quickly over the rail into a barrel or heap and so dexterously that the
+hook disengages itself. When the fish continue plentiful the scene is a
+most exciting one. The long, lithe bodies of the fishermen eagerly
+bending over their work, the quick, nervous twitching at the line,
+followed by the steady strain, the rapid hand-over-hand haul that brings
+the prize to the surface, the easy swing with which he describes a
+circle in the air as the victor slaps him into his barrel and the
+flapping of the captives about deck, mingling with the merry laughter of
+the excited crew, make it a sport to which the efforts of the trout
+angler or the fowler with his double-barreled shotgun are but puny and
+insignificant in comparison.
+
+Time was when the use of the hook and line made mackerel catching the
+very poetry of fishing, but in recent years the purse seine has come
+into general use. Mackerel seining, however, is an interesting process.
+A large seine is two hundred and fifty fathoms in length and about
+fifteen or twenty fathoms deep. The school is sighted from the masthead
+and the direction in which the fish are swimming is noted. A boat is
+manned and sets out to head off the school. Two men in a dory hold one
+end of the purse line which runs through rings at the bottom of the
+seine. A circle is described by the boat, the seine being thrown out at
+the same time. When the boat meets the dory the other end of the line is
+taken into the boat. Then the seines are drawn together, forming a large
+bag. The fish are inside and it is necessary to gather as much of the
+net into the boat as possible. The fish are then in what is termed the
+bunt. This is the strongest part of the seine. The vessel sails up close
+to the boat, picks up the outside corks and the bailing begins, a dip
+net that will hold a barrel being used for this purpose, after which the
+fish are cleaned, salted and stowed in the hold. Vessels have been known
+to take 300 barrels in one haul, but the average catch nowadays is about
+twenty-five barrels.
+
+When the mackerel fleet fished with hand lines the pursuit of this
+industry was exciting in the extreme. Often when massed together in
+great fleets the vessels carried away their mainbooms, bowsprits,
+jibbooms and sails by collision in what was really a hand-to-hand
+encounter and when the maneuver of lee-bowing was the order of the day.
+A fleet of sixty odd sail descry a schooner whose crew are heaving and
+pulling their lines. The glistening scales of the fish sparkle in the
+sunlight. The fleet as one vessel turns quickly on its heel and there is
+a neck-and-neck race for the school. The first that arrives rounds to
+under the lee of the fortunate craft, the crew heaving the toll bait
+with lavish hands.
+
+The new arrival now shakes up into the wind close under the lee bow of
+the fish-catching vessel. The fish forsake the latter and fly at the
+lines of the newcomer. Now comes up the balance of the fleet, and each
+vessel on its arrival performs the same maneuver and lee-bows its
+predecessor. Those to windward, forsaken by the fish, push their way
+through their neighbors, fill away and round to under the bows of those
+to leeward. The hoarse bawling of the skippers to their crews, the
+imprecations of those who have been run down and left disabled, rend the
+air, while the crews, setting and lowering sail and hauling fish, freely
+exchange with each other language not to be found in any current
+religious work. In these latter days, however, seines, as before stated,
+have taken the place of line, and lee-bowing, with its attendant
+excitement and danger, has passed to the limbo of forgotten things.
+
+Fishing smacks bound for the Georges, the Western, or Banks of
+Newfoundland may be gone three or four weeks, bringing their fish to
+market on ice, or they may be absent from four to six months, dressing
+and salting their fish on board. But, be the voyage long or short, it is
+a joyous and moving spectacle to see a schooner come into Gloucester
+from the Banks loaded to the scuppers and packed to the beams with
+codfish. The wharf is lined with eager spectators as she glides up to
+her dock with a leading wind. The foresail comes in and the mainsail is
+lowered and handed by a crew weatherbeaten and clumsily limber in heavy
+Cape Cod seaboots, sou'westers and oiljackets. Then the jib downhaul is
+manned and a number of boys, longing for the day when they can go to the
+Banks, catch the hawsers and make her fast to the pier fore and aft.
+
+Amidst a storm of questions asked and answered on both sides, the crew
+range themselves on board and on shore with one-tined pitchforks and
+proceed to unload with the rapidity and regularity of machinery. The men
+in the hold heave the fish on deck, whence they are tossed to the wharf.
+Another turn of the pitchfork lands them under the knife, their heads
+and tails come off and they are split open in a second and are then
+salted and spread upon flakes to dry. These flakes are frames covered
+with triangular slats and are about seven feet wide and raised three
+feet above the ground. At Gloucester they may be seen not only upon the
+wharves, but also in all vacant places between the houses and even in
+the front dooryards, so that at every turn the smell of codfish regales
+the passerby.
+
+But there is a sadder, sterner side to the life of the Gloucester
+fishermen than which I have been describing. Danger is their constant,
+death their familiar, companion, and each season has its sorrowful story
+of storm, wreck and disaster. Truth to tell, the perils of the trawler
+are even greater than those of the soldier in battle. He is often four
+or five miles from his vessel, when suddenly the thick fog closes in
+upon him and he is lost, perhaps to row for days in hopeless search,
+without food, drink or compass. He may die of exhaustion or perhaps be
+picked up at length by a passing vessel and taken to some distant port.
+More than thirty lives were lost in this way in the summer of 1894.
+Although horns are blown in warning, a whole crew is sometimes sunk in
+an instant by some steamer on its way across the ocean. Of all the men
+lost on the Banks during the last twenty years more than two-thirds have
+been out in dories attending trawls.
+
+Fierce, too, are the storms which sweep the Banks in winter. Then the
+wind is bitter cold, deck and mast and sails are clad in ice, and many a
+crew are never heard of more. The Georges in fair weather is not
+dangerous fishing ground, but in a gale it defies both skill and
+strength. The shallow water is churned into rolling mountain waves which
+almost sweep the ocean bed. At such times the 125-ton fishing vessels,
+which usually anchor close together when fishing, are at the mercy of
+the elements. It is impossible for the anchors to get a firm grip and
+they are sometimes dragged for miles. This, in fact, is the greatest
+danger of the business. Not infrequently in a heavy gale two or three
+vessels will drift together, their cables become tangled until they are
+unmanageable and in short order vessels and crew will be engulfed. Some
+years ago thirty schooners, with 150 sailors aboard, were lost in this
+manner in a single gale on the Georges.
+
+Since 1830 nearly 700 fishing vessels sailing from Gloucester have been
+lost and upward of 2,700 men have perished. The winter of 1882 was one
+long to be remembered in Gloucester, for in less than two months more
+than a hundred fishermen were lost on the Banks. One of these was Angus
+McCloud, than whom no braver man ever found a grave at the ocean's
+bottom. Three years before he had been on the Banks in the same vessel
+with his brothers, Malcolm and John McCloud. Among their shipmates were
+the McDonalds--William, Donald, John and Neal. Their vessel was in the
+gale of 1879 on the Banks--a gale the like of which had rarely before
+been experienced by the fleet. Thrown over on its beam ends, the little
+bark still held to its anchor and finally rode out the gale with her
+crew lashed in the rigging. Nearby was another vessel in the same
+position, and others were being tossed about to windward and to leeward.
+Two poor fellows, washed from one of the former, were swept between the
+two vessels that had been knocked down and were not one hundred feet
+from either. The crews of these vessels, clinging to the icy rigging,
+looked anxiously from one to another to see if any one was bold enough
+to attempt a rescue. Angus McCloud cast off the lashings which bound
+him, seized a lanyard, made it fast about his waist and stood for a
+moment poised on the shroud lashings. Then he sprang boldly into an
+advancing wave and was carried toward one of the struggling men. Soon he
+had him by his oilskin coat and soon the crew were hauling them in.
+Angus assisted in the rescue of another comrade before the gale was
+spent and his vessel righted.
+
+Time and again other members of the Gloucester fishing fleet have proved
+themselves worthy comrades of Angus McCloud. Several years ago Captain
+Mark Lane, now dead, but then skipper of the schooner Edwin, while
+homeward bound from the Banks discovered two shipwrecked men on a
+half-submerged rock near the Fox Islands, on the Maine coast. It was
+midwinter and a heavy gale was blowing, but Captain Lane put his wheel
+hard down, brought his vessel up into the wind, hove to under a
+close-reefed foresail and told his men they must rescue the sailors on
+the rock. It was a perilous undertaking and, as there appeared to be no
+chance of a boat living in the sea then running, the crew protested.
+"Then I'll go myself," said the skipper. "Stand by, there, lads, to
+lower away a boat from the davits!" But the crew relented when they saw
+that their captain was determined and two stout fellows drove a dory
+over the huge waves to the rock. The men were saved, and a certificate
+of the Humane Society of Massachusetts, still treasured by Captain
+Lane's family, attests that a careful examination into his conduct had
+proved him worthy the recognition of that admirable body.
+
+The experience of the Gloucester fishermen in the winter of 1882 was by
+no means an unusual one. In the last twenty years over a thousand of
+them have laid their bones on the drifting sands of the fishing banks.
+During a hurricane in 1876 on the Banks almost an entire fleet was
+disabled or lost and 200 men were drowned. The wind, which had been
+blowing a gale from the southeast, veered suddenly to west-northwest.
+Skipper Collins of the schooner Howard, one of the vessels that escaped,
+had a remarkable experience. His vessel was "hawsed" up by the current,
+which set strongly to the southward and nearly at right angles to the
+hurricane. He had just time to tie up the clew of his riding sail--a
+sort of storm trysail--and lash the bottom hoops together, thus making a
+"bag reef," when the hurricane burst with terrific force upon the little
+vessel. A heavy sea boarded the schooner and carried off one of the
+sailors. Later on, while standing on the bit head of the fife rail and
+grasping the riding-sail halyards ready to let it run if necessary, a
+ball of lightning burst between the masts and knocked the captain
+insensible to the deck, whence he was dragged below by his crew. The
+lightning severely burned his right arm and leg and disappeared through
+his boots.
+
+During the same storm the schooner Burnham was struck so suddenly and
+with such violence by a sea as to turn her bottom up and throw her
+skipper, James Nickerson, and his crew, who were below, upon the
+ceiling, where they lay sprawling for a moment until the vessel righted
+herself. There was one man on deck when she was struck, Hector McIsaac.
+He saw the wave coming and leapt into the shrouds. With his legs locked
+in the ratlines he went down into the foaming sea, and when the crew
+came on deck there was Hector McIsaac still clinging to the shrouds.
+Captain Nickerson was subsequently lost in a dory from the Bellerophon
+on the Banks, and Hector McIsaac went down in the Nathaniel Webster in
+1881, together with his brother.
+
+Everybody who lives in Gloucester is interested in the fishing industry,
+and so it falls out that the city's life is about equally made up of
+intervals of joy and sorrow. When summer opens the general tone of
+public feeling is bright and hopeful, but at the end of the season, as
+the fishers come in, some with flags at half-mast, others bearing
+fateful news, the whole town is depressed. All the residents show a
+concern in the sailors who are lost and in the welfare of their
+families. Even citizens of fortune who suffer no personal bereavement
+have been brought closely into touch with the poor fishing families
+through repeated tragedies at sea. The scenes in the fishing quarters
+during the late fall and winter months when news of death is brought by
+almost every returning boat are most pathetic. Sometimes the news comes
+with a shock, at others wives and children wait for weeks in anxiety and
+never know the details of the fate of their loved ones.
+
+The immediate wants of the families of lost sailors are looked after by
+the Gloucester Relief Association. Almost everybody in the town
+subscribes to this, rich and poor alike, as well as the sailors living
+along the shore and in Nova Scotia, all of whom sail in the Gloucester
+vessels. When there is a disaster the nearest relatives of the men lost
+receive a sum proportionate to the amount which the subscribers have
+paid into the association. In addition, voluntary subscriptions are made
+by churches and societies in Gloucester and Boston once a year and
+distributed at the time of the annual memorial service in February.
+
+This service held in the city hall of Gloucester is unique in its way.
+Everybody in the city takes an interest in it and, with shops closed and
+business suspended, the day is one of general mourning. But neither
+death nor its solemn reminders can rob the boy born and bred in
+Gloucester of hunger for the time when he, too, may hazard life and
+fortune on the distant fishing grounds; and gray Mother Ocean, kindly
+and cruel by turns, claims him for her own, singing to-day of his
+hardihood and to-morrow--chanting his requiem.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+AN OCEAN FLYER'S CREW
+
+
+Work on an ocean steamship never ends, for no sooner does she reach her
+moorings in New York, Liverpool or Hamburg than preparations begin for
+the next voyage. Her decks are holystoned, sprinkled with sand and made
+beautifully clean; the outside of her hull, from deck to water line, is
+repainted and, if it be the end of a round trip or voyage, all the
+exterior paint work receives a new coat, while her sanitary and plumbing
+arrangements, her smokestacks, woodwork, spars and rigging are all
+carefully examined and overhauled. All this is done by the sailors under
+the direction of the boatswain, who reports each day to the officer on
+duty and receives instruction as to the work to be performed.
+
+Meanwhile an overhauling equally minute and thorough is going on in the
+engineer's department, which includes not only the engines and boilers,
+but also the electric-lighting plant of the ship. The work of this
+department, however, is so arduous while at sea that officers and men
+receive liberty for the entire time the ship remains in port, their
+places being taken by a special shore force which remains aboard until
+sailing day. One boiler is left untouched to supply power for the
+engines that work the electric and refrigerating apparatus, the pumps
+and the machinery used in shipping cargo, but all the others as soon as
+they have cooled are entered, examined and, if need be, repaired. Each
+tube, combustion chamber and furnace receives careful attention;
+cylinders, pistons, crankpins and crossheads are gone over one by one,
+while the engines are generally overhauled and all the arrangements of
+the fireroom inspected. Nor is the steward's department less busy while
+in port. All the bed and table linen used during the voyage, many
+thousands of pieces, is collected and sent to the company's laundry,
+after which all the staterooms are cleaned and put in order and the
+fresh supply of linen made ready for the coming voyage.
+
+During a steamship's stay in port the three chief divisions, sailing,
+engineer's and steward's, are under the jurisdiction of shore officials
+whose officers are on the deck. The sailing department is responsible to
+the marine superintendent, the engineer's to the superintending engineer
+and the steward's to the port steward. Thus the vessel while in port has
+no direct communication with the company's office, the dock
+superintendents acting as intermediaries. When stores are sent to the
+ship they are addressed to the department for which they are intended.
+The port steward controls the direct purchasing of provisions and is
+supposed to buy in the cheapest and best market. The marine
+superintendent and superintending engineer furnish the other materials
+required. Should provisions be found unsatisfactory when received the
+chief steward sends them back, and in such action is always upheld by
+the port steward. The cargo is in charge of the sailing department and
+is received and stowed under the direction of a boss stevedore selected
+by the dock superintendent.
+
+Even the fleetest ocean steamships carry considerable cargoes, and to
+those unfamiliar with it the process of loading a vessel is a sight full
+of interest. On the wharf assorted merchandise by the carload is being
+lifted from vans and piled near the ship, and teams by the score are
+adding their quota to the immense mass, while on the water side lighters
+laden with more merchandise are either fastened to the vessel's side or
+anchored close at hand waiting to hoist their contents aboard. Engines
+are puffing, ropes are tugging and derricks lifting heavy freight of
+every kind to the ship's deck, the orders of the stevedore and the
+answers of his men mingling with the general din. Large vessels have
+four or five holds and much skill is required to properly stow the cargo
+in them, grain, from its compact and dead weight, being mostly reserved
+for the center of the vessel, while cured provisions are packed as far
+forward and aft as possible for their better preservation from the heat
+of the ship's fires. In many vessels carrying passengers as well as
+freight the heaviest weight is stowed in the lowest hold; this is to
+steady the ship and is called in the argot of the stevedore "stiffening"
+the ship. It requires about 1,500 tons to "stiffen" an ocean steamship
+of the largest size, and when this is done the hold is battened down and
+work begun on the next.
+
+An important feature in the loading of a steamship is her coal. It is
+customary to take as high as 200 tons of a surplus over the actual needs
+of the voyage, and the bunkers of the vessel are in charge of a special
+gang of men. Some vessels load their coal over all, but a majority
+receive it through openings at the sides. Large V-shaped pockets,
+running direct to the bunkers, are let down on each side and around them
+are built stagings on which a couple of men are stationed to dump the
+coal from huge buckets hoisted by engines from lighters. On the wharf
+side the coal is wheeled in barrows up a shelving gangway and turned
+into the bunkers direct. To load a great vessel requires the services
+for several days of 125 men, including a boss stevedore and a couple of
+foremen and with all the appliances of steam and gearing to assist their
+operations. The force is divided into half a dozen or more gangs, each
+having its head, who is in communication with the boss stevedore. As the
+work is intermittent the men are paid by the hour, and there is a keeper
+who does nothing else but take down the time each one is employed.
+Certain gangs of longshoremen stick to certain lines, and many of them
+have worked nearly all their lives for the same company. When the
+loading of a ship is completed a detailed inspection of cargo is made by
+one of the officers, and for this reason the boss stevedore is always
+careful to prevent slovenly methods on the part of his men, being aware
+that in the end he will be the one held responsible for haste or error.
+
+While the cargo is being received and loaded stores for the coming
+voyage are also being taken aboard. The supplies for the physical
+comfort and necessities of 1,500 persons on a ship can be measured only
+by the ton, 30,000 pounds of beef, for instance, being often used on a
+single voyage. About 150 tons of water are required for cooking and
+drinking, an additional fifty tons being made daily on board by the
+evaporators from sea water and used for cleaning purposes. When it comes
+to food and drink the ingenuity of the port and ship's stewards is put
+fairly to the test. A day or two before the ship leaves port the number
+of passengers who will probably sail on it is figured up and the ship's
+steward makes up and hands to the port steward a tabulated list of the
+supplies needed for the trip, nearly 1,000 articles being named in the
+requisition, which includes food and drink in every conceivable form.
+The port steward sends his orders to the firms that supply the line and
+arranges for the delivery of the goods at certain hours, care being
+taken that they shall arrive when the pier is not blocked with wagons
+unloading freight. The meats come at a certain hour, the groceries at
+another and the spices and so on at another, everything being weighed on
+scales at the pier and counted as it goes on board.
+
+The variety of the food supplies required for one of these huge floating
+hotels is bewildering. For example, no less than fifteen kinds of cheese
+are used, while fish in fully a hundred grades and forms is stowed away.
+In the list of fruits, fresh, dried and canned, there are at least 125
+varieties, and the same is true of vegetables. The list of supplies,
+moreover, must be scanned by the steward again and again, for it will
+not do to overlook a single article that may be needed. Here is part of
+what is required in the way of supplies when a ship like the Carmania is
+crowded: 25,000 to 30,000 pounds of beef, 5,000 pounds of mutton, 2,600
+pounds of veal, pork and corned beef; 8,000 pounds of sausage, tripe,
+calves' head, calves' feet, sweetbreads and kidneys; 2,000 pounds of
+fresh fish, 10,000 clams and oysters, 250 tins of preserved fruit, 200
+tins of jam and marmalade, 100 large bottles of pickles and sauces, 500
+pounds of coffee, 250 pounds of tea, 250 pounds of potted fish, 300
+fresh lobsters, 3,000 pounds of moist sugar, 600 pounds of lump sugar,
+500 quarts of ice cream, 3,000 pounds of butter of various grades, 16
+tons of potatoes, 5 tons of other vegetables, 15,000 eggs, 1,000
+chickens and ducks, and 2,000 birds of different kinds. Lard by the ton
+is used and often as many as 140 barrels of flour are consumed.
+
+The departure of an ocean liner from port is a critical moment for each
+member of the ship's company. All leaves of absence expire twenty-four
+hours before the time for sailing, and this precaution makes it certain
+that every man shall be at his post. At 8 o'clock on the morning of
+leaving the sea-watches are formally set. The lower fires in the
+many-lunged furnaces have been started at 10 o'clock on the previous
+night; six hours later the top fires are lighted, and at 6 A. M. the
+operation of getting up steam begins, it being always necessary to have
+a full pressure of steam at least one hour before sailing time. As the
+moment of departure draws nearer, an air of suppressed excitement
+pervades the waiting throng, but there is no confusion among those
+charged with the ship's conduct and safety. Each officer is at his post,
+and knows his duty. The chief officer is stationed on the forward deck
+in full view of the captain on the bridge, where the latter with a wave
+of his hand indicates just what he wants done. The senior and junior
+second officers are on the after deck; the extra second with the captain
+on the bridge, and the third and fourth officers at the forward and
+after gangways.
+
+Meanwhile, as the minutes wax and wane, winches chatter noisily;
+windlasses clink musically; capstans rattle with slacking cables; and
+the shrill chanty songs of the docking gang working the warps, answer
+the cheery "Yo-heave-oho" of the sailors on the deck. On the bridge with
+the silent yet impatient captain lingers a representative of the
+company. By and by, after the final instructions have been given, this
+person departs, and as he goes over the side the captain, saluting him
+with a wave of the hand, gives a quiet order to the first officer. The
+wheel is shifted, the capstan reels noisily, and link by link the chain
+comes home. At last, after a vicious tug or two on the cable, the ground
+is broken, and, dripping with cleansing water from the hose, the anchor,
+ring and stock, appears above the foam-streams rippling at the bow. When
+the catfall is hooked, the ship swings easily around the jutting pier,
+the engines increase their speed, the ensign dips in answer to salutes,
+and a long blast from the whistle claims the right of the channel.
+Slowly and carefully she picks her way through the shipping that crowds
+the harbor, drops her pilot and heads for the open. The voyage has
+begun.
+
+With the dropping of the pilot, sea routine is promptly taken up, and
+thereafter on the shoulders of the commander rests the preservation of
+the ship and the safety of the passengers and crew. Every captain of an
+Atlantic liner embodies in his person a shining example of the law of
+the survival of the fittest, for there is no short cut to the bridge,
+and none but a master seaman ever reaches it. The man who would be
+captain cannot crawl through the cabin window. He must fight his way
+over the bows, and struggle out of the ruck and smother of the
+forecastle, by sturdy buffeting and hard knocks, by the persistent
+edging of stout shoulders backed by a strong heart and an active brain.
+There is probably not a commander of an ocean liner who has not been
+around the world as a common sailor, a mate, and finally a master of a
+ship. In fact, it would be difficult if not impossible to get the
+command of a transatlantic ship without having first been the captain of
+a large sailing vessel. Some of the companies like the Cunard, have a
+rule requiring that a candidate for a captaincy shall have served as a
+captain somewhere; and only a few years ago a sailor on one of the
+largest steamships plying between New York and Liverpool, who had
+climbed from the bottom to the high rank of first officer, left the
+company with which he had made his progress solely that he might take a
+place as captain on a smaller and less important vessel. If he succeeds
+in his new berth--and his old employers will watch his course--it is
+more than likely that he will be called back in a few years and have a
+command given him.
+
+It is the man who knows his business who makes his way to the bridge. No
+matter how gruff or unpopular he may be, or what are any of his personal
+peculiarities, if he understands his business and knows how to get
+smoothly over the sea, he is pretty sure of promotion. A captain,
+however, does not obtain on shipboard all the education which makes him
+capable of commanding a Lucania or a Paris. There must be much study of
+books as well. He must know something of the art of shipbuilding, of
+engineering; he must be familiar with the science of meteorology; he
+must be a master of the moods of the ocean, the currents and lanes as
+discovery has set them forth; he must have the mathematics of navigation
+completely under control, and he must have a general knowledge of the
+politics and laws of the high seas. Most important of all, he must be a
+man of courage and good judgment, for he must govern his crew more
+wisely, shrewdly and sternly than a general controls his army, and be
+prepared to withstand the attacks of nature's forces with as much skill
+and alertness as the leader of an army must show against a surrounding
+enemy. His responsibility never ends, not even when he is asleep.
+Sometimes the dangers which beset him forbid any attempt at sleep, and
+hour after hour the captain must stand upon his high bridge, exposed to
+all manner of storms. Often does a commander come into port from a
+perilous voyage, during which for two days and nights he has not left
+his bridge, except four or five times, and then only for a few minutes
+at a time.
+
+There was a time when the captain was a prominent social figure on all
+ocean steamships, but this is no longer the case. He may be seen at his
+table in the saloon, when the weather is fine, or may be met on deck
+occasionally when he is looking over the ship, but at other times he is
+generally out of sight, except when he may appear on the bridge. The
+chief officer is seen most of all by the passengers. His principal duty
+is to look after the daily work of the crew, and he is about the deck
+constantly when not inspecting various parts of the ship. He takes an
+observation on the bridge with the other officers every day at twenty
+minutes before noon, but with that exception is seldom seen there. The
+other officers are in sight only when one looks up at the bridge.
+Indeed, on some of the newer ships they sleep and mess in quarters of
+their own on the shade deck, and, thus are rarely if ever brought in
+contact with the passengers.
+
+[Illustration: THE CAPTAIN OF AN OCEAN LINER]
+
+On all the largest steamships there are besides a captain and chief
+officer, three second officers, one third and one fourth officer. The
+second officers are known as senior second, junior second and extra
+second, and each, like the chief officer, is a duly qualified master,
+capable of taking the ship around the world if need be. The general duty
+of the second officer is the navigation of the ship under the captain's
+directions. Each of these officers stands a four hours' watch on the
+bridge, and each during his tour of duty has, as the captain's
+representative, direct charge of the ship. The third and fourth officers
+stand a watch of six hours, alternating with each other, and, there are,
+therefore, always a second and third or fourth officer on watch at the
+same time. Although in rough weather it is work that tests the strength
+and tries the nerves of the strongest man, no officer can leave the
+bridge while on watch, and should he violate this rule, he would be
+dismissed at once. In addition to his watch the third officer has charge
+of all the flags and signals by night and day, and he also keeps the
+compass book, while the fourth officer, besides his work on the bridge,
+has charge of the condition of the boats.
+
+Observations are taken every two hours, as on an ocean greyhound,
+rushing over the course between America and Europe at the rate of twenty
+miles an hour, it is of the first importance that the ship's position
+should be known at all times. Fog may come down at any moment, and
+observations not to be obtainable for several hours. The positions of
+more than one hundred stars are known, and by observing any of these the
+ship's whereabouts can be ascertained in a few minutes. Of course, the
+"road" becomes more or less familiar to a man who crosses the ocean
+along the same route year after year, yet this familiarity never breeds
+contempt or carelessness, for no man knows all the influences that
+affect the currents of the ocean, and while you will find the current in
+a given place the same forty times in succession, on the forty-first
+trip it may be entirely changed. Now and then a big storm that has ended
+four or five hours before a liner passes a certain point may give the
+surface current a strong set in one direction, and there is no means of
+telling when these influences may have been at work save by taking the
+ship's position at frequent intervals.
+
+The ship's crew stand watch and watch, and in each watch there are three
+quartermasters who have charge of the wheel. Steering in the old days
+before the introduction of steam gear, was an arduous and too often
+perilous duty, but to-day, even in the roughest weather, a lad of twelve
+can easily manage the wheel, which is merely the purchasing end of a
+mechanical system that opens and shuts the valve governing the steam
+admitted to the steering cylinders. First-class ships number from twelve
+to fifteen men in each watch. A certain number of these must be able
+seamen, and none are allowed many idle moments. In the middle watches
+the decks are scrubbed; in the morning watches the paint work is
+overhauled and cleaned; and finally, when the weather permits, the brass
+work is polished until it is made as radiant as the midday sun. This
+scrubbing, burnishing and cleansing runs through every department, and
+in no perfunctory way, for each day the ship is inspected thoroughly,
+and upon the result hangs the possible promotion of the subordinates.
+
+Once in every twenty-four hours the captain receives a written report
+from the first officer, the chief engineer and the chief steward, and at
+eleven o'clock in the forenoon of each day, accompanied by the doctor,
+he inspects all parts of the ship. Let us follow him, if he is gracious
+enough to give permission, in this daily visit to the underground realm
+ruled over by the chief engineer and steward. In the fleetest of the
+liners the engineer force numbers nearly two hundred men, divided, as a
+rule, into three crews, with a double allowance of officers for duty. An
+engineer keeps watch in each fire-room, and two are stationed on each
+engine-room platform. Watches depend upon the weather. In most cases,
+the force, officers and men, serve four out of twelve hours, but in
+foggy or stormy weather officers stand at the throttles with peremptory
+orders to do no other work. In relieving each other great care is taken;
+those going on the platforms feeling the warmth of the bearings,
+examining the condition of the pins and shafting, testing the valves,
+locating the position of the throttle, counting the revolutions, and by
+every technical trial satisfying themselves before assuming charge that
+all is right.
+
+Distressing at all times is the lot of the poor fellows who man the
+stoke hole. On the Fürst Bismarck, for instance, there are twenty-four
+furnaces, manned by thirty-six brawny and half-naked stokers. Suddenly
+from somewhere in the darkness comes three shrill calls upon a whistle,
+and instantly each furnace door flies open, and out dart hungry tongues
+of fire. With averted heads and steaming bodies, four stokers begin to
+shovel furiously, while two others thrust their slice-bars through each
+door and into the mass of fire and flame. Burying their lances deep in
+the coals, they throw their weights full upon the ends as levers, and
+lift the whole bank of fire several inches. Then they draw out the
+lances, leaving a black hole through the fire into which the draft is
+sucked with an increasing roar. Three times they thrust and withdraw the
+lances, pausing after each charge to plunge their heads in buckets of
+water, and take deep draughts from bottles of red wine. But this cooling
+respite lasts only a moment at best, for their taskmasters watch and
+drive them, and each furnace must do its stint. It is fair, however, to
+say that everything that can be done to lessen the hardships of the
+stoke-hole has been done by the steamship companies. The best quality of
+food is given the stokers, and they are allowed double rations of wine
+and kummel four times a day, practically all they care to drink.
+
+The chief engineer of an ocean steamship is fairly well paid, and he
+deserves to be, for fidelity and merit lead to the engine-room as they
+do to the bridge, and mastery of the former presupposes long years of
+exacting service in subordinate positions. Indeed, many of these
+officers have given their best years to one employ, and, like the hardy
+McAndrews sung by Kipling, deserve much of it in every way. Some of the
+old chiefs are the greatest travelers in the world, so far as miles may
+count. One of whom I was told has traversed in the service of one
+company more than 900,000 shore miles, a distance four times that
+between the earth and the moon; and still higher is the record of
+another, who completed before his retirement 154 round trips, making in
+distance over 1,000,000 statute miles.
+
+The captain in his daily tour scrutinizes every nook and corner of the
+engineer's department, and not less scrupulous is his inspection of the
+domain in which the chief steward holds sway. There is good reason for
+this, since, as far as the comfort of the passengers is concerned, the
+chief steward is the most important person on board a liner, having
+charge of the staterooms, dining-room, storerooms and kitchen. Like the
+engine-room the ship's kitchen, located amidships, is an unknown world
+to most of the passengers. There are, as a matter of fact, three
+kitchens, besides a serving-room. The soups, fish, meats and vegetables
+are prepared and cooked in one room and the bread and pastry in another,
+while the steerage has a kitchen to itself in which all the cooking is
+done by steam. Space being valuable, all these rooms are small, and
+meals for 500 or 1,000 people are cooked in an apartment no larger than
+the kitchen in a low-priced flat, or the pantry in a country house. This
+makes it necessary to keep everything in its place, and it amazes one to
+see how compactly the ship's supplies can be arranged. Nothing is left
+down on shelves or in drawers which may be hung on hooks, and even the
+platters and serving dishes are made to hang, there being a loophole at
+one end for this purpose.
+
+Moreover, what the ship's kitchen loses in size is made up in the number
+of storerooms. Far aft is the main storeroom, which, with its bins
+reaching from floor to ceiling, and its racks overhead, looks like a
+wholesale grocery store.
+
+Close at hand is the wine locker, a long place, lined with narrow
+shelves, which have an upward tilt and are crowded with all sorts and
+kinds of bottled liquors. Down deeper, most often where the stern rolls
+in from the counter, is a big compartment, where are stored barrels of
+flour, potatoes, vinegar and beer, which when needed are hoisted up
+under the direction of the storekeeper. Pretty well forward is the
+refrigerating plant, a zinc-lined chamber, where the choicest sides of
+beef, joints of mutton, chickens and turkeys are kept frozen. All the
+liners, it may be noted in passing, carry a butcher, whose duty it is to
+cut the steaks and chops, and to see that no good material goes to waste
+through unskillful hacking.
+
+Adjoining the kitchen is the serving-room or pantry, frescoed with
+silver coffee-pots and cream-mugs and lined with shelves filled with
+crockery, while the hook-dotted ceiling glitters with an hundred other
+pieces of silverware which swing and scintillate with every motion of
+the ship. The shelves are really wooden pockets, faced with strips of
+wood, which keep the dishes from rolling out, and stowed away there are
+cups and plates by the hundred. Along the side of the room is a big hot
+press, having on its top all manner of indentations for the trenchers,
+saucepans and soup pots which are sent in from the kitchen laden with
+food at mealtime. This is flanked by a line of glistening tea and coffee
+urns, while in a convenient corner is a roomy icebox for the cold meats
+and butter.
+
+To the kitchen and the pantry the storeroom is always sending tribute,
+and they send it to the glass-doored dining-room which, with its long
+tables, its dazzling white cloths, and its glittering array of silver
+and glass, looks at night like an enchanted realm. Seats at table are
+assigned by the steward or the purser, who gives out the seats to those
+who ask for them first. Each seat is numbered and the passenger receives
+a billet with his seat number on it when he goes to his first meal on
+board. Formerly there was a struggle for seats at the captain's table,
+but now the wise and wary ones rally about the purser and the doctor,
+for the commander's duties seldom permit him to go below save at
+dinnertime. Still, wherever his place at table may be fixed, the cabin
+passenger finds that no opportunity is neglected to serve his comfort
+and lighten the tedium of the voyage. On the German lines a band
+accompanies every vessel, and plays through the long first-cabin dinner,
+and again on deck in the evening. All German and American holidays are
+observed on these boats, and when Christmas comes to the travelers at
+sea, they find themselves in the midst of a Fatherland festival, the
+chief feature of which is a brightly adorned and illuminated tree. Nor
+are the steerage passengers forgotten on these occasions, amusements,
+and a special feast being provided for them.
+
+On the boats of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique French festivals
+and American holidays are celebrated by concerts, balls, dinner parties
+and extra luxuries at the regular meals. Entertainment is provided for
+the steerage passengers and a special menu is furnished for the festal
+days. On such occasions, too, the ships are gayly decorated with bunting
+from stem to stern. The "captain's dinner" is another pleasant feature
+of the voyage on a French liner. This takes place just before the end of
+the voyage and is regarded as a token of good will between the
+passengers and the ship's company. Champagne is furnished without extra
+charge at this dinner and toasts and speechmaking follow. On a British
+liner on Sunday morning the captain, in full uniform, supported by his
+officers, reads the Church of England service, to which all are invited,
+while American and British holidays are observed in a fitting manner,
+the ship being always "dressed" for the occasion. The boats of the
+British lines have also a concert for the exploitation of the talent on
+board and a parting dinner given an evening or two before arrival in
+port.
+
+Meantime how do the steerage folk get on when voyaging over the western
+ocean? Here there is another and different story to tell. In a ship like
+the Britannic of the White Star line, picture to yourself a barn-like
+apartment some seventy feet long and thirty feet wide, but tapering
+almost to a point at the forward end. It is dimly lighted and badly
+ventilated by means of a shaft, through which the mainmast enters, and
+by portholes which are too near the water ever to be opened except in
+harbor and are well nigh submerged when the vessel lies over or rolls.
+Lined along the three sides of this rude triangle are large skeleton
+frames, each upholding two tiers of coffin-like bunks, one above the
+other, the beds being placed side to side in rows of eight and end to
+end two deep. Thus each of these structures holds thirty-two bunks,
+whose sides and bottoms are of rough boards. A narrow passageway runs
+across ship between the pens, of which there are seven in all, making a
+total of 224 souls who are crowded into these sordid quarters. Picture
+this to yourself and you have before you the men's cabin of the
+steerage of the Britannic. The room being lighted at night by gasoline
+lamps, smoking is forbidden, while all relaxation must be taken on that
+small portion of the lower deck beyond which no steerage passenger is
+allowed to roam, for there is no means of amusement or recreation in the
+cabin.
+
+Still there is a brighter side to the picture. All the companies provide
+ample and wholesome fare for their steerage passengers. No captain ever
+fails to include in his daily tour a personal and painstaking inspection
+of this department and he is always approachable in the event of
+complaints arising on the part of the humblest and poorest traveler. It
+is related of one old-time commander, Captain John Mirehouse, that in
+order to assure himself of the proper quality and preparation of the
+steerage food he invariably had his lunch served from the steerage
+galley at the dinner hour; and he used to declare that his lunches were
+as wholesome and palatable as he could desire. Nor is it to be supposed
+that steerage passengers are all immigrants, for, odd as it may seem,
+there are many world wanderers who cross and recross in the steerage,
+who travel over great parts of the world and who in their class are as
+independent as the men and women lodged in the first cabin. Besides
+these curious characters there are Scottish carpenters and other
+mechanics who come to America for a few months at a time to take
+advantage of higher wages and who return as they came when the Christmas
+holidays draw nigh. Often a liner leaving New York in the early days of
+December carries more than I,000 passengers in the steerage.
+
+Whether you travel in the cabin or the steerage, the closing days of a
+voyage are always sure to be the shortest and the pleasantest ones. The
+routine of marine life ceases to be a burden, and with the disappearance
+of the last lingering cases of sea sickness life on the fleet greyhound
+of the waters becomes a source of joy. Newly found friends and glimpses
+of passing vessels cheer and break the solitude, while the tonic of the
+sea air courses like an elixir in the blood. Young couples flirt
+demurely in shady corners of the deck, whence issue now and again sudden
+bursts of rippling laughter; nor is there lack of jollity in the smoking
+room, whence eddy the flotsam and jetsam of the ship and cards rule the
+hour from early forenoon until the lights are turned out at night. If it
+be summer and the passage a westward one you may count, as a rule, upon
+skirting the Grand Banks without mishap and upon rounding the Georges in
+the same lucky manner. Then, after long and eager waiting, comes the
+happy hour when there is a cry of "Sail, ho," and a few minutes later a
+yawl emerges from the gathering darkness and a bluff, black-garbed pilot
+climbs to the ship's deck, bringing news from the outer world and the
+glad assurance that land and home are just beyond the horizon line.
+
+Soon comes the welcome cry, "There she is, Fire Island light, right over
+the starboard bow." The watcher in the lighthouse telegraphs the
+steamer's arrival to the quarantine station and the ship news office,
+and long before noon the vessel reaches quarantine. Here the health
+officer boards her, and if it is found that she has no case of
+contagious disease on board she is permitted to proceed to her dock,
+which she reaches in about one hour and a half, including the time of
+examination. Meanwhile she has been met down the bay by a revenue cutter
+having a squad of customs officers on board and declarations have been
+made and signed by the cabin passengers as to the contents of their
+trunks, which are searched as soon as the vessel arrives at her dock.
+Here, also, an officer of the Immigration Bureau takes charge of the
+steerage passengers and has folk and baggage conveyed to the Barge
+Office for the examination which will impel their return to the place
+from which they came or end in the granting of permission for them to
+enter the land of mystery and promise.
+
+Within the hour in which the liner reaches her moorings on the New York
+or Jersey shore the last passenger has taken his departure, shore leave
+has been granted to the majority of the ship's company and waiting hands
+have promptly taken in hand the task of making ready for the leviathan's
+next ocean pilgrimage, since, as I said at the outset, one voyage is no
+sooner ended than preparations for another are begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE MAN-OF-WARSMAN
+
+
+It is by no means an easy task to secure admission to the United States
+Navy, and of those who present themselves for enlistment in ordinary
+times about one man in a dozen is accepted. Landsmen furnish a great
+majority of recruits, and of these more come, it is said, from New York
+than any other city in the country. The candidate who presents himself
+on board of any one of the receiving ships constantly in commission for
+enlistment purposes is first put through a rigid oral examination
+designed to prove his mental and moral makeup. If he passes this test
+the recruiting officer turns him over to the examining surgeon, by whom
+the discovery of the slightest physical defect is counted as sufficient
+ground for the candidate's rejection. If, however, he passes the doctor
+he is vaccinated and sent back to the recruiting officer, who swears him
+in for a three years' cruise, after which he is turned over to the
+paymaster's clerk to draw his uniforms and small stores.
+
+A month of preliminary training on the receiving ship follows. Here he
+is put through the well-known "setting-up drill," which is designed to
+give the full use of the muscles and feet and to develop the agility and
+endurance necessary to the performance of ship duty. This exercise is of
+daily occurrence while the recruit is in the early stage of his
+enlistment and is practiced frequently during the entire period of
+service, being part of the drill of every ship's company. The recruit is
+also given practice in what is known as "the boat drill," and when
+opportunity offers in the manning and manipulation of the guns.
+
+At the end of his first month comes the newly enlisted man's assignment
+to a vessel in active cruising service. Here, with a goodly batch of
+other landsmen, he is taken in hand by the master-at-arms, gets a
+ship's number and a mess kit, learns where to stow his clothing and
+hammock, and is part and parcel of the life on a man-of-war.
+
+The recruit's first days on shipboard are apt to put his nerves and
+temper to the test, for the old-timers among the ship's company are sure
+to let pass no opportunity to bedevil and confound him. Calking mat is
+the name given to the piece of matting which the bluejacket spreads upon
+the deck when he wants to take a nap and which protects his uniform from
+being soiled. He buys it himself, but never a landsman went aboard his
+first ship that he was not told to go to the master-at-arms for a
+calking mat. Now, the average master-at-arms on a man-of-war is a man
+who, having been in the navy for half a lifetime, has ceased to find
+amusement in the calking-mat request preferred to him by several
+thousand recruits, and as a consequence the reception the newcomer gets
+when he approaches Jimmy Legs on this matter is liable to be a badly
+mixed affair of boots and language. Again, recruits are often sent to
+the officer of the deck to prefer absurd questions or questions on
+matters in which they have no concern. When one of these recruits walks
+up to the officer of the deck and, after a bow, innocently asks when the
+ship is to sail he is in for a speedy if disgraceful scramble forward.
+Or on his first day aboard a man-of-war the recruit is often told that
+in order to go below to his locker he must first get permission from the
+officer of the deck. "To my locker below, sir, may I go, sir?" he is
+told to say when he goes to the mast to ask for the desired permission.
+If the officer of the deck happens to be in good humor he will turn away
+to preserve his dignity by not smiling, but if his temper is on edge the
+recruit is in for a lesson in directness of language that will make him
+wish he had not thrown over his job ashore. Trials of this sort,
+however, soon have an ending. The average recruit quickly masters the
+marine ropes, and instances are not uncommon of clever landsmen who have
+finished their first three years' cruise as chief petty officers,
+drawing from $50 to $75 a month.
+
+Besides the receiving ships regularly devoted to the enlistment of naval
+recruits on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts American warships are
+constantly shipping men, both in home and foreign ports, to fill gaps in
+crews. In this way many peculiar geniuses, men of really remarkable
+attainments along certain lines, gain admission into the navy as
+enlisted men. At Bangkok a few years ago an American man-of-war shipped
+a German as a messroom attendant. He was a fine-looking man of thirty
+and had little to say to his mates. One morning at sea soon after the
+German's enlistment a knot of officers gathered in the wardroom were
+discussing a difficult point in ordnance. The messroom attendant, who
+was watching out for the officers' needs, ventured to enter into the
+discussion. He did it, however, so quietly and respectfully and at once
+showed such perfect knowledge of the topic in hand that the officers
+found themselves listening to him with much interest. In five minutes
+the German had shown that there was no detail of the armament of the
+world's navies with which he was not familiar and that he was a past
+master in all matters pertaining to modern great guns. His proficiency
+in this respect being reported to the commanding officer, he was made a
+chief gunner's mate and was about to be a gunner when his time expired
+and he went to Germany, where he was employed by the Krupps as an
+ordnance expert. It came out that he had spent his life in the ordnance
+branch of the Krupp works and that he had been compelled to leave
+Germany suddenly on account of some trouble in which he had become
+involved. He had gone to Siam in the hope of getting an opportunity to
+rearrange the Siamese fortifications. Failing in this, and discouraged
+and penniless, he had shipped in the American navy.
+
+"Once a sailor always a sailor" is not strictly true of men-of-warsmen
+of the American navy. Less than one-half of the men who complete one
+enlistment ship for a second three years' cruise, but a majority of the
+men who put in two cruises settle down to a lifelong continuance in the
+service, for when a bluejacket has passed one or two summers in the
+latitude of the North Cape and a couple of winters among the West Indies
+or in the South Pacific he is pretty sure to acquire a dislike for the
+climate of the United States that keeps him in the navy for good and
+all. Moreover, after a few years in the navy a bluejacket becomes
+possessed of the idea that he is really doing nothing aboard ship to
+earn his $16 a month and board.
+
+Herein, however, he unconsciously proves himself a humorist, for the
+routine of life on a man-of-war is in reality a hard and laborious one.
+Reveille is sounded at daybreak, and the men who have not been on watch
+during the night turn out of their hammocks, lash and stow their bedding
+and get early coffee and biscuit. Then clothes are scrubbed, decks
+washed down and dried and the ship's side and boats cleaned, so that
+when the breakfast call is sounded at 7:30 o'clock most of her morning
+toilet has been made.
+
+Breakfast over, the men light their pipes and loll at ease until the
+uniform of the day is announced, whereupon they array themselves in the
+garb prescribed and when the "turn-to" call has been sounded proceed to
+their several tasks. The days and even the hours and minutes of
+men-of-warsmen are allotted to special duties. Every day they are put
+through drill, sometimes with great guns, sometimes with cutlasses,
+sometimes with small boats and in many other ways. Moreover, arms and
+accoutrements have to be cleaned daily, the ordnance freed from rust and
+stain and the brasswork kept polished. While this is going on the bugle
+sounds the sick call and all who feel the need of the surgeon's care
+repair to the sick bay, after which a list of those unfit for service is
+furnished the officer of the deck, so that their duties can be attended
+to by their mates.
+
+The morning is still young when the order comes, "Clear up the decks for
+inspection." Cleaning rags are put away, hands washed, an extra hitch
+given to the trousers, and then the call to quarters is sounded. The
+men go to their stations at the various guns, their officers appear and
+a swift inspection of their appearance is made, after which the several
+divisional officers report to the executive officer. The last named is
+armed with a list of those who are legitimately absent and checks off
+the absentees reported by the division officers. When this task is
+finished the executive reports to the captain, who is standing near and
+who then makes a tour of the ship, inspecting battery and crew.
+Following inspection comes some of the drills already referred to,
+dinner at noon, an hour for its discussion and smoking, and more drills
+during the afternoon, ending with the setting-up drill just before the
+bugle sounds for supper.
+
+After that meal the men are at liberty to do very much as they please
+unless a searchlight or night signal drill happens to be scheduled for
+the evening. With 9 o'clock comes taps and the cry of the
+master-at-arms, "Turn in your hammocks and keep silence"--an order that
+must be obeyed, for on a man-of-war the sleep of the crew when the hour
+comes is a sacred thing and not to be disturbed.
+
+The modern battleship is first of all a fighting machine, and that being
+the chief purpose for which it is created it is natural that the drill
+of "clearing ship for action" is one to which particular attention
+should be given. Following it always is a mimic encounter with an
+imaginary foe. Not the slightest detail in preparation is ever neglected
+and only blood and shrieks and wounds are lacking to make the imaginary
+battle as realistic as an actual one would be.
+
+As soon as the cry of the boatswain's mate echoes from the main deck the
+bugle sounds the "assembly" on the gun and berth decks and the officers
+and men at once hurry to their allotted stations. Quiet is insisted
+upon; there is little confusion, and the swirling tide set in motion by
+the boatswain's call has no conflicting currents. So far as is possible
+each of the squads into which the ship's company is divided is berthed
+and messed in that section of the ship in which its duties will lie in
+the hour of battle. Thus on a battleship like the Virginia a portion of
+the first division improvises as soon as the call is sounded a
+breastwork for sharpshooters, using hammocks and awnings.
+
+Meanwhile others of the same division rig collision mats, unship the
+railing around the forecastle, lower anchor davits in cradles and carry
+below and secure levers and tackles. At the same time other divisions
+lower and unship awning stanchions and railing in wake of the guns,
+close water-tight compartments, rig in and secure danger booms, unship
+ladders and supply fresh water for drinking purposes. Magazines are
+opened and lanterns trimmed, battle bucklers are fitted to air ports,
+and those detailed to attend speaking tubes in the wake of torpedo tubes
+go to their stations and receive and respond to the signals sent out
+from the central station. Nor is the surgeon's division less busy at
+this critical hour; its members convert the wardroom into a temporary
+operating room, remove rugs and curtains and see that the adjoining
+staterooms are made ready for the reception of the wounded. There is an
+enormous amount of work to be done before a ship can be got in
+readiness, but in little more than a half hour after the order is given
+the captain hears from his executive officer the report, "Ship is ready
+for action, sir." The gun crews, stripped to the waist, with their
+knotty muscles standing out in high relief, wait for the order to begin
+the fighting; and when it comes the great guns are elevated, depressed,
+concentrated and put through all the maneuvers possible in an actual
+battle. After this there is a moment's rest, and then, last of all, the
+order is given to repel boarders. The enemy is alongside and swarming
+over the bulwarks. The men in the tops pour down a murderous fire with
+rifles and Maxim and Gatling guns; headed by their officers, the men on
+deck, cutlass in one hand and revolver in the other, slash and hew,
+shoot and hack until the enemy turn tail and flee as fast as their
+imaginary legs can carry them. The ship is saved.
+
+When at sea half of the crew of a man-of-war is always on duty and the
+other half taking a rest. The latter court their ease in many ways. Some
+stretch out on the hard deck and take a nap, others play checkers, spin
+yarns, write letters or read novels. Some are lost in reverie; all of
+them look careless and happy and nearly all of them smoke or chew
+tobacco. Music often claims a group of them at any hour of the day, and
+at night dancing is sometimes indulged in, always with wild delight. A
+stranger who strays into the forecastle observes that a few of its
+inhabitants wear double-breasted coats and linen collars. These are the
+men of rank before the mast and they are known as petty officers. The
+master-at-arms, the machinists and the yeoman are among the chief of
+these, and other petty officers are the boatswain's mates, gunner's
+mates and carpenter's mates. They are, comparatively speaking, high in
+rank above the rest of the crew and are treated accordingly by the
+latter. They have a mess table by themselves, presided over by the
+master-at-arms and adorned by glassware, crockery and napkins. All mess
+tables on a ship are large enough for ten or fifteen men to sit at and
+one of the company is selected by his mates to act as caterer. Meals are
+always well-behaved affairs, particularly at the tables of the petty
+officers, for the sense of rank is as keen before the mast as it is
+abaft among the commissioned officers. Every officer and man on a ship
+is subordinate or superior to somebody else and he cannot forget that
+his official relations even with his bosom companions are among the laws
+of the land. Nor do the exigencies of confined space interfere with this
+sense of rank. A bluejacket may have to dodge around an admiral and give
+orders under his nose, but there is still a gulf between them not to be
+bridged by any man.
+
+In a visit to the forecastle among all the crowd there the youngest
+sailors and the apprentice boys are those that attract one the most.
+Their alert, intelligent faces give one a pleasant idea of the coming
+American man-of-warsman and attest the efficacy of the method employed
+to fit them for their future career. The present naval apprentice system
+of the United States has been in force since 1875. The candidate for an
+apprenticeship must be from fourteen to eighteen years of age, of robust
+frame, intelligent, of sound and healthy constitution and able to read
+and write. The boy who is found to be qualified signs an agreement to
+serve continuously until he is twenty-one years of age and is sent to
+the training station at Coaster's Harbor Island, near Newport, where is
+anchored a receiving ship capable of comfortably accommodating 500
+apprentices. The boys sleep in hammocks, assist in keeping the ship
+clean and in various ways are gradually accustomed to a nautical life.
+The daily routine begins at 5:30, when reveille is sounded and all
+hammocks are lashed and stowed. After an early breakfast the boys wash
+their clothes, scrub decks and bathe, and then for about six hours are
+daily occupied with drills and studies, the course of instruction
+including gunnery, seamanship and English. The hours after supper until
+9 o'clock, when all must be in their hammocks, and Saturday afternoons
+are given up to recreation. Many kinds of games are furnished the boys,
+and they have also free access to a good library.
+
+Each apprentice on leaving Coaster's Harbor Island spends a year on a
+training ship and is then transferred to a regular man-of-war. Here his
+education is still continued, and the end of his enlistment generally
+finds him thoroughly acquainted with a modern ship and her armament and
+fitted to take the billet of a petty officer. Many of the apprentices
+who re-enlist are sent to the Washington Navy Yard for a six months'
+course of instruction in gunnery, a limited number being afterward
+detailed to the Naval War College at Newport for an equal length of time
+to be given a practical knowledge of electricity and torpedoes. They
+then graduate into the service with the rank and pay of seamen-gunners,
+and that the training they have received warrants its cost is proved by
+the assertion of experts that American gunners have not their superior
+in any navy of the world. The making of an American man-of-warsman is a
+process worth while.
+
+[Illustration: A MAN-OF-WARSMAN]
+
+In peaceful times one day is very much like another on an American
+man-of-war, but there are four days of special importance in the
+calendar of the bluejacket serving thereon. These are general muster
+day, general inspection day and Thanksgiving and Christmas days. The
+first-named marks the observance of a ceremony of great importance to
+the participants--the reading of the articles of war or rules which have
+been framed for the government of the navy. Unlike other musters and
+routine drills which take place day after day with the utmost
+regularity, this function is observed not oftener than once a month. On
+most ships the first Sunday of each month is reserved for this purpose,
+but it frequently happens that two or three months elapse between one
+general muster and the next. Shortly before 10 o'clock in the morning of
+the day selected the chief boatswain's mate passes the order through the
+ship of "All hands to muster." At once every soul on the vessel except
+the sick and, if at sea, half a dozen others who cannot be spared from
+the wheel and engine room repairs aft to the quarterdeck, where the
+members of the crew range themselves in long ranks on the port side of
+the deck, facing the officers, who stand in a line on the starboard
+side, where they are placed according to rank, with the senior officer
+aft. All the officers are in full dress, with cocked hat and epaulettes
+and gold lace on coats and trousers, while the men must appear in their
+best, with shoes polished and clothes well brushed.
+
+When the last straggler has taken his place the senior lieutenant,
+raising a white-gloved hand to his cocked hat, salutes the captain and
+informs him that all his officers and men are "up and aft." After this,
+by order of the officer of the deck, silence reigns. At a word from the
+commander the senior lieutenant begins to read the articles of war, and
+as he does so all heads are uncovered. Simple yet eloquent is this
+expression of the faith in which every naval officer must live. "The
+commanders of all fleets, squadrons, naval stations and vessels
+belonging to the navy," runs the wording of the first article, "are
+required to show in themselves a good example of virtue, honor,
+patriotism and subordination." The second article earnestly recommends
+all officers and seamen in the naval service diligently to attend on
+every performance of the worship of Almighty God. Further on is another
+article which informs every listener--and every one of the hundreds
+assembled is an intent listener--that "the punishment of death or such
+other punishment as a court-martial may adjudge may be inflicted on any
+person in the naval service who enters into a mutiny or who disobeys the
+lawful orders of his superior officer or who strikes the flag to an
+enemy or rebel." The same penalty awaits any one who in time of war
+deserts or who sleeps upon his watch, or who when in battle "displays
+cowardice, negligence or disaffection or keeps out of danger to which he
+should expose himself." These offenses are only a few of the many which
+all wearers of the uniform are enjoined not to commit. Some of the
+others are "profane swearing, falsehood, drunkenness, gambling, fraud,
+theft or any other scandalous conduct tending to the destruction of good
+morals;" and it also is forbidden to any one to be guilty of cruelty
+toward any person subject to his orders. Other parts of the articles
+contain similar injunctions to all in the navy to maintain the honor of
+the flag and the integrity of their lives.
+
+As a fructifier of patriotism the importance of this ceremony cannot be
+easily overestimated. Lukewarmness has no place in its presence, and any
+one who witnesses it cannot fail to be impressed by its disclosure of a
+faith that one feels sure could remove mountains. In remote lands it is
+a rite which borrows added seriousness from its foreign surroundings.
+Its words have often echoed against the walls of foreign forts while a
+Sabbath calm has brooded over the latter and robbed them of their
+threatening aspect, and many a time during its performance American
+sailors have been able to look up from their quarter-decks to the
+cottages and fields of some other land where a different creed is held
+and with just as strong a faith as their own. No one can doubt that
+while this ceremony lives the country is stronger and safer than it
+would be without it.
+
+The reading of the articles of war consumes a scant quarter hour. When
+it is finished the order is given and repeated by the boatswain's mate
+for all petty officers to muster in the starboard gangway. They form in
+two long ranks. At the end nearest the quarter-deck stands the
+master-at-arms and then come yeoman, writers, machinists, the
+apothecary, printer, painter, electrician, bandmaster, boatswain's mate,
+gunner's mates, quartermasters, oilers, water tenders and ship's
+corporals. The paymaster or his clerk starts to muster the crew, calling
+out each man's full name, and the latter answers with his rating. When
+the petty officers are all mustered they are allowed to leave and go
+forward--always being cautioned to keep quiet. Then follows a scene
+that reminds one of the early days of the navy--a custom more than a
+century old and borrowed originally from the English. It is called
+"going around the mast." When each man's name is called he answers with
+his rating, removes his cap, walks around the mast to the starboard side
+and goes forward. This is kept up until all seamen, ordinary seamen,
+landsmen, coal heavers, firemen and bandsmen have passed under the
+inspection of the captain, who stands near the mainmast intently
+watching and forming an opinion of each man as he passes before him.
+When all have gone forward the order is given by the executive officer
+to "pipe down," the shrill whistles sound and general muster is over.
+
+General inspection day on a man-of-war usually follows close upon the
+termination of a foreign cruise and involves no end of labor on the part
+of officers and crew. In the early morning of the day appointed the last
+touches are given to the ship's bright metal work, the last rubs to its
+great brown guns. The decks are scrubbed and holystoned, so that the
+keen eye of the executive officer cannot find a spot. The bluejackets
+give a last turn to their hammocks and a last pat to their kits, for not
+a thing will escape the scrutiny of the board of inspection and survey.
+When the members of that body appear they find waiting for them on the
+main deck the whole crew, spick and span, with their kits, long canvas
+bags containing their white and blue clothing done up in neat rolls.
+While a part of the board examines these to see if any of the men have
+failed to roll them properly the other members go below to inspect the
+ship. They visit the wardroom, staterooms and forecastle; examine the
+water-tight compartments, the boilers, engines, bunkers and magazines
+and the wood and metal work, passing over no dark corner in gallery or
+pantry in which may lurk dirt or other signs of neglect.
+
+All this, however, is preliminary to the real labors of the day, for
+when the members of the board of inspection have again assembled on deck
+comes the eagerly expected order, "Clear the ship for action!"
+Instantly the long roll is beaten, the boatswain's whistle sounds, and
+from the bowels of the ship the members of the crew come tumbling out,
+swarming over the deck in what seems the wildest confusion, but is in
+reality perfect order. Every man has certain duties and much drilling
+has taught him how to perform them in the simplest, readiest and easiest
+manner. The whole deck crew is organized into divisions and each
+division has its separate and particular work. One division lashes fast
+the big anchors and makes them as secure as possible. Another takes care
+of the boats. The spare spars are got out and lashed together. The boats
+are lashed into a nest, plugs pulled out so that they will fill with
+water and float with gunwales awash. The nest is lashed to the spars
+that will serve as a drag and a buoy to mark their location, and then
+spars and boats are put over the side and left to drift as they will.
+
+While this is going on other divisions are at work with the rail and
+awning stanchions. Every thing comes down. The pegs are knocked out of
+the davit hinges and the big iron bars are folded over to the deck.
+Everything movable that can be put out of the way is stowed in its
+proper pace swiftly and silently. The battle gratings are brought out
+and fitted over the hatches. Any thing that might be knocked to pieces
+by a shell or shot to splinters by small fire is carried below, and when
+the work is finished not a superfluous bar or beam, not an extra rod,
+box, implement or article of any sort stands on the deck to cumber the
+desperate work of the ship in her life and death struggle.
+
+At the same time the powder magazines are opened and the great guns
+swing around for action, shot and shell piled up about them. The tops
+are manned; every small gun is ready with its crew to hurl a deluge of
+missiles of all shapes and sizes; rifles, pistols and cutlasses are
+served out to the men, and in the space of time it costs to write these
+lines the ship lies at anchor ready to blow an adversary off the face
+of the water or to be blown off herself.
+
+With the ship cleared for action, there is drill at the great guns and
+execution of the order to repel boarders. After this the ship is again
+put in condition and the bugle sounds to quarters. The ship's bell has
+struck the alarm for fire. In a trice long lines of hose are laid and
+men hurry around with their extinguishers on their backs. The
+"smotherers," with their hammocks, are ready for work, axmen are
+stationed to cut away woodwork and sentinels are posted prepared to
+flood the magazines. There is neither hitch nor break in the drill, and
+at its conclusion the men go to their well-earned noonday meal.
+
+After dinner the marines are ordered to land and attack a distant fort.
+The boats are lowered away and provisioned for several days. Water,
+beef, beans, cartridges, rifles, guns and boxes of tools are stowed away
+in them, and then the men pile into them until it seems as if they must
+sink under their load. Many colored flags flutter from the mainyard of
+the big ship, the launches take the boats in tow and off they start.
+They do not go far, however, for soon a signal from the ship
+countermands the order to attack and they return and are hauled on
+board. Then comes a drill that is looked upon with regretful pride by
+the old tars who still love the shapely ships of the past and cannot
+overcome their dislike for the modern "teakettles;" it is a sail drill.
+The sailors scamper aloft, lay out on the big yards and soon the ship,
+with all sails set, is tugging at her anchors. Again the boatswain's
+whistle sounds. The executive officer, trumpet in hand, shouts his
+orders and the yards gradually come down until the ship is under
+close-reefed topsails. Then the sails are furled, the yards squared and
+the men wait for the next command. They do not have to wait long. A
+luckless man--imaginary, of course--falls overboard. There is another
+hurry and scurry, a life buoy is thrown to the drowning man, the cutter
+is lowered away and under the powerful strokes of six oars sweeps past
+the ship to the rescue. The man is saved and the cutter again hoisted on
+board. This ends the work of the day and all hands are piped to supper.
+Soon the sunset gun booms, once more the bugle sounds and the great
+striped flag at the stern comes down. General inspection day is over.
+
+The crew of an American warship celebrate Thanksgiving day in the good
+old-fashioned style, which means that the dinner is made the chief
+incident. About this all the interest of the holiday gathers, and the
+feast is enjoyed in anticipation, in realization and in reminiscence.
+The expense of the extras which supplement the ordinary rations on that
+occasion is borne entirely by the men. Ordinarily Jack is a most
+improvident creature who sees no reason for worrying himself about what
+he is to eat to-morrow so long as he has enough for to-day, but for
+Thanksgiving and Christmas he makes unusual effort to save something to
+put into the common fund for the occasion. His comrades are generous,
+however, and if, as often happens, his pockets are light when the
+contributions are being taken up he is not allowed to miss the feast,
+but may have his share charged up against him, to be paid at a more
+convenient season.
+
+One way in which the men save their money is by commuting their rations.
+The amount of food furnished by the government is extremely liberal, so
+that the daily ration provided for each sailor is more than he can eat
+under ordinary circumstances. The value of a daily ration is put at 30
+cents. A common practice is for ten men to draw rations for only seven.
+If the mess consists of thirty men the value of the commuted rations
+would thus amount to $2.70 a day. This is multiplied by the time pay day
+comes around to a considerable sum and is paid back to the men with
+their wages. Part of it at a time like Thanksgiving is devoted to buying
+the luxuries of the dinner.
+
+The fund kept or raised for this purpose has always been known as the
+"slush fund." The term dates back to the early days of the navy when
+the men were allowed to save the pork drippings and other grease, odd
+ends of rope and all kinds of waste about the ship and sell them to junk
+dealers for whatever they could get. "Slush" was the general name given
+to the waste stuff and the money which it brought in was the "slush
+fund." This disposition of the refuse is now taken out of the mens'
+hands, but they still continue to call their dinner fund by its ancient
+title.
+
+A Thanksgiving dinner among the men-of-warsmen is a festivity well worth
+seeing. Nothing is done by halves, and the messroom decorations and the
+table furnishings would do credit to many a more pretentious assembly.
+The messrooms are brightly lighted up and their usually bare walls are
+gayly draped with American flags. Instead of the every-day enamel cloth
+the tables are covered with spotless white linen. If the ship is in port
+the celebration can be much more elaborate, because the men are then
+able to buy, beg or borrow from their friends on shore any number of
+ornamental articles with which to beautify the tables. Vases of flowers
+are artistically arranged about, and a great cake with a fanciful
+superstructure of icing is a favorite adornment. Enormous turkeys stand
+watch at each end of the tables at the beginning of the feast, but they
+disappear early in the action and their places are taken later by relays
+of mince and pumpkin pies. "Spuds," as all sailors call potatoes, are
+plentiful, affording ample proof of Jack's traditional fondness for this
+vegetable. Besides tea and coffee the only drink is beer. The men are
+allowed to have this not only on special occasions, by the way, but at
+any time when they have money to pay for it at the general canteen. At
+dinner time on almost any day a few of the men may be seen with open
+bottles of beer before their places at the table.
+
+However, after all is said and done, Christmas is the rarest day in the
+naval calendar, the celebration in American fashion being never
+neglected on a United States man-of-war in port or at sea. The ship is
+dressed fore and aft with banners, and in port her decks are piled with
+green stuff. In any of the ports in low latitudes, like Callao or
+Montevideo, the mass of palms and ferns distributed on Christmas on the
+spar deck of a warship gives the vessel a lovely holiday appearance.
+Bluejackets always hang up their socks on Christmas eve. Each takes a
+new pair out of his ditty bag and strings it to the foot last of his
+hammock. Examined in the morning, they are commonly found filled with
+fine, dusty coal, lumps of salt-water soap or pieces of broken candle,
+but their owners hang them up from year to year, willing to sacrifice a
+pair of socks to the perpetuation of the custom. On Christmas day there
+are all manner of games on the spar deck. They are for the most part
+humorous games and are devised chiefly for the amusement of the men who
+through misconduct are not permitted to spend the day ashore. In the
+evening there is always some good music in the forecastle or on the
+berth deck. On some ships the bluejackets essay the most ambitious airs,
+and if the bandmaster takes care to put the singers of the crew on the
+right path one of their Christmas night concerts is worth going a long
+way to hear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+SOLDIERS WHO SERVE AFLOAT
+
+
+Soldiers who serve afloat--such are the men composing the United States
+Marine Corps. Lack of military qualities in the sailor led to the corps'
+formation in the first days of the navy, nor has the passing of the
+years wrought any material change in the character of Jack Tar.
+Formidable in impetuous assaults, he lacks the steadiness and discipline
+necessary in sustained conflicts and in the effective use of the rifle,
+and so with the navy's growth the Marine Corps has come to constitute
+one of its most important branches.
+
+The marines are useful in times of peace for police duty in the navy
+yards and on shipboard, but it is when the country is engaged in war
+that they most fully justify their existence. Then it is their duty to
+man the rapid-firing guns of our warships, fill vacancies at the other
+guns, with their rifles scour the decks of the enemy from the tops, the
+poop and the forecastle, cover boarding parties with their fire and
+repel boarders with fixed bayonets. Should the enemy gain a foothold
+they must gather at the mainmast, so as to command the deck. They must
+make the small arms effective and disable the enemy's men while the
+great guns, with which the marines have nothing to do save in case of
+emergency, play havoc with his ship.
+
+However, all naval fighting, as recent events have proved, is not done
+on the decks of men-of-war; the surprise of camps or posts and the
+escalade of forts frequently render shore operations necessary, and at
+such times picked men are sent with the attacking sailors, known as
+pioneers, while the rest of the marines form a supporting column to
+cover the retreat and embarkation of the sailors in case the undertaking
+fails. In times of fire on shipboard the marines guard the boats' falls
+and officers' quarters, prevent panic or pillage, compel compliance with
+orders of officers and allow no one to throw overboard any property or
+fitting or abandon the ship until duly authorized. Finally a frequent
+duty of the marines abroad is to guard the American legations and
+consulates and the interests of American citizens in times of revolution
+or public disorder.
+
+With duties so varied and exacting ahead of him, the making of a marine
+is a process well worth studying. Recruits for the corps come from all
+stations of life. In its ranks may be found well-educated men, now and
+then a college graduate among them, who have become reduced by
+misfortune or bibulous habits, country boys who have left the farm for
+the city to seek their fortunes and found want instead, and men who have
+lost their occupations. All find a refuge in the corps, provided they
+are physically and mentally sound, at least five feet six inches in
+height, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, unmarried and of
+good habits.
+
+The recruit as an essential part of his training must learn how to do
+well many different things. He begins, if a stranger to military
+science, by mastering the drills and manual of arms and every evolution
+possible to a body of men on foot, since he must leave the ship when
+there is work to be done and be able to move quickly and with precision
+under the most galling fire. The ax, the shovel and the pick must also
+become familiar tools in his hands, and that he may fight to the best
+possible advantage he is taught to delve and heap until a breastwork is
+built. After that he must accustom himself to the dragging straps of a
+light artillery piece and learn how to haul it at a breakneck pace down
+into the ditch he has dug and up on the other side to the crown of the
+intrenchment. Then, as no one else comes up to load, aim and fire it for
+him, he must learn all that a field artilleryman knows and become
+skillful in the handling and quick and sure in the aim of his howitzer.
+
+When so much of his apprenticeship has been accomplished the marine
+climbs the ship's side and makes acquaintance with his duties as a
+marine policeman. The end of the first month afloat finds him on guard
+at every post in the ship. He knows each compartment and gangway; has
+been instructed in the working of the guns from the heavy turret pieces
+to the six-pounders; has watched the magazines and carried messages to
+the officers, and has even gone down to the coal bunkers, if the ship
+happens to be coaling in a hurry, and taken his turn at passing coal.
+
+However, he is still only a marine in the making, and this fact is
+brought home to him when the ship goes out for target practice and, with
+a bluejacket for a teacher, he learns to handle and supply ammunition to
+the lifts in the magazines and to work the lifts themselves, so that
+when the need comes he can take Jack's place and do his work. In the old
+days of sailing ships the marines had to know how to splice a rope or
+furl a sail; nowadays he does not need to, but he must learn to make his
+way quickly and nimbly to the fighting tops. In doing so he does not
+have to climb to a ratline, one minute almost in the sea and the next
+at the very top of the heavens, but he gets painfully dizzy when for the
+first time he feels the ship sinking away from under him as he looks
+down. In the end he masters that also and, with practice, is soon able
+to make the little guns in the fighting tops talk as fast as the best of
+the jackies. When he has learned to descend from his aerial nest to the
+deck at a dignified pace and to land safely upon his feet, his education
+is practically completed, and it has taken him from six months to a year
+to get it.
+
+Every navy yard in the country has its detachment of marines, but the
+barracks at the Brooklyn yard are the most popular, and as the marines
+have their choice of stations when they return from a cruise, the
+largest number, seldom less than three hundred, are usually quartered
+there. In the part of the yard set aside for the marines is a long and
+narrow building of gray brick, with a piazza running its entire length,
+shaded by a line of trees. This is the barracks, the living quarters of
+the men. A roomy parade ground stretches out in front, and in a group
+of trees to the left, with a garden behind, is the house of the
+commandant of marines, while at about the same distance to the right are
+the quarters of the other officers, each approached by a stone walk
+canopied and shaded by rows of pear trees.
+
+Visit the Brooklyn barracks of a summer morning and you will find the
+marine there in every condition known to the corps and in every stage of
+his development. Out on the parade ground is a squad of raw recruits
+being commanded and marched about in the effort to trim off their
+individuality of motion, and here comes Private Dougherty, with his
+wheelbarrow and sickle, a bronze-faced old man who was retired awhile
+back because his thirty years of service had been completed. There is
+hardly a seaport in the world that Dougherty is not familiar with, and
+he will tell you, when in the mood, how he killed the Corean general.
+The Colorado, flagship of Rear Admiral Rodgers, steamed up the Salee
+river, in Corea, for the purpose of effecting a treaty with the Coreans
+for the protection of shipwrecked American sailors and to make surveys
+and soundings. Her survey boats were treacherously fired upon by the
+forts in the river and a fight began. After one of the forts had been
+captured and its former occupants driven out, Dougherty jumped over the
+parapet, ran down to where the Corean leader was rallying his forces and
+shot him dead. For this service to his country Congress voted Dougherty
+a medal of honor. And well he had earned it.
+
+Ashore or afloat, the daily life of the marine is one of hard work and
+plenty of it. At 6:30 in the morning, when in barracks, the men must be
+out of bed and ready fifteen minutes later for the "setting-up" drill,
+which is gymnastic exercise without apparatus. Then the mess call is
+sounded and they file into the long messroom, furnished with two tables
+extending the whole length, and breakfast on hash, pork and beans or
+beef stew, according to the day in the week, and bread and coffee.
+After breakfast the order is given, "To the colors!" and the flag is
+raised on the pole in front of the guardhouse. Then the guards take
+their posts and the routine of the day begins, reaching a climax at
+10:30 o'clock, the hour of dress parade, when the marines are out in
+full force.
+
+Each remaining hour of the day has its allotted duty, but every marine
+with a clean record has twenty hours out of every forty-eight to
+himself. Many of the marines stationed at the Brooklyn yard spend their
+idle hours in the library, a light, airy room on the second floor of the
+barracks, furnished with a goodly collection of books and with a number
+of the weekly and monthly magazines. But as to the books, some of the
+most assiduous readers know the contents of them all, and long for more.
+Nor need the private of marines end his life in the ranks unless he be
+so minded. A school is provided for him where, if he elects to do so, he
+may conquer fractions and cube root, and in time, after his studies have
+raised him to the grade of sergeant-major in the ranks, should there
+chance to come a war the line is open to him, and once his ivory-hilted
+officer's sword and gold lace are worn he has the entree to any
+officers' mess and a place that no man but one of his own line can fill.
+That the men in the ranks who choose to employ their leisure hours in
+study get their reward was proven in the war with Spain, which raised no
+less than thirty sergeant-majors to the dignity of shoulder straps.
+
+The dominant desire of the ambitious young marine is, of course, to get
+to sea. The work there is harder than in the barracks, but he does not
+consider that when he thinks of life afloat and the foreign ports to
+which it will take him. During his five years' enlistment in the corps
+each capable marine makes two sea voyages, extending over a period of
+three years. On shipboard the shore drills are continued as far as
+practicable and to them, as already hinted, is added target practice.
+His time off duty the marine spends in the forecastle and amidships
+reading, sleeping, writing up his diary or twanging the strings of his
+favorite instrument, the guitar.
+
+The things which chiefly occupy his thoughts, however, are rations and
+going ashore. As to the former, they are considerably better than he
+gets at the barracks and may be augmented from the bumboats--a genuine
+boon to the luxury-loving marines. These bumboats approach the
+men-of-war at every port with articles of utility and food in great
+profusion, and the American marine has a worldwide reputation among
+their proprietors for his generosity. Ah Sam, of the port of Hong Kong,
+the greatest man in the world in his line, whose boats are fifty and
+sixty ton junks, is said to have made his fortune from sales to American
+men-of-war. At any rate, when one enters or leaves the harbor he fires a
+salute of twenty-one guns.
+
+And it is only fair that the marine should have a salute fired on his
+own account now and then, for he is a leading and important figure in
+all the pomp and ceremony of man-of-war life. Indeed, it is an
+interesting and pretty sight to watch the ceremonies which take place
+on board ship on the arrival of a high official, such as an ambassador,
+an admiral, a general or a consul. As the cutter dashes up to the side
+with spray flying from the oars the ship's bugle sounds "Attention." The
+side boys offer the man ropes as the official steps on the gangway and
+the captain receives him as he steps on the quarterdeck. As the two walk
+aft the marine officer, in quick, sharp tones, commands, "Present arms,"
+and the whole marine guard, drawn up in line on the port side of the
+quarterdeck, bring their rifles up in salute, while the bugle sounds a
+flourish and the drum a roll, two for an admiral, three for an
+ambassador and four for the President. The marines on a ship are
+collectively called the guard; the ceremony is called parading the
+guard. It takes place on the arrival or departure of any official of
+rank. If the official does not visit the ship it takes place when his
+flag passes by, and it also takes place when two ships of war pass each
+other.
+
+The landsman visiting an American warship finds the marine everywhere
+in evidence. At the door of the captain's cabin stands a marine, doing
+duty as an orderly, and no one can enter that officer's presence until
+he has first taken in the name. Down below a marine guards the storage
+rooms, and up on the berth deck another stands sentry over the
+torpedoes, while still farther along on the same deck is the "sentry
+over the brig," for the brig, be it known, is the ship's prison, where,
+in complete solitude and on a bread and water diet, an offender can
+meditate and see the error of his ways. Finally in the crowded
+forecastle the marine keeps order among the crew and an occasional eye
+on that fishing boat floating down with the tide, for Jack sometimes
+goes fishing and makes queer hauls. With a coin as a bait, he drops over
+his line, gets a nibble, hauls in a little brown bottle--and does not
+show his catch to the sentry.
+
+The marines, in a word, do the sentry duty of the ship, but this does
+not prevent these sea soldiers and the sailors from getting on well
+together. Occasionally, a marine recruit, just assigned to a ship, will
+develop symptoms of a disease known as "duty struck," and blindly lay
+the foundation for years of unpopularity for himself by taking advantage
+of his authority to make it as warm as he can for the blue jackets, but
+such a recruit is quickly called to order by the older men of the guard.
+As a rule, the marines and blue jackets are on the most friendly terms,
+and there are few liberty parties of blue jackets bound for a good time
+ashore that are not accompanied by a favorite marine or two, invited
+along to help the sailormen dispose of their money, for, out of his $13
+a month, the marine does not have a deal for shore use.
+
+The guard duty performed by marines on American ships is of an arduous
+and exacting kind. On some vessels, usually the smaller gunboats, the
+marine guard soldier is on post for two hours, and then gets only two
+hours off before buckling on his belt again, month in and month out.
+This sort of thing involves a breaking up of sleep that tells severely
+on marines serving on small ships, and it is for this reason that sea
+soldiers are so partial to flagships, and exhaust all the means in their
+power to be assigned to such large vessels of war. However, on every
+warship, no matter what its size, there is at least one first-rate
+billet for the private marine; that is the mail orderly's job. The mail
+orderly is the messenger between the ship and the shore, attends to all
+sorts of errands for officers and men, and is a general buyer of
+trinkets for all hands. A good deal of money passes through his hands,
+and his commissions are good, not to speak of the tips which are given
+to him for performing little diplomatic tasks ashore for the men
+forward. A marine mail orderly usually leaves the service at the
+expiration of a cruise with a snug sum tucked away.
+
+The first sergeant of a marine guard on a ship too small to rate one or
+more marine officers fills a responsible and exacting place, and is
+treated with great consideration by the officers, since, to all intents
+and purposes, he is an officer himself. He may go ashore when he
+chooses without putting his name down on the liberty list, and when he
+comes back to the ship from shore leave, he is not searched for liquor,
+an immunity which he enjoys in common only with the ship's chief
+master-at-arms. The first sergeant is responsible for the conduct of his
+men, and, if they do wrong, he is reproved much as if he were an
+officer. For the preservation of discipline, he is required to hold
+himself aloof from the members of his guard as much as possible, and he
+associates and frequently messes with the ship's chief petty officers.
+
+Semper fidelis--always faithful--is the legend worn upon the flags,
+guidons and insignia of the Marine Corps, and, in its hundred years of
+existence, it has never been false to its motto. It was one of the
+orderlies of the corps, Corporal Anthony, who, when the Maine was
+sinking, and nearly all who could do so were hastily leaving, made his
+way toward Captain Sigsbee's cabin, and, on meeting him, calmly gave the
+report the duty of the occasion required of him. And this quiet
+performance of duty in the face of impending death, has had a hundred
+parallels in the history of the Marine Corps.
+
+During the bombardment of Tripoli, in 1803, and the desperate
+hand-to-hand fighting which occurred between the vessels on both sides,
+Decatur boarded one of the Tripolitan gunboats and engaged the captain
+in a duel with swords. One of the enemy coming up from behind was about
+to cleave Decatur's skull with his sword, when a marine interposed his
+arm. The arm saved Decatur, but it was severed to the skin. In the same
+battle, Lieutenant Trippe, of the Vixen, boarded a Tripolitan gunboat
+and singled out the commander for a personal combat. A Turk aimed a blow
+at the lieutenant, but before he could strike, Sergeant Meredith, of the
+marines, ran him through the body with his bayonet. It was also an
+officer of marines, Lieutenant O'Bannon, who, with Midshipman Mann,
+hauled down the Tripolitan ensign, after having stormed the principal
+defense of Derne, and planted the flag of the Republic on that ancient
+fortress.
+
+The marines participated gallantly in the War of 1812, and in the
+expedition against Quallah Battoo, a few years later, formed the van of
+the attacking party, and were in the thickest of the fight with the
+Malays. This Quallah Battoo expedition furnished a stirring passage for
+our naval history that is well worth recalling. In February, 1831, the
+American ship Friendship was loading on the coast of Sumatra. While the
+captain, two officers and four of the crew were on shore the Friendship
+was attacked by the crew of a Malay pepper boat, who, after killing the
+first officer and several of the seamen, succeeded in cutting off the
+ship and plundering her of every article of value on board. The attack
+was clearly concerted, and the Achense rajah, Chute Dulah, received the
+spoils, refusing the restoration even of the ship.
+
+Time moved with leisure steps in those days, but as soon as news of this
+wanton outrage reached the United States, prompt measures were taken to
+punish its authors. On February 5, 1832, the frigate Potomac, commanded
+by Commodore John Downes, anchored off Quallah Battoo and landed a force
+of 250 men to attack the town. The assaulting party, composed mainly of
+marines, did its work in a thorough and practical manner. The town and
+the four forts defending it were captured and destroyed, and several
+hundred Malays killed, including the rajah chiefly concerned in the
+plunder of the Friendship and the massacre of its crew. The surviving
+rajahs begged for peace, and this was finally granted by Commodore
+Downes, but the lesson taught at the cannon's mouth is still remembered
+on the Sumatran coast.
+
+The Marine Corps participated with brilliant results in the Florida
+Indian War, and in the siege of Vera Cruz and the march to the City of
+Mexico their services were of the first order. In fact, General Scott is
+authority for the statement that at all times during the Mexican War
+they were placed where the hardest work was to be done. At the storming
+of Chapultepec, Major Levi Twiggs, of the marines, led the assaulting
+party and was killed. This fortress having been captured, the marines in
+General Quitman's division moved directly on the City of Mexico, and
+were accorded the honor of first entering the palace and hoisting the
+American flag.
+
+The marines who accompanied Commodore Perry to Japan, in 1852, took an
+important part in that expedition. A force of a hundred marines was
+landed, and, together with a like number of soldiers and two brass
+bands, marched through Yeddo to the palace of the Mikado, creating a
+most favorable impression on the foreign officials. A similar display
+was made by Perry when he returned to Japan in 1854, to receive the
+answer of the Japanese Government to his representations previously made
+regarding the advantages of foreign trade.
+
+It was a force of marines who captured John Brown at Harper's Ferry, in
+1859. While the militia of Virginia was assembling by the thousand to
+attack the little band of abolitionists, a force of one hundred marines
+was sent from Washington, and a squad of eight of them battered down the
+door of John Brown's fort, and captured his party, to the chagrin of the
+hundreds of other military men near by who hoped to have a hand in the
+affair.
+
+Again and again during the Civil War the marines proved themselves brave
+and stubborn fighters. In the encounter between the Merrimac and the
+Cumberland, the marine division was under Lieutenant Charles Heywood,
+later commander of the corps. The first shot from the Merrimac killed
+nine marines, yet the division was so little demoralized by the loss
+that it not only continued fighting, but actually fired the last shot
+discharged from the Cumberland at the Merrimac. For services rendered
+between 1861 and 1865, thirty-seven officers and men of the Marine Corps
+received the thanks of Congress, medals or swords, and twenty-eight were
+brevetted for gallantry.
+
+In the brush with Corea in 1871, the marines, as before stated, were in
+the assault on the Salee forts, and Lieutenant McKee, in carrying the
+works, fell, as his father fell in Mexico, at the head of his men, and
+first inside the stormed works.
+
+Commander, afterward Admiral, Kimberly stated in his report that to the
+marines belonged the honor of "first landing and last leaving the shore.
+Chosen as the advance guard on account of their steadiness and
+discipline, their whole behavior on the march and in the assault proved
+that the confidence in them had not been misplaced."
+
+The marines again distinguished themselves in 1885, when an insurrection
+in Panama compelled the landing there of a force, which stayed until all
+danger was over, and several times, in more recent years, the officers
+and men of the corps have plucked a fresh branch for their laurels. When
+the big railroad strike in California was in progress in the summer of
+1894 the marine guard stationed at the Mare Island Navy Yard was called
+out to serve with the regular troops at Sacramento, Truckee, Stockton
+and other towns. In alertness, activity and general soldierliness they
+showed themselves quite the equals of the army troops, and the colonel
+of artillery who commanded the entire brigade, did not fail to dwell
+upon this fact in his report to the War Department. One of the marines
+at Truckee bent the stock of his rifle in clubbing a violent rioter, who
+afterward was convicted as an accessory in ditching a train and causing
+the deaths of four soldiers. The marine was reproved by his company
+commander, and narrowly escaped a court-martial, on the charge of
+destroying government property. "Bullets," said the commander, "are
+cheaper than rifles."
+
+The American marine has never been known to show the white feather, no
+matter what the odds against him. When, some years ago, Antonio Ezeta,
+the Central American agitator, was being chased by the government
+authorities of the Republic of Salvador, he took refuge in the residence
+of the American consul at La Libertad. The populace raged around the
+consulate, and word was sent to the garrison on the outskirts of La
+Libertad of Ezeta's hiding-place. An American gunboat was lying in the
+harbor, and the marine guard of twenty men, under command of a sergeant,
+was sent ashore by the commanding officer at the request of the consul,
+to protect the latter's residence and the refugee within it, for Ezeta
+was a citizen of the United States. The marine guard reached the
+consulate at the same moment with a battalion of 250 Salvadorean
+soldiers. The marines, not a whit dismayed, surrounded the consulate,
+and for eight hours stood off the swarthy Salvadoreans. Then, by a ruse,
+Ezeta, in disguise, was slipped to the beach and taken to the warship,
+which carried him to San Francisco to stand trial in the United States
+courts for violation of the neutrality laws. He would have been torn
+limb from limb by the citizens and soldiers of La Libertad, had it not
+been for the score of marines. The captain of one of the Salvadorean
+companies was an American free-lance from Western New York. He raved
+over the cowardice of the dark skinned soldiers he commanded, and
+profanely declared that, with half a dozen marines of the United States
+at his back, he would undertake to whip the entire Salvadorean army. His
+men, it may be stated in passing, did not understand English.
+
+Finally, in the war with Spain and the more recent operations in China,
+the Marine Corps added another moving and glorious chapter to its
+history. At Guantanamo the marine battalion, commanded by Colonel R. W.
+Huntingdon, fought the first serious land engagement of United States
+forces on foreign soil since the Mexican War. The fact that this
+battalion was attacked by the enemy in overwhelming numbers, and for
+over three days and nights was under constant fire, and that on the
+fourth day a portion of the battalion attacked and repulsed a superior
+force of Spaniards, shows, to quote the words of their chief, "that
+Colonel Huntingdon and his officers and men displayed great gallantry,
+and that all were well drilled and under the most effective
+discipline." One of the men under Huntingdon's command was Sergeant
+Thomas Quick, a lithe and fearless native of the mountains of West
+Virginia. At a critical stage of the operations, while the marines were
+engaged with the enemy firing from ambush, it became necessary to
+dislodge them, and it was desired that the Dolphin should shell the
+woods in which they were concealed. Quick volunteered to signal her, and
+standing on a hill wigwagged her, while bullets backed the dust about
+him. For his action, described as "beautiful" by his commander, he, in
+due time, received a medal of honor and a lieutenant's commission.
+
+The headquarters of the Marine Corps are at the barracks in the City of
+Washington, where are located the commandant and his staff. Besides
+those previously mentioned, there are marine barracks at Portsmouth,
+Boston, League Island, Norfolk and Annapolis. But the fouled anchor
+running through a hemisphere traced with the outlines of the two
+American continents, which adorns the front of the marine's fatigue cap,
+tells that he is at home both on sea and land, and when on either,
+shrewd, sharp blows are to be struck he is ready for them. Nowhere in
+the world, size taken into account, is there a more efficient
+organization than this corps of 6,000 brave fighting men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE POLICE OF THE COAST
+
+
+The revenue cutter, though perhaps the least known, is one of the most
+useful branches of the Federal service. Its creation antedates by
+several years that of the navy, and it boasts a glorious history. It
+polices the coast as the navy polices the ocean, and its duties are as
+varied as they are weighty and important. It cruises constantly from the
+fever infected regions of the Gulf to the icebound shores of the Arctic
+Sea. It is the terror and constant menace of the smuggler and poacher.
+It sees to it that the quarantine is strictly maintained, and that the
+neutrality laws are not violated by the greedy and lawless of our own
+and other lands. It is prompt in the prevention of piracy, and
+suppresses mutiny with a heavy hand. It looks after emigrant ships and
+enforces the license and registry statutes. Last, but not least, it
+gives timely succor to the shipwrecked and annually preserves hundreds
+of lives and millions of dollars' worth of property. And so, wherever
+one familiar with its history falls in with its trim white cutters,
+whether in the sunny courses of the Gulf, or on the borders of the great
+Atlantic highway, off the bleak New England coast, in the crowded
+harbors of our lake ports, or in the still waters of the Pacific, he is
+sure to give them glad, respectful greeting, as modest, graceful emblems
+not alone of our country's greatness, but better still, of duty bravely
+and nobly done.
+
+The Revenue Cutter Service celebrated the centennial anniversary of its
+existence sixteen years ago, having been organized in 1790. The credit
+for its creation belongs to Alexander Hamilton, that great first
+Secretary of the Treasury, to whom we owe so much, and whose memory in
+these days of self-vaunting mediocrity we too often neglect to honor.
+His was a vision that saw clearly all the needs of the future, and as
+early as 1789 he earnestly advised the employment of "boats for the
+security of the revenue against contraband." A little later he submitted
+to Congress a bill providing for a fleet of ten boats, to be thus
+distributed along the seaboard: Two for the Massachusetts and New
+Hampshire coast, one for Long Island Sound, one for New York, one for
+the waters of the Delaware Bay, two for the Chesapeake and its environs
+and one each for North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Congress
+accepted the Secretary's recommendations, and in a few months ten swift
+cutters were built, armed and equipped, each vessel being manned by a
+crew of ten men.
+
+Thus was born the Revenue Cutter Service, a modest fleet of small,
+speedy vessels only a little larger than the yawls of the present time.
+In addition to their pay, the officers and crews received a part of the
+amounts derived from fines, penalties and forfeitures collected in case
+of seizures and for breaches of the navigation and customs laws, but
+later the officers were given larger salaries and the payment of prize
+money abolished. At first only a small force was required to adequately
+protect the commerce of an extensive yet thinly populated coast, but our
+foreign trade grew so rapidly, and the importance of our shipping
+interests increased so steadily, that it soon became clear that a strong
+cordon of well equipped and speedy cruisers would be necessary for their
+effective protection. For this reason, Congress, in 1799, gave the
+President authority to equip and maintain as many revenue cutters as he
+should deem necessary for the proper policing of our coast-line.
+
+And thus the Revenue Cutter Service grew in size and became more
+efficient with each passing year. During the first quarter century of
+its existence, it was almost constantly in the eyes of the public, and
+its daring deeds frequently afforded welcome material to the novelists
+of the period. Among its duties it was charged with the suppression of
+piracy, even so late as the opening of the last century, a serious
+menace to commerce; and it also waged a constant and relentless war
+against smugglers and smuggling. Those were the palmy days of the
+smuggler, who often made reckless hazard of his life in the illegal race
+for gain. Steam vessels had not yet come into use, and speed and safety
+then lay in trim lines and mighty spreads of canvas. Smugglers'
+schooners, sharp built, light of draught, and with enormous sails, were
+constantly hovering in the offing, biding some favorable opportunity to
+discharge cargoes upon which no duty had been paid.
+
+It was the business of the Revenue Cutter Service to keep watch upon
+these vultures of the sea, spoiling them of their quarry, and in this
+way sprang up hand-to-hand encounters both by sea and land, sudden,
+sharp and terrible, in which many a gallant life was lost and fame and
+honor won. Now, however, the pirate and the smuggler, at least of the
+bold life-risking sort, have passed to the limbo of forgotten things,
+and the officers and men of the Revenue Cutter Service no longer win
+glory and a reputation for bullet-chasing courage in their suppression.
+The new field which they have built up for themselves, is daring and
+full of danger, but it has not the same interest for the general public,
+and so their deeds of heroism are now performed in out-of-the-way
+corners, with no herald present to trumpet them to the world, and with
+the pleasant consciousness of duty well done as their only reward.
+
+The Revenue Cutter Service in time of war has always co-operated
+promptly and effectively with the navy against the foe. Indeed, the
+cutters belonging to the Revenue Cutter Service have taken a gallant and
+active part in all the wars of the United States save one. In 1797, when
+war with France threatened, the Revenue Cutter Service was placed on a
+war footing, and by its promptness and vigilance, did much to uphold the
+dignity and prestige of the Federal Government. In the following year a
+number of cutters cruised with diligence and daring in West Indian
+waters, and the record of the Revenue Cutter Service in guarding the
+seaboard and preventing the departure of unauthorized merchant ships,
+while the embargo act of 1807 was in force, was also a fine one.
+
+Its services during the War of 1812 were as varied as they were
+brilliant. Not only did its vessels successfully essay perilous
+missions, but they also took a gallant part in many of the most hotly
+contested naval actions of the war. In fact, to the cutter Jefferson and
+its gallant crew belong the credit for the first marine capture of that
+contest, for within a week of the proclamation of war the Jefferson fell
+in with and captured the British schooner Patriot, with a valuable
+cargo, while on her way from Guadeloupe to Halifax. And this proved only
+a fitting prelude to a hundred illustrious deeds performed by the
+officers and crews of the Revenue Cutter Service during the following
+three years. In the second year of the war the revenue cutter Vigilance
+overhauled and after a sharp engagement captured the British privateer
+Dart, off Newport, while the cutters Madison and Gallatin carried many
+rich prizes into the ports of Charleston and Savannah.
+
+When in 1832 South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union, several
+cutters cruised off the Carolina coast, ready to assert by force the
+supremacy of the Federal Government. During the Seminole War revenue
+cutters were not only actively engaged in transporting troops and
+munitions, but were also of great service in protecting the settlements
+along the Florida coast. During the Mexican War eight revenue cutters
+formed a part of the naval squadron operating against the southern
+republic and participated gallantly in the assault on Alvarado and
+Tobasco, while the revenue cutters McLane and Forward contributed
+materially to the success of Commodore Perry's expedition against
+Tobasco and Frontera in October, 1846.
+
+[Illustration: AN OFFICER IN THE REVENUE CUTTER SERVICE]
+
+Finally, a volume would be required to adequately record the work of the
+Revenue Cutter Service during the Civil War. Its cutters were employed
+as despatch boats, joined in the pursuit of blockade runners, did guard
+and scouting duty, and often shared in engagements with Confederate
+batteries and vessels. In truth, it was a revenue cutter, the Harriet
+Lane, which, in Charleston Harbor, in April, 1861, fired on the Union
+side, the first shot of the Civil War. The Harriet Lane was long the
+pride of the Revenue Cutter Service, and had a notable career. Named
+after the beautiful and gracious niece of President Buchanan, she
+participated in the naval expedition to Paraguay, and during the Civil
+War was often under fire. Again, during the war with Spain, the Revenue
+Cutter Service achieved an enviable and heroic record.
+
+The proper patrol of our long coast line requires a large number of
+vessels, and the Revenue Cutter Service at the present time has a
+complement of thirty-seven vessels, all splendidly adapted to the work
+in hand. During the last sixty years steamers have slowly but steadily
+replaced the top-sail schooners of the old days, and the vessels now
+employed by the Revenue Cutter Service are, with one or two exceptions,
+small, compact, well-built steamers, which, save for the guns they
+carry, might easily be mistaken for swift steam yachts. In size they
+range from 130 to 500 tons burden. The majority of them have been built
+under the direct supervision of officers of the service and are
+perfectly adapted to the varying wants of the several stations. Nearly
+all of them are armed with from two to four breech-loading rifled cannon
+and carry small arms for the use of their crews. Most of the vessels
+bear the names of former secretaries and assistant secretaries of the
+Treasury, but the Andrew Johnson, the William H. Seward and U. S. Grant
+are also among the names to be found on the list. The U. S. Grant, which
+does duty at Port Townsend, is a bark-rigged steam propeller, and a
+model of its size and type. Strange to say, it is the only ship of the
+United States that bears the name of the greatest captain of his age.
+
+The vessels of the Revenue Cutter Service are always ready for instant
+duty in the most distant quarters. When, in 1867, Alaska became a part
+of the United States, within a week after the ratification of the
+treaty, the revenue cutter Lincoln was steaming northward, and was the
+first to obtain accurate information regarding the geography, resources
+and climate of our new possession. Three or more revenue cutters now
+cruise every year in Alaskan waters, guarding the seal fisheries and
+often giving much needed relief to the whaling fleet that yearly sails
+from San Francisco for a cruise in the waters above the Behring Sea.
+
+Officers and crews of the cutters doing service in the waters of Alaska
+have remarkable stories to tell, and the log-books of the cutters Corwin
+and Bear have been filled during the last twenty-five years with a
+record all too brief, of many thrilling adventures in the frozen North.
+The Corwin left San Francisco for the Polar Sea in May, 1881, charged
+with ascertaining, if possible, the fate of two missing whalers, and to
+establish communication with the exploring steamer Jeanette. Five times
+during the previous year the Corwin had attempted to reach Herald
+Island, and failed each time. On this voyage better success attended,
+and after braving the perils of the drift ice, a landing was made, while
+at the same time the bleak coast of Wrangel Land was sighted to the
+westward. On August 12, 1881, the Corwin having pushed its way through
+great masses of floating and grounded ice, into an open space near the
+island, effected a landing on Wrangel Land, this being the first time
+that white men had ever succeeded in reaching that remote corner of the
+Arctic waste.
+
+The cruises of the Corwin in 1880 and 1881 covered over 12,000 miles,
+and the officers and crew, while carefully preventing illegal raids upon
+the sealing interests, also found time to prosecute important surveys
+and soundings, to make a careful study of the natives of Alaska, and to
+collect a great mass of important data relative to the natural features
+and mineral wealth of the country. The cruises of the Corwin in the
+succeeding years of 1882, 1883, 1884 and 1885, were of scarcely less
+importance. One of these cruises was to St. Lawrence Bay, Siberia, where
+timely succor was given to the officers and crew of the burned naval
+relief steamer Rogers, which had gone north in the spring of 1881 in
+search of the Jeanette. During the Corwin's cruise in 1883 a
+considerable portion of the interior of Alaska was carefully explored
+and an outbreak among the natives on the mainland promptly quelled.
+During its two succeeding cruises the Corwin saved from death nearly 100
+shipwrecked whalers and destitute miners.
+
+Since 1885 the cutter Bear has patrolled the Alaskan waters, making a
+record equal to that of its predecessor. Its work in protecting the
+sealing fisheries is well known, and it has also suppressed in large
+measure the illegal sale to the natives of firearms and spirits. Its
+record as a life saver is also a long one, and some of its experiences
+have been more thrilling than those to be found in the pages of any
+romance.
+
+When the Bear reached Alaskan waters in 1887 the captain of the whaling
+ship Hunter handed its commander a most remarkable message, which had
+been delivered to him a few days before by the natives of Cape Behring.
+This message consisted of a piece of wood, on one side of which was
+rudely carved: "1887 J. B. V. Bk. Nap. Tobacco give," and on the other
+"S. W. C. Nav. M 10 help come."
+
+The riddle offered by the message was speedily solved by the officers of
+the Bear. The bark Napoleon had been wrecked in 1885 off Cape Navarin,
+and only fourteen of the crew of thirty-six men had been rescued. Of the
+unlucky twenty-two a few reached the Siberian shore, but nothing had
+been heard of their subsequent fate. The officers of the Bear reasoned
+that the sender of the message was a member of the Napoleon's crew who
+had found refuge with the natives to the southwest of Cape Navarin and
+was now anxiously awaiting rescue. This reasoning proved correct, and a
+few weeks later the weary two years' exile of James B. Vincent, of
+Edgartown, Mass., boatswain of the Napoleon, had a happy termination.
+
+The story Vincent told his rescuers, was of tragic and absorbing
+interest. The Napoleon, caught in a storm, had been wedged in the ice
+and its crew compelled to take to the boats. The boats, four in number,
+were soon separated, and thirty-six days of fearful suffering passed
+before the one containing Vincent and his companions reached shore. In
+the meantime nine of the eighteen men in the boat had died and several
+others had been driven insane by their sufferings. Vincent was the only
+one who could walk when they reached land. Five more soon died and three
+of the survivors were helpless from frost bites and exhaustion when they
+fell in with a party of natives. A portion of the latter lived inland,
+and these took Vincent with them when they returned to their homes. The
+following Spring when the natives visited the shore to fish, Vincent
+found his three shipmates barely alive, and they died soon after.
+
+When the fishing was over Vincent went back to the mountains with his
+new-found friends, and during the following winter carved and entrusted
+to wandering natives from Cape Behring the message which later brought
+about his rescue. When spring of the second year opened Vincent, with
+the natives, again started for the seashore to fish. Great was his joy a
+few weeks later when he was attracted by the shouting of the natives and
+looked up to see a white man and to find himself rescued at last. The
+Bear conveyed him to San Francisco, whence he made his way to his home
+in Massachusetts.
+
+While among the Eskimo, Vincent was kindly cared for by an old native,
+whose wife received him as her son. After a year the husband died, but
+his last instructions to his wife were to care for and keep their guest
+until he was rescued. When relief at last came the old woman with tears
+in her eyes, said that she was ready to die, for she had done as her
+husband wished. Warm and tender hearts can be found even in Siberian
+wastes.
+
+The Revenue Cutter Service is part of the Treasury Department, and comes
+under the direct jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Treasury.
+Subordinate to him are a chief and assistant chief of division. Each
+vessel of the service patrols the district to which it is assigned, and
+forms a picket line at the outer edge of government jurisdiction, which
+extends four leagues from the coast. Every vessel arriving in United
+States waters is boarded and examined, and its papers certified. If a
+vessel liable to seizure or examination does not bring to when requested
+to do so, the commander of a cutter, after discharging a warning gun,
+has authority to fire into such a vessel, and all acting under his
+orders are indemnified from any penalties or action from damages. On
+each cutter there are a captain, three lieutenants, a cadet, an engineer
+and two assistants, and a crew of a dozen or more men.
+
+The service includes in its several grades about one thousand men.
+Strict discipline is maintained, and its crews receive constant
+instruction and exercise in the use of great guns, rifles, carbines,
+pistols, cutlasses and the like. An officer of the Revenue Cutter
+Service must not only possess considerable executive ability, but must
+also be a man of varied and accurate information, having a knowledge of
+gunnery and military drills, and be thoroughly familiar with the customs
+and navigation laws of the country.
+
+Rank is obtained by promotion, the latter being governed by written
+competitive examinations, from three to five of the senior officers of a
+lower grade being selected for any vacancy occurring in the higher
+grade. A young man wishing to join the service as an officer undergoes a
+rigid examination held annually at Washington, and then serves for
+several years aboard the revenue schoolship, where he learns sea
+mathematics, sea law and seamanship. His period of apprenticeship ended,
+he joins a regular cutter as a junior officer and waits for promotion
+at a salary of $85 per month.
+
+Life on board a revenue cutter during the months of summer is usually an
+easy and pleasant one, but in the winter there is another and different
+story to tell. From December to April of each year the cutters cruise
+constantly on their stations to give aid to vessels in distress, and
+are, in most cases, forbidden to put into port unless under stress of
+weather or other unforeseen conditions arise.
+
+Few stormy winter days pass without the revenue cutter seeing a signal
+from some vessel in distress, and aid is never sought in vain. The
+cutter steers straight for the signal as soon as it is sighted, and when
+a quarter of a mile distant lowers a boat. Often a boat is launched into
+a sea where death seems certain, but officers and men never shrink from
+their duty. When the boat gains the side of the vessel seeking aid, the
+master whom misfortune has overtaken, requests, as a rule, to be towed
+into port. When such a request is made, a line must be got to the
+distressed vessel and from the boat to the cutter, a task often
+performed with infinite difficulty and at the risk of life and limb.
+
+When a vessel is found drifting helplessly and about to dash itself upon
+rocks, the peril is even greater. Then the cutter must stand further
+away, and its boat is in constant danger of being dashed upon the rocks.
+But, thanks to the skill, experience and coolness of the officers and
+crew of the cutter, a line is generally got into the boat and to the
+steamer, and the imperilled vessel hauled away to safety.
+
+One of the finest feats of life-saving ever performed by the Revenue
+Cutter Service was that credited to the cutter Dexter, some years ago.
+On January 17, 1884, the iron-built steamer City of Columbus left Boston
+for the port of Savannah, carrying eighty-one passengers and a ship's
+company of forty-five persons. Her commander was a capable and
+experienced seaman, and though by nightfall the wind, which had been
+blowing all day, had increased to a hurricane, and a heavy sea was
+running, he had no serious apprehension of danger. The vessel, following
+her usual course through Vineyard Sound, had left behind nearly all the
+dangerous points which thickly bestrew those waters, and would soon be
+safely in the open ocean. It was at that luckless moment that the
+captain left the bridge and went below, first directing the helmsman how
+to steer.
+
+Within an hour the steamer struck on Devil's Bridge, and an awful fate
+was upon the hapless passengers and crew, who were sleeping soundly, all
+unconscious of danger. The weather was bitter cold, the darkness
+intense, the wind blowing a hurricane and the waves rolling mountain
+high. In the twinkling of an eye a hundred poor creatures were swept to
+their death in the icy waters. A few of the stronger ones took refuge in
+the rigging, but many of these, benumbed by the cold, dropped one by one
+from their supports and disappeared in the sea, while such boats as
+were cleared away were either dashed to pieces or instantly swamped.
+
+The wreck occurred about four o'clock in the morning, and soon after
+daylight the Dexter reached the scene of the disaster. Her commander at
+once dispatched two boats to the rescue of those still clinging to the
+rigging of the Columbus, and thirteen men, jumping from their refuge
+into the sea, were picked up as they came to the surface, and conveyed
+to the Dexter. To reach the wreck in small boats through an angry sea
+was an undertaking so perilous as to make even the boldest pause, and
+called for courage of the highest order. However, the Dexter's crew
+proved equal to the test, and Lieutenant John U. Rhodes made himself
+famous by an act of the noblest heroism. Two men, rendered helpless by
+cold and exposure, still clung to the rigging of the Columbus after all
+their companions had been taken off. To board the ill-fated vessel was
+impossible; Rhodes essayed to reach it by swimming. He gained the side
+of the vessel after a gallant battle with the waves, but was struck by
+a piece of floating timber, and had to abandon the attempt. Bruised and
+half fainting, he insisted upon making another trial, reached the vessel
+and brought away the two men, both of whom died a few hours later. The
+Legislature of Connecticut, Rhodes' native State, passed a resolution
+thanking him for his gallant conduct, and he received many medals and
+testimonials.
+
+Rhodes has since died, but the Revenue Cutter Service still numbers
+among its officers scores of men endowed with the flawless bravery of
+which he gave such shining proof at the wreck of the City of Columbus.
+One of these is Lieutenant James H. Scott. This brilliant young
+officer--I cite his case as a typical one--was born in Pennsylvania
+thirty-seven years ago, and while still in his teens shipped as a boy on
+a merchant vessel in commerce between Philadelphia and Antwerp. Tiring
+of this trade, he sailed as an able seaman from New York to Bombay and
+other East Indian ports, making the last voyage as boatswain of the
+good ship Ridgeway, after which, declining proffer of a second mate's
+berth, he entered the Revenue Cutter Service as a cadet.
+
+Graduated in 1890, and made acting third lieutenant on the cutter
+Woodbury, it was then that young Scott, who while attached to the
+revenue schoolship had jumped overboard in Lisbon harbor and rescued the
+quartermaster of his vessel, again gave proof of the sterling stuff that
+was in him. On a cold, clear day in January, 1891, the Woodbury, which
+is stationed at Portland, Me., was cruising to the eastward of that
+port, the thermometer below zero, and the rigging covered with ice. The
+Woodbury was about half-way over her cruising ground when the officer of
+the deck discovered a large three-masted schooner hard aground on a
+ledge of rocks which stood well out from the shore. A high sea was
+running at the time, though the cutter rose and fell to every wave with
+apparent unconcern, and breaking clean over the schooner, the crew of
+which had taken refuge on the rocks and were now frantically signalling
+for help. It was clear that unless help reached them they would quickly
+perish from the cold.
+
+Captain Fengar, commanding the Woodbury, ran in as close as he could
+without peril to his vessel, and carefully surveyed the ground before
+giving an order. His practiced eye told him in a moment that to send in
+a boat of the cutter type would mean its certain destruction against the
+rocks, even if it could live in the sea then running. However, the
+captain suddenly recalled that a fisherman's village was only a few
+miles distant, and that there he could obtain a couple of dories
+admirably adapted to the task in hand. Shouting to the men on the rocks
+to hold on and not lose hope, the cutter, at a word from its commander,
+headed about, and went plunging and rolling at top speed in the
+direction of the village. Two hours later the Woodbury was again on the
+scene, with a good-sized dory on one of her davits.
+
+Closing in on the wreck, Captain Fengar called for volunteers. Almost
+to a man the crew responded, but among the foremost were Cadets Scott
+and W. S. Van Cott. Captain Fengar allowed the two young men to go, but
+not without some misgivings. Both insisted on pulling oars, the dory
+being in charge of Lieutenant W. L. Howland, an experienced and capable
+officer. As the dory left the ship it was observed that a life-saving
+crew from a station well down the coast was approaching. It would never
+do to let the Woodbury be beaten, and her dory crew pulled with all the
+vim they could command. The race was to be a close one, but at the
+outset the Woodbury's boat gained the lead, and such a run, in such a
+sea, was never perhaps pulled by opposing boats.
+
+Lieutenant Howland in getting close in, dared not run up too close to
+the rocks, and after a couple of ineffectual attempts to heave a line
+was about to despair of success, when suddenly Cadet (now Lieutenant)
+Scott, securing the line around his waist, sprang overboard, before any
+one in the boat knew what he was about. Shouting to Lieutenant Howland
+to pay the line out, young Scott was dashed upon the rocks and seized by
+the imprisoned sailors. The brave young fellow was badly stunned, but he
+had gained his point by getting the line to the rocks. Communication was
+now effected with the dory, which all this time was riding the seas at a
+safe distance. Another line was hauled up from the boat, and one by one
+the sailors jumped clear of the rocks and were hauled to the dory,
+whence they were conveyed without delay to the deck of the cutter. When
+rescued they had been fourteen hours on the rock. Since the incident
+just related, Lieutenant Scott, though still one of its youngest
+officers, has held every position in the Revenue Cutter Service.
+
+The present chief of the Revenue Cutter Service is Captain C. F.
+Shoemaker. He has climbed to this position from the lowest rung of the
+ladder, and is a man whose success would have been notable in almost any
+calling. Many of the other captains of the service are men of mark and
+achievement, for the Government has no nobler, better, braver servants
+than those who officer and man its revenue cutters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE OCEAN PILOT
+
+
+The ocean pilots and deep sea divers of New York have one thing in
+common; both object to taking apprentices, and in the case of the
+former, at least, there is good reason for this, since they have been,
+for generations, the aristocrats of their calling. The pilots who sail
+out of Sandy Hook are no hardier than their rugged and fearless fellows
+of the North Sea, but they subject themselves to greater dangers by
+their long cruises, and rough, indeed, must be the weather that can keep
+them in port. They cruise night and day, in search of incoming craft;
+their torches' flare lights up the snow and sleet of winter storms and
+contends with the darkness of summer fogs; and they speak and board in
+all sorts of weather and at all seasons the fleet liners that cross the
+western ocean in less than a week. And these pilots of the New York and
+New Jersey shores are a revelation to the tourist, who, having never
+heard of them, sees them for the first time. The latter, in most cases,
+expects to watch a rough-and-ready sort of fellow in homespun, with a
+swaggering air and a boisterous manner, climb from the pilot's yawl up
+the black hull's towering side. Instead, he sees a man of modest and
+pleasing address, about whom there is little to indicate his calling,
+and much that bespeaks the merchant or clerk one meets of a morning on
+lower Broadway. There was a time when our pilots indulged in the luxury
+of a high silk hat when boarding vessels in sunny weather, but they are
+not so fastidious nowadays, and use derbies instead.
+
+Prosperous as a class, the pilots of New York pay dearly for their
+prosperity by the most arduous sea labor. Since 1853 more than
+thirty-five boats have been sunk and wrecked in various ways, and twice
+that number of pilots have lost their lives. There are at the present
+time upward of 160 pilots cruising from the port of New York. They are
+subject to the supervision of a pilots' commission of five members,
+named by the Governor of New York, and each pilot is appointed after a
+long and severe apprenticeship. He must first serve, boy and man, before
+the mast until he masters every problem in the management of every form
+of rig. Then he must contrive to obtain the position of boat-keeper or
+pilot's mate. In that capacity he must serve three full years before he
+can be admitted for his examination for a license. After this he must
+pass a most rigid examination on all points of seamanship and navigation
+before the Board of Pilot Commissioners, and show complete and exact
+knowledge of the tides, rips and sands and all other phenomena for many
+miles out from the piers of the East and North Rivers.
+
+But even after the candidate has received his license, he is sometimes
+forced to wait years, until some pilot happens to die and leave a
+vacancy for him. The first year of pilotage he is granted a license to
+pilot vessels drawing less than sixteen feet. If he gives satisfaction,
+the following year he is permitted to take charge of vessels drawing
+eighteen feet. If he passes a satisfactory examination the third year,
+he then receives a full license, entitling him to pilot vessels of any
+draught, and is then first called a branch or full pilot. On receiving
+his license, the pilot must give bonds for the proper discharge of his
+duty, and he is liable to heavy fines if he declines to fill a vacancy
+or board a vessel making signals for a pilot. Pilots are paid for their
+work by the foot, the charges varying according to the draught. For a
+ship drawing from twenty-one to twenty-eight feet they receive $4.88 a
+foot, and for one drawing six to thirteen and one-half feet $2.78 a
+foot, these rates being slightly increased in winter.
+
+A cruise on a New York pilot-boat, however brief, is an experience sure
+to be remembered. When a pilot-boat starts out on a hunt for ships, it
+is decided in what order its half-dozen pilots shall take the prizes,
+and the man who is to board the first one is placed in command. The
+other pilots, meanwhile, take their ease as best suits their taste, the
+seaman's work being done by a crew of sailors hired for the purpose. One
+pilot, however, is always on the lookout for sails, and a landsman is
+compelled to marvel at the certainty with which these ocean scouts
+discharge the task of sighting vessels, for often they are able to tell
+the name of a steamship before unaccustomed eyes can discern aught but a
+waste of waters and a wide expanse of sky. Still, a part of this skill
+may be due to the fact that pilots are always posted before going out as
+to what vessels are expected, and from what direction they are coming,
+the watch being made all the keener by the fact that the bigger the ship
+the bigger is the pilot's pay. A ship, moreover, must take a pilot going
+out from the same boat that furnishes the pilot going into port, while
+if a captain refuses a pilot he must pay full pilotage, and thus
+contribute his tithe to the support of the system. This latter rule
+seems, at first glance, a curious provision, but it is defended on the
+ground that without it the business would not be remunerative enough for
+really competent men to engage in it, and that with unskilled pilots the
+annual losses would be greatly in excess of what they are at present.
+
+When a ship is sighted by daylight, a long blue burgee is hoisted to the
+peak of the pilot-boat, which means, "Do you want a pilot?" If there is
+no responsive signal, it is taken for granted that the answer is "Yes,"
+but if a jack is hoisted the watchers know that the vessel has already
+been boarded by a pilot from some boat that has sailed farther away from
+port in the hunt for a ship. When a ship is sighted at night she is
+signalled by means of a torch charged with benzine and giving forth an
+intense light. Seen from the other vessel the effect is startling, the
+white light illuminating every sail and spar of the pilot-boat, so that
+it stands out, its number clearly visible upon the mainsail, a gray
+specter against the night's background.
+
+Should the answering signal be favorable, there follows a scene of great
+excitement on the deck of the pilot-boat. At first sight of the ship,
+the pilot due to take the prize dives down to the cabin, sheds his
+working clothes and dons a suit of sober black, and by the time it is
+known he is wanted, he is ready to be transferred to his charge. Taking
+on a pilot is not without its perils. The yawl nearly always pitches and
+tumbles in most uncomfortable fashion, while the ship is rarely if ever
+brought to a full stop, and the pilot, watching his chance, must grasp
+the rope ladder let down its side, and scramble aboard as best he can.
+Sometimes he gets a ducking, and if the weather is tempestuous he is
+pretty certain to be drenched, but for that he cares not a jot, and he
+is sure to show a smiling face to captain and passengers when finally he
+sets foot on deck. Dropping a pilot from an outgoing vessel is often
+more hazardous, especially in stormy weather, than his transfer the
+other way. Then he must descend the rope ladder and jump for the boat in
+the nick of time, for to miscalculate in the least the position of the
+little shell means a ducking almost certainly, and possibly a watery
+grave.
+
+[Illustration: PILOT SIGNALING A VESSEL]
+
+A peril, however, more feared by pilots than the one I have been
+describing, is the dreaded lee shore; and with reason, as a story told
+by a veteran ocean pathfinder will show. On a still afternoon in
+midsummer the crew of a pilot-boat sighted a ship off Fire Island, some
+five miles away. In the dead calm prevailing the only way to board her
+was to row over the distance. There would be little danger in doing this
+if the wind did not spring up and the ship sail away, so the yawl was
+lowered and headed for the distant merchantman. But as night was closing
+in, and ere the yawl had come within hailing distance of the ship, of a
+sudden the breeze sprang up, and the vessel making sail, glided slowly
+over the horizon line. The breeze grew into a gale, and in the gathering
+storm and gloom the men could no longer discern the whereabouts of the
+pilot-boat. Nor, there being no compass on board the yawl, could they
+determine the direction in which they were being blown. The nearest land
+was miles away and the only thing that could be done was to keep the
+boat's head to the wind and wait. Thus the minutes lengthened into
+hours. Toward dawn, when the night was darkest, they heard the thunder
+of surf on the reefs, and a little later felt the yawl lifted up on the
+crest of a mighty breaker rushing swiftly toward the land. There was a
+deafening roar, a crash, a whirl, and a torrent of foam. In a twinkling
+the boat was capsized and the poor fellows were struggling in the surf.
+One struck a rock and was killed. The others, freed from the receding
+wave, ran up the beach, and by digging their hands into the sand to
+escape the deadly undertow, finally got ashore, drenched and exhausted.
+
+In the main, however, the system I have been describing has now become a
+thing of the past. Potent causes have contributed to this result.
+Formerly pilot-boats had no particular stations assigned to them, and
+boats have been known to cruise as far north as Sable Island, a distance
+of six hundred miles, in order to get steamers taking the northern
+courses. In the same way pilot-boats cruised long distances to the
+southward and straight out to sea to meet the incoming steamers and
+sailing vessels. Thus, unrestrained in its movements and left to seek
+out its own salvation, each boat sought to outdo the other in securing
+work, and all sorts of strategic devices were brought into play in order
+to first gain the side of an incoming vessel. Pilots took advantage of
+fog and night in order to slip by a rival, while jockeying for winds and
+position was indulged in to an extent that would be counted
+extraordinary in a yacht race.
+
+Competition, however, cut down earnings to such an extent that there
+came a time when many of the boats were no longer able to pay expenses.
+Then it was that some of the long-headed among the pilots, casting about
+for a remedy for this evil, came to the conclusion that one steam
+pilot-boat would be able to do the work of three or four sailboats. It
+was accordingly decided some years ago that steamboats should gradually
+replace the existing fleet of sail. With this innovation came
+restrictions regulating the cruising grounds of the boats. Instead of
+cruising about indiscriminately as formerly, each boat is now assigned a
+certain beat. An imaginary arc has been described extending from
+Barnegat to Fire Island, a distance of seventy-five miles, and all pilot
+boats are expected to confine themselves within this line. Four
+pilot-boats patrol this line, each covering a beat of about nineteen
+miles. Inside of the circle are stationed two more pilot-boats, while
+still further in is a boat known as the inner pilot-boat. Just off the
+bar another boat is stationed to receive the pilots dropped by
+outward-bound vessels. When a boat in the outer circle becomes unmanned
+or disabled, a boat from the inner circle takes its place, while a
+reserve boat occupies the beat left vacant on the inner circle. In this
+way all the beats are constantly patrolled in an efficient and
+economical way. Each pilot takes his turn at the service, and is on
+board a boat cruising on the stations three days in seven, a moving
+contrast to the offshore service of other years, when a boat and crew
+were frequently compelled to remain at sea for weeks at a time.
+
+Indeed, under the new system of pilotage, battles with cross-seas and
+gales and exposures to snow, cold and sleet, while cruising for vessels
+hundreds of miles off coast, are fast becoming things of the past, and
+for stories of collisions, wrecks, narrow escapes and strange mishaps,
+one must now hark back to the records of former days. Here, however, he
+is sure to encounter many a tale that quickens the pulse and stirs the
+blood. Take the case of the Columbia, run down by the steamship Alaska,
+off Fire Island. When the Alaska was sighted, the pilot-boat was
+head-reaching to the north on the port tack. The wind was blowing a gale
+from the northwest, and an ugly sea was running, with the weather
+clear, but cold. She plunged deeply into the heavy sea, and heeled to
+the force of the wind until her lee rail was awash. The wind whipped off
+the top of the waves and filled the air with spray. When the steamship
+sighted the boat off Fire Island, her course was changed to make a lee
+for the boat's yawl. She seemed to stop when the yawl was launched and
+two men and a pilot went over the side of the boat and dropped into her,
+but ere the yawl had fairly started on her way the liner, of a sudden,
+and without warning, forged ahead. The surge from the port bow of the
+Alaska, as she pitched into a big wave, capsized the boat, and threw the
+men into the water. Before anything could be done to save them the bows
+of the steamship rose and fell again, and, hitting the pilot-boat, cut
+it in two and crushed the decks and beams to bits, the broken timbers
+being swept under the bows and along the sides as the steamship again
+forged ahead and passed over the spot. Not a man on the Columbia was
+saved.
+
+The Sandy Hook pilot, however, never quails in the face of danger or
+even death, as was proved at the stranding of the packet boat, John
+Minturn, almost within a stone's throw of the New Jersey beach during a
+frightful hurricane in February, 1846. There were fifty-one souls on
+board the Minturn, and of that number only thirteen escaped to tell the
+story of that fearful night. Its hero, according to the evidences of
+all, was Pilot Thomas Freeborn, who to the very last struggled manfully
+to succor the hapless women and children who clung to the deck around
+him. It was bitter cold, and every wave that washed over the stranded
+ship left its coating of ice on deck, rigging, passengers and crew.
+Freeborn and brave Captain Stark, who was forced to see his wife and
+children freeze to death without being able to render them assistance,
+gave up their own clothing in a vain attempt to protect the weaker
+sufferers, and when days afterward the pilot's body was found washed up
+on the beach it was almost naked, while that of a woman, which lay
+near-by, was carefully wrapped in his pea-jacket.
+
+It has been three-score years since the wreck of the Minturn, but in
+every year since then there has been numbered among the members of the
+Sandy Hook Pilot's Association scores of hardy men, who, should need
+come to them, stood ready to risk their lives and die as bravely as did
+Thomas Freeborn. Pilot Henry Devere proved that he had the same heroic
+fiber in his makeup when he sailed in the James Funck, before the Civil
+War. A brig under shortened sails was sighted one day, and when the yawl
+of the pilot-boat drew alongside, Devere hailed a boy at the wheel. The
+boy seemed to be stupefied, and the pilot was obliged to hail him
+several times before he started up, leaned forward into the
+companionway, and called feebly to somebody below. Then a gaunt man came
+on deck and said that the crew had been stricken by fever. Most people
+in the face of a menace of this sort would have turned back, but Devere
+was not that kind of man. Instead, he went on board, and, with the help
+of the mate, headed the vessel toward Sandy Hook. The captain was ill in
+his stateroom. The body of a dead sailor found on deck was tied in
+mosquito netting and dropped overboard. The boy died in the lower bay,
+and the captain off the Battery, leaving the mate as the sole survivor
+of the crew. The pilot helped to furl the sails and make the lines fast,
+and only left the stricken vessel when she had reached her moorings.
+
+The stranding of the Jesse Carll in 1889, illustrates another of the
+dangers with which pilots sometimes have to contend. The boat, having
+discharged one of her five pilots, was standing off shore near Fire
+Island, when she began to feel the force of an advancing southern
+cyclone, and early in the evening was in what sailors call "nasty
+weather." At midnight a violent thunder-storm burst overhead, and the
+increasing wind raised a furious sea, but Pilot Gideon Mapes, in charge
+of the vessel, had her under double-reefed sails, and standing up
+against the wind and waves in fine shape. Then came a deluge of rain,
+and the wind increased to hurricane force. Soon a thick mist covered the
+water and shut out everything in sight. The boat reached off and on,
+expecting to keep out of shoal water, but all efforts failed. Her
+signals of distress were seen by the life-saving crew on the beach, and
+before daylight the ten men on board were taken ashore in boats. When
+morning came an effort was made to pull the boat off, but as she shifted
+into deeper water she filled, a hole having been made in her bottom.
+Then the pilots abandoned her, but she was raised and repaired a few
+weeks later.
+
+Stories like these are what the pilots tell in their idle hours.
+Searching for them at such a time, one is most likely to find them at
+the Pilots' Club, a flourishing social organization, which has roomy
+quarters just under the roof of a big office building within hailing
+distance of the Battery. Here at all hours of the day a score or more of
+pilots are sure to be sitting about spinning yarns, playing cards and
+checkers and reading the newspapers and magazines. Their well-furnished
+clubrooms contain a great number of precious curios--relics from all
+quarters of the globe. There are firearms of curious antique pattern;
+autograph letters by such famous sea-dogs as Macdonough and Porter; a
+tiny chest of drawers carved from one of the timbers of John Paul Jones'
+ship, the Bon Homme Richard; a portrait of Washington by Stuart,
+surrounded by two large American flags, and a model of the pilot-boat
+Stingaree, which was built in 1810, and was one of the most famous
+crafts of her day.
+
+This model shows that the years have wrought great changes in the
+building and rigging of pilot-boats. In old times the boats simply
+carried mainsail, foresail, and forestaysail and jib. They had no
+foretopmast, and on their maintopmast carried a flying gaff-topsail,
+which was hoisted from the deck. Now the boats have both fore and
+maintopmasts, and each carries a mainsail, foresail, forestaysail, jib,
+jib-topsail, maintopsail and staysail and fore and main standing-gaff
+topsails, which give them an immense spread of sail, compared with that
+used by the boats of earlier times. A schooner-rigged pilot-boat costs
+from $15,000 to $16,000. That was about the cost of the Caldwell H.
+Colt, a good example of the typical pilot-boat. She is eighty-five feet
+long with twenty-one feet beam, 61.43 tons, custom-house register, and a
+rig as trim and jaunty as that of an ordinary yacht. The pride, however,
+at present writing, of the New York Sandy Hook fleet is the New York,
+built of steel, propelled by steam, and able to stand as much buffeting
+in cyclonic seas as the stanchest of the liners. She was built on the
+Delaware from designs by A. Cary Smith, is 155 feet long, 28 feet beam,
+19 feet 7 inches deep, and is driven by a compound surface-condensing
+engine of 100 horse-power. Her pole masts are of steel, and she spreads
+on them enough canvas to steady her. The New York has accommodations for
+twenty-four pilots, who fare more luxuriously than they ever did on any
+of the old sailing craft. They have a smoking-room in a separate steel
+deckhouse, aft of the engine-room, fitted up like a similar room on an
+ocean steamship, while the lifeboats in which they leave the New York to
+board incoming vessels are hoisted and lowered by a steam derrick in
+less than a minute. It is intended that in a few years the entire fleet
+shall be made up of vessels equal if not superior to the New York.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE DEEP-SEA DIVER
+
+
+There is something about the occupation of the diver that strongly
+appeals to the imagination, and with reason, for working fathoms below
+the surface of the water, in semi-darkness, dependent upon a rickety
+pump for the breath of life, his trade is at best a perilous and
+precarious one. Perhaps, that is why divers as a class are opposed to
+taking apprentices, and that a majority of the men who drift into the
+calling do so by accident. Most divers, if you question them, will tell
+you that the best, if not the only way to acquire their art is to put on
+a diving suit, go down into the depths, and learn the business for
+yourself.
+
+That was what a diver who was preparing for work in the East River said
+to me, and, fitting the action to the word, I asked him to loan me his
+suit, and permit me to try my 'prentice hand at the business. He
+protested goodnaturedly, but finally yielding, brought out his suit, and
+helped me to put it on. The outfit in which I speedily found myself
+accoutred, consists of two suits, one within the other, and both of
+india-rubber. The stockings, trousers and shirt are all made together as
+one garment, which the wearer enters at the neck, feet first. The hands
+are left bare, the wristbands of the rubber shirtsleeves tightly
+compressing the wrists. There is a copper breastplate, bearing upon its
+outer convex surface small screws adjusted to holes in the neck of the
+shirt, which by means of nuts fastened upon the screws, is held so
+securely in place as to render the entire dress from the neck downward
+absolutely air and water-tight. Fitting with equal closeness to the
+breastplate is a helmet, completely inclosing the head and supplied with
+three glasses, one in front and one on each side, to enable the diver
+to look in any direction. Finally, for his feet there is a pair of very
+thick leather shoes, made to lace up the front, and supplied with heavy
+leaden soles to prevent him from turning feet uppermost in the water.
+
+When, with my friend's aid, I had donned this curious-looking dress, he
+placed across my shoulders ropes sustaining two leaden weights, one
+hanging at my breast and the other at my back. Sometimes in very strong
+currents it is necessary to make the weights which the diver carries
+extraordinarily heavy. Such was the case with those hanging over my
+shoulders on the occasion of my first dive. While the diving dress I
+wore weighed of itself nearly two hundred pounds, yet, much to my
+surprise, when once below the surface, I did not find the burden I
+sustained in wearing it any more than I did that of my ordinary clothing
+when out of the water. It also seemed marvelous to me, after daylight
+had swiftly merged into the twilight of the depths, that though I was
+several fathoms under water my breathing was free and unconstrained,
+for an air-pump worked by two men supplies the diver with air, which
+passes into his helmet through a hose at the back. Near the place of its
+entrance is a spring valve for its escape. This can be controlled by the
+diver, but he usually sets it before going into the water and seldom
+disturbs it afterward, since the pressure of the air being greater than
+that of the water a surplus of the former readily escapes.
+
+When the valve proves insufficient to permit the escape of all the dead
+air the diver can open in his breast-plate a similar spring valve
+intended only for such an emergency. He can also regulate the amount of
+air pumped to him by signals on the air-hose to the men engaged in
+pumping, one pull meaning more and two pulls less air. These signals by
+means of the air-hose are generally used by all divers, but each diver
+has also his own private code of signals upon the life-line, which is
+always fastened to his waist, and by which he is drawn up out of the
+water. These signals each diver writes down very carefully and gives to
+the man in charge of the life-line. By means of these he can, without
+coming to the surface, send for tools, material or anything needed for
+the work he has in hand. When a lengthy communication is to be made the
+diver often sends up for a slate and writes what he wishes to say. Old
+divers declare that it is just as easy to read and write under the water
+as it is out of it, all objects being greatly magnified.
+
+The only unpleasant sensation of my stay below was a slight drumming in
+the ears--walking under the water I found an easy matter--and when
+hauled to the surface I declared my first attempt at diving a wholly
+successful one. However, the man whose suit I had borrowed, smiled at my
+enthusiasm, and declared with something akin to contempt that there was
+a good deal of difference between deep-sea diving and grubbing about the
+East River for a lost anchor. I learned before we parted that he was a
+deep-sea diver forced for the moment to accept whatever task came to
+hand, but there was truth in what he said; and I am also convinced,
+after talks with a dozen members of his fraternity, that neither a
+single descent nor even many descents into the depths, can give one an
+adequate idea of the weird strangeness of a diver's life. That can come
+only from the cumulative experience of a lifetime.
+
+Almost all the submarine work on the Atlantic coast is done by divers
+living in New York or Boston. There are about as many skilled divers in
+Boston as New York--perhaps twenty in each city. The pay of a skilled
+diver is five dollars a day of four hours or less. In that time a man
+may descend half a dozen times, or he may descend once and stay four
+hours, but be his period of labor long or short, it counts as a day. If
+at the end of four hours he descends again that descent counts as
+another day's labor. The diver's assistant receives three dollars. He is
+a skilled man, whose business it is to manage the life-line and the
+hose, and who sometimes becomes a diver. The pumpers, who run the pump
+that keeps the diver supplied with air, are each paid two dollars a day.
+They are not skilled workmen and seldom develop into divers.
+
+Probably a third of the New York divers do not work for wages. These are
+men who own their outfits and prefer to work by the job. Some of the
+self-employing divers enjoy good incomes from their labors. As a rule, a
+diver of this class goes down, looks at a sunken vessel, and then states
+what he will charge to raise her. Diver Victor Hinston was paid $150 a
+day for locating the sunken steamship City of Chester, and Captain
+Anthony Williams, having raised the schooner Dauntless in two days,
+received $750 for his time and trouble. The same diver, having repaired
+with iron plates and raised in four days the steamer Meredith, ashore
+near Jeremie, in Hayti, demanded and was paid $7,500 for his work. The
+divers of New York live much as other citizens of the metropolis. A
+majority of them are native Americans, with homes, wives and children.
+They are, of course, absent from home a great deal and on short notice,
+for divers from New York are not only sent all over the eastern coast of
+the continent, but even to the Great Lakes and the interior rivers, most
+of their work lying beyond the city.
+
+Abram Onderdonk, when he died not long ago, was the oldest deep-sea
+diver in this country. During forty of the nearly seventy years of his
+life he was continuously engaged in the pursuit of his calling, and it
+carried him to nearly every part of the globe. Captain Abe, as his
+friends called him, counted the swordfish as the gravest danger members
+of his craft have to fear. This fish, which has a short bony sword
+almost as strong as steel, protruding from its head, speeds along
+through the water, charging dead ahead and never veering from its course
+for anything save a rocky ledge or the iron hull of a steamship. If it
+strikes a wooden craft, its sword seldom fails to cut clean through the
+vessel's side. Should a man be attacked by it certain death awaits him.
+Diver Onderdonk himself never encountered but one of these creatures,
+and that was a young one whose sword had not yet hardened. He was at
+work on the deck of a sunken vessel, when he saw the fish coming from a
+distance, and heading straight toward him. He took a tighter grip upon
+the ax which he held in his hand, and made ready for attack, but, to his
+surprise and relief, the fish, never swerving from its course, glided
+past him out of his guard's range, and a moment later disappeared.
+
+Captain Abe often encountered sharks under water, but declared that, as
+a rule, there is little to be feared from them. A former mate of his
+named March, however, once had an ugly experience with these creatures.
+The diver in question was at work in a wreck which had been loaded with
+live cattle. When she had been at the bottom for a month or so the
+cattle became light and began rising to the surface. The locality was
+infested with sharks, which quickly gathered round the hatchway, seizing
+the carcasses as they came out and following them to the surface. Some
+of the cattle had been tied, and these floating out to their ropes' end,
+were torn to pieces by the sharks, which soon began to fight among
+themselves, with the diver an unwilling witness to their struggles.
+March, hesitating to ascend for fear he might be attacked, and afraid to
+remain below lest the snap of a shark's mouth should sever his air hose,
+in the end gave the signal to be hauled up, and the next instant was
+jerked into and through the school of sharks. He came out of the water
+maimed for life, as in his upward passage a shark snapped at him and
+took off his right hand, thus rendering him incapable of further service
+as a diver.
+
+Another of Captain Abe's old mates, McGavern by name, while at work in
+New Zealand waters, had an equally harrowing, although fortunately less
+harmful, encounter with that most formidable of all marine monsters, the
+devil fish. The diver was laying some wharf-blocks when suddenly
+surprised by his uncanny foe. Despite his struggles--and he was a giant
+in stature and strength--the monster quickly and completely overpowered
+him. He was locked in the tremendous claws of the devil fish, and
+fastened helpless against a submerged spile. McGavern realized his
+peril, and kept quiet until his assailant, whose arms measured nearly
+nine feet, loosened his hold. Then he signalled to be drawn up, and came
+to the surface with the writhing creature still clinging to his back.
+
+Captain Abe served before the mast in his youth, and I find that, other
+things being equal, sailors make the best divers of all. Their former
+experience is apt to render them cool and quick-witted in the presence
+of danger, and their knowledge of a ship's rigging and construction
+proves of untold value to them in their work. To his training as a
+sailor Captain Charles Smith, a well-known Boston diver, probably owed
+his truly marvelous escape from death when overtaken by accident while
+at work on the sunken hull of the Clara Post, in the harbor of
+Bridgeport, Conn., a few years ago. The wreck lay sixteen fathoms deep,
+and when Captain Smith descended to examine it, he found that the masts
+had gone by the board, and that the deck had been torn off by the waves,
+while the cross timbers strewed with the wreckage, hung over the decks
+and into the hold. Captain Smith began to cut them away, when suddenly
+the tangled mass shifted and fell part way in the hold, catching him
+with it and prisoning him as in a vise. The diver could not see far in
+the deep water in which he was at work, and finding himself pinned in,
+how he could not tell, he pulled the life-line three times--the signal
+that his life was in peril. He felt himself rising a few feet; then all
+the wreckage fell in upon him, pinning him more securely than before.
+Worse still, when he tried to free himself, he found that the air-pipe
+had encountered some unseen obstruction, and that to attempt to move
+about would shut off his supply of air. The peril was one that made each
+moment seem like eternity.
+
+[Illustration: A DIVER READY TO DESCEND]
+
+Meanwhile the diver's assistants were trying to discover what had
+happened to him. It seemed to them that the signal to haul up had been
+instantly followed by one to lower, and then by one to stop. The men at
+the life-line, confused at these apparently contradictory commands,
+ordered the derrick to haul on the blocks. Nothing yielded to the
+strain, and the men at the pumps labored until they were exhausted, and
+had to give way to others, but still no signs of release. A new danger
+now threatened the imprisoned man. In catching hold of some iron bolts
+he had cut a small hole in the valve of one of his rubber gloves, and
+water, filling the glove, was slowly oozing past the clamps at the
+wrist, and creeping up the arm. It seemed to the helpless diver, held
+fast in the tide-swept mass, that he would soon be strangled or crushed
+to death. Confused by the great air pressure in his helmet, he had about
+concluded that his end had come, when--unlooked for relief--the wreckage
+gave a lurch, and he found that he could climb up to one of the deck
+timbers. He grasped his ax, and was hewing desperately for freedom,
+when suddenly the whole mass broke away, and began to rise rapidly,
+carrying the diver, now head downward, with it. His queer ascent did not
+consume more than ten seconds, but it was long enough for him to live
+over in memory all the events of a lifetime of two-score years. At first
+his comrades failed to discover him in the mass of tangled material, and
+their surprise can be imagined when he shot up through the wreckage,
+feet first. Captain Smith described this as his closest call to death's
+door, "and" he added, "I have peeped through the keyhole pretty often."
+
+Captain Smith's adventure reminded a brother diver, in whose presence it
+was told, of a narrow escape of his own. It occurred while he was
+putting some copper on the bottom of a steamer in dock. "I took some
+plate down with me," he said, "and worked for a while on one side of the
+hull, after which I started in to put some plates on the other side. The
+vessel was about three feet off the bottom, and I crawled underneath,
+dragging the plates behind me. After I had been at work for an hour or
+so I noticed that my air was getting short, but when I tried to get
+under the keel again to be hauled up, I found the steamer on the bottom
+and squeezing my air-hose between its keel and the ground. The tide was
+ebbing and the hull had gradually sunk until it was almost aground. I
+had forgotten all about the tide, and when I pulled the hose it refused
+to move an inch. If the bottom had been soft it would not have mattered
+so much, but it was rock, and the hose was gripped like a vise. There
+was nothing to do but wait; if she fell any lower the air would be
+entirely shut off and I would have to die. Not till my last hour shall I
+forget the torture of those few minutes while I waited to see whether it
+rose or fell. My head felt as though it was bursting, and my nose and
+ears were bleeding. I took heart, however, when the air began to
+freshen, for I knew then that the tide had turned, and that the hull was
+rising. There was plenty of time for me to recover my nerve before it
+was high enough off the bottom for me to crawl under, but I did not get
+it back. Instead, I stood there shaking like one stricken with palsy
+until I could squeeze under the bottom and give the signal to be hauled
+up. I reached the surface in a half-fainting condition, and was sick for
+weeks afterward. When I did recover it was with hearing permanently
+impaired."
+
+Diving in the Great Lakes is attended with even greater perils than
+those I have just been describing. In Lake Huron, opposite the entrance
+of Thunder Bay, a large buoy marks the spot where, nearly twenty-five
+fathoms deep, lies the wreck of a once famous lake vessel, which sank
+while sixty of its passengers were still in their berths, not one of
+whom evermore made sign. The steamer took down with it when it sank not
+only that precious human freight, but $300,000 in gold coin and five
+hundred tons of copper. The sunken steamer was the Pewabic. Bound down
+the lakes from Copper Island, then the richest known deposit of pure
+copper in the world, it collided with the steamer Meteor, bound up the
+lakes, and sank almost instantly.
+
+Diving apparatus was at that time somewhat crude upon the lakes, and the
+great depth of water in which the Pewabic went down made it out of the
+question to attempt to raise it or to recover any of its valuable cargo.
+Twenty-five years after the wreck the sunken vessel was located by means
+of grappling irons, and a Toledo diver ventured to go down and inspect
+it. He was hauled up dead. In spite of his fate, two other divers,
+tempted by the price offered, went down at different times. Neither
+survived the venture, and until 1892 nothing further was done toward
+recovering the wealth lying in the wrecked Pewabic. Then a noted diver,
+Oliver Peliky by name, who had with apparatus of his own devising done
+safer work in deeper water than any other diver on the lakes had ever
+been able to withstand, announced his willingness to go down to the
+wreck. He was taken to the spot, the wreck was located by grapples and
+Peliky went down. He was below twenty minutes and then signalled to be
+drawn up. When he reached the surface he said he had experienced no
+great inconvenience, had gone into the wreck, and was enthusiastic in
+his belief that he could do the work that was necessary to recover the
+cargo. He went down again, and for a quarter of an hour answered every
+signal. Then he failed to respond. The men on the tender pulled on the
+life-line. It had plainly caught on some obstruction. The crew,
+believing that Peliky was dead, backed the steamer. The jerk loosened
+the life-line. They hauled the diver to the surface. His armor was
+opened, as if burst by some great force. The diver, of course, was dead.
+Since then, though handsome inducements have been held out to various
+divers, no further attempt has been made to recover the treasure that
+has lain for more than a generation in the Pewabic's hold.
+
+One of the divers with whom I have talked told me that somehow diving
+took the life out of a man, and that he had never known a diver who did
+much smiling. "I have an impression myself," he added, "that I shall go
+down one of these days without coming up again." In truth, before my
+wanderings among them were ended, I came to the conclusion that divers,
+as a class, are taciturn, grave, sober-faced men, but I also found that
+the calling they follow has its humorous as well as its serious side,
+although too often the humor has a dash of the grewsome to it, as was
+the case with a diver who went down to work on the steamship Viscaya,
+sunk in a collision off Barnegat Light. It was a difficult job, so two
+divers were sent down--one of them to remain on deck in sixty feet of
+water, to act as second tender to the other diver who went below. The
+latter had been at work but a few minutes when three jerks came over the
+life-line. He was so unnerved when hauled up to the deck that he forgot
+that he was still in sixty feet of water, and signalled to have his
+helmet removed. When both divers had been hauled to the surface, he said
+that while he was working through a gangway, he had seen two huge
+objects coming toward him; and nothing could dissuade him from the
+belief that he had encountered two submarine ghosts--until the other
+diver went down and discovered that there was a mirror at the end of the
+gangway, and that the diver had seen the reflection of his own legs,
+vastly enlarged, coming toward him.
+
+The veteran from whom I had this story told me also of the amusing
+mistake made by a diver, who, much against his will, had been sent down
+to recover a body from a wreck. Some divers have an ineradicable dread
+of the dead, and never handle them when they can possible avoid it. He
+was one of this kind, and the water being very thick, he went groping
+gingerly about in the cabin. After a lengthy search he found a body, and
+fastening a line around it, gave the signal to haul it up. When he
+followed and took off his helmet a large hog lay on the deck. He had
+tied the line around it, thinking it was the body he was looking for.
+After that he was always called the "pork" diver. His former comrades
+have likewise many amusing stories to relate of a diver of other days,
+Tom Brintley by name, who, though a competent man and a good fellow, was
+a little too fond of stimulants. On one occasion he went down while in
+his cups, and the men above not knowing his condition, became seriously
+alarmed when several hours passed by without their receiving any signals
+from him or any response to those they made to him. Another diver, sent
+down to look for him, found him lying on his back at the bottom of the
+ocean, sixty feet below the surface, fast asleep!
+
+The bed of the ocean would seem to most people an exceedingly strange
+place in which to take a nap, but divers live in a world of their own--a
+world of which their fellows know little or nothing, yet abounding at
+every turn with curious, beautiful, and indeed, almost incredible
+sights. Sometimes, especially in tropical waters, the bottom of the sea
+is a lovely spectacle, and divers grow enthusiastic when they describe
+its forests of kelp and seaweed gently waving in the tide, which look
+like fairyland, in dim light, and the bright-colored fish making them
+all the more beautiful. Along the coast of the Island of Margueretta,
+and in many parts of the Caribbean Sea, there are submarine scenes of
+surpassing beauty. Often the bed of the ocean is as smooth and firm as a
+house floor, and the water as transparent as crystal, while the white
+sandy bottom acts as a reflector to the bright sunshine above the
+surface. In some places there are widespreading pastures of stumpy,
+scrubby marine vegetation, a growth not unlike seaweed, and of a bluish
+gray tinge. There are also clumps of fan-shaped fungi, of a spongy
+consistency, which when dried in the sun are exceedingly beautiful. But
+the most wonderful growths in these gardens of Neptune are the long kelp
+tubas, resembling our fresh-water pond-lilies, only of much larger size.
+Their stems are tough and hollow, and put forth pretty blossoms on the
+surface, although their roots are in the bed of the ocean, many fathoms
+below.
+
+In the West Indies and the Spanish Main the water is so clear and
+transparent that the bottom is visible at a depth of from sixty to a
+hundred feet below the surface, and the scope of the diver's vision is
+seldom less than an eighth of a mile. In Northern seas, however,
+especially in the harbors of towns and cities, the water is so
+discolored and murky that nothing can be seen at about twenty feet from
+the surface, a disadvantage which calls for the exercise of the gift of
+which all divers are most boastful--their delicacy of touch. Indeed,
+most frequently the diver must do his work under water by means of touch
+only, and when one considers the varied tasks he is called upon to
+perform, pipe laying, building, drilling holes in rocks and charging
+them with dynamite in darkness, looking for treasure, recovering dead
+bodies and sunken cargoes, or inspecting all parts of a wrecked vessel,
+buried in water a hundred feet deep, it is not to be wondered at that he
+should be proud of any special skill in this direction with which nature
+and practice have favored him. With some, this delicacy of touch
+becomes in time almost a sixth sense. Diver C. P. Everett, of New York,
+is one of these. Four or five years ago, he laid a submarine timber
+foundation of twenty-eight feet long 12 x 12 yellow pine, handling it
+alone. First, the pieces were weighted to sink; and then Everett went
+down and weighted them for handling, for without weights they would, of
+course, have immediately risen to the surface.
+
+Only a strong man can become or, at least, long remain a successful
+diver. No one is fit for the calling who suffers from headache,
+neuralgia, deafness, palpitation of the heart, intemperance, or a
+languid circulation. The pressure of the atmosphere increases the lower
+one descends, until a point is reached where life could not be
+maintained. The greatest depth, perhaps, ever reached, was 201 feet,
+with an atmosphere pressure of 87 pounds to the square inch. A diver
+named Green worked in 145 feet in Lake Ontario, but he was paralyzed,
+and never did a day's work afterward. Most divers do not care to work
+much deeper than 120 feet, and even for 30 or 40 feet, a moderate
+depth, considerable nerve and practice are requisite. The lower the
+depth, the more acute the pains felt in the ears and about the eyes, and
+symptoms of paralysis become more pronounced. An asthmatic man, on the
+other hand, may be cured by diving, the constant supply of fresh air,
+and the pressure which drives the blood so rapidly opening up the lungs.
+Divers as a rule cannot stand close rooms, being so accustomed to a
+copious supply of fresh air that they must have plenty of it, even when
+they are above water. In diving, the supply of air is increased
+according to the depth. At thirty feet below the surface fifteen pounds
+of air to the square inch is used, at sixty feet thirty pounds, and so
+on. Still, much depends on the man, and some divers work in eighty feet
+of water with only forty-five pounds.
+
+In the laying of masonry under the water and other work of the kind, the
+diving dress is usually replaced by the diving bell. This is a large
+vessel full of air, but open at the bottom, fresh air being pumped into
+it by air pumps. It is furnished with seats, and a chain passes through
+the center, by which weights can be raised or lowered. The diving bell
+has this advantage over the dress, that several men can work in company;
+on the other hand, should an accident happen, more lives are involved.
+Some years ago the chain of a diving bell in use at a pier in Dover,
+England, got fouled in some way and its occupants found themselves in a
+most alarming predicament. However, a diver named William Wharlow,
+donning his suit, descended, crowbar in hand, and after several hours of
+hard work, succeeded in freeing the chain, when the diving bell was
+hauled up in safety.
+
+It was stated a little while ago that some divers have an ineradicable
+dread of the dead; many will not have anything to do with them, when
+they come upon them by accident they will be unnerved and useless for
+the rest of the day, and those who make a virtue of necessity, when on a
+wreck generally insist upon getting the bodies out first. The
+temperature of the water always tells the diver where to look for bodies
+in a wreck; if it is cold they will be on the floor or lying in the
+berths; if warm they rise to the ceiling or against the bottom of the
+berth above.
+
+The diver who raised the tugboat Bronx from the East River found the
+fireman sitting in a chair in the fire-room, staring into a
+wave-quenched furnace, with the weird, lifelike expression often seen in
+the wide-open eyes of the drowned, and which those who have encountered
+it declare never fails to strain the nerves of the strongest man. Other
+divers relate even more grewsome experiences. When the diver, employed
+to locate and examine the steamship City of Chester, entered the
+steerage, the first object that met his gaze was the figure of a man
+standing upright, entangled in a pile of ropes. The face was terribly
+distorted and the tongue, protruding, hung from the mouth, while the
+body was swollen to twice its natural size. Going a little further aft
+he found another victim of the wreck, who had fallen on his knees and
+grasped a third man around the waist. The spectacle so affected him that
+he signaled to be hauled to the surface, where he reported what he had
+seen, and refused to again go below until accompanied by another diver.
+
+Captain Abram Onderdonk, already referred to, once brought up a dozen
+bodies from the wreck of the steamer Albatross, sunk in the Caribbean
+Sea. Some of these were in their staterooms, and the last corpse was
+that of a young woman. He found her in the bed lying on her side, her
+eyes wide open and staring straight ahead. One of her arms was thrust
+through the bed slats, with the hand clutching the berth frame. As he
+loosened her grasp the body turned, then floated to an almost erect
+position, and leaned over toward him with a repelling look. The
+expression of the face and eyes, as well as the attitude, almost
+unmanned him, but in a moment he regained his nerve, clasped her about
+the waist and brought her to the surface. The same diver was employed
+to bring the dead from the wrecked Sound steamer Stonington. Groping
+about one of the staterooms, for he had to feel his way in the darkness,
+his hand came in contact with a corpse, which he took and carried to the
+surface. It proved to be a woman, and clasped to her bosom so firmly
+that no effort could separate them, was a beautiful babe. Perfect peace
+and rest were on their faces, and they had evidently died in sleep.
+Mother and child were buried as they were found--together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER
+
+
+Heroes, also, are the men who build and tend our lighthouses, and there
+are few finer stories than that which tells of the erection of Tillamook
+Rock lighthouse, probably the most exposed structure in the world.
+Tillamook is a basaltic rock, rising abruptly from the deep waters of
+the Pacific a mile off the Oregon coast, and eighteen miles south of the
+mouth of the Columbia River. Projecting to seaward, it receives the full
+force of the stormiest waves of the Pacific, which often break with
+appalling violence on its summit, ninety feet above the level of the
+sea, boats being able to reach it only when the sea is calm.
+
+Four workmen in October, 1879, were landed on the rock with their tools,
+fuel, provisions, a stove, and canvas for a tent. They were in a few
+days joined by five others, who brought with them a small derrick. The
+foreman of the party lost his life in attempting to land, and the lot of
+the survivors was one of great discomfort and constant danger. To
+prevent being blown or washed away, they tied the canvas to ring-bolts
+driven into holes drilled in the rocks, and then quarried out a nook in
+which they built a shanty, which they also bolted to the rocks. Next a
+flight of steps was quarried up the steep side of the cliff, and the
+work of cutting down and leveling the summit began.
+
+The weather often compelled a suspension of work for days at a time, and
+in January came a tornado which lasted for nearly a week. During this
+storm the shanty of the workmen was repeatedly flooded with water and
+their supplies were swept into the sea. They were able at the end of a
+fortnight to make those on the mainland acquainted with their condition,
+and fresh supplies were passed to them over a line cast from the rocks
+to the deck of a schooner, which had come as near as safety would
+permit.
+
+When May, 1880, came, the dome of the rock had been cut down to a height
+of eighty-eight feet from the surface of the sea, and a spot leveled for
+the lighthouse. A small engine and more derricks were now landed, and
+with them came three masons, who in June laid the corner-stone of the
+lighthouse. The stones were made ready for laying on the mainland, and a
+fresh supply conveyed to the rock whenever the weather would permit.
+First, a square, one-story house for the keepers was built, and above
+this was raised a tower forty-eight feet high, raising the light 136
+feet above the sea level. Sixteen months after work was begun the lamp
+was lighted for the first time, and has since prevented scores of
+wrecks. Over the beacon raised amid such difficulties, three keepers
+stand sentinel, and their lot is an exciting as well as a lonely one. A
+few winters ago a terrific storm broke upon the rock, and the water
+poured in torrents through the holes cut in the dome of the lighthouse
+to give ventilation to the lamps. Stout wire screen shutters protected
+the lantern and broke the force of the water hurled against the glass.
+But for this it would have been battered in, and the heavy plates might
+have killed the man attending the lamps.
+
+Tillamook is known in the service and to mariners as a light of the
+first class, since lighthouses are roughly divided into three classes:
+First, those on outlying headlands and deep-sea rocks, the
+distinguishing features of a country's coastline, and the first to give
+the mariner warning of his nearness to land. The second grade of lights
+show him his way through the secondary shoals and rocks, and the third
+grade, or harbor lights, take him safely into port. There are fifty-two
+first-class lights on the coasts of the United States. New Jersey and
+Massachusetts have each a double light; and Florida, by reason of the
+treacherous reefs which girt its coast, has as many first-class lights
+as any other two States put together.
+
+A majority of the lights of the first-class are housed in tall stone or
+brick towers, and a number of them stand upon very high ground. The
+light on Cape Mendocino glows from an eminence of 423 feet above the
+level of the sea, and is visible for twenty-eight miles. There are ten
+other lights whose elevation averages from 204 to 360 feet above sea
+level, and which are visible from twenty-one to twenty-six miles. The
+light at St. Augustine, Fla., is a fine example of its class. The strong
+and massive tower of brick rises 150 feet from the ground, and the light
+is reached by winding stairs. The apparatus for the light is twelve feet
+high and six feet through, and the lenses alone cost thousands of
+dollars. A powerful lamp in the centre of the apparatus sends its rays
+in all directions, the lenses being arranged at such angles as to gather
+the light and to send it out in parallel rays in the course desired. The
+cost of the St. Augustine lighthouse was $100,000.
+
+Each lighthouse must have peculiarities of its own, so that both by
+night and by day the mariner can distinguish it from its neighbors, and
+thus guard against the mistakes that might otherwise prove fatal. The
+first result desired is accomplished by the use of fixed, revolving,
+blended, flash and intermittent lights, and as the timing of the second
+and the two latter classes is capable of great variety, it will be seen
+that the elasticity of the system is ample to meet all possible needs.
+To secure the second result desired the lighthouses are painted in
+different colors, and the application of the colors is varied in each
+instance. Some retain their natural colors, while others are painted
+black and white, or red and white; here broad horizontal bands
+alternating, and there slender spiral ones setting off the background of
+a sharply contrasting color. Again, the shape of the houses is varied,
+some being circular and others cone-shaped, some tall and others short,
+some square and others octagonal, while in many cases the shape and
+color of the keeper's dwelling nearby also help to make distinction
+easy. Thus the character of the light guides the sailor by night, and
+by day the form and color of the lighthouse give him welcome knowledge
+of his whereabouts.
+
+The first lighthouses in this country were beacons, made by piling up
+stones, from the summit of which "firebales of pitch and ocum" were
+burned in iron baskets at night. It is a far cry from that time to this,
+and the construction of the lighthouse of the present day is, as has
+already been shown, a task demanding mechanical skill and engineering
+ability of the first order. A lighthouse on the mainland has few
+difficulties involved in its construction, but where the foundation is
+an isolated rock, a submerged reef, or a sandy shoal, the best resources
+of the engineer and mechanic are called into full play.
+
+The lighthouse most difficult to build is that on the submerged rock or
+partly submerged rock. Race Rock Light, in Long Island Sound, belongs to
+this class. Portions of Race Rock are three and others thirteen feet
+under water. Diving-bells were used to level the foundations for the
+lighthouse, and the masonry and concrete under water were laid in the
+same way. The United States has two other lighthouses built on submerged
+rocks, Minot's Ledge in Boston harbor, and Spectacle Reef, on Lake
+Huron. The first lighthouse on Minot's Ledge was built above stout iron
+rods driven into the rocks. In April, 1851, there was a severe gale
+which lasted five days. On the third night of the storm the house was
+blown down and light and keeper went out together. Four years later a
+second structure was begun, this time with a foundation of masonry and
+concrete. Minot's is barely awash with the lowest tide, and so rare were
+the opportunities for work that three years were required to prepare the
+rock for the first course of stone, which was laid in 1857. In 1860 the
+structure was completed and has ever since stood proof against wind and
+storm.
+
+Spectacle Reef lighthouse, near Mackinac, was built with the aid of a
+coffer-dam. A large wooden cylinder was constructed by banding long
+staves tightly together and towed out to the rock, where it was set up
+on the surface and the stones driven down into the uneven places. Then
+the crevices were filled with cement and the water pumped out. After
+this the rock was leveled and the limestone courses rapidly raised one
+above another. Spectacle Reef light stands eleven miles from land, and
+its base is seven feet under water.
+
+Where there is a shifting shoal, whose unstable character no degree of
+mechanical or engineering skill can overcome, resort is had to the
+lightship. The United States has twenty-five of these vessels. Seven of
+them are employed off Massachusetts Bay to mark the Vineyard and
+Nantucket shoals, and a line of equal number lies along Long Island
+Sound stretching from Brenton's Reef to Sandy Hook. Four more are
+stationed off the New Jersey and Delaware coasts, one off Cape Charles,
+three off North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, and two off
+Louisiana and Texas. The life of a lightship crew, as will be told in
+another place, is a laborious and often a dangerous one.
+
+The United States is divided into sixteen lighthouse districts, each
+one with its inspector and engineer. The former, drawn from the navy,
+inspects the lights under his jurisdiction at least every three months;
+the latter, a member of the Corps of Engineers, superintends the
+building, removal or renovation of the towers. Both are responsible to
+the Lighthouse Board, a body appointed by the President and composed of
+veteran naval officers of high rank, who are no longer fitted for active
+duty at sea.
+
+The station of the third lighthouse district is on Staten Island,
+between St. George and Tompkinsville. Here over a hundred men are
+constantly employed and half a million dollars annually expended. From
+this station one hundred and eighty-nine lighthouses and beacon lights
+and seven lightships are maintained and supplied, while thirty-six day
+or unlighted beacons, thirteen steam fog signals, six electric light
+buoys, and five hundred and seven other buoys are looked after and kept
+in repair by the inspector and his assistants.
+
+Fog often obscures the rays of the most powerful light, and it is then
+that the fog signal and the whistling buoy come into play. The most
+effective fog signal is the American siren, a steam machine worked under
+seventy pounds pressure, and from which a series of noises come forth
+that can be heard from two to four miles. Certain intervals in the
+sounds designate the nearest light and afford a welcome and often
+much-needed guide to the mariner enveloped in a cloak of fog. This
+system of fog signals extends along the entire seaboard, extra
+precautions being taken on the Northern Atlantic coast.
+
+Mineral oil is the principal illuminant used in our lighthouses. It is
+selected with the greatest care, and is subjected to three several tests
+before being accepted. Gas has been tried as a lighthouse illuminant,
+but with inferior success, and there are at the present time only three
+lighthouses in which it is used. Experiments with electricity have also
+been only fairly successful, its light blinding instead of giving aid
+to the pilot. The lighthouse station on Staten Island is a busy place,
+and much work is done there, but the wheels of industry are so well
+oiled and run so smoothly, that a deep peace seems always to brood over
+the establishment. Day after day and year after year the work, moving in
+well-marked channels, goes on with quiet and certainty. Everywhere the
+neatness and order prevail that mark all departments of the lighthouse
+service.
+
+Indeed, in no branch of the government service is stricter discipline
+and closer attention to duty insisted upon than is demanded from the
+brave and devoted men who tend our lighthouses. The pay of these keepers
+ranges from $1,000 to $100, the average, by an Act of Congress passed
+some years ago, being $600. The Lighthouse Board, which controls the
+service, selects as keepers the best men obtainable, preference being
+always given to men who have served for lengthy periods in the army and
+navy.
+
+Members of this class know what discipline means, and hard experience
+has taught them that orders are to be obeyed to the letter. Many an old
+veteran, whose scars tell of valiant service in the Civil War or on the
+Western frontier, and many an old shipmaster or mate, whose
+weather-beaten face bespeaks long years spent on the quarter-deck, as
+lighthouse keepers now do duty on solitary and barren beacon rocks,
+where for months at a time, aside from their own voices and those of
+their families, the roar and moan of the ocean, as it beats against the
+breakers below, are the only sounds that are heard.
+
+The life of the keeper--though many who follow it seem wholly contented
+with it, and doubtless would not leave it for any other calling--is thus
+a lonely and arduous one. Two breaches of the rules which govern the
+keeper's conduct bring as a penalty immediate dismissal from the
+service. The absence of a light for a single moment may bring disaster
+to life and property on the seas, and neither excuse nor previous good
+conduct can save from instant dismissal the keeper who allows his light
+to go out. He may plead that his wife or child was dying, but he is told
+that he must subordinate his light to nothing. And he must not only keep
+his light burning, but stay by it so long as the lighthouse stands. Some
+years ago an ice pack lifted from its foundations, overturned and
+carried away the Sharp's Island lighthouse in Chesapeake Bay. The two
+keepers had a staunch boat and could have made their way to shore.
+Instead, they bravely chose to remain at their post of duty, and for
+sixteen hours, without food or fire, drifted with the wreck at the mercy
+of the ice cakes. When the wreck finally grounded the keepers carried
+ashore all the movable portions of the light, the oil, and everything
+else they could take with them.
+
+At the same time the keepers of another light, fearing danger, left
+their post and went ashore. They pleaded that the ice had rendered the
+light useless for the time being, but this excuse had no weight with
+their superiors. They had proven recreant to their trust and were
+dismissed from the service, the places they had filled being given to
+the two keepers who had refused to leave their post of duty, even when
+to remain seemed certain death. Drunkenness, when detected, also leads
+to removal from the service. That and allowing one's light to go out are
+the two unpardonable sins in the eyes of the lighthouse inspector.
+
+Aside from his duties at night, the keeper finds plenty of work to do.
+Promptly at a given hour in the morning the lights must be extinguished;
+and during the day all put in order for the coming night. In the lantern
+room the lenses must be kept free from speck or tarnish, and the
+reflectors, the brass railings and the gun metal carefully burnished and
+polished to the last degree of brightness. The oil tanks must also be
+filled and the wick trimmed. Carelessness or negligence in any of these
+particulars is dangerous, for the visits of the inspectors are always
+unannounced, and may occur at any moment.
+
+Most important of all, the lamp must be lighted on time, for a delay of
+even a few minutes will not escape notice. Each keeper is required to
+record the time the lights appear in the stations within his range, and
+tardiness in this particular is noted by watchful eyes, and at once
+reported. At inaccessible stations, as a rule, from three to four
+keepers are employed. In stormy months, when communication with the
+mainland is impossible, one or more of the keepers may die or be
+disabled, and experience has taught that, to insure safety, three men at
+least must be posted at every dangerous station.
+
+No keeper is allowed to engage in any business which may interfere with
+his presence at the lighthouse. However, there are some keepers who work
+at tailoring, shoemaking, and similar trades; and there are others who
+are preachers, school-teachers and justices of the peace. The keeper
+whose lighthouse is located on land is encouraged to keep a garden, and
+a barn is provided for his horses and cattle. Until a few years ago many
+keepers greatly increased their incomes by taking boarders in the
+summer--life in a lighthouse has a strong attraction for those fond of
+the romantic--but the Lighthouse Board finally prohibited the renting of
+quarters to outsiders in buildings owned and constructed by the
+Government, and this pleasant and convenient source of revenue was cut
+off.
+
+Whenever keepers are located at stations where the cost of carriage
+exceeds the cost of fuel and rations, they are furnished at the expense
+of the Government. This applies to the keeper of the lighthouse on a big
+rock near Cape Ann. No sea-going vessel can come within a quarter of a
+mile of his home, and it is impossible for a loaded boat to reach his
+abiding-place in safety. The coal he uses is shipped in bags from Boston
+to as near the lighthouse as the vessel can approach. The bags are then
+loaded into small boats and taken to the edge of the shoal water, inside
+of which it is dangerous to enter. From the boats the bags are carried
+ashore on the backs of the crew, who wade through the shoals, clamber up
+the rocks with their burdens and empty the coal in the lighthouse bin.
+Coal is worth thirty dollars a ton at Cape Ann lighthouse. The keeper's
+other bulky supplies are delivered in the same manner as his coal.
+
+[Illustration: A LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER]
+
+At all the lighthouses built on rocks and ledges the keepers have to be
+supplied with fresh water from the mainland, that collected from rains
+in cisterns and tanks being generally insufficient for their needs. Each
+lighthouse keeper is supplied by the Government with a well-selected
+library of fifty volumes. There are five hundred and fifty of these
+libraries, and they are continually kept moving from station to station,
+the inspector, when he makes his quarterly visit, bringing a fresh
+library, and taking the old one with him, to his next stopping-place.
+
+Captain Oliver Brooks, now living in honored and well-earned retirement,
+besides being for thirty years keeper of the great light on Faulkner's
+Island, five miles off the Connecticut coast in Long Island Sound, was
+also one of the most remarkable men ever connected with the lighthouse
+service. He had been a sea captain before he became a lighthouse keeper
+and was a man of signal mechanical skill and marked inventive genius.
+His knowledge of electricity, and of light and sound was thorough and
+exact, and the results of many of his experiments, adopted by the
+Lighthouse Board, have contributed greatly to the improvement of the
+service. All the apparatus with which he conducted his experiments was
+constructed by him in a little workshop he had fitted up in the
+lighthouse tower.
+
+But his fondness for the theoretical never caused him to neglect in the
+slightest detail the practical side of his work, and he was, indeed, a
+model keeper. Faulkner's Island lies directly in the path of all vessels
+passing either in or out of the Sound, and its light is one of the most
+important ones on our coasts, but there has not been a night in more
+than a hundred years that it has not flashed out its warning to sailors.
+The island was a barren and desolate spot when Captain Brooks settled
+there, but he and his family turned it into a paradise. All of his large
+family of boys and girls were born there, and there grew up to sturdy
+manhood and splendid womanhood. One daughter was an authority on
+ornithology; another, a gifted water-color artist, and every one of the
+children was a skilled musician, their family concerts, in which not
+less than five different instruments were brought into play, being
+treats to hear. All of the children had noble records as life-savers,
+and many were the men, women and children they saved from death in the
+treacherous waters surrounding their island home. It was not until his
+youngest child had left the island that the captain gave up his place as
+keeper to spend his last days on shore.
+
+Even better known than Captain Brooks is the keeper of Lime Rock light
+in Newport harbor. Should you chance to be in Newport on some pleasant
+summer afternoon, walk out on the long wharf that runs from the mainland
+into the west side of the harbor, and when you have reached its end,
+wave your handkerchief toward the lighthouse opposite. Soon a woman will
+appear in the door of the tall gray tower, and running down to the boat
+moored to the stone wall, step into it, take the oars, and with graceful
+yet powerful strokes, pull rapidly toward the wharf. As she approaches
+her erect back and evident strength give the impression of youth, but as
+she turns the boat about to receive you for a visit to the lighthouse
+you discover to your surprise that she is a woman of middle age.
+
+Your hostess is Ida Lewis, keeper of Lime Rock light and famous as the
+American Grace Darling, a modest and kindly hearted heroine, whose skill
+and daring have saved nearly as many lives as there are years in her
+own. In fact, it was due in part to her record as a life-saver, that she
+was given the place she now fills. Besides attending to her duties as
+keeper, there are other cares that keep her busy; she is a careful
+housewife, keeps abreast of current literature; and is a devoted
+churchwoman, spending her Sundays on shore whenever possible. To her
+credit, no light in her district is as regularly or perfectly attended
+to, nor does any other gain from the inspector so high a report as Lime
+Rock light.
+
+There are several other women light-keepers, but none of them has ever
+had to face an experience as trying as that which a few years ago befell
+the wife of Angus Campbell, keeper of the light on Great Bird Rock, a
+lonely islet in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the farthest beacon to the
+harbors of Nova Scotia. When the late fall comes and the tardy fishermen
+hasten away to the mainland, the gulf turns to ice and hems the rock in
+with a clutch that only the returning summer can loosen. There, in the
+autumn of 1896, Angus Campbell took his newly wedded wife to share his
+loneliness. During the winter James Duncan and George Bryson, two of
+Campbell's friends, journeyed to Great Bird Rock to remain until spring.
+They were professional seal hunters, and a great many seals play around
+on the ice and rocks at the foot of the big cliff.
+
+The men landed on the rock early in February. At that time there was no
+open water within five or six miles of the lighthouse in any direction.
+The men were landed on the ice and made their way up to where Campbell
+was waiting for them. On February 27, Campbell and his visitors left the
+rock to go in pursuit of the seals they had noticed on the ice the day
+before. His wife saw them start across the ice and then returned to her
+household duties. They had not been gone more than four hours, when the
+wind, which had been growing colder and blowing steadily from the
+eastward, shifted to the southwest. The southwest wind is the agency
+that dashes the ice fields against the cliff and breaks them up. She
+thought that the men, being so much lower, might not have noticed the
+wind, and she hoisted the danger signal. They must have seen it, for she
+soon caught sight of them hurrying over the ice toward the rock.
+
+They were within gunshot of the lighthouse, when the ice cracked with a
+sound like thunder, and a long, blue line appeared, running east and
+west, parallel with the lighthouse rock and with North Bird Rock, about
+five miles to the westward. The big crack was followed by a general
+splitting up of the ice floe. She saw the men standing just the other
+side of the open water. She saw her husband wave his hands at her and
+she waved back. Then the darkness came, like a great blanket dropped
+from the wintry skies, and men and ice were blotted from her vision. But
+even in her sore distress she did not forget the duty incumbent on the
+lighthouse keeper. She clambered up into the lantern and lighted the
+great oil lamp, saw that it was filled, and attended to the other duties
+she had seen her husband perform.
+
+Morning, when it came, gave no glimpse of her husband and his
+companions, nor did the third or the fourth day bring them back to her.
+After that the days grew into weeks, and the worse than widowed woman
+found herself confined to lonely and racking imprisonment on the
+ice-locked rock. But not for a single night did she fail to fill and
+light the lamp that had been her hapless husband's charge. When the
+Government steamer touched at Great Bird Bock, on May 5, 1897, the
+captain looked long and earnestly at the lighthouse perched far above
+him, and wondered why there was not the customary greeting. He saw no
+sign of life. There was the derrick rope swinging in the wind, but no
+moving figures at the top of the cliff, as there were wont to be.
+
+Closely scanning the rock, he saw at last a white, gaunt face at the
+window. In a little while a thin, tottering figure crept to the brow of
+the ledge, but it was some minutes before the tender's captain could
+recognize in that wasted being the comely woman whom he had known as
+Angus Campbell's wife.
+
+"Where is your husband?" he shouted.
+
+"Angus is dead," came the answer, in a faint, palsied voice, "and so are
+Jim Duncan and George Bryson."
+
+An instant later the captain had swung himself into the derrick ropes
+and was making his way up the rocks. When he reached the woman she burst
+into tears and fell at his feet. Calmed at last, she told her story.
+
+"How did you stand it?" asked the captain when she had finished.
+
+"God knows," was the reply. "I knew I had to keep that light burning,
+and that I think kept me alive. That was all I had to do, except watch
+the sea through my husband's glass. I got up night after night, and I do
+not think I ever slept two hours at a time. There were plenty of
+provisions, but I could not eat more than one meal a day, and sometimes
+I did not eat that. I had some hope on the morning after the boys were
+carried out on the ice floe, that they might be in sight and might be
+saved some way. But that morning there was nothing to be seen but water
+and ice. Then hope was gone. I knew there was nothing to do but wait for
+the spring. And I have done it. Every day I have swept the horizon with
+the aid of the glasses. It was merely a formality, after a while, but I
+kept on doing it. I do not know why. At last life got to be like being
+buried alive. I had no interest in living. I had no appetite, no thought
+of sleep. In all the time I do not suppose I have slept two hours in
+succession, nor at any time eaten more than one scanty meal a day. I was
+going crazy, and should have killed myself or died of starvation in
+another week."
+
+A few days later Mrs. Campbell was removed from the rock to her former
+home in Prince Edward Island.
+
+Many of the most picturesque lighthouses in the United States
+establishment are on the rocks and islands off the coast of Maine.
+Notable for its beauty is the one on Matinicus Rock. The first
+lighthouse thereon, erected in 1827, was a cobblestone dwelling with a
+wooden tower at each end. Twenty years later this was replaced by a
+granite dwelling with semicircular towers, which has since developed
+into an establishment requiring the services of a keeper and three
+assistants. Matinicus Rock rises fifty feet above the sea, and presents
+what seems a precipitous front to the ocean, but there is no more
+rugged, dangerous coast along the seaboard of Maine than here, and when
+a gale rages the waves pound the rock as if bent upon washing it away,
+the thunder of the green-gray wall that beats against it, sounding, at
+such times, like the cannonade of a hundred heavy guns. Life on
+Matinicus for years past has been a never ending struggle between man
+and the elements, and this lends peculiar interest to the history of the
+light and its watchers, bound up with which is a love story at once
+tender, wholesome, and true. Captain Burgess, keeper of the rock from
+1853 to 1861, had a daughter Abby, a maiden as comely as she was brave,
+whom he often left in charge of the lights while he crossed to Matinicus
+Island. On one occasion rough weather for three weeks barred his return
+to the rock, and during all that time, Abby, then a girl of seventeen,
+not only tended the lights, but cared for her invalid mother and her
+younger brothers and sisters.
+
+In 1861 Captain Grant succeeded Captain Burgess on Matinicus, taking
+his son with him as assistant. The old keeper left Abby on the rock to
+instruct the newcomers in their duties, and she performed the task so
+well that young Grant fell in love with her, and asked her to become his
+wife. Soon after their marriage she was appointed an assistant keeper. A
+few years later the husband was made keeper and the wife assistant
+keeper of White Head, another light on the Maine coast. There they
+remained until the spring of 1890, when they removed to Middleborough,
+Mass., intending to pass the balance of their days beyond sight and
+hearing of the rocks and the waves. But the hunger which the sea breeds
+in its adopted children was still strong within them, and the fall of
+1892 found them again on the coast of Maine, this time at Portland,
+where the husband again entered the lighthouse establishment, working in
+the engineers' department of the first lighthouse district. With them
+until his death lived Captain Grant, who in the closing months of 1890,
+being then aged eighty-five, retired from the position of keeper of
+Matinicus light, which he had held for nearly thirty years.
+
+Not less lonely, but far more perilous than the life of the keepers of a
+light like that on Matinicus is the lot of the crew of the South Shoal
+lightship, whose position twenty-six miles off Sankaty Head, Nantucket
+Island, makes it the most exposed light-station in the world. Anchored
+so far out at sea, it is only during the months of summer and autumn
+that the lighthouse tender ventures to visit it, and its crew from
+December to May of each year are wholly cut off from communication with
+the land. It is this, however, that makes the South Shoal lightship a
+veritable protecting angel of the deep, for it stands guard not only
+over the treacherous New South Shoal, near which it is anchored, but
+over twenty-six miles of rips and reefs between it and the Nantucket
+shore--a wide-reaching ocean graveyard, where bleach the bones of more
+than a half thousand wrecked and forgotten vessels.
+
+The lightship is a stanchly built two-hulled schooner of 275 tons
+burden, 103 feet long over all, equipped with fore-and-aft lantern masts
+71 feet high, and with two masts for sails, each 42 feet high. The
+lanterns are octagons of glass in copper frames, so arranged that they
+can be lowered into houses built around the masts. In the forward part
+of the ship is a huge fog bell, swung ten feet above the deck, which,
+when foggy weather prevails, as it frequently does for weeks at a time,
+is kept tolling day and night. A two-inch chain fastened to a "mushroom"
+anchor weighing upward of three tons holds the vessel in eighteen
+fathoms of water, but this, so fiercely do the waves beat against it in
+winter, has not prevented her from going adrift many times. She was two
+weeks at sea on one of these occasions, and on another she came to
+anchor in New York Harbor. Life on the South Shoal lightship is at all
+times a hard and trying one, and, as a matter of fact, the crew are
+instructed not to expose themselves to danger outside their special line
+of duty. This, however, does not deter them from frequently risking
+their lives in rescuing others, and when, several years ago, the City of
+Newcastle went ashore on one of the shoals near the lightship, all
+hands, twenty-seven in number, were saved by the South Shoal crew and
+kept aboard of her over two weeks, until the story of the wreck was
+signalled to a passing vessel.
+
+Nor are the South Shoal crew alone among lighthouse keepers in displays
+of heroism outside the duties required of them. Isaac H. Grant holds a
+silver medal given him by the Government for rescuing two men from
+drowning while he was keeper at White Head; and Keeper Marcus Hanna, of
+the Cape Elizabeth station, Maine, received a gold medal for the daring
+rescue of two sailors from a wreck during a severe storm, while
+Frederick Hatch, keeper of the Breakwater station at Cleveland was
+awarded the gold bar. The last mentioned badge of honor is granted only
+to one who has twice distinguished himself by a special act of bravery.
+It was given Hatch in the winter of 1898. A wreck occurred at night,
+just outside the breakwater. The eight people aboard made their way to
+the breakwater pier, but the heavy seas swept several of them back, and
+one lost his life. Pulling to the pier in a small boat, Keeper Hatch
+took off the captain's wife; but she was hardly in the boat before it
+was swamped and capsized. The woman was utterly exhausted and almost a
+dead weight; but though nearly overcome himself, Hatch, at the risk of
+his life, maintained his hold upon her until he could reach a line
+thrown from the light-station, with which he and his helpless burden
+were drawn to the lighthouse steps. Before that, and while a member of
+the life-saving crew at Cleveland, Hatch had helped to rescue
+twenty-nine persons from two vessels on two successive days during a
+terrific gale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE
+
+
+With each recurring autumn at nearly 300 points on our 8,000 miles of
+seacoast, careful preparations begin for the winter campaign of the
+life-saving service. Conducted in the face of constant peril and
+hardship, this annual battle with disaster, storm and death is a
+peaceful, yet always glorious one. During the year 1905 alone it
+resulted in the saving of more than 4,000 lives and the rescue of nearly
+$8,000,000 worth of property, imperilled by wreck and storm, all of
+which would otherwise have been lost. The United States Life-saving
+Service is now the most complete and effective organization of its kind
+in the world, furnishing a model and pattern for those of other
+countries. The story of its rapid development during the last
+thirty-five years is also the inspiring record of the life work of one
+of our most sagacious and devoted public servants, Sumner I. Kimball, a
+modest, blue-eyed, kindly-faced man of middle age, whose untiring labors
+in this field long since gave him a foremost place among the great
+benefactors of his time.
+
+When in 1871, Mr. Kimball was made Chief of the Revenue Marine Bureau of
+the Treasury Department, the life-saving service had slender existence,
+save on paper. He found the station-houses sadly neglected and
+dilapidated, the apparatus rusty or broken, and many of the salaried
+keepers disabled by age or incompetent and neglectful of their duties.
+The outlook would have discouraged a man less resolute and determined
+than the new chief, but he had conceived the splendid idea of guarding
+the entire coast of the nation with a chain of fortresses garrisoned by
+disciplined conquerors of the sea, and he set about the accomplishment
+of his self-imposed task with patience, sagacity and skill.
+
+He reorganized the service and prepared a code of regulations for its
+control, in which the duties of every member were carefully defined.
+Politics, the bane of the service in former years, was rigidly
+eliminated. Lazy, careless and incompetent employees were promptly
+dismissed, and their places filled with capable and faithful surfmen.
+The station-houses were repaired and increased, and equipped with the
+best life-saving devices human skill and ingenuity had thus far brought
+forth. Last and most important of all, a thorough and effective system
+of inspection and patrol was inaugurated, and so successful did it prove
+that during the first year's operation of the new system every person
+imperilled by shipwreck was saved. The service has been wisely extended
+from year to year, until now it has 270 stations, three-fourths of which
+are along the Atlantic coast, while others are on the lakes; a board of
+life-saving appliances; telephone lines for prompt operations and a
+splendid corps of assistant superintendents, experts, inspectors,
+station-keepers and mariners. The yearly cost of the service at the
+present time is slightly less than $1,800,000, a sum ridiculously small
+when the saving of life and property is taken into consideration.
+
+Life at a life-saving station is never an idle one. The routine followed
+at the Avalon, New Jersey station, as I have observed it, in essential
+details, is the same as that practiced at all of the stations of the
+service. Four days of every week are devoted to drill. On Tuesdays the
+keeper orders out the surfboat and drills the crew in riding breakers
+and landing through heavy surf. On Wednesday he gives the men practical
+instruction in the working of the international signal code. On Thursday
+the Lyle gun is ordered out, and one of the crew, taking up a position
+some distance down the shore near a post stuck in the sand, personates a
+seaman on a stranded vessel. The other members of the crew plant the gun
+and fire a line which the watcher pulls in and rigs to the post. Then
+the men at the other end of the line dispatch the breeches-buoy and
+gallantly effect the rescue of their comrade. On Friday the recovery
+drill is carefully gone through. One of the crew assumes the role of a
+half-drowned sailor, and his comrades resuscitate him by rolling him on
+the sand and producing artificial breathing, according to the rules laid
+down for the purpose. Saturday is general cleaning day. The discipline
+of the crew is never relaxed and none of its members can go out of sight
+of the station save by special permission or when off duty.
+
+The night hours at a life-saving station afford a much more thrilling
+story than the one I have just been relating. Each crew is divided into
+three night watches. The first watch goes on duty at sundown and patrols
+the beach until eight o'clock, at which hour the second watch relieves
+it and patrols until midnight, when the third watch sallies out and does
+duty until four o'clock in the morning. Then the first watch again goes
+on patrol and keeps watch until sunrise. During the day a surfman is
+constantly on the lookout in the watch-tower of the station. If the
+weather be clear, this precaution suffices, but if it is cloudy and
+storms threaten, the beach patrols are continued through the day. Each
+watch consists of two men, who, upon leaving the station, separate and
+follow their beats to the right and left until they meet the patrolmen
+from the neighboring stations on either side, with whom they exchange
+checks--this to show the keeper they have covered their respective
+beats. On the Atlantic seaboard, stations are now within an average
+distance of five miles of each other, but often the beats of the surfmen
+are six and seven miles long. It is a part of the surfman's duties to
+keep a constant watch of the sea and to note the vessels by the lights
+displayed, and, if they approach too close to the shore or outlying
+sandbars, give them timely warning. For this purpose he always carries a
+Coston signal, which, when exploded by percussion, emits a red flame
+that flashes far out over the water and warns the unwary ship of its
+peril. Last year more than two hundred vessels, warned in this way, at
+once changed course and ran out of danger. If the surfman observes a
+vessel that is stationary, he must determine whether she is at anchor or
+in distress, and if the latter proves to be the case, he displays his
+Coston signal, to assure the shipwrecked that aid is close at hand, and
+then hastens to the station to give the alarm to the keeper.
+
+The work of the patrolmen involves frequent danger and almost constant
+hardship. Imagine, if you can, and that is impossible, the lot of a
+surfman on the Jersey coast during one of the great storms sure to occur
+once or twice in every winter. A fearful night has followed a stormy and
+lowering day. Inky darkness shrouds sea and land, and the wind, blowing
+at the rate of fifty miles an hour, pipes and roars defiance to the
+patrolmen as they struggle along their lonely beats. The driving snow
+freezes on their cheeks and chins; wet sand is flung into their faces
+and cuts with the keenness of a razor, while great masses of icy foam
+beat fiercely on the head and face and body at every dozen steps. Huge
+waves break at the foot of the sand dunes along which they painfully
+labor, and drench them again and again, often felling them to the
+ground. Every twenty or thirty yards they pause, and, baring their faces
+to the pelting snow and foam, search the ocean for lights. In this way
+hours pass before the prescribed beat is traversed, and the surfmen,
+wet, half-frozen, bruised and exhausted, seek for a brief season the
+warmth and shelter of the station-house. Sometimes weakness overcomes
+them and they are unable to reach this refuge.
+
+When the patrolman descries a vessel among the breakers, he displays his
+Coston signal, to give assurance that aid is at hand, and then hurries
+to the station and arouses his comrades. From the report of the
+patrolman the keeper makes quick decision as to the best methods to be
+employed in effecting a rescue. If the surfboat is to be used, the doors
+of the boat-room are instantly thrown open and the boat-carriage drawn
+out and hauled by the crew to a point opposite the wreck. Then the boat
+is launched and the surfmen depart upon their errand of mercy. The
+surfboat is usually of cedar, with white oak frame, without keel, and
+provided with air cases, which render it insubmergible. Comparatively
+light, it can be hauled long distances, and is the only boat that has
+been found suitable for launching from flat beaches through the shoaling
+waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Handled by expert oarsmen, its
+action is often marvelous, and, although easily capsized, there are few
+recorded instances of its having been upset with fatal results while
+passing through the surf. Often repeated attempts have to be made before
+a wreck can be reached, and even then the greatest care must be
+exercised to avoid collision with the plunging hull or injury from
+floating wreckage and falling spars. When the benumbed and exhausted
+crew and passengers, who have usually sought refuge in the rigging from
+the overwhelming seas, have been taken off, the difficult return to
+shore yet remains. Sometimes the boat is run in behind a roller, and by
+quick and clever work kept out of the way of the following one, and the
+shore is gained in safety. At other times the boat is backed in, the
+oars being used now and then to keep it upon its course, and again, when
+the sea is unusually high, a drag is employed to check the force of the
+incoming breakers and prevent the boat from being capsized. In the
+manner described, boat and crew make repeated trips through the breakers
+until all have been taken off the stranded vessel, and the work of
+rescue is at last completed.
+
+When the condition of the sea prevents the use of the surfboat the
+mortar cart, equipped with a small bronze, smooth-bore gun, named for
+the inventor, Captain Lyle, of the army, is ordered out. Its destination
+reached, the gun is placed in position and loaded by members of the crew
+trained to the work, while others adjust the shot-line box, arrange the
+hauling lines and hawser, connect the breeches-buoy, prepare the tackles
+for hauling, and with pick and spade dig a trench for the sand-anchor.
+With these preparations completed, comes the firing of the gun. The shot
+speeds over the wreck and into the sea beyond, while the crew of the
+imperilled vessel seize and make fast the line attached. The surfmen
+next attach to the short-line the whip (an endless line), the tail-block
+and tallyboard, and these are in turn hauled in by the sailors. And then
+by means of the whip, the surfmen dispatch the hawser and a second
+tallyboard, which directs how and where the end of the hawser shall be
+fastened to the wreck. When the tackle connecting the sand anchor and
+the shore end of the hawser is straight and taut, it is lifted several
+feet in the air and further tightened by the erection of a wooden
+crotch, which does duty as a temporary pier, while the wreck answers for
+another. Finally the breeches-buoy is drawn back and forth on the
+hawser, and the shipwrecked brought safely to shore. On this occasion
+there have been no delays, but at other times there are numerous
+obstacles to be overcome. The ropes may snarl or tangle or be snapped
+asunder by the rolling of the vessel, and again, the imperilled crew may
+perform their share of the work in a bungling manner, or unexpected
+accidents befall, which tax to the utmost the patience, resources and
+courage of the surfmen. In many cases people held suspended in the
+breakers or ensnarled in the floating cordage and debris of the vessel,
+have only been rescued by the most daring exploits of the surfmen, who,
+at the greatest risk of life and limb, have worked their way through the
+surf, released the helpless victims of the wreck, and brought them to
+shore.
+
+[Illustration: A LIFE-SAVER ON PATROL]
+
+The breeches-buoy, to which reference has been made, is a circular
+life-preserver of cork, to which short canvas breeches are attached, and
+will hold two persons. But when a large number of people are to be
+rescued, the life-car, invented by Joseph Francis and connected with the
+hawser by a simple device to prevent it from drifting, is used. This is
+a water-tight, covered boat of galvanized sheet iron and will carry five
+or six adults at a time. At its first trial more than two hundred
+persons were rescued from the wreck of the Ayrshire on the New Jersey
+coast, when no other means could have availed. Silks, jewels and other
+valuables have often been saved by its use and from one vessel the car
+took ashore a large sum of gold bullion belonging to the United States,
+together with the mails. On the lake and Pacific coasts, where the
+shores are steep and the water deep, the self-righting and self-bailing
+lifeboat is in general use. This, the best lifeboat yet devised, is the
+result of more than a century of study and experiment, following the
+first model designed in 1780 by an English coachman, Lionel Lukin. It
+possesses great stability, is rarely upset, and when this happens
+instantly rights itself, while when full of water it empties itself in
+from fifteen to twenty seconds.
+
+The work of the life-savers seldom ends with the rescue. After all have
+been brought ashore from a wreck, the benumbed and helpless sufferers
+are quickly conveyed to the station-house, transferred for the moment
+into a hospital, where an abundance of dry clothing is instantly
+applied; the prostrated ones put to bed; lint, plasters and bandages
+supplied to the bruised and wounded, and stimulants from the medicine
+chest, never absent from any station, given to those who need them. At
+the same time the mess-cook prepares and serves out hot coffee alike to
+rescued and rescuers. When this has been partaken of, the keeper assigns
+a portion of the crew to look after the needs of the strangers and the
+others retire to rest until called to relieve the patrol.
+
+After what has been written one would expect to find rich material for
+true stories of peril, adventure and heroism; and for romances in real
+life among the records of the life-saving service--stories that never
+fail to stir the blood and quicken the pulse of those to whom they are
+told. And such is the case. The annals of the service are replete with
+splendid deeds of daring, and each month's record adds to the roll of
+honor. Often the surfmen know they are going forth to almost certain
+death,' and yet never a moment do they falter. A year or so ago a crew
+that rescued four sailors from a stranded vessel under the most trying
+conditions, before launching their boat, left their slender effects in
+the charge of a comrade for the benefit of their families--not one of
+them believing that they would return alive! And when the life-savers
+went off through the violent sea to rescue those on board the German
+ship Elizabeth, stranded on the Virginia coast, in January, 1887, all
+but two of the crew perished, together with the entire ship's company.
+The brave fellows' doom was sealed from the first, but this did not
+swerve them from their duty.
+
+One of the saddest chapters in the annals of the service deals with the
+death of the keeper and two of the surfmen of the Peaked Hill Bar
+Station, on the Massachusetts coast. In the waning hours of a stormy
+November night, fifteen years ago, the sloop Trumbull was descried by
+the patrol on the inner bar, and a few moments later the lifeboat,
+manned by Keeper Atkins and Surfmen Mayo, Taylor, Kelly, Young and
+Fisher, was on the way to the rescue. The crew, save two who, refusing
+assistance, remained on board the vessel, were speedily brought to land.
+The gale was now increasing and the sea running mountain high, but
+Keeper Atkins and his crew again essayed the rescue of the two men, who
+still remained on the Trumbull. It was very dark, and the lifeboat in
+approaching the ship was struck by a swinging boom and capsized. After
+clinging for a time to the upturned boat, the surfmen released their
+hold and attempted to swim to shore. Surfmen Kelly, Young and Fisher
+reached the beach barely alive, and were picked up and tenderly cared
+for by a comrade, but Keeper Atkins and Surfmen Mayo and Taylor,
+although strong swimmers, were finally overcome and vanished in the
+storm and darkness. The sea gave up their bodies many hours later, and
+there were few dry eyes among the hundreds who followed to their graves
+three heroes as dauntless as ever were sung in song or story.
+
+One of the most gallant rescues performed within the scope of the
+service stands to the credit of the Dam Neck Mills crew, on the coast of
+Virginia. The schooner Jennie Hall, bound from Trinidad to Baltimore,
+sailing in a dense fog, struck bottom a few miles south of Cape Henry. A
+tempest was blowing, and a deluge of sleet blinded and benumbed the crew
+as they clung to the mizzenmast, on which they had taken refuge. The
+captain had been swept away while attempting to cross the deck, and it
+seemed certain that the almost helpless sailors must soon follow him.
+Blind desperation alone gave them strength to endure until the morning.
+Then, in the dawning of the day, through the lifting curtain of mist,
+they saw the life-savers preparing to attempt their rescue. The sea was
+still too high to warrant the launching of the lifeboat. What must be
+done was to get a hawser to the schooner, and then, by means of the
+breeches-buoy, haul off the wrecked men.
+
+The gun was, therefore, placed in position, and the shot-line coiled
+properly, so as to follow without fouling. The ship was about three
+hundred yards off shore. The shot was fired, and the line carried just
+over the rigging at the necessary spot. All would have gone well had not
+the block of the whip-line become fouled. The men on the mast were too
+exhausted to extricate it, so the whip-line was hauled to shore, and the
+shot-line cut away. Another shot was fired. This time it landed out of
+the reach of the wrecked men, now almost insensible from cold and
+exhaustion. Still another shot was fired, this time fairly in the hands
+of the unfortunates. The whip-line was painfully drawn to the mast and
+properly made fast. Then the hawser was drawn slowly from shore, and
+also properly fixed around the mast. Just as the breeches-buoy was being
+sent out to make the rescue at last, just as safety and warmth and life
+were within their grasp, two of the six fell to the deck, struck like
+lead, and were washed overboard, never more to be seen. The
+breeches-buoy had now reached the mast. Two of the men managed to get
+in, and were hauled ashore, unconscious, very nearly dead. Again the
+buoy went on its errand of mercy, and the mate was brought to safety.
+There was still one man left on the mast. The buoy was sent back for
+him. But he made no sign of life.
+
+Somebody must go out for him. A surfman by the name of O'Neal put
+himself in the buoy and was hauled to the wreck. He found that the man,
+now unconscious, had so firmly lashed himself to the crosstrees that it
+was not in his power to extricate him without help. So he returned to
+the shore for an assistant. An ex-surfman, Drinkwater by name,
+volunteered to go back with him. The sea having gone down a trifle, the
+keeper decided to place them on board the wreck by the lifeboat. A crew
+was called, and the rescuers rowed out through a still tremendous sea to
+the Jennie Hall. The two men skilfully got aboard, and climbed the
+mast, the lifeboat in the meanwhile, after nearly a fatal accident,
+returning to the beach. Even with help, O'Neal had great difficulty in
+getting the remaining sailor out of the rigging. But it was finally
+done, and the well-nigh frozen man sent ashore. Then the two life-savers
+returned in the buoy.
+
+The records of the live-saving crews of the Great Lakes also abound with
+thrilling and heroic incidents. These vast inland seas, with 2,500 miles
+of American coast-line, are subject to sudden and violent gales, in
+which anchored vessels are swept fore and aft, often causing their total
+destruction, while others seeking shelter in harbors are driven
+helplessly upon jutting piers or the still more dangerous beach; and
+frequently just before winter suspends navigation on the lakes, a single
+life-saving crew is employed upon several wrecks at a time. Again, the
+lifeboats often go under sail and oar many miles from their station to
+aid vessels in distress. When the steamer Bestchey was wrecked near
+Grindstone City, seven miles from the Point aux Barques station, on
+Lake Huron, a few years ago, the crew hurried to the rescue, and found
+several hundred people watching the breaking up of the wreck, but
+powerless to aid the passengers and crew, who, for ten hours, had been
+face to face with suffering and death. When the lifeboat had been
+launched and the ship's side gained, two of the surfmen leaped into the
+water, and by the aid of ropes, after a desperate struggle gained the
+steamer's deck and directed the difficult and dangerous task of
+transferring those on board to the boat. Eleven women and a small boy
+were lowered over the bulwarks, and the boat, shoving off, gained the
+pier in safety. Four trips were made within an hour, and all on board,
+more than forty persons, brought ashore. A few months later the Point
+aux Barques crew responded to signals of distress displayed by a vessel
+three miles away, and in the fearful storm that was raging, their boat
+was capsized. The men tried to cling to it, but the cold overcame them,
+and one after another perished until six were gone. Only the keeper,
+bruised and insensible, was washed ashore, and he was so badly injured
+that he was forced to resign his position. Thus in one day, the service
+lost all the members of one of its most skilful and gallant crews.
+During the same year the men at the Point aux Barques Station had been
+the means of saving more than a hundred lives.
+
+Still the life of the surfmen has its merry, as well as its serious
+moods. Each station is provided with a small but well selected library,
+and the men find it a constant source of instruction and delight. Then
+there is always in every crew one or two who can play a violin, flute or
+accordion, and often when the weather is fine and the wind off shore,
+the surfmen gather in the messroom and listen to the music of their
+companions or sing songs and spin yarns, the latter couched in a quaint
+and awkward vernacular, yet full of life and spirit, and redolent of the
+sea and the waves. Often on clear, moonlit nights there are "surprise
+parties" at the station, made up of the wives, sisters' and sweethearts
+of the crew, who always bring with them a generous store of household
+dainties for those they love, sure to prove a welcome addition to the
+surfmen's plain, but substantial fare. On such occasions the boat-room
+is quickly cleared for the dance, and joy and merriment hold unfettered
+sway. And, yet, never is the patrol relaxed, nor do the surfmen forget
+the stern call to duty that may come to them at any moment. "When I see
+a man clinging to a wreck," said a sturdy surf man, not long ago, "I see
+nothing else in the world, nor think of family and friends until I have
+saved him." And it is but simple truth to say that this heroic spirit
+animates every member of the life-saving service.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA
+
+
+In the streets and hotels, or more often the smoking-room of the
+custom-house of the beautiful old town of New Bedford, Massachusetts,
+one meets in these latter times certain quiet, elderly men who, save for
+their weather-beaten faces, an occasional scar, the deference shown
+them, and the title of "captain," give no sign of the stormy and
+adventurous lives they have led. These men belong to a most interesting
+class, and one which promises to soon become extinct. They are the
+whaling captains of the old days, when, with whaling still one of the
+most prosperous and important of our national industries, the New
+Bedford whalers carried the American flag to the most distant parts of
+the globe, and yearly poured a golden stream into the strong-boxes of
+their shrewd and venturesome owners. Cabin-boys at twelve, captains
+before they were twenty-five, at fifty, stranded hulks--having often
+made and lost great fortunes, made them for others, lost them for
+themselves--in such quiet havens as chance or fortune affords, they now
+peacefully and with perfect contentment await the end that sooner or
+later comes to us all.
+
+For more than a century, New Bedford has been the centre in this country
+of the industry of which these old captains are pathetic reminders; but
+in recent years it has made San Francisco the headquarters of its ships.
+They all carry the name of New Bedford on their sterns, and are owned
+and commanded by New Bedford men; but, as whaling is now mainly carried
+on in Alaskan waters, San Francisco has become the principal point of
+arrival and departure. Only the Atlantic whalers, dwindled now to less
+than a dozen, still headquarter in the old capital of the trade. The
+ships engaged in the whale trade are clumsy in appearance, and much
+smaller than most people would imagine, being rarely as large as the
+three-masted schooners used in the coasting trade. They are strongly
+built, wide amidships, and as broad as Dutch galleons at the bow. They
+are so treated with pitch and tar as to last for generations, and are
+constantly repaired, a part at a time. Some of the stanchest vessels in
+the trade are more than half a century old, and promise to do duty for
+many years to come.
+
+The fleet sailing from San Francisco numbers between forty and fifty
+vessels. Some of the captains sail in November, and spend the winter in
+sperm whaling, putting into Honolulu for fresh supplies at the approach
+of spring, but the majority leave in March. The whales are fast being
+driven from the Pacific, and every year the whalers are forced to go
+farther and farther north for them. Only a few years ago, whales were
+plentiful in the Northern Pacific and Behring and Okhotsk Seas, but now
+the whalers have to push far into the Arctic to find their game. To
+make a voyage profitable, a ship must often spend several seasons in the
+north, and last year the San Francisco fleet sailed prepared for a three
+years' cruise. Many of the captains took their wives and children with
+them. They reached Herschel Island late in August, spending last winter
+as they will the next two, in comfortable quarters at Pauline Cove,
+returning to the United States in the fall of 1909. Pianos and pool and
+billiard tables were taken along to help while away the long winters,
+and the members of the fleet, when they return, are sure to have many an
+interesting and stirring story to tell.
+
+In order to complete the preparations for its Arctic work, each whaler,
+after leaving San Francisco, cruises for a few weeks in the central
+Pacific. During this cruise the crow's nest, or lookout, is put in
+place, the boats are scrubbed, painted and fitted with sails,
+steering-gear and oars and the whaling apparatus thoroughly overhauled.
+Then the ship's rigging receives careful attention, weak spots being
+made strong, and old sails patched or replaced, and finally, the hold is
+restowed and put in shape for the long voyage. The crew of a whaler
+includes, besides the captain, four mates, one boat-leader, four
+boat-steerers, a steward, cook, carpenter, cooper, steerage and cabin
+boys, and from twelve to twenty able seamen. The men instead of being
+paid regular wages, receive a portion of the profits of the cruise. The
+captain receives a twelfth, the first mate a twentieth, the second mate
+and boat-leader each a twenty-fifth, the third mate a thirtieth, the
+carpenter, cooper and steward each a fiftieth, and the sailors each a
+hundred and seventy-fifth. The captain's portion ranges from nothing to
+$7,000 or $8,000, according to the number of whales taken during a
+cruise. If a ship secures twelve whales during a cruise, the captain
+will receive about $3,000 and a sailor $200. The sailors usually receive
+an advance of $60 each, and during a cruise are allowed to draw tobacco,
+clothing and the like, from the ship's supplies, to the amount of $60 or
+$80. Both officers and men keenly appreciate this co-operative system,
+and toil with great zeal in the hope of extra reward. Formerly whales
+were valued chiefly for the oil, but the discovery of petroleum worked a
+change, and the whalebone is now the main thing sought. This product is
+worth from $4 to $5 a pound, and the average whale contains a little
+less than a ton of bone.
+
+The officers of an Arctic whaler are generally Yankees, but all
+countries are represented in the forecastle. Americans, Britons, Swedes,
+Portuguese, Germans, Spaniards, Kanakas, a few stray cowboys, and three
+or four 'Frisco hoodlums are often found in the same crew. Now and then
+desperate criminals seek an Arctic cruise to escape punishment for their
+misdeeds, and sometimes induce a crew to mutiny. Such an experience
+befell Captain Edmund Kelly, now living in retirement in New Bedford,
+when he was master of the Lucretia. His crew, prompted by three
+ruffians, who had crept in among them, refused duty soon after the ship
+entered Behring Sea, and retreated to the forecastle, but not before
+the captain had emptied it of such food as it contained. When asked to
+state their grievances they demanded the release of one of their
+shipmates who had been put in irons for disobedience. This demand Kelly
+refused to grant, and locked them in the forecastle, determined, if
+possible, to starve them into submission.
+
+On the third morning the crew, who were all armed with knives and
+revolvers, broke out of this improvised prison and demanded "bread or
+blood." The captain appealed to them to return to duty, but the three
+ring-leaders threatened to shoot the first man who wavered, and none
+responded. It was a critical moment, but Kelly, sprung from a race of
+fighting men, proved equal to it. Picking up a rifle, he walked in among
+the mutineers, and singling out the leader, ordered him to surrender.
+The man refused, and the captain raised his rifle to his shoulder, but
+before he could fire, the mutineer snapped a revolver twice in his face,
+and then took refuge among his companions. Kelly tried to follow him,
+but his progress was impeded by the crew, and the rascal he was seeking
+now stole up behind him, took careful aim, and fired. The officers, who
+were standing aft in a group, thinking their captain had been killed,
+fired upon the mutineer, wounding him in the leg. Happily, however,
+Kelly had only received a slight scalp wound. He regained his feet in an
+instant, and facing the mutineer, who was now crawling towards him with
+cocked revolver in hand, took aim and fired, whereat the man fell back
+dead with a bullet in his heart. The others, begging for mercy, threw
+down their arms, and the mutiny was at an end. During the rest of the
+voyage they proved a most obedient and tractable crew. When Captain
+Kelly returned to San Francisco, he reported the affair to the federal
+courts. The judge who heard the evidence discharged him, and at the same
+time reproved him for failing to shoot the other leaders of the mutiny.
+
+When all is in readiness for the Arctic cruise, the captain of a whaler
+changes the southwesterly course he has followed since leaving port,
+and heads for the north. The passage through Behring Sea, on account of
+the great fields of floating ice which fill that body at all seasons, is
+always a trying and often a dangerous one, and the whaling masters must
+of necessity be most skilful navigators. Pushing a ship in safety from
+lead to lead, and among the threatening cakes of an ice-floe, calls for
+the most consummate skill, and it is a lesson mastered by sailors only
+after a long and hard experience. In addition to the highest skill, the
+captain--or disaster surely awaits him--must possess a resolute will
+that falters not, even in the face of death. For weeks his ship is
+seldom out of peril, and he must be ready at all times to make his
+escape from a threatening pack or an approaching floe.
+
+Some years ago, the ship Hunter, Captain Cogan, when off St. Lawrence
+Island, was caught in a whirlpool and seriously disabled. He patched up
+his ship as best he could and made a fresh start. Off Icy Cape, bottom
+ice was struck, causing a serious leak, and the captain was forced to
+seek refuge in the nearest haven. Here every movable object was taken
+out of the ship and carried on shore. Then the spars were unshipped and
+converted into a raft, which was anchored at both ends and steadied with
+water casks. Using the raft as a wharf, and in the face of a blinding
+storm, the ship was hove down, the keel raised above the surface of the
+water, and the leak repaired. Captain Cogan's cruise up to that time had
+been a fruitless one, but three months later he sailed safely into port
+with a valuable cargo. Similar experiences befall the whalers every
+year.
+
+During the long and toilsome passage through Behring Sea, a sharp
+lookout is kept for whales, but few are now caught south of Cape
+Navarin, and whaling does not commence in earnest until the ships are
+well out into the Arctic. Each ship has five whaleboats, and when the
+lookout in the crow's nest reports a whale in sight, the crews spring
+into them and are off in an instant. The captain, however, remains on
+the ship, and from the crow's nest directs the boats by a code of
+signals.
+
+The boats always approach their prey under sail, as the use of paddle or
+oar would startle the whale and cause it to beat a hasty retreat. The
+old method of whaling with harpoons and lances thrown by hand has been
+superseded during the last twenty years by the whale-gun, and as a
+consequence what was once a royal sport has now sadly degenerated. The
+new weapon is a heavy metallic shoulder-gun fastened to a pole about six
+feet long. As the boat nears its intended victim, a harpoon attached to
+several hundred fathoms of line is shot from the gun, and having been
+"made fast," a bomb, filled with an explosive equal to about ten pounds
+of giant powder, is fired into the huge body near the head. The missile,
+exploding as it buries itself in the flesh, blows a great hole almost in
+the vitals of the monster, and death quickly follows. When the bomb
+fails to cause instant death or inflict a mortal wound, a second harpoon
+with a dynamite attachment is thrown, the needle point of the spear, as
+it sinks into the flesh, exploding the bomb. The second wound nearly
+always causes instant death; but if not, the harpoons cling to the
+whale, and with lines attached, the whalers quietly await the
+reappearance of the whale--which seeks relief by plunging beneath the
+surface--for another shot at it from the gun, which has in the meantime
+been reloaded. There is small chance for escape, and another bomb or
+harpoon from the gun speedily ends the most desperate struggle for life.
+The sperm whale, the favorite game of the old-time whalers, always puts
+up a stout battle, but the bow-head whale, found in polar waters, is
+timid, and dies meekly.
+
+When the whale, its struggles ended, rolls over dead, the vessel gets up
+sail and makes its way to the body, taking it on the starboard side, in
+front of the gangway. A stage is rigged over the side and just above the
+floating carcass, which is secured fore and aft by chains. Then the
+process of taking the bone and blubber from the body commences. First a
+cut is made through the deep layer of fat beginning at the nose, and, if
+all the blubber is to be taken off, running back to the flukes or tail.
+Next cross-incisions are made every four or five feet, and strips of the
+fat encircling the whale are marked out. After this, tackle is attached
+to one end of these strips, and men on the stage sever the strip of
+blubber from the body, as it is then being hoisted on board. Each strip,
+as it is taken off, rolls the whale around in the water.
+
+The most difficult part of the operation I am describing is cutting off
+the head, which contains all the whalebone. A single false move may
+destroy hundreds of dollars' worth of bone, or perhaps entail the loss
+of the entire head. Axes are used, and it takes a great deal of hard and
+skilful chopping to pierce the mountain of flesh. When the backbone has
+been chopped nearly through, a jerk of the tackle breaks the remainder,
+and the head is then hauled on deck. As a large whale's head frequently
+contains several thousand dollars worth of bone, the suspense and
+anxiety of the whaler while it is being taken off can be readily
+understood. When the head has been secured, the work of taking off the
+remainder of the blubber is resumed. Some vessels save only the bone,
+and cast the body adrift after the head has been cut off, but these are
+usually ships without the needed apparatus for trying out the oil. When
+the blubber has all been stripped from the carcass, it is cut up into
+small pieces, and for several days thereafter the crew is briskly
+employed "trying out" the oil and stowing it away in casks. A large cube
+of bricks amidships contains two great iron kettles with fireplaces
+beneath, and in these the oil is boiled from the blubber. Black smoke
+and foul smell attend this operation, and only an old whaler will go to
+the leeward of the great pots when it is in progress.
+
+There is little to break the monotony of the whaler's life while at
+work. Day after day the same routine is repeated, broken only by an
+occasional storm, or visits in leisure hours to neighboring vessels. But
+about the whaler there is always the glamor of the Arctic, which those
+who have once felt its spell say can never be forgotten--by day its
+marvellous mirages, weirdly reflecting distant ships, or the ice piled
+in huge, fantastic masses; at night the sombre glory of the aurora
+borealis, and always the cold, serene purity of ice and water and sky.
+When winter approaches, if one or more ships are to spend a second
+season in polar waters, quarters are built in some sheltered spot on
+land, and there, early in October, all the vessels rendezvous. On each
+ship the space between-decks is cleared, stoves set up, and bunks
+arranged along the middle, away from the sides, so that the cold will
+not so quickly reach the men through the vessel's timbers. When the ice
+forms around the ship, high banks of snow are piled about it to break
+the force of the piercing winds, and snow is also piled upon the roof
+built over the decks. This snow soon freezes and will not drift with the
+fiercest of gales. Thus prepared for, a winter in the Arctic has lost
+many of its former terrors.
+
+The whaler's homeward passage through Behring Sea is often more
+difficult and dangerous than the outward voyage. With sudden gales,
+treacherous currents, blinding snowstorms, and long, dark nights, each
+master must literally feel his way with the lead, getting such aid as he
+can from log and lookout. Every captain breathes a sigh of relief when
+he has passed the Straits and is once more in the Pacific, southward
+bound. There is plenty of work on the return passage. The crow's nest
+must be taken down and stowed away for another cruise; the masts scraped
+and varnished; the ship scoured and cleaned above and below; and
+finally, if it is a steam vessel, the sails unbent and stowed away. Just
+before entering port, the crew discard their skin clothing. A few hours
+later the voyage is at an end, and the men are tasting, perhaps for the
+first time in years, the delights and comforts of life on shore, and
+spending with open hand the money they have worked so long and so hard
+to earn.
+
+Whaling in the Arctic saw its best days in 1852, when the fleet
+numbered 250 vessels and the value of the catch exceeded $14,000,000.
+Its gradual decline began a little later, but it received its first
+serious set-back in June, 1865, when the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah,
+making its way without warning into the Arctic, burned thirty and
+captured four other whalers. New Bedford's loss alone was twenty-three
+vessels, which, with their outfits, were valued at more than a million
+dollars. Since then, wind and ice, the ever-present perils of the
+whaler, have caused two appalling disasters, and further hastened the
+decline of the trade. The first of these disasters occurred in 1871.
+Between August 11th and 29th of that year, the ice closed in upon the
+whaling fleet at work near Wainright Inlet, and at the end of the month
+thirty-three vessels were helpless prisoners. During the next week three
+vessels were crushed or carried off by the ice, the crew in each
+instance narrowly escaping with their lives. Each day the ice packed
+closer and it became apparent to the captains, who held daily meetings
+to discuss the situation, that for their ships at least, escape was
+hopeless. There was not the time nor material to build winter quarters
+on land, and even had this been possible, the scanty stock of provisions
+could only postpone certain starvation, or death by scurvy and disease,
+during the eleven months that must elapse before they could hope for
+relief to reach them from the outer world. And so it became clear that
+the crews must be got away before winter came or all would perish.
+
+Captain David Frazer, who, with two whaleboats, had been sent to the
+south to see what could be done, returned on September 12th and reported
+that he had found the rest of the fleet, seven ships, off Icy Cape,
+ninety miles to the south. They were also, he said, fast in the ice, but
+would be able to work their way out and would lie by to aid their
+distressed companions. On the receipt of this news, the captains, some
+of whom were accompanied by their wives and children, met to decide upon
+a final course of action. Three million dollars' worth of property and
+1,200 lives were at stake, and to save the latter all else must be
+sacrificed. It was then resolved, unless the weather moderated, to
+abandon the fleet next day. Morning brought no change and the most
+daring were convinced that nothing but flight remained. The 200
+whaleboats of the fleet were manned by their crews and the southward
+journey begun. There was a narrow strip of water between the ice and
+shore, and through this the sad procession made its way.
+
+At night a camp was made on shore, and on the second day the boats
+reached Blossom Shoals, and came in sight of the refuge vessels. They
+were lying five miles out from shore and behind a tongue of ice which
+stretched ten miles farther down the coast. Around this obstruction the
+crews were forced to make their way before they could get on board. On
+the outer side of this icy peninsula a fearful gale was encountered and
+the boats were tossed about like corks; but by four in the afternoon all
+dangers were safely passed and the 1,200 refugees distributed among the
+several vessels of the fleet. Sail was made at once, and on October 24th
+the first of the ships reached Honolulu, the others following speedily.
+Of the splendid fleet of forty vessels that had sailed northward less
+than a year before, only these seven returned; but not a life was lost.
+When in the following year some of the captains visited the locality
+where the ships were lost, they found that with one or two exceptions
+they had all been carried away by the ice, ground to pieces, or burned
+by the people of a near-by Eskimo village. The value of the wrecked
+vessels sailing from New Bedford exceeded, with their cargoes, a million
+dollars. Some of the city's wealthiest whaling-masters were ruined and
+many more badly crippled by the disaster.
+
+Compared with the disaster of 1871, that of 1876 was much less
+destructive to property, but vastly more appalling by reason of the
+great loss of life with which it was attended. The whaling fleet reached
+Point Barrow early in August, 1876, and began whaling. Strong currents
+and constantly moving ice made work difficult from the first, and in the
+end the pack suddenly closed in upon the fleet. Four vessels made their
+escape, but the rest were carried slowly away towards the northward,
+great jams at the same time choking up every avenue leading to the
+south. With cold weather fast approaching, it was plainly impossible to
+release the ships from their icy prison. A majority of the masters
+resolved to take to the boats as the only chance for escape, but five of
+the captains, with their crews, hoping against hope, refused to leave
+their ships. Progress over the ice was slow and painful. With infinite
+labor the boats would be hauled for a mile or so over the ice and then
+the men would return for the provisions and clothing they had taken from
+the ships. At night they crawled under the upturned boats and slept as
+best they could on the ice. Late in the evening of the third day land
+was reached, and after resting and drying their clothes the captains
+decided to push on at once to the ships lying below Point Barrow.
+
+At the end of a week, exhausted, half-frozen and starving, they reached
+this refuge, and were kindly received by their fellow captains. The men
+were divided among the several ships, and as soon as the wind opened the
+ice the return voyage began. When the Golden Gate was reached, the last
+piece of meat was in the copper and the last loaf of bread in the oven.
+Out of a fleet of twenty vessels, twelve had been sunk or abandoned,
+with a loss of over $800,000. On the southward journey over the ice, two
+of the captains bethought them of some valuable furs they had left
+behind, and decided to return for them. They made the trip in safety and
+had a warm welcome from those who had remained on the ships, but the
+latter turned a deaf ear to their earnest appeals to return with them,
+and the two captains again pushed southward alone. Since that hour
+nothing has been seen or heard of the ships or of the 150 men who
+refused to leave them. In the silence and darkness of the long Arctic
+winter they perished and gave no sign. How passed their final hours? A
+grisly and gruesome story which all whalers tell offers a partial answer
+to this question. Many years ago Captain Warrens, of the whaler
+Greenland, while lying becalmed among icebergs, sighted a dismantled and
+apparently deserted vessel. The boat's crew sent off to the stranger
+found the deck deserted; but seated at a table in the cabin was the
+corpse of a man covered with green, damp mould. A pen was still clutched
+in the stiffened hand, and on the table lay a log-book containing this
+last entry:
+
+"We have now been enclosed in the ice seventeen days. The fire went out
+yesterday and our master has been trying ever since to kindle it again,
+without success. His wife died this morning. There is no relief."
+
+The corpse of another man was found on the floor, and in one of the
+cabin berths lay the dead body of a woman. The corpse of the cabin-boy
+crouched at the foot of the gangway. Scattered about the forecastle lay
+the dead bodies of the crew. The ship was barren of fuel or food. It had
+been frozen in the ice thirteen years. Perhaps in similar manner this
+later Arctic mystery may yet find startling solution.
+
+There have been few whalers lost during the last twenty years. This has
+been due to the gradual introduction, since 1880, of steam-whalers,
+which act as tugs to the sailing ships when in danger, and to the
+constant presence in the Arctic of one or more revenue cutters, which
+render efficient aid every season, and convey to San Francisco the crews
+of such vessels as are lost--the Corwin on one of its cruises saving an
+entire fleet from destruction. With these extra safeguards, the trade
+would doubtless have speedily recovered from the disasters I have
+described, but for the gradual disappearance of the whale itself. Each
+year, the whales, to escape pursuit, push still farther into the polar
+ice-caps, and each year the number caught decreases. The annual product
+of bone and oil has now fallen to less than a million and a half of
+dollars, and new whaling grounds must soon be found or a great industry
+abandoned. Already the British whalers are turning their attention to
+the south polar region. Should whales prove plentiful there, the Yankees
+will be sure to follow in the footsteps of the English, and the energy
+and capital long expended in the far north will be diverted, for a term
+of years at least, to the other end of the world.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT
+
+
+              A NOBLE COMPANY
+                    OF
+                ADVENTURERS
+
+        _BY RUFUS ROCKWELL WILSON_
+
+     UNDER THE ABOVE TITLE IS BEING
+     PREPARED A COMPANION VOLUME TO
+     "THE SEA ROVERS." THE OPENING
+     CHAPTER HAS TO DO WITH THE ANCIENT
+     AND PICTURESQUE HUDSON BAY
+     FUR COMPANY, AND OTHER ROMANTIC
+     AND PERILOUS PURSUITS DEALT WITH
+     IN SUBSEQUENT CHAPTERS ARE THOSE
+     OF THE GOLD HUNTER, THE COWBOY,
+     THE OILMAN, THE LUMBERMAN, THE
+     MAKER OF STEEL, THE COAL MINER,
+     THE RAILROAD BUILDER, THE CANADIAN
+     MOUNTED POLICE, AND THE TEXAS
+     RANGER. THE NEW VOLUME PROMISES,
+     LIKE ITS COMPANION, TO GIVE
+     DELIGHT TO BOYS OF ALL AGES. IT
+     WILL BE ISSUED IN THE FALL OF 1907, BY
+
+               B. W. DODGE & CO.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sea Rovers, by Rufus Rockwell Wilson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44413 ***