YUBA COUNTY
GENEALOGICAL NUGGETS
Round Cape Horn :
voyage of the passenger-ship James W. Paige, from Maine to California in the year 1852;
BY J. LAMSON.
BANGOR:
PRESS OF O. F. & W. H. KNOWLES.
1878
CHAPTER V.
WE did not weigh anchor until 2 P. M. As we were beating out of the harbor, we
met the Portuguese brig, which we had spoken on the fourteenth instant, coming
in. After getting out and passing the lighthouse and the islands, we squared
away and stood on our course with a fair and moderate breeze.
We were now much improved in health, and all the hard-ships, privations,
annoyances, and disappointments of the former part of our voyage were forgotten.
We were now supplied with a rich fund of new and interesting subjects for
conversation, we looked forward to a speedy and prosperous passage round Cape
Horn, and we were in the very best of spirits. We had seen Rio Janeiro.
I had, as the reader may well suppose, but slight opportunity to acquire a
knowledge of the institutions of the country, or the manners and customs of its
inhabitants during my very short stay in Rio, and will not insult the reader
with a long essay on subjects of which I know nothing. But I noticed a few
traits in their character, with which I was much pleased. I found them very
kind, polite and hospitable. In all my walks through the city, which I generally
took alone, I did not meet with an instance of rudeness or incivility. It was
the same whether I was crowding through the market or other public places, which
were thronged by multitudes of people of all classes and complexions, white,
brown and black, or threading the solitary and narrow streets and crooked
by-lanes which, in many would seem to offer every facility and inducement for
the safe perpetration of deeds of violence. I one day passed some barracks,
where several companies of soldiers were drilling. The gate was open, but
guarded by a soldier. I stopped and looked in. "Passe," said the sentinel, and I
walked in, saw the evolutions of the soldiers on drill, and passed through
several groups of others off duty. Everything was conducted without disorder,
and I was as secure from any insult or annoyance as I should have been in the
midst of a party of friends at home. There were many dark complexions, among
them, and I thought that quite half of them, officers as well as privates, were
black.
There are a great many restaurants, cafes, and other drinking establishments in
Rio and one would expect to see a great amount of intemperance among the people;
and yet the only instances of drunkenness I saw there were those which occurred
among the passengers and crew of our bark.
May 25. Our latitude to-day is 24 45' south, longitude 44 west. We have passed
the Tropic of Capricorn, and are sailing in the southern temperate zone.
May 28. I have had an unpleasant altercation with Capt. Jackson to-day. The
occasion was this: Some pretty birds--Cape Pigeons--have been flying round the
ship, and as I was desirous of preserving one or two specimens of their skins,
one of the passengers caught one with a hook and line for me. As Mr. Johnson was
desirous of showing it to the ladies in the cabin, I let him take it. When he
returned it, he brought an order to me from the captain, who was then in the
cabin, to throw the bird overboard. I resisted the order. The parson pleaded for
the life of the bird as though it was a matter of the utmost consequence. I told
him I had procured the bird for the purpose of preserving the skin, and I knew
of no reason why I should not do it. In a few minutes the direful deed was done,
and the body of the murdered bird lay stretched upon the deck skinless. The
captain came up in great wrath, and a warm discussion ensued, during which he
declared his fixed determination to protect the birds, and forbade the killing
of another one during the voyage. I told him I was aware that he had the power
to enforce his order, and that I should be obliged to submit, but I protested
against it as an infringement of my rights, and an unjustifiable exercise of
arbitrary power. I hinted to him that he had better bestow a little of his
compassion upon his passengers, and told him that I had already suffered more
from bad food, filthy water and want of proper nourishment during my sickness on
this voyage, than all the birds I wished to kill would suffer by their deaths.
So we parted, and in less than an hour my friends caught me another bird, which
I skinned and preserved.
June 1. Winter is upon us. At least it is fast approaching, this being the first
winter month in this hemisphere. It is not to be expected that we shall find
very cold weather in this low latitude--34 28'-- but for some time past the cold
has been sensibly increasing. We have left the sun far to the north, that is, in
our position on the globe, we see it at the north instead of the south, as it
appears to us on the other side of the equator. He has thrown down his rays
vertically upon us as he passed, drawing the melting pitch from the seams of the
ship, and filling the cabins with an insupportable heat. The North Star has long
since disappeared, and the Great Bear and other constellations with which we
are, or ought to be, familiar, have settled down in the north, and new
constellations have taken their places. The awning, which we had placed over our
house, as a protection from the heat, has been removed. The passengers no longer
lodge there, and their beds have been returned to their berths. A fair wind is
driving us onward, and a few days will find us in the regions of storms, snows,
and perhaps of icebergs. May our second winter in 1852 prove a short and
fortunate one. A week has elapsed since we left Rio, our company are generally
in good health, and our fears of an attack of yellow fever have vanished.
We are attended by multitudes of Cape Pigeons, which are so gentle and
unsuspicious of danger, that they alight on the water directly under our stern.
There are other birds with them, but none so tame. A large bird about the size
of a goose was caught with a baited hook by a passenger, who obtained permission
from our humane captain to hook up the bird on condition that he should set it
at liberty again. To-day for the first time I have seen an albatross.
June 2. There have been some important changes made in our cooking department. I
have already hinted that we have suffered severely from the wretched preparation
of our food. The cooks are filthy in the extreme, and exceedingly careless. But
before I proceed, let me describe our kitchen establishment. The duty of the
first steward is to keep the ship's stores, and deal them out to the cooks. He
also kneads up the bread, or "soft-tack," as it is called in contradistinction
to the ship-bread, which is called "hard-tack." We have three other stewards or
waiters, two for the main cabin, and one for our room in the after house. Our
stewards also take their meals to the mates, who have a small room in the
forward house. There is also a stewardess for the ladies' cabin. Two cooks
prepare the food and deliver it to the stewards, who have charge of the tables
in their respective cabins.
One day the chief steward, while kneading his bread saw a dirty hen escape from
her cage; and leaving his dough, he caught the hen, restored her to the cage,
and returned to his dough with an accumulation of material upon his hands, which
it was far from agreeable to witness, and which diminished the demand for soft
tack very essentially. Little things of this sort were of everyday occurrence.
Messes of filthy trash were often set before us, which the most hungry among us
could not swallow. We had a mess called "scouse," made up of a mixture of all
the scraps of the salt beef and pork left of our dinner, and broken pieces of
ship-bread boiled together. This was served up repeatedly; but the pans of
scouse were so often sent back full to the cooks' galley, that they desisted for
several weeks from forcing it upon us. But this morning they made another
attempt, doubtless by the captain's order, and added to the mess by way of
improvement several condiments, which we had not before discovered, such as bits
of orange peel and cheese and mirabile of tobacco. We called the captain, and
requested him to inspect the pan of scouse. He looked at it and passed on
without any remark. He was met at the door by a deputation from the main cabin,
bearing another pan of the delectable mixture. The captain by this time began to
think that the matter was assuming rather a serious aspect, and he condescended
to order an inspection of the cooks' galley, when the mischief was traced to an
old fellow by the name of Draper, who was in the habit of drying his quids on a
shelf directly over the boiler. Mr. Draper was accordingly degraded from the
post of cook, and another gentleman appointed in his place. The passengers
testified their satisfaction at this arrangement by three hearty cheers.
Some of our wags played off a joke on the chief steward by tapping the heels of
his boots in the night with some very heavy cakes which he had made. He
complained of the indignity to the second mate, who advised him to give his taps
a fair trial, for in his opinion the bread would prove an excellent substitute
for leather.
June 3. Last night we had a smart gale, which drove us forward at the rate of
twelve knots; and this morning we were threatened with one of those squalls that
often occur in the vicinity of the mouth of the Rio de la Plata., which we have
just passed. The sky was overcast with dark clouds that were often illuminated
with brilliant flashes of lightning. All hands were called and most of the sails
furled. The squall burst upon us in a fine shower of rain, but the wind proved
only a pleasant breeze, that helped up to make up a good day's reckoning.
June 6. There has been an unpleasant altercation on this holy Sabbath between
our worthy captain, (who, by the way is a religious man and a member of a
church,) and some of his lady passengers. The quarrel originated at the time of
our visit at Rio. For several weeks prior to this visit, he had been very lavish
of his attentions to Mrs. L---t, who had been ill during the voyage to Rio, and
seemed to require a great deal of brandy and bitters, wine and gruel, and herb
drinks. The captain was very assiduous in supplying the wants of Mrs. L---t, and
his assiduities certainly entitled him to her warmest gratitude. But his
intercourse with Mrs. L---t did not consist solely in administering drinks and
doses. Among other little manifestations of friendliness, they united their
fortunes in the purchase of a ticket in a lottery, which one of the passengers
made of an article of jewelry. They drew the prize, and the captain became sole
owner of the bauble by purchasing Mrs. L---t's share. Matters continued in this
friendly way between them, till we arrived at Rio. Here, after inquiring into
the health of the city, he cautioned his passengers against stopping on shore at
night where they would be liable to take the yellow fever. The next morning he
accompanied Mrs. L---t on shore, where they tarried day and night until the
afternoon previous to our sailing. As a matter of course this, together with
their previous intimacy, was a subject of much remark and some sport among the
passengers. Their jokes reached Captain Jackson's ears and enraged him. He
declared that there should be a stop put to the talk. The passengers thought
otherwise. A smart little quarrel grew out of it, the women took it in hand, and
nourished it, and today a discussion remarkable for its warmth and length, took
place between Capt J. and Mrs. L---t on one side, and Miss Julia S---g on the
other. The battle raged till the middle of the afternoon, when the captain left
in a very wrathful frame of mind to join in a religious service on deck, and to
worship the God of peace and purity. Capt J. has a wife in Maine and Mrs. L---t
a husband in San Francisco.
June 8. Latitude 47 6', longitude 59 8'. We have cold weather, strong winds,
squalls, snow, hail and rain. Great numbers of sea birds, chiefly Cape Pigeons,
follow the ship. They bite very readily at a hook baited with pork, and are
easily caught. They are pretty birds, and fly with great ease and gracefulness,
and their wings seem never to tire. They alight on the water, on which they swim
with great agility, and I have seen them dive several feet into the water in
pursuit of food that had been thrown to them from the ship. There is
considerable difference both in the size and color of these birds, and perhaps a
skillful ornithologist might determine them to consist of several species,
though I am inclined to consider them as varieties of the same species. One of
the passengers caught two of them for me, but owing to cold weather and a slight
seasickness at this time, I lost them.
June 10. Caught two more Cape Pigeons, and it being cold on deck, I was glad to
accept the invitation from some of the passengers in the main cabin to skin the
birds there. Their beaks were of a delicate light ash or lead color, and their
breasts white. There were some dark spots on the wings. They were seventeen
inches long, and forty-two and a half inches in the stretch of their wings. Two
spotted ones, whose skins I have preserved, are smaller, being only thirty-four
inches in alar extent.
Our oranges have nearly disappeared. Having been kept in close boxes and chests,
they have decayed very rapidly. I have found them very beneficial to my health,
and should be glad to keep them till we arrive at the next port, but they will
be used up before we reach Cape Horn.