Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-12-08
JACKS LIFE AFLOAT.
". Clark Russell Gives Some Expert
ences Under the Title Of
PLUMS FROM A SAILORS DUFF.
Hairbrsadth Escapes From Icebergs OF Cape
Horn.
ATTACKED By A CRAzED THIRD NATE
rwRrrEr ron THE D1spArcH

in all ages that they should encounter moth
ing upon the ocean but hair-breadth escapes.
The theory is that the mariner but half dis
charges his duties when his experiences are
limited to his work as seaman. That he
may be fully and perfectly accomplished
vocationally he must know what it is to
have been cast away, to have barely come
off with his life out of ship on fire, to have
been overheard on many occasions in heavy
seas to have chewed pieces of lead in open
boats to assuage his thirst-to have en-
countered, in short, most of the stock hor-
rors of the oceanic calling. Considering.
however, that the sailor goes to sea holding
his life in his hand, I cannot but think that
his mere occupation is perilous enough to
satisfy the romantic demands of the shore
going dreamer. It is feigned that the sea-
faring life is not one jot more dangerous
than most of the laborious callines
followed ashore. Let no man credit
this. The sailor never springs
aloft, never slides out to yard arm, never
gives battle to the thunderous canvas.
scarcely performs duty, indeed, that does
not contain a distinct menace to his life.
That the calling has less Of danger in it in
these days than it formerly held will not
undertake to determine. If in former times
ships put to sea destitute of the scientific
equipment which characterizes the fabrics
of this age, the mariner supplied the de-
fciencies of the shipyard by caution and
patience. He was never in hurry. He
waited with a resigned countenance upon
the will of the wind. He piled his lead
and log-line with indefatigabIe diligence.
There was no prompt dispatch in his day,
no headlong laundering, through weather
as thick as mud in wine glass, to reach
his port. We have diminished many of the
risks he ran through imperfect appliances,
but, on the her hand, we have raised
plentiful stock of our own, so that the bal
ance between then and now shows pretty
level.
My seafaring experiences covered about
eight years, and they hit a transitional
period Of immense moment-I mean the
gradual Transformation of the marine fabric
from wood into iron. 1 was always afioat
in wood, however, and never knew what it
was to have an iron plate between me and
the yearning wash of the brine outside un-
til went voyage to Natal and back in a
big ocean steamer that all day long throbbed
to the maddened heart in her engine room,
like some black and cleaning leviathan
rendered hysterical by the lances of whalers
feeling for its life, and all night long
stormed through the dark ocean shadow like
q body of fire, faster than a gale of wind
could in my time have driven the sviftest
clipper keel that furrowed blue water.
A WILD NIGHT AT SEA.
What hair-breadth escapes did 1 meet
with7 I have been asked. Was I ever
Ever cast away, as Jack saws.
on the top crust of a halfpenny loaf? Ever
overheard among sharks2 Ever gazing
madly round the horizon, the sole occupant
of frizzling boat, in search of ship where
l might obtain water to cool my blue and
frothing lips? Well, my duff is not a yery |
considerable one, and the few plums in it I |
fear are almost wide enough apart to be ont |
Of hail of one another. However, a sample |
Or two will suffice to enable me to keep nv /
word and to write something at all events
autobiographic.
So let us start off Cape Horn on a July |
lay in the year Of grace 1859. The ship was
/ fine old Australian liner, q vessel of hard |
upon 1, 400 tons, burden that in those DAYS |
constituted large craft She was COM |
nanded by one Captain Neatly, something |
If favorite, I believe, in the passenger |
;rade-a careful old man with bow legs and |
/ fiery grog-blossom OF a nose. He wore tall |
hat in all weathers, and was |
'eckoned very careful man because he al |
ways furled his fore and mizzen royals in the |
irst dog watch every night We were long |
way south; I cannot remember the exact lat |
tude, but know it was drawing close upon |
800. There was talk in the midshipmen's |
,erth among us that the captain was trying |
lis hand at the great Circle course, but |
lone of us knew much about it down in |
hat gloomy, 'tween-decks, slush-havored |
.avern in which we youngsters lived.
was IA years old, homeward bound on nv
irst voyage; little bit of midshipman,
,urnt dry by Pacific suns, with a mortal
hatred and terror of the wild, inexpressibly
,itter cold of the roaring ice-loaded paral-
els in whose Antarctic twilight our noble
hip was plunging and rolling now under a
ragment of maintopsail, now under a reefed
oresa1l and double-reefed foretopsail, chased
~ the shrieking western gale that flew like
volleys of scissors and thumbscreWs over
'ur tafraiI, and by seas whose glittering,
lickering peaks one looked up at from
he neighborhood Of the wheel as at
he brows of tall and beetling cliffs. The
,ale was white with snow, and dark with |
he binding fall of it too, when came
n deck at noon. was in the chief mates,
r port watch, as it is called. The ship
Vas running under double-reefed topsail-
n those days we carried single sails-reefed
oresail, close-reefed foretopsail, and main
opmast staysall. The snow made London
og of the atmosphere; forward of the galley
he ship was out of sight at times when it
anne laundering down out of the blackness
#, white as any smother of spume. She
'itched with the majesty of line-of-battle
L. a. sba1 al ba-coIE Ill - |
ushes from cleaning pinnacle to seething
alley with heavy melancholy sobbing of
Tater all about her decks, and her narrow,
istended band of malntopsaiI lowering
verhead black as a ravens pinion in the
wing hoariness. We were washing through
at IL or 13 knots an hour, though the ship
7as as stiff as madman in strait Jacket,
nth the compressed wool in her hold and
oaded down to her mainchain bolts be-
ides.
SMELLING ICEBERGS.
By two bells Zone o'clock) forward of the
reak of the poop the decks were deserted
hough now and again amid some swiftly
assing flaw In the storm of snow, you
hight Just discern the cleaning shapes of
wo men on the lookout on the forecastle,
nth the glimpse of figure in the foretop,
lso on the watch for anything that might
e ahead. The captain in his tall hat was
jumping the deck to and fro close against
be wheel, cased in long pilot coat, under
be skirts of which his legs, as he slowed
ound, showed like the lower limb of the
stter o. Through the closed skylight win
ows / could get sort of watery view Of
be cuddy passengers-as they were then
alled-reading, playing at chess, playing
be piano, below. There were some scores
steerage and tweendeck passengers,
eeper yet in the bowels of the ship, but
idden out of sight by the closed matches.
l know not why it should have been, but
was the only midshipman on the poop,