Book: Two Years Before the Mast

R >> Richard Henry Dana >> Two Years Before the Mast



This etext was prepared by Robert E Brewer, San Diego, CA.





TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST
A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea

By Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

With an introduction and notes by
Homer Eaton Keyes, B.L.
Assistant Professor of Art in Dartmouth College

----Crowded in the rank and narrow ship,--
Housed on the wild sea with wild usages,--
Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals
Of fair and exquisite, O! nothing, nothing,
Do we behold of that in our rude voyage.
Coleridge's Wallenstein.




CONTENTS

Introduction
Biographical Note
California and her Missions
Bibliographical References
Diagram of Ships
Explanation of Diagram
Two Years Before the Mast
Twenty-Four Years After




INTRODUCTION


Biographical Note

Two years before the mast were but an episode in the life of
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.; yet the narrative in which he details the
experiences of that period is, perhaps, his chief claim to a wide
remembrance. His services in other than literary fields occupied
the greater part of his life, but they brought him comparatively
small recognition and many disappointments. His happiest
associations were literary, his pleasantest acquaintanceships
those which arose through his fame as the author of one book.
The story of his life is one of honest and competent effort,
of sincere purpose, of many thwarted hopes. The traditions
of his family forced him into a profession for which he was
intellectually but not temperamentally fitted: he should have
been a scholar, teacher, and author; instead he became a lawyer.

Born in Cambridge, Mass., August 1, 1815, Richard Henry Dana, Jr.,
came of a line of Colonial ancestors whose legal understanding and
patriotic zeal had won them distinction. His father, if possessed
of less vigor than his predecessors, was yet a man of culture and
ability. He was widely known as poet, critic, and lecturer; and
endowed his son with native qualities of intelligence, good breeding,
and honesty.

After somewhat varied and troublous school days, young Dana entered
Harvard University, where he took high rank in his classes and bid
fair to make a reputation as a scholar. But at the beginning of his
third year of college a severe attack of measles interrupted his
course, and so affected his eyes as to preclude, for a time at least,
all idea of study. The state of the family finances was not such as to
permit of foreign travel in search of health. Accordingly, prompted by
necessity and by a youthful love of adventure, he shipped as a common
sailor in the brig, Pilgrim, bound for the California coast. His
term of service lasted a trifle over two years--from August, 1834,
to September, 1836. The undertaking was one calculated to kill or cure.
Fortunately it had the latter effect; and, upon returning to his native
place, physically vigorous but intellectually starved, he reentered
Harvard and worked with such enthusiasm as to graduate in six months
with honor.

Then came the question of his life work. Though intensely religious,
he did not feel called to the ministry; business made no appeal;
his ancestors had been lawyers; it seemed best that he should follow
where they had led. Had conditions been those of to-day, he would
naturally have drifted into some field of scholarly research,
--political science or history. As it was, he entered law school,
which, in 1840, he left to take up the practice of his profession.
But Dana had not the tact, the personal magnetism, or the business
sagacity to make a brilliant success before the bar. Despite the
fact that he had become a master of legal theory, an authority upon
international questions, and a counsellor of unimpeachable integrity,
his progress was painfully slow and toilsome. Involved with his lack
of tact and magnetism there was, too, an admirable quality of sturdy
obstinacy that often worked him injury. Though far from sharing the
radical ideas of the Abolitionists, he was ardent in his anti-slavery
ideas and did not hesitate to espouse the unpopular doctrines of the
Free-Soil party of 1848, or to labor for the freedom of those Boston
negroes, who, under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, were in danger
of deportation to the South.

His activity in the latter direction resulted in pecuniary loss,
social ostracism and worse; for upon one occasion he was set upon
and nearly killed by a pair of thugs. But Dana was not a man to be
swerved from his purpose by considerations of policy or of personal
safety. He met his problems as they came to him, took the course
which he believed to be right and then stuck to it with indomitable
tenacity. Yet, curiously enough, with none of the characteristics
of the politician, he longed for political preferment. At the hands
of the people this came to him in smallest measure only. Though at
one time a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, he was defeated
as candidate for the lower house of Congress, and in 1876 suffered
the bitterest disappointment of his life, when the libellous attacks
of enemies prevented the ratification of his nomination as Minister
to England.

Previous to this he had served his country as United States
District Attorney during the Civil War, a time when the office
demanded the highest type of ability and uprightness. That the
government appreciated this was shown in 1867 by its choice of
Dana as one of its counsel in the prosecution of Jefferson Davis
for treason. The position of legal representative before the
Halifax tribunal of 1877, which met to discuss fishery questions
at issue between the United States and Canada, was given him no
doubt in part because of his eminent fitness, in part as balm for
the wound of the preceding year.

But whatever satisfaction he may have found in such honors as time
and ripening years brought to him, his chief joy and relaxation lay
in travel. When worry and overwork began to tell upon him, he would
betake himself to shore or mountains. Upon several occasions he
visited Europe, and in 1859 made a tour of the world. At length,
in 1876, he gave up active life and took residence abroad, with
the idea of finding leisure for the preparation of a treatise on
international law. He was still engaged in collecting his material
when, on January 6, 1882, death overtook him. He was buried in Rome
in the Protestant Cemetery, whose cypresses cast their long shadows
over the graves of many distinguished foreigners who have sought a
last refuge of health and peace under the skies of Italy.

Such a career as his would seem far enough from being a failure.
Yet, in retirement, Dana looked back upon it not without regret.
As a lawyer, he had felt a justifiable desire to see his labors
crowned by his elevation to the bench; as an active participant in
public affairs, he had felt that his services and talents rendered
him deserving of a seat in Congress. Lacking these things, he might
have hoped that the practice of his profession would yield him a
fortune. Here again he was disappointed. In seeking the fulfillment
of his ambitions, he was always on the high road to success; he never
quite arrived.

It is remarkable that, having written one successful book, Dana did not
seek further reward as a man of letters. Two Years before the Mast
appeared in 1840, while its author was still a law student. Though
at the time it created no great stir in the United States, it was most
favorably received in England, where it paved the way for many pleasant
and valuable acquaintanceships. The following year, Dana produced
a small volume on seamanship, entitled The Seaman's Friend. This,
and a short account of a trip to Cuba in 1859, constitute the sole
additions to his early venture. He was a copious letter-writer and
kept full journals of his various travels; but he never elaborated
them for publication. Yet, long before his death, he had seen the
narrative of his sailor days recognized as an American classic.
Time has not diminished its reputation. We read it to-day not
merely for its simple, unpretentious style; but for its clear
picture of sea life previous to the era of steam navigation, and
for its graphic description of conditions in California before
visions of gold sent the long lines of "prairie schooners" drifting
across the plains to unfold the hidden destiny of the West.


California and her Missions

It is not easy to realize that, during the stirring days when the
eastern coast-line of North America was experiencing the ferment
of revolution, the Pacific seaboard was almost totally unexplored,
its population largely a savage one. But Spain, long established
in Mexico, was slowly pushing northward along the California coast.
Her emissaries were the Franciscan friars; her method the founding
of Indian missions round which, in due course, should arise towns
intended to afford harbor for Spanish ships and to serve as outposts
against the steady encroachments of Russia, who, from Alaska, was
reaching out toward San Francisco Bay.

Thus began the white settlement of California. San Diego Mission
was founded in 1769; San Carlos, at Monterey, in 1770; San Francisco,
in 1776; Santa Barbara, in 1786. For the general guardianship of
these missions a garrison, or presidio, was in each case provided.
It was responsible not only for the protection of the town thus
created, but for all the missions in the district. The presidio of
San Diego, for example, was in charge of the missions of San Diego,
San Gabriel, San Juan Capistrano, and San Luis Rey. So, likewise,
there were garrisons with extensive jurisdiction at Santa Barbara,
Monterey, and San Francisco.

The Indians in the immediate vicinity of a mission were attached
thereto by a sort of gentle enslavement. They were provided special
quarters, were carefully looked after by the priests, their religious
education fostered, and their innate laziness conquered by specific
requirements of labor in agriculture, cattle raising, and simple
handicrafts. It was an arrangement which worked well for both parties
concerned. The slavery of the Indians was not unlike the obligation
of children to their parents; they were comfortable, well behaved,
and for the most part contented with the rule of the friars, who,
on their side, began to accumulate considerable wealth from the
well-directed efforts of their charges.

The supposition was that in the course of years the Indians might
become so habituated to thrift and industry as to be released from
supervision and safely left to their own devices. But that happy
consummation had not occurred when, in 1826, Mexico succeeded in
separating herself from the mother country and began her career as an
independent republic, of which California was a part. Nevertheless,
the greed of politicians suddenly wrought the change which was to
have come as the slow development of years. By governmental decree,
the Indians were declared free of obligation to the friars; the latter
were stripped of their temporal powers, their funds seized under the
guise of a loan, and their establishments often subjected to what was
little short of pillage. This state of affairs had scarcely begun at
the time of the author's visit to California; still, as he points out
in Chapter XXI, the decline of the missions had already set in.

The final blow to their power and usefulness came, however, with
the upheaval accompanying the Mexican war and the acquisition of
California by the United States. Although this country returned
all mission buildings to the control of the Church, their reason
for being had vanished; they were sold, or destroyed, or feebly
maintained on funds insufficient to forestall dilapidation.
Fortunately the Franciscan friars had built for beauty as well as for
use; the architecture which they devised in skillful adaptation of
their native Spanish type displayed originality and picturesque charm.
Hence, of late years, Californians have come to feel a worthy pride
in the monuments of the early history of their state, and have taken
steps to preserve such of them as survive. No less than twenty-one
are today the goal of the traveller.

The reader who is interested in pursuing the subject thus outlined
will find its satisfactory treatment in George Wharton James's
_In and out of the old Missions of California,_ a book that combines
agreeable reading with excellent illustrations.


References

The author's life is fully and sympathetically treated in
Charles Francis Adams's Richard Henry Dana. Boston, 1890.

The most exhaustive history of California and the Pacific coast in
general is H. H. Bancroft's History of the Pacific States of North
America. San Francisco, 1882-1888. A briefer work is Josiah Royce's
California. Boston, 1886. Though this book considers mainly the
transition period, 1846-1856, its introduction gives an excellent
survey of earlier years. F. J. Turner's Rise of the New West,
which is volume XIV of the American Nation, New York, 1907, tells the
story of the development of the whole territory west of the Mississippi.

Those who are curious to search out all the items of ship construction
will find them adequately illustrated, under the caption, "ship," in
both Standard and Century dictionaries.


Explanation of Diagram

The following diagram, from which many details have been omitted,
presents sufficient data for an understanding of the more important
nautical terms which occur in the text. A number of other such terms
have been explained in the notes. In omitting reference to many more,
the editor has felt that ovarannotation would turn a straightforward
and interesting narrative into a mere excuse for a nautical dictionary,
and quite defeat the purpose of the book. The author's technical
vocabulary, even when most bewildering, serves to give force and the
vividness of local color to his descriptions. To pause in the midst
of a storm at sea for comment and definition would result merely in
checking the movement of the story and putting a damper upon the
imagination.

Two Years before the Mast affords the teacher a somewhat unusual
opportunity. Few literary works are better calculated to stimulate
inquiry into the remarkable changes which three-quarters of a century
have wrought in the United States. Much profitable class employment
in the drawing of maps and the writing of brief themes dealing with
various phases of the romantic history of California will suggest
itself. The numerous geographical allusions should be traced with
the aid of an atlas.

| --+--
--+-- | |j|
/| | --+--
/ |f| | |i|
/ +-- ---+---
/ /|e| | | |
/ / +--- | | h|
/ / | | ----+----
/a / |d | | | |
/__/ b +---- | | g |
/ /_____|c | \__|____\
/__/ |___| |
\------+----------+-------
\_______________________/

a. Flying jib.
b. Jib.
c. Foresail.
d. Foretopsail.
e. Foretopgallantsail.
f. Foreroyal.
g. Mainsail.
h. Maintopsail.
i. Maintopgallantsail.
j. Mainroyal.



|
|B2
| | |C2
|A2 6--+-- |
3--+-- | 9--+--
| || |
|| | ||
| 5--+-- |
2---+--- |B1 |C1
E --__ |A1 || 8---+---
--__ || | |
--| 4----+---- ||
1----+---- | 7----+---- G __--
| | | __-- /
|A |B |C F __-- \ /
D | | | __-- H\/
------______|________|________|________---------
\_______________________________/

A. Mizzenmast.
A1. Mizzentopmast.
A2. Mizzentopgallant and royalmast.
B. Mainmast.
B1. Maintopmast.
B2. Maintopgallant and royalmast.
C. Foremast.
C1. Foretopmast.
C2. Foretopgallant and royalmast.
D. Spanker boom.
E. Spanker gaff.
F. Bowsprit.
G. Jib boom and flying jib boom.
H. Martingale boom.

1. Crossjack yard.
2. Mizzentopsail yard.
3. Mizzentopgallant yard.
4. Main yard.
5. Maintopsail yard.
6. Maintopgallant yard.
7. Fore yard.
8. Foretopsail yard.
9. Foretopgallant yard.

[Editor: Many more numbered lifts, stays, and braces were left out
of these simplified diagrams. They are intended to be viewed using
a fixed-width font.]

Each mast section is joined to the lower one in two places:

| |
| |
___|_|_
\_____/ Mast cap.
| | |
| | |
| | |
_|_|_|_
\_____/ Trestletree.
| |
| |


Each mast also sports net-like rigging from the lowest
trestletree to the deck. These are called "shrouds".





TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST





PREFACE



I am unwilling to present this narrative to the public without a
few words in explanation of my reasons for publishing it. Since
Mr. Cooper's Pilot and Red Rover, there have been so many stories
of sea-life written, that I should really think it unjustifiable
in me to add one to the number without being able to give reasons
in some measure warranting me in so doing.

With the single exception, as I am quite confident, of Mr. Ames's
entertaining, but hasty and desultory work, called "Mariner's Sketches,"
all the books professing to give life at sea have been written by persons
who have gained their experience as naval officers, or passengers,
and of these, there are very few which are intended to be taken as
narratives of facts.

Now, in the first place, the whole course of life, and daily duties,
the discipline, habits and customs of a man-of-war are very different
from those of the merchant service; and in the next place, however
entertaining and well written these books may be, and however accurately
they may give sea-life as it appears to their authors, it must still be
plain to every one that a naval officer, who goes to sea as a gentleman,
"with his gloves on," (as the phrase is,) and who associated only with
his fellow-officers, and hardly speaks to a sailor except through a
boatswain's mate, must take a very different view of the whole matter
from that which would be taken by a common sailor.

Besides the interest which every one must feel in exhibitions of
life in those forms in which he himself has never experienced it;
there has been, of late years, a great deal of attention directed
toward common seamen, and a strong sympathy awakened in their behalf.
Yet I believe that, with the single exception which I have mentioned,
there has not been a book written, professing to give their life and
experiences, by one who has been of them, and can know what their
life really is. A voice from the forecastle has hardly yet been
heard.

In the following pages I design to give an accurate and authentic
narrative of a little more than two years spent as a common sailor,
before the mast, in the American merchant service. It is written
out from a journal which I kept at the time, and from notes which
I made of most of the events as they happened; and in it I have
adhered closely to fact in every particular, and endeavored to give
each thing its true character. In so doing, I have been obliged
occasionally to use strong and coarse expressions, and in some
instances to give scenes which may be painful to nice feelings;
but I have very carefully avoided doing so, whenever I have not
felt them essential to giving the true character of a scene.
My design is, and it is this which has induced me to publish the
book, to present the life of a common sailor at sea as it really
is,--the light and the dark together.

There may be in some parts a good deal that is unintelligible to
the general reader; but I have found from my own experience, and
from what I have heard from others, that plain matters of fact in
relation to customs and habits of life new to us, and descriptions
of life under new aspects, act upon the inexperienced through the
imagination, so that we are hardly aware of our want of technical
knowledge. Thousands read the escape of the American frigate
through the British channel, and the chase and wreck of the Bristol
trader in the Red Rover, and follow the minute nautical manoeuvres
with breathless interest, who do not know the name of a rope in the
ship; and perhaps with none the less admiration and enthusiasm for
their want of acquaintance with the professional detail.

In preparing this narrative I have carefully avoided incorporating
into it any impressions but those made upon me by the events as
they occurred, leaving to my concluding chapter, to which I shall
respectfully call the reader's attention, those views which have
been suggested to me by subsequent reflection.

These reasons, and the advice of a few friends, have led me to give this
narrative to the press. If it shall interest the general reader, and
call more attention to the welfare of seamen, or give any information
as to their real condition, which may serve to raise them in the rank
of beings, and to promote in any measure their religious and moral
improvement, and diminish the hardships of their daily life, the end
of its publication will be answered.

R.H.D., Jr.
Boston, July, 1840.




CHAPTER I
DEPARTURE


The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of
the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the
western coast of North America. As she was to get under weigh early
in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o'clock,
in full sea-rig, and with my chest, containing an outfit for a two
or three year voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination
to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long
absence from books and study, a weakness of the eyes, which had
obliged me to give up my pursuits, and which no medical aid seemed
likely to cure.

The change from the tight dress coat, silk cap, and kid gloves of an
undergraduate at Cambridge, to the loose duck trowsers, checked shirt
and tarpaulin hat of a sailor, though somewhat of a transformation,
was soon made, and I supposed that I should pass very well for a
jack tar. But it is impossible to deceive the practised eye in
these matters; and while I supposed myself to be looking as salt
as Neptune himself, I was, no doubt, known for a landsman by every
one on board as soon as I hove in sight. A sailor has a peculiar
cut to his clothes, and a way of wearing them which a green hand
can never get. The trowsers, tight round the hips, and thence
hanging long and loose round the feet, a superabundance of checked
shirt, a low-crowned, well varnished black hat, worn on the back of
the head, with half a fathom of black ribbon hanging over the left
eye, and a peculiar tie to the black silk neckerchief, with sundry
other minutiae, are signs, the want of which betray the beginner at
once. Beside the points in my dress which were out of the way,
doubtless my complexion and hands were enough to distinguish me
from the regular salt, who, with a sun-burnt cheek, wide step, and
rolling gait, swings his bronzed and toughened hands athwart-ships,
half open, as though just ready to grasp a rope.

"With all my imperfections on my head," I joined the crew, and we
hauled out into the stream, and came to anchor for the night.
The next day we were employed in preparations for sea, reeving
studding-sail gear, crossing royal yards, putting on chafing gear,
and taking on board our powder. On the following night, I stood
my first watch. I remained awake nearly all the first part of
the night from fear that I might not hear when I was called; and
when I went on deck, so great were my ideas of the importance of
my trust, that I walked regularly fore and aft the whole length
of the vessel, looking out over the bows and taffrail at each turn,
and was not a little surprised at the coolness of the old salt whom
I called to take my place, in stowing himself snugly away under the
long boat, for a nap. That was sufficient lookout, he thought, for
a fine night, at anchor in a safe harbor.

The next morning was Saturday, and a breeze having sprung up from
the southward, we took a pilot on board, hove up our anchor, and
began beating down the bay. I took leave of those of my friends
who came to see me off, and had barely opportunity to take a last
look at the city, and well-known objects, as no time is allowed on
board ship for sentiment. As we drew down into the lower harbor,
we found the wind ahead in the bay, and were obliged to come to
anchor in the roads. We remained there through the day and a part
of the night. My watch began at eleven o'clock at night, and I
received orders to call the captain if the wind came out from the
westward. About midnight the wind became fair, and having called
the captain, I was ordered to call all hands. How I accomplished
this I do not know, but I am quite sure I did not give the true
hoarse, boatswain call of "A-a-ll ha-a-a-nds! up anchor, a-ho-oy!"
In a short time every one was in motion, the sails loosed, the yards
braced, and we began to heave up the anchor, which was our last hold
upon Yankee land. I could take but little part in all these preparations.
My little knowledge of a vessel was all at fault. Unintelligible orders
were so rapidly given and so immediately executed; there was such a
hurrying about, and such an intermingling of strange cries and stranger
actions, that I was completely bewildered. There is not so helpless
and pitiable an object in the world as a landsman beginning a sailor's
life. At length those peculiar, long-drawn sounds, which denote that
the crew are heaving the windlass, began, and in a few moments we were
under weigh. The noise of the water thrown from the bows began to be
heard, the vessel leaned over from the damp night breeze, and rolled
with the heavy ground swell, and we had actually begun our long, long
journey. This was literally bidding "good night" to my native land.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.