Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
On Monday morning, as an offset to our day's sport, we were all set to
work "tarring down" the rigging. Some got girt-lines up for riding
down the stays and back-stays, and others tarred the shrouds, lifts,
etc., laying out on the yards, and coming down the rigging. We
overhauled our bags and took out our old tarry trowsers and frocks,
which we had used when we tarred down before, and were all at work in
the rigging by sunrise. After breakfast, we had the satisfaction of
seeing the Italian ship's boat go ashore, filled with men, gaily
dressed, as on the day before, and singing their barcarollas. The
Easter holydays are kept up on shore during three days; and being a
Catholic vessel, the crew had the advantage of them. For two
successive days, while perched up in the rigging, covered with tar and
engaged in our disagreeable work, we saw these fellows going ashore in
the morning, and coming off again at night, in high spirits. So much
for being Protestants. There's no danger of Catholicism's spreading in
New England; Yankees can't afford the time to be Catholics. American
shipmasters get nearly three weeks more labor out of their crews, in
the course of a year, than the masters of vessels from Catholic
countries. Yankees don't keep Christmas, and ship-masters at sea never
know when Thanksgiving comes, so Jack has no festival at all.
About noon, a man aloft called out "Sail ho!" and looking round, we saw
the head sails of a vessel coming round the point. As she drew round,
she showed the broadside of a full-rigged brig, with the Yankee ensign
at her peak. We ran up our stars and stripes, and, knowing that there
was no American brig on the coast but ourselves, expected to have news
from home. She rounded-to and let go her anchor, but the dark faces on
her yards, when they furled the sails, and the Babel on deck, soon made
known that she was from the Islands. Immediately afterwards, a boat's
crew came aboard, bringing her skipper, and from them we learned that
she was from Oahu, and was engaged in the same trade with the Ayacucho,
Loriotte, etc., between the coast, the Sandwich Islands, and the
leeward coast of Peru and Chili. Her captain and officers were
Americans, and also a part of her crew; the rest were Islanders. She
was called the Catalina, and, like all the others vessels in that
trade, except the Ayacucho, her papers and colors were from Uncle Sam.
They, of course, brought us no news, and we were doubly disappointed,
for we had thought, at first, it might be the ship which we were
expecting from Boston.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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