Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
Sunday, 30th. This was the first Sunday that the crew had been in San
Diego, and of course they were all for going up to see the town. The
Indians came down early, with horses to let for the day, and all the
crew, who could obtain liberty, went off to the Presidio and mission,
and did not return until night. I had seen enough of San Diego, and
went on board and spent the day with some of the crew, whom I found
quietly at work in the forecastle, mending and washing their clothes,
and reading and writing. They told me that the ship stopped at Callao
in the passage out, and there lay three weeks. She had a passage of
little over eighty days from Boston to Callao, which is one of the
shortest on record. There, they left the Brandywine frigate, and other
smaller American ships of war, and the English frigate Blonde, and a
French seventy-four. From Callao they came directly to California, and
had visited every port on the coast, including San Francisco. The
forecastle in which they lived was large, tolerably well lighted by
bulls-eyes, and, being kept perfectly clean, had quite a comfortable
appearance; at least, it was far better than the little, black, dirty
hole in which I had lived so many months on board the Pilgrim. By the
regulations of the ship, the forecastle was cleaned out every morning,
and the crew, being very neat, kept it clean by some regulations of
their own, such as having a large spitbox always under the steps and
between the bits, and obliging every man to hang up his wet clothes,
etc. In addition to this, it was holystoned every Saturday morning.
In the after part of the ship was a handsome cabin, a dining-room, and
a trade-room, fitted out with shelves and furnished with all sorts of
goods. Between these and the forecastle was the "between-decks," as
high as the gun deck of a frigate; being six feet and a half, under the
beams. These between-decks were holystoned regularly, and kept in the
most perfect order; the carpenter's bench and tools being in one part,
the sailmaker's in another, and boatswain's locker, with the spare
rigging, in a third. A part of the crew slept here, in hammocks swung
fore and aft from the beams, and triced up every morning. The sides of
the between-decks were clapboarded, the knees and stanchions of iron,
and the latter made to unship. The crew said she was as tight as a
drum, and a fine sea boat, her only fault being, that of most fast
ships,--that she was wet, forward. When she was going, as she
sometimes would, eight or nine knots on a wind, there would not be a
dry spot forward of the gangway. The men told great stories of her
sailing, and had great confidence in her as a "lucky ship." She was
seven years old, and had always been in the Canton trade, and never had
met with an accident of any consequence, and had never made a passage
that was not shorter than the average. The third mate, a young man of
about eighteen years of age, nephew of one of the owners, had been in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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