Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
The next Sunday the other half of our crew went ashore on liberty,
and left us on board, to enjoy the first quiet Sunday we had had
upon the coast. Here were no hides to come off, and no
southeasters to fear. We washed and mended our clothes in the
morning, and spent the rest of the day in reading and writing.
Several of us wrote letters to send home by the Lagoda. At twelve
o'clock, the Ayacucho dropped her fore topsail, which was a signal
for her sailing. She unmoored and warped down into the bight, from
which she got under way. During this operation her crew were a
long time heaving at the windlass, and I listened to the musical
notes of a Sandwich-Islander named Mahanna, who ``sang out'' for
them. Sailors, when heaving at a windlass, in order that they may
heave together, always have one to sing out, which is done in high
and long-drawn notes, varying with the motion of the windlass.
This requires a clear voice, strong lungs, and much practice, to
be done well. This fellow had a very peculiar, wild sort of note,
breaking occasionally into a falsetto. The sailors thought that it
was too high, and not enough of the boatswain hoarseness about it;
but to me it had a great charm. The harbor was perfectly still,
and his voice rang among the hills as though it could have been
heard for miles. Toward sundown, a good breeze having sprung up,
the Ayacucho got under way, and with her long, sharp head cutting
elegantly through the water on a taut bowline, she stood directly
out of the harbor, and bore away to the southward. She was bound
to Callao, and thence to the Sandwich Islands, and expected to be
on the coast again in eight or ten months.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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