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, &c., laying out on the yards, and coming down the
rigging. We overhauled our bags, and took out our old tarry
trousers 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, gayly dressed, as on the day before, and
singing their barcarollas. The Easter holidays are kept up on
shore for three days; and, being a Catholic vessel, her 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, unless the Church cuts down her holidays; Yankees can't
afford the time. 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. As Yankees don't
usually keep Christmas, and shipmasters at sea never know when
Thanksgiving comes, Jack has no festival at all.
About noon, a man aloft called out ``Sail ho!'' and, looking off,
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
ours, 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 and
Loriotte, 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 the 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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