University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXV.

Thursday, March 3.—The open sea, fine
weather, moderate breeze, and awnings spread,
as it is still hot in the sun. The young gentleman
who was at Mrs. Almy's, Mr. G———,
survived to be brought on board. His friends
say, that after one day's waiting, if the Cahawba
had not arrived Tuesday night, he
would not have lived till morning. He was
brought on board in an arm-chair. The
Purser, though a stranger to him, has given
up his room to him; and the second mate,
who knows his family, treats him like a
brother. His first wish being accomplished,
he now says that if he can live to see his
home and to receive the sacrament, he will
be content to meet his end, which he knows
is soon to come.

Friday, March 4.—To-day, the sea is high
and the vessel rolls and pitches, but the sky

is clear and the air delightful. Awnings still
up. Most of the passengers are seasick, and
only one woman comes to dinner.

The body of the late Chief Justice Eustis,
of Louisiana, is on board, about to be taken
to the family tomb in Massachusetts. I wish
we could, at least those of us who are from
New England, in some proper way, testify
our respect for the memory of a man of
such learning and weight of character. But
everything connected with the removal seems
to be strictly private. The jumble of life has
put on board Sheppard, the man who trained
Morrissey for the famous fight with Heenan.
He is a quiet, well-behaved man, among the
passengers.

Glorious night. Walk deck with Captain
Bullock until eleven o'clock. There is not
an abuse in the navy, that we have not corrected,
or a deficiency that we have not supplied.
We have meted to each ship and
hero in the war of 1812, with strictest justice,
the due share of praise. We have given
much better names to the new steam sloops-of-war,
taking them from Indian rivers and

lakes, and the battle-fields of the revolutionary
war, than the names of towns where
the leading politicians of the government
party reside, which the sycophancy or vanity
of those in office has selected.

Saturday, March 5.—Fine breeze, clear cool
weather, fresh blue sea, off the coast of North
Carolina; but, as we keep in the Gulf Stream,
we make no land. We are in the highway
of the commerce of all the central part of
America, yet, as before, how few vessels we
see! Only one in three days!

A few ladies join a company gathered in
the captain's state-room this evening, where
all, who can, contribute their anecdotes of sea
life, of storms and wrecks, and of the traditions,
notions, and superstitions of sailors, and
snatches of sea-songs—Tom Bowline, Captain
Kid, Bay of Biscay, and specimens of the less
classical, but more genuine songs of the capstan
and falls.

Sunday, March 6.—Cooler. Out of the
Gulf Stream. Awnings taken down, clear
sky, clear sea,—the finest, cheerfullest, wholesomest
weather in the world! Poor G———

is still alive, and has hopes of getting in.
We expect to be in by to-morrow noon.
The sea is very smooth, and nearly all are
relieved from sea-sickness. We pass a few
vessels floating up the Gulf Stream, with
wind and current,—a bark, an hermaphrodite
brig, and a schooner; but no vessel of size
or mark. As I pass G———'s room, at ten
o'clock to-night, I see the faithful purser and
second mate sitting, like brothers, by his
bedside, relieving the young man who has
come out to Havana from his father's counting-room,
to bring him home. The sea is still,
and all is favorable to the prolonging of life;
yet he is very low, and wandering in his
mind, and is talking of getting up a Sunday
School.

Monday, March 7.—It is daybreak, the
lights of Barnegat were made at four o'clock
this morning, and now the heights of Neversink
are visible; the long shore of New Jersey
is open on our lee; the harbor of New York
is but four or five hours off, where the ship
may still her pulse, and rest, and friends meet
friends. But death has visited us by night.

G——— has passed away. He breathed his
last before midnight, just as we were on the
point of sighting the long wished for shore,—
the haven where he would be.

So mixed and heterogeneous is the company
of such a passenger ship, that few seem
even to know that there has been a death,
and fewer to remember it. The succession
of events, the shore, the sails, the pilot, the
news, the excitement and expectation, and
the sights of home, are too engrossing.

On the low sand-beach of Long Island,
are the bones of the Black Warrior, our consort.
Far in the eastern horizon, just discernible,
is the smoke of the Europa, due from
Liverpool. The water far out to sea, twenty
or thirty miles from the harbor, is dotted with
little boats, fishing for the all-consuming market
of New York; and steam-tugs, short and
low, just breathing out a little steam, are
watching, far out at sea, their chances for inward-bound
vessels. On the larboard hand,
are the twin lights of Neversink. We leave
them astern, and are abreast of the low, white
spit of Sandy Hook, when a pilot boat comes

bobbing over the waves. We heave to, lower
the steps, and the pilot jumps on board. In a
few minutes, the news is over the ship—the
Thirty Millions Bill withdrawn by Mr. Slidell,
Congress adjourned, the five cent postage bill
defeated, and the Sickles and Key tragedy.
A few copies of New York papers are in the
hands of the more eager passengers.

No harbor has a more beautiful and noble
entrance than New York. The Narrows, Staten
Island, the Heights of Brooklyn, the distant
view of the Hudson River Highlands, the
densely populous outskirts in all directions,
the broad bay and its rich tributaries, on the
north and the east,—and then, the tall spires
and lofty warehouses of the city, and the long
stretches, north and east and south and west,
of the close-packed hulls and entangled spars
of the shipping.

There is no snow to be seen over the landscape
or on the house-tops, yet the leafless
trees, the dry grass, the thick overcoats and
furs, are in strange contrast with the palm-leaf
hats, white linen coats, fluttering awnings, coveted
shades, and the sun-baked harvests of five
days ago.

We drew in to our dock as silently and
surely as everything is done in the Cahawba.
A crowd of New York hackmen is gathered
on the pier, looking as if they had stolen their
coaches and horses, and meant to steal our
luggage. There are no policemen in sight.
Everybody predicts a fight. The officers of
the boat say that the police are of no use if
present, for their indifference and non-intervention
rather encourage the fighters.

For a few minutes, there is no other inconvenience
than noise and crowding for passengers
and luggage; but soon they press on the
decks,—are ordered off,—hang back,—the crew
try to force them ashore,—then comes a gathering
about the gangway—"I can fight if you
can," says a quarter-master,—and they are at
it, blow for blow! As soon as the hackmen on
the wharf see the fight, they make a breach
into the boat, and the quarter-master is driven,
with blows and curses, into the engine-room,—
the crew rally, and Rodgers jumps down into
the midst, spreads out his arms,—"Away with
you all, out of the ship!" Capt. Bullock
steps down from the wheel-house, passengers

gather round, and the hackmen fall back. Still,
a few resist, and one of them is knocked over
the head by a marlinespike, falls fainting, on
the guards, and is lifted ashore by his companions.
The hackmen are slowly but firmly
forced ashore. But on the wharf, and leaning
on the vessel's rail, they openly threaten the
lives of the crew, and especially of the man
who used the marlinespike, if they catch him
on shore—"We'll wait for you!"—"You must
come, sooner or later! It will be the last step
you'll take! Your time is up!" etc., etc. The
officers of the boat are used to this, and expect
to protect ship and passengers by their own
force, and at their own peril.

We had been talking high patriotism to
some Cuban passengers; and all the comparisons,
hitherto, had been favorable to our country,
—the style of the vessels, and the manner
in which the three boats, the health-boat, the
revenue-boat, and the news-boat, discharged
their duties. But here was rather a counterset.
The strangers saw it in a worse light than
we did. We knew it was only a lawless fight
for fares, and would end in a few blows, and

perhaps the loss of a bag or trunk or two
But in their eyes, it looked like an insurrection
of the lower orders. They did not know
where it would end. One elderly lady, in
particular, with great varieties of luggage, and
speaking no English, was in special trepidation,
and could not be persuaded to trust herself
or her luggage to the chances of the conflict,
which she was sure would take place over it.

But it is the genius of our people to get out
of difficulties, as well as to get into them. The
affair soon calms down; the crowd thins off,
as passengers select their coachmen, and leave
the boat; and in an hour or so after we touch
the wharf, the decks are still, the engine is
breathing out its last, the ship has done its
stint in the commerce of the world, Bullock
and Rodgers are shaken by the hand, complimented
and bade adieu to by all, and our
chance-gathered household of the last five
days, not to meet again on earth or sea,—is
scattered among the streets of the great city,
to the snow-lined hills of New England, and
over the wide world of the great West.

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