To Cuba and back. :: :: University of Virginia Library

Saturday, the twelfth day of February, 1859,
is a dull, dark day in New York, with visitations
of snow-squalls, as the United States
Mail Steamer Cahawba swings at her pier, at
the foot of Robinson-street—a pier crowded
with drays and drivers, and a street of mud,
snow and ice, and poor habitations. The
steamer is to sail at one p.m.; and, by half-past
twelve, her decks are full, and the mud and
snow of the pier are well trodden by men and
horses. Coaches drive down furiously, and
nervous passengers put their heads out to see
if the steamer is off before her time; and on
the decks, and in the gangways, inexperienced
passengers run against everybody, and mistake

the engineer for the steward, and come up the
same stairs they go down, without knowing
it. In the dreary snow, the newspaper venders
cry the papers, and the book venders thrust
yellow covers into your face—" Reading for
the voyage, sir—five hundred pages, close
print!" And that being rejected, they reverse
the process of the Sibyl,—with "Here's another,
sir, one thousand pages, double columns."
The great beam of the engine moves slowly
up and down, and the black hull sways at its
fasts. A motley group are the passengers.
Shivering Cubans, exotics that have taken
slight root in the hot-houses of the Fifth Avenue,
are to brave a few days of sleet and
cold at sea, for the palm-trees and mangoes,
the cocoas and orange-trees, they will be sitting
under in six days, at farthest. There are
Yankee shipmasters going out to join their
"cotton wagons" at New Orleans and Mobile;
merchants pursuing a commerce that knows
no rest and no locality; confirmed invalids
advised to go to Cuba to die under mosquito-nets
and be buried in a Potter's Field; and
other invalids wisely enough avoiding our

March winds; and here and there a mere
vacation-maker, like myself.

Captain Bullock is sure to sail at the hour;
and at the hour he is on the paddle-box, the
fasts are loosed, the warp run out, the crew
pull in on the warp on the port quarter, and the
head swings off. No word is spoken, but all
is done by signs; or, if a word is necessary, a
low clear tone carries it to the listener. There
is no tearing and rending escape of steam,
deafening and distracting all, and giving a
kind of terror to a peaceful scene; but our
ship swings off, gathers way, and enters upon
her voyage, in a quiet like that of a bank or
counting-room, almost under a spell of silence.

The house-tops and piers and hill-tops are
lined with snow, the masts and decks are
white with it, a dreary cold haze lies over
the water, and we work down the bay, where
few sails venture out, and but few are coming
in; and only a strong monster of a Cunard
screw-steamer, the Kangaroo, comes
down by our side.

We leave city and suburbs, Brooklyn

Heights, and the foggy outline ojf Staten Island,
far behind us, and hurry through the
Narrows, for the open sea. The Kangaroo
crossed our hawse in a strange way. Is she
steering wild, or what is it? Seeing two old
unmistakable Yankee shipmasters, sitting confidentially
together on two chairs, in affectionate
proximity to the binnacle, I address myself
to them, and my question, being put in
proper nautical phrase, secures a respectful attention.
I find they agree with me that the
Kangaroo is a little wilful, and crosses our
hawse on purpose, in some manœuvre to discharge
her pilot before we do ours; and so
thinks the quartermaster, who comes aft to right
the colors. This manœuvering of the steamer
and pilot vessel makes an incident for a few
minutes' talk, and an opening for several acquaintances
which will be voyage-long. The
pilots are dropped into their little cock-boats,
and their boats drop astern, and go bobbing
over the seas, to the pilot schooner that lies
to for them. The Kangaroo, with her mysterious
submarine art of swimming without
fins, stands due east for Liverpool, and we

stand down the coast, southerly, for the regions
of the Sun.

The Heights of Neversink are passed. The
night closes in upon the sea, dreary, cold, and
snowing; our signal lanterns, the red, the
white, and the green, gleam out into the mist;
the furnace fires throw a lurid light from the
doors below, cheerful or fearful as may be the
temper of mind of the looker-on; the long
swell lifts and drops the bow and stern, and
rolls the ship from side to side; the sea-bells
begin to strike their strange reckoning of the
half-hours; the wet and the darkness drive all
below but the experts and the desperate, and
our first night at sea has begun.

At six bells, tea is announced; and the
bright lights of the long cabin table, shining
on plates and cups and gleaming knives and
hurrying waiters, make a cheerful and lively
contrast with the dark, cold, deserted deck.

By night, I walk deck for a couple of hours
with the young captain. After due inquiries
about his family in Georgia, and due remembrance
of those of his mother's line whom
we loved, and the public honored, before the

grave or the sea closed over them, the fascinating
topic of the navy, the frigates and the
line-of-battle ships and little sloops, the storms,
the wrecks, and the sea-fights, fill up the time.
He loves the navy still, and has left it with
regret; but the navy does not love her sons
as they love her. On the quarter-deck at fifteen,
the first in rank of his year, favored by
his commanders, with service in the best vessels,
making the great fleet cruise under Morris,
taking part in the actions of the Naval
Brigade on shore in California, serving on the
Coast Survey, a man of science as well as a
sailor,—yet what is there before him, or those
like him, in our navy? The best must continue
a subaltern, a lieutenant, until he is gray.
At fifty, he may be entitled to his first command,
and that of a class below a frigate; and
if he survives the African fevers and the Isthmus
fevers, and the perils of the sea, he may
totter on the quarter-deck of a line-of-battle
ship when his skill is out of date and his capacity
for further command problematical. And
whatever may be the gallantry or the merit of
his service, though he may cut off his right

hand or pluck out his eye for the country's
honor, the navy can give him no promotion,
not even a barren title of brevet, nor a badge
of recognition of merit, though it be but a
star, or a half yard of blue ribbon. The most
meritorious officers receive large offers from
civil life; and then, it is home, family, society,
education of children, and pecuniary
competency on the one side, and on the
other, only the navy, less and less attractive
as middle life draws on.

The state-rooms of the Cahawba, like those
of most American sea-going steamers, are
built so high above the water that the windows
may be open in all but the worst of weather,
and good ventilation be ensured. I have a very
nice fellow for my room-mate, in the berth under
me; but, in a state-room, no room-mate is
better than the best; so I change my quarters
to a state-room further forward, nearer "the
eyes of her," which the passengers generally
shun, and get one to myself, free from the rattle
of the steering gear, while the delightful rise
and fall of the bows, and leisurely weather roll
and lee roll, cradle and nurse one to sleep.