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In the Gold Fields The ‘Pride of the Seas’ to Batavia Encounters with Straits Aborigines Visiting Islands Playing ‘Pirate’ Java Monkeys Shark
In the latter part of February 1854, I was boarding at the Family Hotel, Lower George Street, Sydney, N.S.W., Australia, about one month previously I had come down from the Gold Diggings on the head waters of the Tuton, a small creek that rises on the Northwestern slope of the Blue Mountains, the dividing chain of Mountains extending North and South through N.S.W., all the streams rising on the Western slope emptying into the Murrumbidgee, one of the large tributaries of the River Murray, that finally takes its outlet to the Pacific Ocean at Encounter Bay on the coast of South Australia; while the streams rising on the western slope are shorter streams and empty into the Pacific on the East coast.
I had pretty good success digging but was unfortunate in having a dishonest partner who left me one night with the proceeds of our united labor for four months. He was a sailor and suspecting he had started for Sydney I started for the same place, but he had the advantage of me, having a horse, for he had taken our pack horse as well as the gold. It took me 4 or 5 days to tramp down 120 miles over the rough roads and when I got to Sydney I could find no clue to the thief. I hunted round all the Sailor’s boarding houses and every place I though I should be most likely to find him in but without success. He probably never came to Sydney but went to some other diggings; anyway I never saw him again.
We had something between 40 and 50 oz. of gold worth at that time Two Pounds 14 S. per ounce. I hated to lose that amount of gold that I had worked hard for, working late and early, however I didn’t let the loss weigh very heavy on my mind, I was only a young fellow then just about 20 and times were flush in Australia in those days; almost any kind of labor was well paid for, a sailor’s wages was from #12 to #15 per month, and as I did not have a great amount of money left, I concluded to go to sea again instead of going back to the diggings, and so began to look around for a vessel.
I found plenty of chances to ship for England or any part of India or China, but I did not want to leave the coast unless in some vessel coming back to the Colonies. There was a man boarding in the house who was looking for a steward’s berth on some vessel and one day after I had been in town about a week, Ried, as I had heard him called, came in and said he had shipped for Batavia in a Clipper looking schooner belonging to New York called the ‘Pride Of The Seas’ and he thought she had not yet got all of her crew, he had just come up for his clothes and was going right down to her, she was lying at the Flour Company’s Dock in Darling Harbor.
When I got aboard of her I found there more men; they were waiting for the old Man to come aboard for the Mate would not ship us until he knew whether the old Man had shipped anyone or not; there was one man to work and she wanted 4 more. We had plenty of time to look her over before the old Man came aboard; on her main hatch beam I saw her tonage cut 145 Tons; her main hatches were off, her hold appeared shallow, not over 9 or 10 feet, but she was long and very beamy but she did not look to me like a vessel that had been carrying all kinds of miscellaneous cargo, she had more the looks of some large yacht, her decks were white as though they often got hollystoned; her decks were flush fore and aft, with nothing aft but a skylight about one foot high and about eight feet long over the cabin; her bulkwarks were all built up solid on the inside, and in-board she was painted all white with the exception of a diamond shaped head about every eight feet on the inside of her bulwark; that was painted red, and a little aft the main rigging was a pointed port on hinges so that it could be tried up and that was painted red inside but she was black outside with her name in large gilt letters on her quarter, and on her head-boards also; her figure head was a Mer Maid with a gilt tail running down on each side of the stem, and a splendidly moulded bow. Her lines were drawn as fine as a yacht with a nice, clean run aft and a half round or eliptical stern, her name and port of sailing was mounted by a fine gilt spread eagle; she carried two boats in iron davits, one on each quarter, but they hung low so as to let the main boom pass over them.
After waiting for the old Man most all after-noon, he came aboard and not having shipped anyone I agreed to go in her myself and a man who called himself Harry Trumbull and two Portugese; wages #12 a month for the voyage from Sydney to Batavia and back to Sydney to sign Articles next day at a shipping office up town that received the patronage of most all of the American captains.
The following day according to order after signing Articles we went aboard and after triming her store ballast hauled her out to the end of the dock and ran up the fore and aft sail and top mast stay sail and ran her out of Darling Harbor around Dawes Point and came to anchor between Pinch Gutt Island and Wooloomaloo Bay for she had not yet taken her fresh water aboard; that day the water boat came along side and filled all our water casks.
She had all her canvas bent but the square foresail for she carries a fore and aft fore-sail and a square one that bent to the fore yard and a square top-sail and top-gallant sail; after taking in our water the mate, whose name I found to be Douglass, told us to get the square fore-sail along forward and get it aloft.
I had noticed the sail coiled up at the forward end of the cabin skylight or deck, we went aft and strung it out so that we could pick it up on one shoulder and found it was coiled over and on top of two twelve pounder brass pieces mounted on a regular gun carriage and they shone and glistened in the bright sun showing that they received their daily share of polishing as well as the brass caps on the ends of her standing rigging and brass man rope stansions on her knight-heads and the same on her rail for her side ladder that was not got out; we got all her water aboard and the fore- sail bent by noon.
After dinner we had an opportunity to find out something about the schooner, for it appeared that Nick, as the mate called him, had come out in her from New York the year before to Melbourne, but he had left her there and had been in a number of vessels on the coast until about three months before he had joined her again at Otago, New Zealand. He told us that she was built from the same moulds and by the same man as the yacht ‘America’ George Sterns, of New York, and that the same man bought her out that was now Captain of her, Captain Hodges, and the same Mate whom he styled as ‘Black Douglass’; he allowed that they were both tough characters but that he had got along with them.
He told us the Schooner was sent out to Australia with the intention of selling her but the Captain had held her at too high a figure though at that time almost any kind of a vessel brought a good price in Australia. He had heard that the Captain had refused #5,000 for her from the Colonial Government of N.S.W., but he wanted #6,000 for her and failing in selling her he had kept her in the New Zealand and Sydney trade; but she was now chartered for a load of sugar from Batavia. and going through Torres Straits.
The ‘Pride of the Seas’ was the first American vessel I had ever been aboard of and though the living on her was far ahead of anything I had been used to even on the Colonial vessels both as to quality and style of being cooked, I felt a little nervous about going out in her for though I had often heard of men being ill-used on board of vessels I had never seen it and the yarns the Irishman told of both Mate and Captain made me feel anything but at ease. But thinks I to myself, if he can get along with them as he said, I could not see why I could not if I did my duty and kept a civil tongue in my head, for at that time I thought myself a pretty fair sailor.
We were kept busy to work getting ready for sea all that after-noon. At night a lantern was hung on the stay-sail halyards but no anchor watch kept, no danger of dragging them for ‘Sydney Harbor’ or Port Jackson, as it is most generally called is I think without exception the finest and at the same time the safest harbor in the world being completely land locked and deep water right up to the shore all around it.
The Captain came off that night and bright and early next morning the Pilot came off too and the order was given to get under way. In a very short time the anchor was apeak and sail made on the schooner. The wind was about South-east right up the harbor but flood tide; she broke off on the port tack and stood into Sydney Cove nearly up to the Circular Quay before she went about, and I now saw some of the best work I had then ever seen or have ever seen since by a vessel on the wind under canvas.
I was at the wheel from the time the anchor broke and going into Sydney Cove did not think much about her laying more than ordinary close to the wind, but I did notice that she went through the water like a steamer; after coming in stays and getting fairly round on the starboard tack with everything full and drawing I saw that she would work inside of nine points.
The Pilot would come and look at the compass and sometimes he would say, ‘Watch her close, boy, she is a flyer, or she is a heeler’; he always had something to say in praise of her and the work she was doing.
Her whole outfit was new to me, never having been in an American vessel before, or more especially an American Schooner; her canvas all seemed to set so good, so different to any I had been in before, I had been in schooners on the English coast and on the Australian coast with their baggy, ill fitting sails and now for the first time when her sails were pulled up and to see every sail set like a board without a wrinkle or hitch of any kind, I could not help feeling a little proud and admiring her looks and the way she was going through the water as well as the Pilot; and I certainly gave her all my care and attention to keep her full and steady.
The old Man listened to the Pilot’s praise of her, his reply one time was ‘You can’t tell sir, what this schooner can do, we have not wind enough now to get her best sailing from her, and she don’t sail as well now as she did when she was a fore and aft schooner’; that being the rig she came out from New York under, but on one of his passages from Aukland, New Zealand, he had carried away the head of the fore-mast and not being able to get another spar for a fore-mast he had cut the old fore-mast down and made her into the rig she was now under.
Sydney Harbor is about nine miles from the heads of Sydney Cove and both sides of the harbor are a succession of one pretty bay after another and the grounds from the water’s edge up are all laid out in terraces and gardens in every imaginable form of Horticultural beauty; for these grounds are all owned by the wealthy citizens of Sydney who here have their country residences and their handsome turnouts may be seen in the cool of the evening driving home on the well built and well kept South Head Road.
But while I stop to describe the beauties of Sydney Harbor and its surroundings, the ‘Pride of the Seas’ is making almost steam-boat time down the harbor and seemingly eating right into the wind so close did she lie and hold all she made, for I could not see that she made a particle of lee-way; she cleared the North point of Flinders’ Bay and stood across the bay before she went about and on the port tack she brought South Head Bay on the second tack and going round went well to windward of the ‘Sow and Pig Shoals’ on the third stretch and on going round again brought clear out of the Heads in four tacks, in two hours and ten minutes by the Pilot’s chronometer.
After getting well out clear of the Heads he told the Captain that he did not believe there was another vessel in Australian waters that would perform the same feat under canvas in the same time. He now had the flag run up for the Pilot boat to come alongside and take him off, for at that time the only Pilot boats at Port Jackson were six oar’d whale boats.
Pilots very seldom boarding a vessel until they were almost or altogether inside the Heads, and leaving then as soon as well clear of them, for a vessel is out on the Pacific as soon as she is clear of the Harbor for the coast line of N.S.W. is very clear of shoals from Woolongong forty miles South of Sydney to New Castle North of Sydney the rocks rise from 200 feet or more perpendicularly from the water’s edge.
The Pilot left us with a good wish for a pleasant voyage; we stood out on the port tack for about two hours or more and then went in-stays for she was by this time far enough off from the land to give her a good offing, and she would now lay her course along the land on the other tack. And now commenced my first voyage under the ‘Stars and Stripes’.
Towards night the wind hauled to the Southward letting her go with free sheets, and now with all her large spread of sail the ‘Pride of the Seas’ with her yards checked in two or three points and main sheet off, began to show what she could do in the line of sailing. I think that was her best point for sailing with the wind, about three points free, her big jib-topsail then lifted her right along.
That night when the watches were chosen Harry Trumbull was taken aft as Second Mate and from then on was known as Mr. Trumbull; and leaving us with four men before the mast, myself and a tall, young Portugese named Manuel Periera in the star-board watch and the Irishman Mike O’Hara and the other Portugese named Frank Brazza in the port watch. Frank was a native of Lisbon and Manuel belonged to Brava one of the Western or Azore Islands, a group of islands lying North of Maderia and belonging to Portugal. Frank was apparently about 26 or 27 years of age, while Manuel was a tall powerfully built man perhaps 25 or 26 dark almost as a negro.
Next morning we were out of sight of land and as this was my first voyage through Torres Straits on a part of the Australian coast that I had never been on, I felt an additional interest in anything pertaining to the voyage as I had heard the old Man telling the Pilot that he should take the inner passage; there being three passages through Torres Straits; the Inner, the Rain Island and the Grand Barrier Reef passage; the latter being the outer passage and next to the large island of New Guinea; the narrowest part of the strait being from Cape York the most North-Easterly point of Australia to the Island.
At that time the large Colony of Queensland had not been formed or organized as a separate Colony from N.S.W. but was known as the ‘Moreton Bay District’ and very thinly settled, the present thriving towns of Brisbane and Rockhampton having no existence then.
Time passed along pleasantly with the usual routine of a sailor’s duty we had watch and watch, lived well; for whatever other bad qualities Captain Hodges had, he did not stint his crew from getting enough to eat and having it served to the men clean and well cooked, but I did not feel surprised at the clean and tasty appearance of the Schooner when we joined her for there seemed to be no end of hollystoning and scrubbing the paint work inside with hot water and soap, and all the brass work about her was kept polished as regularly as I ever saw it done on the Liverpool and New York Mail steamers even to the two brass guns she carried. In fact, if she had belonged to the Navy she could not have been kept cleaner or her rigging more ship-shape, for Mr. Douglass had all of a sailor’s taste and pride in the Schooner’s good looks, at least that was my impression at the time, though if O’Hara’s yarns had any truth in them he could be bad if it suited him for O’Hara told us that he was Mate of the Clipper ship ‘Challenge’ with Captain Waterman a few years before when there were eight or nine men killed on the voyage of that ship from New York to San Francisco; how true that was I had no means of knowing at that time.
We got a good run to the Northward and made the land to the North of Wide Bay and from there we were in sight of the main land all the way through the straits.
We had light, variable winds for some days before we got the South-east Trade winds, when we got them rather light but with the pleasant warm weather and smooth water, we made good headway and soon began to get among coral reefs and islands that took the keenest watching to keep clear from them, a look-out being constantly on the fore-top sail yard and the schooner was piloted through narrow channels, some of them seemed so narrow that it seemed as though we could jump on to the rocks on each side of the schooner; but the water is so clear that the bottom can be distinctly seen in four or five fathoms of water; and the deep water channels were clearly defined by the color of the water.
In some places the Ocean bottom resembled some beautiful garden with red and white coral branching and spreading as far as the eye could reach, and red fish and mullet could be seen feeding in among the coral groves. The first night in the straits we came to anchor on the East side of a low, sandy island that looked as though the sea would overflow it at high water.
We came to anchor every night before sunset and never got under way before sunrise for without the sun’s strong light we could not see the rocks and shoals, even from the top-sail yard where the lookout was kept.
We went ashore next morning at daybreak and captured a fine, large turtle, all that three of us could turn over on his back. The next day we brought the mouth of Endeavor River, but it was after sunset before we made it and here we came very near paying the penalty for so doing, the wind being very light when the tide turned towards morning and the vessel swung to her anchor.
When we wanted to get under way the old Man happened to look over the stern and found that she was almost on a coral reef, her stern not being more than 10 or 12 feet from the reef that came near to the surface.
There was nothing to be done but to wait until she swung again when the tide shifted and while waiting for the tide to turn we received a visit from the natives.
There five canoes came out of the river. They paddled slowly towards us, but before getting very close separated and two of them paddled all around the vessel and joined the other three and evidently held a council. They no doubt thought we were on the rocks. They kept about a quarter of a mile from us. The old Man made motions for them to come along-side and becoming to them with his hankerchief. They came a little closer and then dropped astern.
The old Man told the steward to hand up some bread, and he took five or six cakes of biscuit and threw them overboard and the current carried them towards the canoe. ‘Now’, said he, ‘if I can get them a little nearer I will give them a scare they will never forget’.
He had both gun ports triced up and the two guns loaded with blank charges, the bread in the meantime having drifted down among the canoes was eagerly picked up and eaten. The Black fellows gradually coming nearer to the vessel as the mate was still dropping bread over a little at a time, the old man standing by the starboard gun, with a slow match.
They came alongside one astern of the other and as the foremost canoe got under the Gun Port and one of the Black fellows in the act of climbing in under the Gun the old man touched it off; the Black fellows dropped back into the canoe and they all began paddling astern. I guess Captain Hodges thought he had scared them for he and the Mate ran aft to see them getting away, and as they looked over the taff-rail a Black fellow stood up in the canoe and threw a spear at the old Man that just missed his head and stuck in the Main Mast about half way up. It was a closer call for him than he had any idea of.
He drew his revolver and fired four or five shots into the stern canoe and I think he hit some of them for I afterwards found he was a crack shot with a revolver. After the canoe had got out of range from the old Man, he sent the Second Mate up to take the spear down from the main mast, but he found it imbedded too deep in the mast to pull out, and it was sawed off and smoothed over with a chisel.
The spear was about ten feet long, made from a bamboo reed and about nine inches of burnt iron-wood inserted in the end, hard and black as Ebony, and on each side barbs or notches to the depth of a quarter of an inch, cut or sawed with either flint or oyster shell, for at that time the Black fellows on the North-east coast had no knives.
But there is one thing that will always be a mystery to me and that is how the Black fellow came to miss the old man unless it was the canoe giving a lurch at the moment of his throwing the spear, for I have since been a good deal among the Australian Black fellows and seen them throw both spear and boomerang, but I never saw one of them miss an object with a spear that he wanted to hit; but that was the first time I had ever seen a spear thrown.
I don’t know what object the Captain had in taking that method of scaring them for after doing his best to bring them alongside, I could see nothing in it but a wanton abuse of his power over a few ignorant, and so far as he knew harmless natives. But such acts as that could well account for the massacres of boats crew and other individuals among the Islands.
There had been a case of that kind occur a few months before we left Sydney. There were two vessels in the Island trade, the ‘Barque Louisa’, Captain Brown, had for First Mate a brother of Captain Blake, the captain of the ‘Brigantine Black Dog’; they were both owned by the one firm in Sydney and trading among the Feegee, Tonga, and Marquesas. In fact, their trade was not confined to any particular group of the Islands; wherever they could fine trade in Cocoa Nut Oil, Sandal Wood, or Bachele Mer, products that all found ready market in Sydney; through some course or other the Mate of the ‘Louisa’ had been killed by the natives of Lebuka, one of the Marquesas, probably in retaliation for some wrong committed against them by some other vessel.
The ‘Black Dog’ was at some other island at that time and had a native boy belonging to Lebuka on the vessel and the two vessels coming to-gether some time afterwards, Captain Blake stood over the Lebuka and hung the boy to the fore-yard and stood off and on all day in plain sight of the natives on the beach; when standing close in shore the body was cut down and let drop into the water.
On the arrival of the vessels in Sydney the Captain of the ‘Black Dog’ and his Mate were arrested and the only punishment they received was two years in Jail at Parra Matta.
Now, thought the natives in the straits had a bad name, they had done us no harm. What they would have done had we been on the reefs, it would be hard to say for it was currently reported that not only the natives of Torres Straits but those of the New Hebrides and the Soloman Islands were confirmed cannibals.
At about high water the wind hauled a few points so we swung round and we got away.
We did not get much of a run that day and at sun- down came to anchor at a small island where the old Man thought we could get more turtle; at daybreak next morning we went ashore but were too late for they were so near the water’s edge that they got in before we could get at them. We went of, to breakfast and the old Man concluded to stay there that day and hunt for oysters or some other kinds of shell fish.
After breakfast, the Captain, Second Mate and the Portugese Frank, went ashore and before dinner came off they had found no oysters but a large kind of cockle, they found them imbedded in the coral. They managed to dig out a few and brought them off, they were large and good eating.
After dinner the Mate called myself and the other Portugese Manuel, and O’Hara, and we took a couple of old axes to go ashore for more of them. We were not long in getting four or five bushels, when the Mate told us to hunt for the dog; when the old Man went ashore he took his dog ashore and when he was ready to come off the dog would not allow anyone to take hold of him nor come into the boat himself, so we scattered over the island to look for the dog.
The island was not over three or three quarters of a mile across, but there was dense Malle scrub that came almost down to high water mark. I went round the island calling the dog by name but could get no trace of him. O’Hara crossed through the scrub and came on the dog but could not get near to him.
The Portugese, Manuel, did not come around and we waited for him quite a long time, the Mate cursing and wondering what was keeping him. Finally we all started to look for Manuel. The Mate going round the beach one way and I the other, and Mike taking his own tracks back through the scrub. I went all round the island and found the Mate and Mike at the boat and Manuel held by both of them and from his appearance he had been ill-used by some one for he was bleeding and cut about the face. As soon as I arrived the Mate ordered the Dago into the boat and he followed. Mike and I shoved the boat off and followed pulling off to the schooner. The Mate was calling him the foulest kind of names. When we got along side Manuel was the first to get aboard. I stayed in the boat to pass up the shell-fish and hook on the boat tackles, and while the boat was being hoisted the Mate had told the old man about the Dago’s attempt to leave the vessel. It seemed to put him in a fearful rage for he jumped on him, knocked him down and kicked him until I thought he would kill the man.
He then told the Mate to bring out a pair of irons, and after ironing his hands behind his back, he and the Mate dropped him down the Main hatch on the stone ballast, saying ‘You would leave me here would you, you darned hound, among these islands? Darn you, you will stay here till I get through with you. I would not leave the dog here if he could heave on the windlass’.
The hatch bar was put on and locked and that night the Second Mate kept Manuel’s anchor watch with Frank the other Dago, to guard against them getting away.
We got under way next morning at sunrise and now commenced a system of ill-treatment to the Dago Manuel that I did not think or could not believe he would stand for long, it seemed to me as if the Mate and the old Man were continually on the look-out for a chance to get a kick or a blow at him under every and any excuse and both he and Frank were kept continually at work while the rest of us did nothing but relieve each other on the look-out on the fore-top-sail yard until we got through the straits.
We made a stop of two days at quite a large island where we got two large turtles and more shell fish. I will give Captain Hodges credit for one thing, he did not keep all these delicacies to himself for we got them forward as long as there were any aboard.
Here the old Man and the Mate got to talking about their skill as pistol shots and got to shooting at a mark. The Captain cut a rope yarn to which a porter bottle hung from the fore yard arm twice out of five shots, and once broke the bottle at the neck, and the Mate broke the bottle four times in five shots. From pistol shooting they got to the big gun, the old man allowed he could hit a flour barrel twice out of three shots at half a mile, and a suit of clothes on getting back to Sydney was the wager for the best two shots in three. There was a number of empty flour barrels on board and four of them were taken about half a mile from the Schooner and set adrift about ten rods apart. After we got alongside the firing began. The old Man broke one barrel all to pieces with his three shots, but the Mate did not hit a barrel though his shots were all close ones; the pistol shooting was all done from the Main Mast, standing by the fife rail.
The next night after leaving ‘Shooting Island’ as we named it, for we never heard any name to it, we came to anchor in a large bay on the West side of Mount Adolphus Island, the last island in the straits.
Here too we stayed two days on the South-East side of the bay, there appeared to be quite a large village and next morning a boat was lowered and the old man went ashore, and what we took to be huts were nothing but large ant hills built up in a conical form eight or nine feet high and four or five feet at the base. We watched the ants for some time but gave them a good wide berth. They were a large red ant about one inch long and if they can eat as wickedly as their brothers the ‘Black Bull Dog’ ant, common around the gold diggings, I don’t want anything to do with them. The Yellow Jacket or Hornet makes things warm for a short time, but the Hornet is not fit to be mentioned the same day for pungency of disposition.
We found this Island inhabited for before we went off to the vessel, two canoes came round the Northern point of the bay and landed close to our boat. They had been in contact with whites before, for though they could not speak a word of English, they wanted to trade.
They had 15 to 20 pounds of Tortoise shell. The old man did not know its value in Sydney until I told him, for I had already been on two trading voyages among the Figi and Friendly Islands and knew it was worth from 20 to 25 shillings a pound in Sydney. The tortoise shell of commerce being the shell of the hawk’s bill turtle, a turtle common to the South Sea Islands and I believe to the West Indies.
Some few days previously there had been a water cask condemned but the hoops or the best of them had been saved. I told the old man that one of these hoops cut up into pieces would purchase all the shell. He arranged to trade next day. These Black fellows were from the main land Cape York, being only distant about eight miles.
Next day we went ashore with two hoops cut into pieces about one foot long. On landing we found another canoe had come in during the night. I cautioned the Old Man about showing all the hoops of iron at once, for if the Black fellows had any more shell kept back, he might get the whole of it for what iron he had. He got the shell, all they had, for the pieces that came out of one old hoop.
While the trading was going on another Black fellow came out of the scrub, one we had not seen before, but there was one thing about him that attracted my attention right off; he had a string of small sea shells around his neck, and in the center, hanging down on his bare, black but scarred breast was a pretty nugget of pure gold. I judged it to be about a 2 oz. nugget. It appeared to have encircled a piece of quartz at some time or other, for there was still a small piece of quartz fast to it in the whole through which the string passed.
He would let us examine it but nothing we had would induce him to part with it nor with one of the shells from the string, for though they had no value themselves, the old Man thought to get the nugget along with the shells. He offered first the rest of the hoop iron, then a handsomely flowered silk hankerchief, that had no effect. He then took from his breast a splendid dirk and sheath, I thought that would have tempted the Black fellow sure, but his reply to every thing was ‘No budgeree’. A word that in my intercourse with the Australian black fellows while sur-voyaging the river Murray about one year later, I found to be expressive of anything distastful or no good, the word ‘budgeree’ expressing anything that pleased them.
But nothing the old Man could offer or show them would get the nugget, and we had to go aboard and leave him with it; but the sight of that piece of gold with that Black fellow so far North, for Cape York, the most Northern point of Australia was plain in sight, set me to thinking that wherever he picked it up there was more, for it was not Aluvial or Place gold, but a handsome specimen of virgin gold, and I made up my mind there were gold fields in Northern Australia that had not yet been seen by White men; and the opening of the Kimberly gold fields on the Mitchel River, Gulf of Carpentaria, a few years ago has verified those ideas that were passing through my mind as we pulled off to the schooner that March morning Thirty-six years ago.
While ashore the last time we found a nice creek of fresh water and after getting aboard we rafted ten or twelve casks and towed them ashore and filled them; this work all fell to myself and O’Hara and the Second Mate, for the old Man would not trust either of the Dagos ashore again.
Next morning we got under way with light winds, and now we were fairly out of Torres Straits, with light trade winds and just a light ripple on the water.
If the old Man and the Mate had given the two Portugese as good times and as good treatment as the Irishman and myself got, I should have enjoyed this voyage a great deal more than I did, but it seemed to me that there was no abuse or ill-treatment of any kind too much to heap on to them; drilled from the time they came on deck until they went below, and a kick or a blow or an oath was following them continually.
The day after getting out of the straits we sighted Booby Island, a small, rocky island just out of sight of the Main land there is a flag-staff on it and the British flag flying, and at the foot of the flag-staff a box in which letters are left by passing vessels and carried to their destination by whatever vessel is going their way.
We hove to and lowered a boat and visited the supply caves, for the Island is a rendezvous for shipwrecked crews to make to from vessels cast away in Torres Straits or anywhere near where they can get to the Island. There are two large caves in which are stored canned meats, bread and water; and an English Man of War visits the Island twice a year to keep up the supplies. The old Man found letters for Batavia and took them along and left one. After getting aboard and the boat hoisted, we were not long leaving Booby Island far astern.
For several days we had strong trades and made a good headway. The day before we sighted the Island of Timor, the wind fell light and the water smooth and covered almost with snakes. I have seen the same kind of snakes in different Islands of the Pacific Ocean but never saw them so numerous as they were this day. They appeared to be about 4 or 5 feet long, of a bright yellow color and about 5 or 6 inches apart; the whole length of the body was a black band about one inch wide that encircled the body like a ring. They seemed to be sunning themselves on the surface, stretched out their whole length and until the old Man began shooting at them they stayed on the surface until the Schooner was almost on to them. But as soon as he shot among them, those that he did not cripple went down head first out of sight. He shot numbers of them and most of those stayed wriggling on top of the water.
A few days after passing Timor, one night before dark we sighted two vessels right ahead. The old Man said to Mr. Douglass, ‘I have a notion to give those fellows a scare in the morning’. The Mate asked him how he proposed to do it – I was at the wheel at the time but as they walked forward I did not hear the whole plan, but after dark sail was taken in so as not to run on to them too close before daylight, and during the night in the water watch, the head-boards and quarter boards with the vessel’s name on were taken in and a strip of canvas nailed over her name on the stern, and the spread Eagle covered, and at daylight we were not over 4 or 5 miles from the nearest vessel a full rigged Brig.
She was on our weather bow, both of the guns were loaded with shot and run out port triced up and sail made on the schooner and we hauled up for the Brig; we showed no colors, the Brigg showed English colors and as we ran up to windward of her about half a mile off, the old Man fired a shot across the Brig’s bows to heave her to; her main topsail went aback right off and as we ran alongside of her the old Man hailed her saying, ‘What Brig is that?’ the answer came back ‘The Champion of Adelaide’. Where are you bound to?’ was the next question. ‘Singapore’ have you got any dispatches on board?’ ‘No, we are no damn’d Mail Boat’. The old Man and Mate had a laugh at that but his reply back was for them to fill away their Main top-sail; our helm was put up and jibbing the Main sail we ran across her stern about a quarter of a mile from her and kept off for the other vessel a Barque; she was 5 or 6 miles to leeward; as we ran down to her we could see all hands on deck, they had heard the shot fired and seen the Brig hove to, and when our old Man fired a shot for her to heave to, the decks seemed to be deserted all at once, we could only see the man at the wheel and a man we took to be the Mate of her; she did not heave to but kept on her course; our old Man hailed her to find out what vessel she was and where she was from and where she was bound to; the man he supposed was Mate of her answered, ‘She is the ‘Washington Irving’ from Melbourne for Moulmain’. On coming up with the Barque our top-gallant and top- sail halyards had been let go settling the yards on to the lifts, and the jib top-sail hauled down to keep the Schooner from ranging ahead of the Barque; and when he found out what vessel she was he did not appear very anxious to go ahead of her. I think he did not want them to see her stern; our top-gallant sail was clewed up and the peak of the Main-sail dropped and we dropped astern of her, and when the Barque had ranged a mile or more ahead of us our canvas was made and we hauled on the wind, and before dark the two vessels were out of sight to leeward.
Next morning the canvas was taken from the stern showing her name and gilt Eagle to the bright morning sun; as I ripped off the canvas I made the remark to the Second Mate that I thought the old bird’s eye flashed brighter at getting his head out in the sunlight once more. The quarter-boards and head-boards had also been replaced and the ‘Pride of the Seas’ once more resumed her former honest yacht like appearance and with the smooth water and fresh South-east breeze then blowing, she was passing through the water like a very Queen of the Seas.
She was now making good time towards Java and the third day after leaving the Barque, we sighted Java Head before breakfast and ran into a fleet of Malay Prows; one of them, a large one seemed to be full of men.
Our guns were shotted and run out ready for use if needed, for the Malay is a natural born Pirate and cut- throat if he gets a good opportunity of showing his natural instincts, and it was not an uncommon occurence in those days for them to board vessels they found becalmed on the coast for murder and plunder, if not beaten off, for all vessels at that time trading among the Malay Islands were armed to a greater or less extend though often the arms consisted of nothing but a few old Army muskets, often as dangerous to the man shooting as to the man shot at; but the fleet of Prows that we ran into showed no desire to meddle with us.
The old Man gave them a wide berth though we were in no danger from them so long as the wind held no matter what their intentions were. Towards night the wind died away after passing Cockatoo Island and we lay becalmed all night.
After daylight next morning a single large Prow was seen paddling towards us from under the land, and the old Man said to let her come alongside for trade, if they wanted.
When she came alongside they had one large turtle. The old Man bought it and a quantity of yams, onions, eggs, duck and chickens for about One Dollar’s worth of cheap printed calico.
The Captain told one of the Malays to kill the turtle for the Steward and got a knife from the Steward for that purpose and after cutting the turtle up was seen to hide the knife away in the folds of his serang, a loose piece of printed calico that forms about all the clothing that a Malay needs. It is wound around the waist and hangs down below the knees like a woman’s petticoat; a handkerchief wound around his head for a turban completing his toilet.
When asked for the knife it was impossible to make him understand what was wanted, but a jerk at the serang by the Second Mate left the man standing nude and the knife at his feet explained what was wanted. Nothing abashed he clothed himself and picking up the articles the Old Man had paid them in trade, went over the side.
Next morning we passed Angien Point and commenced to beat up through the Straits of Sunda. We were 2 days beating up to Batavia and came to anchor in the splendid Harbor where we found some Seventy or Eighty vessels of every nationality almost represented by their bunting flying, for it was near noon Sunday, when we arrived.
>From the day we made Java Head, the old Man and Mate both eased up in their abuse of the two Portugese, no foul epithets applied to them, no blows or kicks; whatever work they were told to do they did it ship- shape but at the same time with a sullen and revengeful look about them that boded no good to Captain Hodges or his Mate. In fact, it would have been no surprise to any one in the forecastle if either the old Man or the Mate had been found missing any morning after we left the straits, but when night came and the Anchor watch was set, the Mate kept the first watch from eight to ten, myself, O’Hara and the Second Mate kept until Four O’Clock in the morning and then called the cook, Manuell and Frank not being allowed to keep any watch at all.
Monday morning Captain Hodges went ashore to his Consignee and arranged for a cargo to come off next day. Bright and early next morning two large open launches loaded with cocoanuts for dunnage, and coffee in bags came off, and now began the real arduous work of the voyage, hoisting out and throwing overboard our store of ballast and taking in cargo.
We saw very little of the old Man during the time we were loading; he, staying ashore most of the time; and here I may say he was the only one who did go ashore, for none of the rest of her officers or any one forward got the opportunity so long as the ‘Pride of the Seas’ lay to anchor at Batavia. The only view we got of the place was what we could see from the Schooner, Batavia being the only one of these ports in the East Indies that I have been in and never got ashore; most vessels allowing the crew at least one liberty day ashore during the time of loading.
With no help from the shore loading went slow, sugar, coffee and rice making up our cargo. We had been there just one week when the mail steamer came in from Singapore, and next day the Old Man was off to the vessel with Singapore papers giving a lengthy account of the Colonial Brig ‘Champion’ being overhauled at sea on her voyage from Adelaide South Australia, by a suspicious looking schooner of American build, and that the English Man of War, Brig ‘Alert’ had been seen out on a cruise to see if she could hunt her up. Next day we sent down our fore and fore top sail and top-gallant yards and fore and Main top Masts making her into a fore and aft schooner.
After getting rid of her store of ballast, the work of loading went along faster, but not fast enough for the old Man who now seemed to be anxious to be loaded and away.
I believe it was about the middle of the second week we were loading the hold was blocked off full and two launches of sugar to go yet; the steward was ordered to clear out all the unoccupied state rooms in the cabin and we filled them with bags of sugar.
The old Man was sorry enough afterwards for doing so for the steam from the sugar just ruined her pretty cabin that was fitted up like a palace, all the gilt work and varnish and white paint was completely spoiled in less than a week.
Next morning after finishing loading, the old Man told the Second Mate to get the boat ready for going ashore. He must have had his orders before, for calling the two Portugese and O’Hara, himself making the fourth one, the Captain went over the side into her and they started but not for the shore, but for the Dutch Guard ship, an old fashioned line of Battle ship with three rows of ports on a side, that lay there with her three top-gallant masts down. After going along-side of her the boat went to the mole or landing, put the old Man ashore and then came off to the vessel again but without the two Portuguese.
I found out from O’Hara that the old Man had made a charge against them and left them prisoners aboard the Guard Ship. Today too, the American barque ‘Two Brothers’ came in and let go anchor about half a mile from us. So far as I could see we were the only two American vessels in the Harbor. After dinner a canoe came off bringing a Chinaman with his chest of carpenter’s tools and a letter to the Mate to lock him up and keep him. The canoe was sent away, and about the time it got ashore another canoe came off with a Malay, and a letter to the Mate to detain him also.
We did not understand at that time what it meant, but we found out afterwards that the old Man had shipped the Chinaman to come off and do some work for him, at his trade, that would take him a day or two to get through; and the Malay was shipped to come aboard to cook for a few days as the vessel’s cook was sick the Captain told them. He had promised them good wages. Before dark the old Man came off himself.
After dark the Second Mate called myself and O’Hara aft to go in the boat. We pulled around among the Dutch vessels and got into conversation with some of their crews forward, telling them we were bound to Australia leaving in the morning, trying to get some of them to desert and go with us but very few understood enough English to know what we wanted, or were afraid to take the risk of being caught deserting their vessels. However, we were unsuccessful in our efforts to induce any of them to come with us and started back for the schooner.
Our course back took us close under the bows of the Barque ‘Two Brothers’ and as we pulled under her bows a light as though from a match flashed and a man in a low voice hailed the boat asking if we belonged to the ‘Pride of the Seas’. The Second Mate answered, ‘Yes, what do you want?’ ‘When are you going to sail’, asked the man in reply, ‘and where are you bound to?’ ‘We get underway at daylight for Sydney, N.S.W.’ replied Mr. Trumbull. ‘I would like to get a passage with you to the colonies’, came back in a low voice. In fact, the whole conversation was carried on in a low voice. ‘All right’, said the Second Mate, ‘I guess I can find that for you, get your dunnage’. ‘I have a chum would like to go too’, replied the man. ‘Well hurry up and get him we can’t wait here long’.
As the man disappeared the Second Mate remarked, ‘This works right into our hands, those two men just fill the bill’. About fifteen minutes elapsed before we heard a move made on deck. We were hanging on to the Barque’s chain all this time and being very careful not to let the boat touch the vessel, and make a noise.
As I said, in about fifteen minutes we heard a move on her top gallant forecastle and a voice hailed the boat to look out for a chest which was lowered carefully into the boat and was followed by two men. Then we pulled off for the schooner and make fast under our bows with a show of secrecy and got the two men aboard, and dropping the boat astern, the Second Mate went into the cabin to report the result of the expedition, while we went forward to make a talk with our new shipmates and learn their reason for deserting from their own vessel.
In going below, the two men were surprised to find no one but themselves in the forecastle, so when we went below, the first inquiry from them was ‘Where is the rest of the crew’. ‘We are all here now’, replied O’Hara telling them at the same time about the old Man’s taking the two Portuguese aboard the Guard Ship, and how we came to be cruising around with the boat when they hailed us.
I now asked one of the men who was taking some clothing out of his chest, what was wrong with the Barque that they were so anxious to get out of her. I was somewhat surprised when he told me he was Second Mate and brother to the Captain of her, Captain Brewster, of Brewster, Cape Cod that they had no fault to find with her more than that she was to be kept running in the Country trade for some indefinite length of time so long as she found a paying trade. She was last from Port Louis, Isle of France. His brother, the Captain, had been ashore that morning and at dinner was telling the mate and himself, what American schooner that was laying ahead of them and he thought was bound for some Australian port, and that after-noon he and his chum Jack Riley had made up if possible to leave the ‘Brothers’ and get a passage to the colonies in the ‘Pride of the Seas’, but not knowing how soon we were going to sea, they had formed no plans as yet, as to how they were going to get aboard of the schooner.
But Riley had seen us leaving the schooner and had kept watch for our coming back with the result that the Barque was minus her Second Mate and one seaman and we had them. Brewster hoped that we should get away before daylight, for, said he, ‘The old Man will be as mad as a hornet when he misses us, and if he suspects we are here, he will make trouble for some one’.
We were barely done talking when the order came from the deck to man the windlass. We went on deck and began heaving in chain, having laid with two anchors down. We found the vessel in swinging had put five or six turns in the chains that took us some two hours or more to get out, and by the time we had canvas on the vessel and both anchors up, daylight was breaking when we filled away after breaking ground as the wind was right out of the harbor. We passed within one hundred yards off of the starboard side of the barque, and just as we got abreast of her who should come on deck but her mate, who taking up a spy glass (that must have laid by the cabin door) to look at the schooner at close range, recognized Riley who happened to be out on the jib-boon loosening the jib-top-sail.
He hailed him calling him by name, and Riley out of bravado, thinking he was perfectly safe now, answered him bidding him, ‘Good morning, Mr. Harper, I will see you again later’.
The Mate lost no time in calling his Captain, and I think it was now found out too, that the Second Mate was missing also, for in a few minutes some of her men had been called and one of her quarter boats was lowered and began to pull towards the Guard ship, about a mile or so distant.
I guess our old Man would have liked it better if the recognition of Riley had not taken place, but he put on a defiant air making a remark that there was not anything in Batavia could overhaul the ‘Pride of the Seas’ with the breeze we were then beginning to get, for as the sun got up higher, the breeze freshed and we were fast leaving the shipping behind us.
By the time the boat got alongside the Guard ship and the Captain had reported what was wrong with him, we were all of five or six miles away and going like a racer. ‘Bang’ went one of the ship’s guns but the shot fell far short of us and the only answer it called for from Capt. Hodges was to reeve off mast ropes and send aloft fore and main top-mast and at that work we went, and that night before dark, the two top masts were on end and her fore yard and top sail and top-gallant yards were crossed and the sails bent and the ‘Pride of the Seas’ was making steamboat time back for Sydney.
I believe Captain Hodges felt proud over what he had done flogging and otherwise ill-using the two Portuguese until after she was loaded, then passing them off on the Dutch Man of War as mutineers, and then stealing a Malay and a Chinaman from a Dutch port, both outrages against the Dutch flag.
The other two men, Brewster and Riley, I did not hold him so much to account for as they left their ship of their own accord, and they would have gone aboard of any other vessel just as quick as they did with us, if they got the opportunity.
Sailors running away from their ships is no unusual occurrence, but they generally have a good cause for leaving as in most cases they have to leave all their stock of clothing and whatever wages may be due them at the time, but here were two men and one of them the Captain’s brother and an officer of the vessel, stealing his chest of clothes out of the cabin at night and deserting with his chum, a man before the mast, from a good ship, a ship that had no fault to find with was something to be wondered at, and the only excuse they had was that they wanted to get to Australia and they were bound to stick together.
After Riley had called the boat under the bows, if our Second Mate had refused to wait until he could get Brewster with him, he would not have left the Barque himself, but as they were filling out the object of our being out that night (though at that time unknown to them) Mr. Trumbull was only willing to wait.
Next morning after leaving Batavia we hove to, off Angien Point again, and as that place is a general rendezvous for vessels coming through the Straits of Sunda, to lay in a stock of vegetables, we were soon surrounded with canoes and prows with everything to sell – monkeys, cockatoos, parraquets, Java sparrows, beautiful sea shells and red and white coral in every imaginable shape.
The old Man laid in a good supply of onions, yams, chickens and eggs; all of which are very plentiful and cheap here; and just as we were filling away our canvas, Mr. Douglass, the first mate, cut the rattan to which were attached some five or six monkeys that their owner d Maylay, had been trying to sell. The moment the rattan was cut, every monkey made a jump for the rigging.
I never saw a man get mad so quick as did that Malay. It was fortunate for Mr. Douglass that the Malay had no weapons on him for believe in the first heat of his rage he would have killed him. He was the last trader left, the other prows were all gone, but he kept alongside his two companions calling him from the prows as the schooner was forging through the water at a lively rate, making it difficult for them to keep the prow from being pulled under; but he was tearing round the decks talking Malayian, trying to coax down the monkeys; but all to no use, he was compelled to leave them at last and go over the side after we had towed him a good many miles from the land.
I could not give the Mate much credit for his act in cutting the rattan, he knew what the result would be and he seemed to take pleasure in the man’s loss, small as it was still it was a loss, but it was much in accordance with the Mate’s disposition and character in other respects.
After leaving Angien Point, the Chinaman and the Malay were brought on deck for the first time, both looking sullen and down cast; they could both speak a little English, and the old Man gave the Chinaman to understand that if he worked well for him he would let him go ashore when he got to Sydney; and as he comprehended that we were bound to Australia and that he would be free to go ashore then, he was perfectly contented and reconciled to being stolen away; and all the rest of the voyage he worked as well as though he was earning big wages; for he had heard about the Australian gold fields and to be landed in that country was enough for him.
With the Malay it was different, he had never been away from his native island of Java, and was being taken to an unknown world, he became reconciled to his fate very slowly.
He was kept to work at anything he could be made useful at; but the Chinaman was not only a carpenter but a skilled mechanic, and the old Man kept him at work all the time at some piece of fancy work or other; he made some handsome gratings for the gangways when the schooner should be in port, and gratings for the front of the wheel and the cabin door. That man was a genius in wood work. To-day too, the old Man had a talk with Brewster and Riley and told them if they did their duty as men, he would use them well, and when the schooner arrived in Sydney he would give them Twenty dollars each, but although he knew that Brewster had been Second Mate of the Barque, he made no reference to it nor asked them any questions as to their reasons for leaving the ‘Two Brothers’.
After leaving Angien Point, from the course we were steering concluded we were not going back through Torres Straits, but around Cape Leewen, the most South Westerly point of Australia. We made one good days run after leaving the Point, when the wind all died away leaving the schooner tumbling in a heavy, rolling swell, giving us some trouble in securing her long heavy main and fore booms that were threatening to take charge of the decks, but with extra crutch ropes and tackles we got them under control, but they were a heavy strain on the vessel.
Next day the sea had run down considerable but no wind. As the Schooner had not made a great deal of water during the voyage, we had not tried the pumps every day, the Second Mate generally trying with the sounding rod to ascertain how much water she had in her, and this night after wetting the decks down at sun-down, he tried the pumps as usual and was surprised to find two feet of water in the vessel.
All hands were called to the pumps and it was daylight next morning before we got a suck on them and we then found she was making water at the rate of four inches an hour. We then began a search for the leak, but could hear nothing nor find out anything down forward, but down aft, under the floor of the Laserette, we could hear a spurt of water but it was impossible to get at it without breaking out cargo and the old Man then mentioned about her having sprung a leak some years before on one of her trips from New Zealand to Sydney, but she had not made so much then as now, and he was then only one days run from Sydney when on her being unloaded the leak was found in her water closet pipe that discharged under her quarter, and he strongly suspected her present leak to be in the same place, and if so, too far under water to get at it without lightening the vessel up in some way.
If it had not been for his escapade in Batavia, he would have gone back there but instead concluded to run for Java Heads, then some hundred and fifty miles North East of us.
We got the wind next day and hauled up for the coast of Java again but the wind was light and we were nearly two days getting there. But instead of going to anchor under the Heads, we came to anchor in an almost land-locked bay on the South-east side of Cockatoo Island the vessel all this time had made over four inches of water an hour, keeping her pumps going all the time, and as our cargo was mostly sugar in bags, there was danger of damaging a considerable portion of it as the after run of the vessel was all sugar stowed.
After getting to anchor we took off the main hatches and broke into her after hold, piling the sugar bags on deck forward to put her head down and thereby lift her stern out of water. We piled enough bags of sugar forward to put her bows down so as to bring her hause pipes to the water’s edge, but still we could not get at the leak, and were compelled to land two hundred bags on the Island before we could get at the leak when we stopped it by nailing sheet lead over the pipe hole outside, which put an effectual stop to the leak, after which we restowed the sugar and got all ready for sea again; but after getting ready we lay there without a breeze of wind to ruffle the water for three days, and now began the most enjoyable part of the voyage to me.
The old Man concluded to try what kind of a hunter he would make, and I being the youngest man aboard of her was generally selected to go along with him. So far as we could find out there were no inhabitants on Cockatoo Island, for we were all over and round it in every direction, though only a short distance from Java Heads.
The forest (for the Island was densely wooded) seemed to be alive with the most beautiful plumaged birds I think I ever saw. Here too, we found the peacock in his native woods, a royal looking bird and prouder wild I think, than I ever saw him in a tame state. The old Man shot three and what we took for a boa constrictor, not a large one, probably a young one, about twelve or thirteen feet long — I have seen a carpet snake in Australia as large. There was also a large kind of monkey or baboon, very numberous. The old Man shot several of them. When they made a jump from one branch to another, they jarred the whole tree. He shot at one the last day we were ashore and only just grazed one of his hind legs, for he came down to the ground and acted so lame, that I ran and caught him. He was a small fellow but vicious, for he fought with hands, feet and teeth, until I got him bound hand and foot, we took him aboard a prisoner.
The last morning we were ashore we landed in the South-east corner of the Bay, attracted there by the sound of falling water, and on going ashore found quite a stream of water tumbling through a narrow cleft in the rocks and falling into quite a deep pool only a few rods from the beach, and though the stream itself was most delightfully cooled and fresh, the water in the pool was very brackish, showing that at high water the tide ran into it.
We both stripped and enjoyed a good bath however, with the cool, fresh water tumbling on to us and before we left brought our empty water casts ashore and filled them, there making the most convenient watering place I ever saw in that part of the world.
During the whole week we lay at anchor at Cockatoo Island the Malay was not allowed to go ashore, and while we were there we never saw a canoe or proa of any kind near the Island, though we often saw them outside towards the Main land; there was always a good lookout kept for them and the two brass pieces loaded with canister shot to give them a warm reception if they had troubled us.
However, at the close of the third day after getting ready for sea, we got a nice breeze from the land and got away. We got a good run across the South- east trades, and ran into 38 South latitude before we hauled up to round Cape Leewen. The ‘Pride of the Seas’ held up her name high on this homeward passage – we sighted no sail that we did not pass.
When we got below the Thirties our monkeys began to die off — We had five of them with the one the old Man wounded and afterwards tamed — A more thieving, mischievous lot of wretches I never saw than those monkeys became that the Mate liberated at Angien Point. All day they kept aloft chattering and running from one mast to the other. First we tried to catch them, but that we could not do, so then the Mate made up his mind to starve them into submission; says he ‘When they get properly hungry that will bring them to terms’ but it took two or three weeks before we got them all, for they would come down to deck after dark hunting for anything they could find to eat; two or three were caught in the cook’s galley and two down the forecastle.
I caught one of them, a female monkey, and before she died she became quite tame, but she was very mischeivous, she destroyed four or more books for me that I valued more than a schooner load of monkeys.
The Mate got one that would squeal and cry every time he tried to get hold of her, so one day he bent her on to the end of the log line and towed her astern for a few minutes, when he hauled her aboard again she was too full of water to cry, says he, ‘That is good medicine for you’ so he took that plan whenever she cried to avoid him. But he gave her medicine once too much, he hauled her in one time but she did not shrink from him this time, he had drowned her — He was of a heartless, unfeeling disposition anyway; but as I said, when we got into cold weather South of Cape Leewen, cold took the whole of them.
It was amusing to see how Ah Lung the Chinaman, grew in bulk as the weather got cold, having no clothes but what he stood up in when he came off to the vessel, a couple of thin Chinaman blouses and pants to match, good enough for the climate of Java, but not warm enough for 35 to 38 South.
The old Man seemed to have taken a sort of liking to Ah Lung, he was always pleasant and smiling, always willing to do anything he was asked to do, and whatever he did he did well, so when the weather got cold, the old Man gave him a pair of pants first, then a vest and coat. He put them on over his own clothes; then the Mate gave him a pair of pants and they went on over the rest; then the old Man gave him another suit of old clothes; he put them all on but took nothing off, but in size he began to loom up like a Dutch East India Man.
The Malay did not fare so well, he too, got some clothing for he had nothing on but his serang when he came off to the vessel, but when the weather got cold he was kept mostly helping the cook, and so had warmer quarters.
One day after we had rounded Cape Leewen the old Man got out the shark hook and baited it for a shark of extraordinary large size that had been playing round the vessel for two or three days, and after a while got him hooked. We got him up alongside to leeward and a watch tackle on the main top mast backstay and got him inboard.
It required all hands to get him in, he measured eleven feet and was very fat and sleek. The old Man wanted him mostly for the enormous large jaws he had, to have them cleaned as a curiosity. After killing the shark, on opening her she was found to be full of young ones from ten to fifteen inches long, that all came tumbling on deck alive.
The old Man had the wash deck tub filled with water and the young sharks were put in and kept alive until the last one was gone. Who ate them I don’t know, but they were all cooked one after another and sent to the cabin table.
I, myself, have eaten most all kinds of salt water fish that sailors catch on long voyages, but I should have to be very hungry to eat any part of a man eating shark. Ah Lung however, had no such compunction, for he cut off a large slice from the lower part of the old shark and got the cook to boil it for him and he devoured it with as much relish as though it were roast pig.
After rounding the Cape we had light winds for some days but finally struck a South-wester that sent us along with every stitch of canvas set that would pull, and in rapid succession we crossed the great Australian Bight, sighted Kings Island and Gabo Island in Basses Strait, with its lofty lighthouse on a rock over two hundred feet perpendicular from the waters edge, Cape Howe, Two Fold Bay and the Dromedary, well known land marks on the N.S.W. coast, and when Wollongong and Botany Bay hove in sight, I felt as though I were once more home again; and when we got the Sydney Pilot aboard, who by a strange coincidence was the same one who took us out, the Captain told we were thirty-five days from Batavia, he thought it was the quickest passage ever made from that port to Sydney.
We had a leading wind up the Bay, and before dark on June 27th, the ‘Pride of the Seas’ was moored safely at Miller’s wharf, Darling Harbor, a few days less than three months on the voyage.
As I had drawn very little money in Batavia, I found myself next day with a snug little pile to my account at the Shipping Office where we were paid off. But Captain Hodges was not the man to keep his word with Mr. Brewster and his friend Riley; what money they had to go ashore with I don’t know, but he refused point blank to give them a dollar for their work on the passage though they worked as faithfully as though they were on the vessel’s papers.
Brewster threatened him with exposure to both the American Consul and also the Consul for the Netherlands, for his rascality in Batavia; whether he did or not I did not learn as I shipped the same week in the Brigantine ‘Margaret’ to Hobarttown, Van Diemen’s Land, bound to that port, but before I left I heard that Captain Hodges had sent the Malay back to Batavia in a Colonial vessel bound there.
Ah Lung, the Chinaman did not wait for orders to leave but disappeared the first night we got in, taking his chest of tools with him. He probably fell in with some of his countrymen who helped him to get away. When I went away in the ‘Margaret’ I left O’Hara, for I had taken him with me to Mr. Brier’s Family Hotel where I boarded, though it was little I saw of him after getting ashore for Mike was having a good time of it as he expressed himself, getting most gloriously drunk every day.
I never saw either Mike or any one else who came back with us from Batavia, though on some of my voyages afterwards, I fell in with men who were interested in a portion of the ‘Pride of the Seas’ voyage to Batavia. Though I sailed continuously for the next two years out of Sydney, I never heard of any action being taken about his firing on the American barque ‘Washington Irving’ and the Colonial brig ‘Champion’ for no other cause than to give them a scare, probably the affair was dropped when nothing more was seen of the suspicious looking schooner spoken of in the Singapore papers.
When I got back from Hobarttown, I learned that the ‘Pride of the Seas’ had gone to Valparaiso, and that Mr. Trumbull had gone out Mate on her and Mike O’Hara Second Mate, and if she ever came back to the Colonies or not, I never heard, but the ill usage the two Dagos received on her and the unprincipled disposition of Captain Hodges always bring gloomy thoughts to my mind when I think about the otherwise pleasant voyage I made in the fast little clipper schooner ‘Pride of the Seas’.