LIFE on a sailing ship affords as much excitement and thrills as those who love the sea require, but one must be able to adapt oneself to surroundings that some people would consider hard. The food is, naturally, of the plainest, one's accommodation is limited, and it depends on the quantity of rain-water collected as to the amount of washing one can enjoy, either for oneself or one's clothing.

My ship, the full-rigged iron ship, British Enterprise, of 1,600 tons, sailed from the London Docks for Sydney with a general cargo, and had a complement of 32 all told, i.e., a captain, four mates, six apprentices, a steward, a cook, a carpenter, a sailmaker, a donkeyman, a bos'n and 15 seamen (the donkeyman making the sixteenth when not required to function as a donkey- man) ; of these the captain, officers, apprentices and steward were accommodated under the poop.

I was lucky to be sailing from London on my first voyage, for it enabled my father and my sister Natalie to see me off, and to admire the fine ship in which I was sailing. My father took a great fancy to one of my fellow apprentices whom he met on the wharf ; this made him feel that I would have nice companions.

As soon as I got aboard I made myself useful by executing any order given as though I had already been to sea, and thanks to my Worcester training, it was a long time before the crew realised that I was only a first voyager. It is true that I became very seasick, but I managed to conceal this fact by not giving way to it ; all that the crew noticed was that I remained very pale for some days after leaving London, but they put my paleness down to consumption, and rather pitied me, till I had recovered from my unpleasant complaint.

Once we got into the trade winds we were enabled to enjoy, in our watch below, fishing for dolphin and bonito from the jib-boom, which I found very exciting work ; and I shall never forget how uncomfortable I felt when I hooked my first dolphin. I had been playing my hook, baited with a piece of red bunting, under the dolphin striker for a little while, when a goodsized dolphin took it, and I suddenly felt the weight of this large fish flapping about in mid-air. I must admit I felt that fishing was not all that it is cracked up to be, as I was standing on the sloping jib-boom foot-rope, and was unable to use both hands freely to haul up the fish ; which shows my inexperience, as I should have first placed myself in a position that enabled me to have both hands free to haul in my catch. Luckily for me the bos'n noticed my difficulty and came to my assistance.

All sailors find the belt of calm and light winds near the Equator, called the doldrums, monotonous ; but, as there is usually much heavy rain, there is a great abundance of fresh water for washing purposes, and every advantage is taken of it in one's watch below, while the watch on deck scrubs paint work.

This drudgery is, however, soon forgotten once the ship gets into the roaring forties, where one experiences a more-or-less continuous westerly gale, and even the bluff-bowed British Enterprise did over 300 miles a day while running her easting. It was delightful to be travelling at such a speed, but not always comfortable on deck. Once, while aloft, I saw the ship roll herself full of water from a sea rushing past, and could see nothing of her but the poop, deckhouse and forecastle.



All the openings below are so tightly battened down in a sailing ship that one feels no anxiety from water shipped in the manner described.

On nearing Sydney I had my first experience of a southerly " buster," and it was a very terrifying moment when we seemed engulfed in a dark cavern formed of black clouds, as we hurriedly reduced sail with a feeling that the tempest would be on us before we were ready to receive it. As luck would have it, the black clouds passed over us before the wind came, but when it did come its violence was terrific, and we tumbled about so furiously that I wondered if we could possibly live through it.



We entered Sydney Harbour soon after the storm had died away, and a more perfect and beautiful harbour I do not know. I found the city of Sydney most enjoyable, and had a thoroughly good time while there. After discharging our cargo we sailed round to Newcastle, New South Wales, and took in a cargo of coal for San Francisco.

On this voyage a rather unusual thing happened in respect to birthdays : the third mate told us one morning that it was the captain's birthday, and that after wishing the captain many happy returns of the day he had said, " It is my birthday too, sir," whereupon the captain gave him a bottle of sherry to celebrate the day. I then told the third mate that it was my birthday also, and that the captain could prove it by looking at my indentures. This was done, and I was sent a bottle of sherry, too, which my messmates and I thoroughly appreciated. That three out of the eleven —captain, four officers and six apprentices—should celebrate their birthdays on the same day was most unusual, was it not ?

On entering San Francisco Harbour the crimps were on board before the ship had been anchored, and lay aloft among the crew while they furled sail, offering inducements to our men to leave the ship and go ashore with them. This many of them did, poor chaps, lost all they had earned in our ship, and were packed off in another ship in a day or two, from which ship the crimps would get three months of the men's pay in advance.

We loaded grain at 'Frisco, with instructions to proceed to Queenstown for orders. Our cargo of grain was in bags, but, notwithstanding the fact that the ship's hold was completely lined with boards, this did not prevent the bags from coming into contact with the iron sides of the ship and spoiling the grain. I was much interested in the way the lining boards were handled and nailed in position by two men only, on each side of the ship ; for the boards were about 20 feet by 12 inches by 1 inch thick, and the men, while holding a board in position at each end with one hand, drove a nail in with the other hand, the nail being held against the hammer head when the first stroke was taken. It looked simple enough, for the men doing the work had such skill, but it must have taken much practice to make them so expert.

While at 'Frisco we caught many large crabs alongside the ship by means of a net tied to an iron hoop, which was lowered to the bottom with a bone secured to it. These crabs were excellent eating and helped to vary our simple menu.

By having friends at 'Frisco I was enabled to see a good deal of the place, and greatly enjoyed my stay there. I often spent my Sundays at the house of a friend who lived at San Rafael, making the trip from 'Frisco on a huge ferry steamer.



I have nothing to record before we reached the mountainous seas off Cape Horn, where we saw the majestic albatross poised in the air for hours on end without making any apparent movement with their wings. How much those who fly in aeroplanes must envy the albatross its grace and ease of flight.

We had among our crew a very old white-haired man who happened to have a large hole in each of his sea boots when we were in the bitterly cold weather off Cape Horn, and when I noticed that he had no socks on, I asked him why. His reply was that his socks would get wet through the holes in his boots if he wore them. In spite of his age, he was as tough as they make them, and I saw him knocked over by a heavy sea more than once and be none the worse for it, which is not so bad for a man of about 70. I fancy we must have shipped him at 'Frisco to replace one of those who had left the ship there.



One morning when we were off Cape Horn, Going, the senior apprentice of my watch, caught a Mother Carey's chicken by means of a piece of thread he had trailed out of the port-hole by his bunk, which happened to be on the lee side of the ship. A Mother Carey's chicken (the Stormy Petrel, a small sea bird about the size of a lark, which is seen in southern seas during boisterous weather) is considered by sailors to be a bird of ill omen. They believe that anyone who catches one brings bad luck to himself and the ship he is in, so my messmate asked me not to tell anyone that he had caught the bird. I am not superstitious, but the following happenings are sufficient grounds for the average sailor to be afraid of catching a Mother Carey's chicken.

While passing the Falkland Islands a few days afterwards, a squall carried away our jib-boom. This is nothing out of the way, but that is the only time I have ever seen a jib-boom carried away.

All went well till we approached the Azores in the North Atlantic, when Going told me that he had dreamed we would sight at noon that day a derelict vessel with men on board of her. He had just told me this, when the officer on the poop taking the sun sang out, " Sail oh." We jumped on deck, and sure enough found, when we got closer, that the craft sighted was indeed a derelict. She was a wooden barque-rigged vessel that had lost her mainmast (broken off at the deck), her fore to'gallant mast was gone, and her main bulwarks were broken away, while the sea, which was running very high, broke across her deck.

There were five men in the fore rigging, two of whom were lying down in the foretop, and she had two signal flags secured to the fore topmast rigging, indicating that she was in distress and required assistance. Though the day was bright, there was a heavy gale blowing, before which we had been running. On nearing the derelict we hove-to as close to her as we could and a boat was cleared away, but the captain would not allow it to be lowered. He said that if it were lowered in the sea then running he would lose six men and an officer without saving those on the derelict. We stood by, but the weather got worse, and by the following morning we had lost sight of the derelict. This incident very much upset the crew and it was a good thing that they knew nothing of the catching of the Mother Carey's chicken.

A day or two later, while running before a gale, our main topmast, with masts and yards above it, was seen to sway heavily from side to side each time the vessel rolled, which we found to be caused by the crumpling up of the steel topmast above the iron fid or bar that held it in position. All hands were called at once and the mast was steadied by frapping the rigging together and passing lashings through the deck ringbolts, and when this was done the upper masts and yards were lowered on deck.

In due course we arrived at Queenstown, Ireland, where we had to call for orders, and while there a new main topmast was fitted. One of the riggers engaged to do this work fell from aloft and subsequently died.

As the ship remained at Queenstown several days, and our orders instructed us to proceed to Hull, the captain got his wife across from Liverpool and engaged a Channel pilot.

All being ready we proceeded on our voyage to Hull before a north-westerly gale. That night as we tore along it was suddenly discovered that the light on Trevose Head had been mistaken for the one on the Scilly Isles off Land's End, and the ship was brought to the wind in a hurry, with the natural result that most of our sails blew to ribbons. However, as the ship was now on a dead lee shore about two miles from frowning rocky cliffs, fresh topsails had to be bent, and we were all kept busy. Luck was with us, notwithstanding the Mother Carey's chicken incident, for we managed to claw off the lee shore and eventually anchored off Lundy Island, where we were fitted out with fresh sails taken from a sister ship at Liverpool.

We arrived later on at Hull without further incident.

I frequently met my fellow apprentice, Going, in after years. He turned out to be a particularly smart officer and held excellent posts as commander of several large liners ; but somehow he could never stick it anywhere long, and always threw up his job, although he was very popular with everyone. He has now given up the sea, at the age of 72, his last years in China having been very hard ones, and is happily settled in England with relatives.