Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/304

 from the nor’west, we heading east-sou’east; all hands employed cleaning up decks and stowing the anchors. At five o’clock  all hands were called aft and divided  into watches.

Six o’clock, went to supper and the dog-watch set. The ship’s company consisted of the captain, first and second mates, carpenter, cook, steward, cabin boy, ten  seamen, six ordinary seamen, and six boys, making  twenty-nine in all. Twenty-two before the mast, and nineteen of them were Americans. We also had four passengers — Mr. Lovett, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Saltonstall,  and Mr. Newbold.

Nothing of importance occurred on the voyage, with the exception of passing several vessels, until the 4th,  when we encountered a terrific gale. We took a double reef in the topsails and sent down the to’-gallant yards. The yards had no sooner touched the deck than all three to’-gallant masts went by the board. For three days afterward we ran under close-reefed topsails, with a  very heavy sea dashing several feet over the monkey  rail, flooding the deck and driving everything before it. Several casks of coal, having broken away from lashings, took a cruise about decks and did much damage. Two water casks full of water got loose and were carried over the  rail without touching it. It was in this gale that the ships United States and London, from New York, foundered.

On the 8th it was beautifully clear. Shook all the reefs out of the topsails, and made all the sail we possibly could. Before ten o’clock our rigging resembled a washerwoman’s clothes-line, being strung over with wet  clothes of every description.