Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/76

 





Jack’s signal of distress is a red flannel shirt tied in the fore rigging. Two of these signals of distress were made here in this port from two American whalers, both  full of oil, and homeward bound. Our commodore answered the signals in person, and made the two captains  promise that they would treat the men better and give  them better rations. While lying here the U. S. ship Falmouth, Captain M. Keever, arrived from Valparaiso. She had on board three deserters from our ship. The ship Relief was discharged of all her cargo, for she was  just alive with big rats and swarming with cockroaches. I should think the latter must have been from two to