Headley's Voyage From Europe

Rounding the southern coast of Ireland we stood out to sea, and soon the last vestige of land disappeared behind the waters; and, homeward bound, we were on the wide Atlantic. There was an incident occurred on leaving port which interested me exceedingly. With the departure of almost every vessel, some poor wretches, without the means to pay their passage, secrete themselves aboard till fairly out to sea, when they creep forth from their hiding places. The captain cannot put back for them, and he cannot see them starve aboard his ship; and so they get a free passage to this land, where every man can find work. As common has this become, that an officer is always hired to ransack the vessel while she is being towed out of the harbor. Several were found hid away in ours, whom I saw shoved over into the "tagg," as the tow-boat is called, without the least feeling of commiseration. They were such hard, depraved looking cases, that I thought it no loss to have them kept back from our shores. But at length the officer drew forth a Scotch lad about seventeen years of age, who seemed unlike his companions. - Dirty and ragged enough, indeed, he was, but a certain honest expression in his face, which was covered with tears, interested me in him immediately. I stopped the officer and asked the boy his name. "Robert S.," he replied. "Where are you from?" "Greenock. I am a baker by trade, but my master has broke, and I have come to Liverpool to get work." "Why do you want to go to America?" said I. "To get work," he replied in his strong Scotch accent. He seemed to have but one idea, and that was work! The object of his ambition, the end of his wishes, was the privilege of working. He had wandered around Liverpool in vain! slept on the docks, and lived on the refuse crumbs he could pick up; and as a last resort, determined, all alone, to cross the Atlantic to a land where man is allowed the boon of working for his daily bread. I could not let him go ashore, and told the captain I would see that his passage was paid. The passengers joined with me, and I told him he need not be alarmed, he should go to America. I was struck with his reply: said he in a manly tone, "I don't know how I can pay you, sir, but I will work for you." I gave him clothes, and told him to wash himself and be cheerful, and I would take care of him. In a short time he became deadly sick, and at the end of a week he was so emaciated and feeble I feared he would die. I said to him one day, "Robert, are you not very sorry now you started for America?" "No, sir!" he replied, "if I can get work there." "Merciful God!" I mentally exclaimed, "has hunger so gnawed at this poor fellow's vitals, and starvation so often stared him in the face, that he can think of no joy like that of being permitted to work!" Days and weeks passed away, wearisome and lonely, until at length, as we approached the banks of Newfoundland, a heavy storm overtook us. It blew for two days, and the third night the sea was rolling tremendously. The good ship labored over the mountainous billows, while every timber and plank, and door, seemed suddenly to have been endowed with a voice, and screeched, and screamed, and groaned, and complained, till the tumult without was almost drowned by the uproar within. It did not seem possible that the timbers could hold together for an hour, so violently did the vessel work. I could not keep in my berth, and ropes were strung along the deck to enable the sailors to cross from one side to another. I crawled to the cabin door, and holding on with both hands, gazed out with strange feelings upon the wild and ruinous waste of waters. We had a host of steerage passengers aboard, whom the captain was compelled to drive below, and fasten down the hatches over them. The sea was breaking madly over the shrinking, shivering ship, as if determined to crush it down, and at every shock of the billows, as they fell in thunder on the deck, the poor wretches below thought themselves going to the bottom, and kept up a constant wailing, screaming and praying, at once pitiful and ludicrous. Still I could not blame them, for to one who is unaccustomed to the sea, the rush and roll of waves on the trembling planks overhead are anything but pleasant sounds. One moment, as we ascended a billow, the jib-boom of our vessel seemed to pierce mid-heaven - the next moment, in her mad and downward plunge, it would disappear in the sea, and tons of water come sweeping with a crash over our decks. Once the second mate who was forward, was caught by one of these furious seas and borne backward the whole length of the deck, against the after cabin. As the ship pitched again he was carried forward, and the second time borne backward, before he could feel the deck, although the water was running in a perfect torrent from the scuppers the while. Oh! it was a fearful night - the clouds swept in angry masses athwart the heavens, and all around was the mountainous deep over which our groaning vessel strained with desperate efforts and most piteous complaints. I turned in, sick of the sea, but I could not sleep, for one moment my feet would be pointing to the zenith, and the next moment my head, and immediately after, head, body, and legs, would be lying in a confused heap on the state-room floor. As a last resort, I stretched myself on the cabin sofa, which was bolted to the floor, and bade the steward lash me to it with a rope; and strange to say, in this position I dropped asleep and slept till morning. It was the soundest night's rest I ever had at sea. But it is startling to be waked out of sleep by the creaking of timbers and roar of waves; and the spirits feel a sudden reaction that is painful. I staggered on deck, and such a sight I never beheld before. The storm had broken and the fragmentary clouds were flying like lightning over the sky, while the sea, as far as he eye could reach, was one vast expanse of heaving, tumbling mountains - their bases a bright pea green, and their ridges white as snow. Over and around these our good ship floundered like a mere toy. On our right, and perhaps three quarters of a mile distant, (although it seemed scarcely three rods,) lay a ship riding out the storm. When we went down and she went up, I could see the copper on her bottom; and when we both went down together, the tops of her tallest masts disappeared as though she had been suddenly engulfed in the ocean. The sun at length emerged from a cloud and lighted up with strange brilliancy this strange scene. It was a sublime spectacle. I acknowledged it to be so, but added mentally, as I clung to a belaying pin and braced against the bulwarks to keep my legs, that I thought it would appear much better from shore. Days and nights passed away until at length a bird came and lighted on our rigging, and then I knew we were near my father-land. I could have kissed it. The last night came on with rain and storm, and we flew before the gale with our white wings spread, thankful that it bore us homeward. - At noon the next day the clouds broke away, and soon after we took on board a pilot. The sun went down in beauty, and the moon sailed up the golden sky, and the stars came out and smiled on the sea, and all was lovely and entrancing; but soon other lights flashed over the waters that far outshone both moon and stars - the lights from Sandy Hook. My heart leaped up in my throat at the sight, and an involuntary burst of joy escaped my lips. No bay ever looked so sweet as New York bay the next morning, and when my feet pressed my native, I loved her better than ever. I will only add that my protege, the Scotch boy, was taken care of, and proved worthy of the interest I had taken in him. He is now on the fair road to wealth and prosperity. The good packet England, a few months after, left Liverpool for New York, and was never heard of more. A better officer than her captain never trod a deck, and her first mate was also a fine man. He had been lately married, and went to sea because it was his only means of livehood. Alas! the billows now well over them and their gallant ship together.