Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast Part 39

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BIT OF NANTUCKET--THE HOUSE-TOPS.]

After running the gantlet of the crowd on the wharf, the stranger is at liberty to look about him.

The fire of 1846 having destroyed the business portion of the town, that part is not more interesting than the average New England towns of modern growth. Generally speaking, the houses are of wood, the idea of s.p.a.ciousness seeming prominent with the builders. Plenty of house-room was no doubt synonymous with plenty of sea-room in the minds of retired ship-masters, whose battered hulks I saw safe moored in snug and quiet harbors. The streets are cleanly, and, having trees and flower-gardens, are often pretty and cheerful.

The roofs of many houses are surmounted by a railed platform, a reminder of the old whaling times. Here the dwellers might sit in the cool of the evening, and take note of the pa.s.sing ships, or of some deep-laden whaleman with rusty sides and grimy spars wallowing toward the harbor.

Here the merchant anxiously scanned the horizon for tidings of some loitering bark; and here superannuated skippers paced up and down, as they had done the quarter-deck. I question if the custom was not first brought here from the tropics, for in Spanish-talking America the best room is not unfrequently the roof, to which the family resort on sweltering hot nights. Sometimes a storm arises, when the precipitancy with which the sleepers gather up their pallets and seek a shelter is the more amusing if witnessed near day-break. Formerly every other house in Nantucket had one of these lookouts, or a vane at the gable-end, to show if the wind was fair for vessels homeward-bound.

While other towns have increased, Nantucket for a length of time has stood still. I saw no evidences of squalid poverty or of actual want, though there was a striking absence of activity. The fire, of which they still talk, though it happened thirty years ago, can not be traced by such visible reminders as a ma.s.s of new buildings fitted into the burned s.p.a.ce, or by a cordon of old houses drawn around its charred edges. The disaster caused the loss of many handsome buildings, among them Trinity Church, a beautiful little edifice, having latticed windows.

If there was no squalor obtruding itself upon the stranger, neither was there any display of ostentatious wealth. There were a few large square mansions of brick or wood, and even an aristocratic quarter, once known as India Row; but, on the whole, a remarkable equality existed in the houses of Nantucket. The old New England Greek temple greets you familiarly here and there. I read on the sign-boards the well-remembered names of Coffin, Folger, Bunker, Macy, Starbuck, etc., that could belong nowhere else than here. Whenever I have seen one of them in some distant corner of the continent, I have felt like raising the island slogan of other times, "There she blows!"

The Nantucket of colonial times was not more like the present than sailors in pigtails and high-crowned hats are like the close-cropped, wide-trowsered tars of to-day. Houses were scattered about without the semblance of order. The streets had never any names until the a.s.sessment of the direct tax in the administration of President Adams. Common convenience divided the town into neighborhoods, familiarly known as "Up-in-Town," "West Cove," or "North Sh.o.r.e." An old traveler says the stranger formerly received direction to Elisha Bunker's Street, or David Mitch.e.l.l's Street, or Tristram Hussey's Street.

The average conversation is still interlarded with such sea phrases as "cruising about," "short allowance," "rigged out," etc. I heard one woman ask for the "bight" of a clothes-line. I had it from credible authority that a Cape Cod girl, when kissed, always presented the other cheek, saying, "You da.r.s.ent do that again." A Nantucket la.s.s would say, "Sheer off, or I'll split your mainsail with a typhoon."

There is a story of a "cute" Nantucket skipper, who boasted he could tell where his schooner might be in the thickest weather, simply by tasting what the sounding-lead brought up. His mates resolved to put him to the test. The lead was well greased, and thrust into a box of earth, "a parsnip bed," that had been brought on board before sailing. It was then taken down to the skipper, and he was requested to tell the schooner's position. At the first taste

"The skipper stormed, and tore his hair, Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden, 'Nantucket's sunk, and here we are Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!'"

The streets avoid the fatal straight-line, though they are not remarkably crooked. In the business quarter they are paved with cobble-stones, showing ruts deeply worn by the commerce of other days.

Gra.s.s was growing out of the interstices of the pavement, where once merchants most did congregate. One of the princ.i.p.al avenues is built along the brow of the sea-bluff, so that almost every house commands a broad sweep of ocean view. The sides of a great many houses were shingled, being warmer, as many will tell you, than if covered with clapboards. As in all maritime towns, the weather-vane is usually a fish, and that, of course, a whale. It is the first thing looked at in the morning by every male inhabitant of the island. Some of the lanes go reeling and twisting about in a remarkable manner.

Nantucket was larger than I had expected. The best view of it is obtained from the side of Coatue. A single old windmill on the summit of a hill behind the town adds to its picturesqueness, and somewhat relieves the too-familiar outlines of roof and steeple. But what, in a place of its size, is most remarkable, is the almost total absence of movement. It impressed me, the time I was there, as uninhabited. There were no troops of joyous children by day, nor throngs of promenaders by night; all was listless and still. Here, indeed, was the town, but where were the people? I was not at all surprised when accosted by one who, like me, wandered and wondered, with the question, "Does any body live in Nantucket?" In midwinter, said an old resident to me, you might have a hospital in the town market-place without danger of disturbing any body. The noise of wheels rattling over the stony street is not often heard.

Owing to the total loss of its great industry, the population of Nantucket is not greater than it was a hundred years ago, and not half what it was early in the century.[235] A large proportion of the houses, it would appear, were unoccupied; yet many that had long remained vacant were being thrown open to admit new guests, that are seeking

"The breath of a new life--the healing of the seas!"

Old bra.s.ses were being furbished up, and cobwebs swept away by new and ruthless brooms. The town is being colonized from the main-land, and though the inhabitants welcome the change, the crust and flavor of originality can not survive it. Already the drift has set in: we may, perhaps, live to see a full-fledged lackey in Nantucket streets.

The wharves show the same decay as in Salem and Plymouth, except that here all are about equally dilapidated and gra.s.s-grown. Not a whaling vessel of any tonnage to be seen in Nantucket! The a.s.sertion seems incredible. In 1834 there were seventy-three ships and a fleet of smaller craft owned on the island. At this moment a brace of fishing schooners, called smacks, were the largest craft in the harbor. The dispersion of the shipping has been like to that of the inhabitants. I have seen those old whale-ships, with their bluff bows and flush decks, moored in a long line inside the Golden Gate. There they lay, rotting at their anchors, with topmasts struck, and great holes cut in their sides, big enough to drive a wagon right into their holds. To a lands-man they looked not unlike a fleet in array of battle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAST OF THE WHALE-SHIPS.]

Others of these old hulks drifted into such ports as Acapulco and Panama, where they were used for coaling the steamships of that coast; and at Sacramento I saw they had converted one into a prison-ship. The last of them remaining in New England harbors were purchased by the Government, and sunk in rebel harbors, as unfit longer to swim the seas.

It is not pleasant to think how the last vestiges of a commerce that carried the fame of the island to the remotest corners of the earth have been swept from the face of the ocean.

The whale-ship I was last on board of was the old _Peri_, of New London, that looked able to sail equally well bow or stern foremost. The brick try-house, thick with soot, remained on deck, the water-b.u.t.t was still lashed to the mizzen-mast. How she smelled of oil! Her timbers were soaked with it, and, on looking down the hatchway, I could see it floating, in prismatic colors, on the surface of the bilge-water in her hold. Many a whale had been cut up alongside. Her decks were greasy as a butcher's block. Though her spars were aloft, she had a slipshod look that would have vexed a sailor beyond measure. The very manner in which the yards were crossed told as plainly of abandonment as unreeved blocks and slackened rigging betokened a careless indifference of her future.

In the days of whaling, a different scene presented itself from that now seen on Nantucket wharves. Ships were then constantly going and coming, discharging their cargoes, or getting ready for sea. The quays were enc.u.mbered with b.u.t.ts of oil and heaps of bone. The smith was busy at his forge, the cooper beside himself with work. Let us step into the warehouse. Oil is everywhere. The counting-house ceiling is smeared with it. The walls are hung with pictures of famous whalemen--in oil, of course--coming into port with flags aloft, and I know not how many barrels under their hatches. See the private signal at the mizzen, the foam falling from the bows, and bubbling astern! A brave sight; but become unfrequent of late.

On the walls are also models of fortunate ships, neatly lettered with their names and voyages. I have seen the head and tusks of the walrus affixed to them, as the head and antlers of the stag might grace the halls of the huntsmen of the land. A strip of whalebone; maps or charts, smoke-blackened, and dotted with greasy finger-marks, indicating where ships had been spoken, or mayhap gone to Davy Jones's Locker; a South Sea javelin with barbed head, a war club and sheaf of envenomed arrows, or a paddle curiously carved, were the usual paraphernalia appropriate in such a place.

In the store-room are all the supplies necessary to a voyage. There are harpoons, lances, and cutting spades, with a rifle or two for the cabin.

Coils of rigging, and lines for the boats, with a thousand other objects belonging to the ship's outfitting, are not wanting.

According to Langlet, the whale-fishery was first carried on by the Norwegians, in the ninth century. Up to the sixteenth century, Newfoundland and Iceland were the fishing-grounds. The use of bone was not known until 1578; consequently, says an old writer, "no stays were worn by the ladies." The English commenced whaling at Spitzbergen in 1598, but they had been preceded in those seas by the Dutch. As many as two thousand whales a year have been annually killed on the coast of Greenland.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHALING IN THE OLDEN TIME.]

Champlain says that in his time it was believed the whale was usually taken by b.a.l.l.s fired from a cannon, and that several impudent liars had sustained this opinion to his face. The Basques, he continues, were the most skillful in this fishery. Leaving their vessels in some good harbor, they manned their shallops with good men, well provided with lines a hundred and fifty fathoms in length, of the best and strongest hemp. These were attached to the middle of the harpoons.[236] In each shallop was a harpooner, the most adroit and "_dispos_" among them, who had the largest share after the master, inasmuch as his was the most hazardous office. The boats were provided also with a number of partisans of the length of a half-pike, shod with an iron six inches broad and very trenchant.[237]

When at Provincetown, I referred to the beginning of the whale-fishery of Nantucket. Ichabod Paddock, in 1690, instructed the islanders how to kill whales from the sh.o.r.e in boats. The Indians of the island joined in the chase, and were as dexterous as any. Early in the eighteenth century small sloops and schooners of thirty or forty tons burden were fitted out, in which the blubber, after being first cut in large square pieces, was brought home, for trying out. In a few years vessels of sixty to eighty tons, fitted with try-works, were employed.

Dougla.s.s gives some additional particulars. About 1746, he says, whaling was by sloops or schooners, each carrying two boats and thirteen men. In every boat were a harpooner, steersman, and four oarsmen, who used nooses for their oars, so that by letting them go they would trail alongside when they were fast to a whale. The "fast" was a rope of about twenty-five fathoms, attached to a drag made of plank, about two feet square, with a stick through its centre. To the end of this stick the tow-rope of fifteen fathoms was fastened.[238]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHALE OF THE ANCIENTS.]

It pa.s.ses without challenge that the isle's men were the most skillful whalemen in the world. The boys, as soon as they could talk, made use of the Indian word "townor," meaning, "I have twice seen the whale;" and as soon as able they took to the oar, becoming expert oarsmen. Language would inadequately express the triumph of the youngster who landed in his native town after having struck his first whale. The Indian who proudly exhibits his first scalp could not rival him. Thus it happens that you suppose every man in Nantucket can handle the harpoon, and every woman the oar. Nor was it in whaling battles alone that the island prowess made itself famous. Reuben Chase, midshipman of the _Bonne Homme Richard_ in the battle with the _Serapis_, became, under Mr. Cooper's hand, Long Tom Coffin of "The Pilot."

The Revolution was near giving the death-blow to Nantucket. In February, 1775, Lord North brought in his famous bill to restrain the trade and commerce of New England with Great Britain and her dependencies, and to prohibit their fishery on the Banks of Newfoundland.[239] It was represented to Parliament that of the population of the islands, amounting to some thousands, nine-tenths were Quakers; that the land was barren, but by astonishing industry one hundred and forty vessels were kept employed, of which all but eight were engaged in the whale-fishery.[240]

The inhabitants having been exempted from the restraining act of Parliament, the Continental Congress, in 1775, took steps to prevent the export of provisions to the island from the main-land, except what might be necessary for domestic use. The Provincial Congress of Ma.s.sachusetts also prohibited the export of provisions until full satisfaction was given that they were not to be used for foreign consumption.[241] These precautions were necessary, because the enemy's ships made the island a rendezvous.

Some stigma has attached to the Nantucket Friends for their want of patriotism in the Revolution. They were perhaps in too great haste to apply for the protection of the crown to suit the temper of the day.

Justice to their position requires the impartial historian to state that they were at the mercy of the enemy's fleets. They were virtually left to shift for themselves, and ought not to be censured for making the best terms possible. At the close of hostilities their commerce was, in fact, nearly destroyed. Starved by their friends, now become their enemies, and robbed by their enemies, of whom they had sought to make friends, they were in danger of being ground between the upper and nether millstones of a hard destiny.

I well enough remember the first sight I had of whale-ships on their cruising-grounds; of the watchmen in their tubs at the mast-head, where they looked like strange birds in strange nests; and of the great whales that rose to breathe, casting fountains of spray high in the air. They seemed not more animated than the black hull of a vessel drifting bottom-up, and rolling lazily from side to side, until, burying their huge heads deeper, a monster tail was lifted into view, remained an instant motionless, and then, following the rolling plunge of the unwieldy body, sunk majestically beneath the wave.

The curious interest with which, from the deck of a matter-of-fact steamship, I had watched the indolent gambols and puffings of the school, had caused me to lose sight of the whaleman, until an extraordinary commotion recalled her to my attention. Blocks were rattling, commands quick and sharp were ringing out, and I could plainly see the splash that followed the descent of the boats into the water.

Away they went, the ashen blades bending like withes with the energy and vim of the stroke. Erect in the stern, his arms bared to the shoulder, his body inclined forward like a bended bow, was the boat-steerer. I fancied I could hear his voice and see his gestures as he shook his clenched fist in the faces of the boat's crew. This was the boat-steerer's speech:

"Now, boys, give it to her; lay back hard! Spring _hard_, I tell you!

There she blows! Break your backs, you duff-eaters! Put me right on top of that whale, boys! There she is, boys--a beauty! One more lift, and hurra for Nantucket bar!"

After a weary and fruitless chase--for the whales had sounded--we were boarded by the mate's boat, and requested to report their vessel. I gazed with real curiosity at its crew. Every man had a bandana handkerchief bound tightly about his head. Faces, chests, and arms were the color of old mahogany well oiled. They were then two years out, they said, and inquired anxiously for news from the "States." They neither knew who was President, nor of the war raging between the great powers of Europe, and were thankful for the old newspapers that we tossed to them. At length they rowed off, cutting their way through the water with a powerful stroke, their boat mounting the seas like an egg-sh.e.l.l.

An ancient salt with whom I talked in Nantucket spoke of the disappearance of the whales, and of their turning up in new and unexpected waters. From the beginning of the century until the decline of the fishery, vessels usually made a straight course for Cape Horn; but of late years, whales, he said, had re-appeared in the Atlantic, making their way, it is believed, through the North-west Pa.s.sage. Whales with harpoons sticking in them having the names of vessels that had entered the Arctic by way of Behring's Straits have been taken by other ships on the Atlantic side of the continent.

"When I first went whaling," quoth he, "you might wake up of a morning in the Sea of j.a.pan with fifty sail of whalemen in sight. A fish da.r.s.ent (durst not) show his head: some ship would take him."

"I have gone on deck off the Cape of Good Hope," he continued, "when we hadn't a bar'l of ile in the ship, an' the whales nearly blowin' on us out o' the water. We took in twelve hundred bar'ls afore we put out the fires."

Now, though they burn coal-oil in Nantucket, I believe they would prefer sperm. You could not convince an islander that the discovery of oil in the coal-fields was any thing to his advantage; nor would he waste words with you about the law of compensations. A few, I was told, still cling to the idea of a revival in the whale-fishery, but the greater number regard it as clean gone. I confess to a weakness for oil of sperm myself. There are the recollections of a shining row of brazen and pewter lamps on the mantel, the despair of house-maids. In coal-oil there is no poetry; Shakspeare and Milton did not study, nor Ben Jonson rhyme, by it. Napoleon did not dictate nor Nelson die by the light of it. Nowadays there are no lanterns, no torches, worthy the name.

As there is not enough depth of water on Nantucket bar for large ships, Edgartown Harbor was formerly resorted to by the whalemen of this island, to obtain fresh water and fit their ships for sea. If they returned from a voyage in winter, they were obliged to discharge their cargoes into lighters at Edgartown before they could enter Nantucket Harbor. One of the Nantucket steeples was constructed with a lookout commanding the whole island, from which the watchman might, it is said, with a gla.s.s, distinguish vessels belonging here that occasionally came to anchor at Martha's Vineyard.

In time a huge floating dock that could be submerged, called a camel, was employed to bring vessels over the bar. After going on its knees and taking the ship on its back, the camel was pumped free of water, when both came into port. These machines are not of Yankee invention. They were originated by the celebrated De Witt, for the purpose of conveying large vessels from Amsterdam over the Pampus. They were also introduced into Russia by Peter the Great, who had obtained their model while working as a common shipwright in Holland. As invented, the camel was composed of two separate parts, each having a concave side to embrace the ship's hull, to which it was fastened with strong cables.

The harbors of Edgartown, New London, and New Bedford, not being subject to the inconvenience of a bar before them, flourished to some extent at the expense of Nantucket; but all these ports have shared a common fate.

The gold fever of 1849 broke out when whaling was at its ebb, and then scores of whale-ships for the last time doubled Cape Horn. Officers and men drifted into other employments, or continued to follow the sea in some less dangerous service. They were considered the best sailors in the world. I remember one athletic Islesman, a second-mate, who quelled a mutiny single-handed with sledge-hammer blows of his fist. When his captain appeared on deck with a brace of pistols, the affray was over.

The ringleader bore the marks of a terrible punishment. "You've a heavy hand, Mr. Blank," said Captain G----. "I'm a Nantucket whaleman, and used to a long dart."

At the Nantucket Athenaeum are exhibited some relics of whales and whaling, of which all true islanders love so well to talk. The jaw-bone of a sperm-whale may there be seen. It would have made Samson a better weapon than the one he used with such effect against the Philistines.

This whale stores the spermaceti in his cheek. You can compress the oil from it with the hand, as from honey-comb. What is called the "case" is contained in the reservoir he carries in his head, from which barrels of it are sometimes dipped. What does he want with it? Or is it, mayhap, a softening of his great, sluggish brain?

The tremendous power the whale is able to put forth when enraged is ill.u.s.trated by the tale of a collision with one that resulted in the loss of the ship _Ess.e.x_, of Nantucket. On the 13th of November, 1820, the ship was among whales, and three boats were lowered. A young whale was taken. Shortly after, another of great size, supposed to have been the dam of the one just killed, came against the ship with such violence as to tear away part of the false keel. It then remained some time alongside, endeavoring to grip the ship in its jaws; but, failing to make any impression, swam off about a quarter of a mile, when, suddenly turning about, it came with tremendous velocity toward the _Ess.e.x_. The concussion not only stopped the vessel's way, but actually forced her astern. Every man on deck was knocked down. The bows were completely stove. In a few minutes the vessel filled and went on her beam-ends.