Two Sea Stories.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 42, 22 March 1884, Page 3

Two Sea Stories.

For good nature and solid enjoyment of the voyage, nobody held a candle to our fellowpassenger, the Yankee skipper. He was a large, plain, quiet Bosfconian, as closo as an oystor about himself , but giving token of belonging to the old-fashioned race of New England sea-captains. His trousers had a sedentary s»g at the kneo in harmony with the tried and true, stoady-going air of his general make-up. He was the kind of man you would like to have with you it you weie to be cast away at sea or lost in a wilderness. If a whale spouted within our dreary disclike world of water, he was sure to gee it. No sail could dawn on our horizen unseen by his binocular. It encouraged early rising to know that the Yankee skipper would be found on deck witli his gazette of ship's transactions and sea-happenings. Tobacco was his enemy, so A\e were a little surprised one evening to see him enter the blue atmosphereof the smoking-room wherowewere holding our usual after-dinner symposium. \\ hen anecdoto and story had been the round, the skipper "took the floor" by a glance round the benches. " Way back in 1850," ho began, "I was six months sailing from New York to 'Frisco. Hounding tho Horn, we fell in with tho deadest calm I ever experienced. In the morning wo sighted an albatross a little way off, as badly becalmed as we were, except that sho could paddle, -while wo couldn't make much headway sculling a lull rigger. We gave chase in the yawCand caught the bird after a hard tussle ; for, you see, she couldn't n.se from the water without a breeze to help her spread her uings, and those wings on starboard measure fifteen feet from tipto tip. Besides, her crop was full, and maybe she'd swallowed too much ballast for sky sailing. We took a strip of sheet coppei', and with a marline spike- punctured in it tho name of the ship and the date of capture. This we fastened round the bird's neck. When we got a breeze, we first made sail and then gave the albatross a chance to spread canvas. AVith a scream she Hew off a little way, circled onco or twice around the ship, and then set her rudder for the North Pole. That bird was caught again, twenty -five hundred miles from Cape Horn, and cairied into Callao. And I'll tell you how I know it. At Calloa the captain of that ship wrote a letter to a New York newspaper, describing thecapture of the albatross and the writing on the copper collar. My wife saw the paper, and in that A\ay got news of our ship six months before my own letter reached her." Silence followed the recital, until &ome body expressed a regret that there were only two '' marines" in the company to tell it to. " Pshaw !" exclaimed the skipper, a deeper colour suffusing his face; " it's true, every word of it." By way of amends, a loud call was made for the elder marine's whaling story, which always gains a good deal from tho tar and tarpaulian manner in which it is told. " You must fancy I'm Mr Jones," he said, " a whaler's mate, spinning yarn for messmates. He shifts his quid and begins : We a\ uz all feelin 'sort o' grumpy, for thai 1 hadn't been no kind o' luck, when tho lookout cries, ' Theer she blows !' — so I goes up to Cap'n Simmons an' sez I, ' Cap'n Simmons, &h's a blower ; shall I lower ?' " Sez he : ' Mr Jones, she maybe a blower, but 1 don't, see fitten fur tv lower.' '•Then I goes forrud, and the man aloft sings out agin. ' Theer she blows ! — an' she's a spermer !' So I goes agin to Cap'n Simmons an' sez I, ' Cap'n Simmons, she's a spermer an' a blower ; shall I lower ? "Sez he : 'Mr Jones, she may be a spermer an' she may be a blower, but I don't see h'tten fur tv lower ; but if so be you see fitten fur tv lower, w'y lower away an' be 'tarnally dashed tv yer.' "So I lowered away, an' when we come to about fifty yard o' the critter sez I, ' Hold on, boys, fur I'm death with the long harpoon !' An' I struck her fair, an' we towed her alongside the ship ; an' when I came aboard, Cap'n Simmons stood in the gangway, an' sez he, ' Mr Jones you air an' officer an' a gentleman, an' there's rum and terbacker in the locker — an' that of the very best quality — at yer sarvice, sir, durin' this voyage.' " Then sez I, ' Cap'n Simmons, I'm a man as knows his dooty and does it, an' all I axes of you is sarvility — an' that of the commonest, doggoned kind !' "— " The Century."