Notes By the Way in a Sailor's Life eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 44 pages of information about Notes By the Way in a Sailor's Life.

Notes By the Way in a Sailor's Life eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 44 pages of information about Notes By the Way in a Sailor's Life.
that they were either British or — Americans.  Well, they were supplied with salt beef and pork, canned meats, water, etc.  Several trips were made by the boat, and when all was finished, and the boat was at some distance from us, these marauders stood up and gave us three rousing cheers in good plain English, and called out “Good-bye boys, and good luck to you for feeding the blackbirds.”  The brig was full of slaves.

This “slave” business was then near its end in Brazil, and, probably this vessel had been chased off the coast by a British war-vessel, as every possible effort was being made by the British Government to suppress the slave trade.

Mary Ann Gander.

On this voyage we had a Mr. and Mrs. Gander and their eight children.  Poor Mrs. Gander used to suffer terribly from seasickness, and was totally unfitted to do anything but scold, whilst poor unfortunate Gander used to promenade the deck with a child on each arm and a couple of others tagging on to his coat-tails.  He was a wonderfully good-natured fellow, was Gander; otherwise I do believe he would have jumped overboard, for whenever he came near to where Mrs. Gander was, she used to call to him to go to the captain and tell him to put her on shore immediately; she would not go any further in that ship, — no, that she wouldn’t.  “Now, Mary Ann, what’s the use your talking that way; you know that we are a thousand miles from any land and the captain cannot put you on shore.”  “Now, Gander, don’t you talk to me.  How dare you?  You just go to the captain at once.  Oh! you catch me going to sea again.  No, that you won’t.  When I go home I’ll go overland, if I have to walk every step of the way.”  Poor Gander!  Mary Ann and the children all survived the trials of the voyage and arrived safe in Melbourne, where Gander was very fortunate, and in three years made sufficient money to enable him to retire, and as the English Mail Steamer Company, or the P. & O. Company had put on a line from Ceylon to Australia in 1852, the Gander family were enabled to go home by the overland route, as Mrs. Gander had wished to go.

Hard Times.

In June, 1854, I left Melbourne on the barque “Junior,” bound to Callao, in Peru.  We had a fine voyage, and on arrival, being free, I went to Lima, the capital.  I found this was a very interesting old city, with beautiful surrounding country, which I enjoyed very much, and spent nearly a month there.  Then I had a week in Callao, which was a pretty wild place.  I used to sail around the bay, and in sailing near the shore I could look down, at the bottom of the sea, on the houses of old Callao, which was swallowed by an earthquake in the latter part of the last century.  And, strange to say, when the town disappeared an island came up out in the bay.  This island is very high and is called “San Lorenzo,” after a lone fisherman who had been out in his boat fishing on the night when the earthquake took place, and in the morning poor old Lorenzo found himself in a boat about a thousand feet up on a mountain and no town in sight.

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Notes By the Way in a Sailor's Life from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.