Chapter 54




SOME SUPERIOR OLD NAIL-ROD AND PIG-TAIL


It has been mentioned how advantageously my shipmates disposed of their
tobacco in Liverpool; but it is to be related how those nefarious
commercial speculations of theirs reduced them to sad extremities in the
end.

True to their improvident character, and seduced by the high prices paid
for the weed in England, they had there sold off by far the greater
portion of what tobacco they had; even inducing the mate to surrender
the portion he had secured under lock and key by command of the
Custom-house officers. So that when the crew were about two weeks out,
on the homeward-bound passage, it became sorrowfully evident that
tobacco was at a premium.

Now, one of the favorite pursuits of sailors during a dogwatch below at
sea is cards; and though they do not understand whist, cribbage, and
games of that kidney, yet they are adepts at what is called "High-low-
Jack-and-the-game," which name, indeed, has a Jackish and nautical
flavor. Their stakes are generally so many plugs of tobacco, which,
like rouleaux of guineas, are piled on their chests when they play.
Judge, then, the wicked zest with which the Highlander's crew now
shuffled and dealt the pack; and how the interest curiously and
invertedly increased, as the stakes necessarily became less and less;
and finally resolved themselves into "chaws."

So absorbed, at last, did they become at this business, that some of
them, after being hard at work during a nightwatch on deck, would rob
themselves of rest below, in order to have a brush at the cards. And as
it is very difficult sleeping in the presence of gamblers; especially if
they chance to be sailors, whose conversation at all times is apt to be
boisterous; these fellows would often be driven out of the forecastle by
those who desired to rest. They were obliged to repair on deck, and make
a card-table of it; and invariably, in such cases, there was a great
deal of contention, a great many ungentlemanly charges of nigging and
cheating; and, now and then, a few parenthetical blows were exchanged.

But this was not so much to be wondered at, seeing they could see but
very little, being provided with no light but that of a midnight sky;
and the cards, from long wear and rough usage, having become exceedingly
torn and tarry, so much so, that several members of the four suits might
have seceded from their respective clans, and formed into a fifth tribe,
under the name of "Tar-spots."

Every day the tobacco grew scarcer and scarcer; till at last it became
necessary to adopt the greatest possible economy in its use. The modicum
constituting an ordinary "chaw," was made to last a whole day; and at
night, permission being had from the cook, this self-same "chaw" was
placed in the oven of the stove, and there dried; so as to do duty in a
pipe.

In the end not a plug was to be had; and deprived of a solace and a
stimulus, on which sailors so much rely while at sea, the crew became
absent, moody, and sadly tormented with the hypos. They were something
like opium-smokers, suddenly cut off from their drug. They would sit on
their chests, forlorn and moping; with a steadfast sadness, eying the
forecastle lamp, at which they had lighted so many a pleasant pipe. With
touching eloquence they recalled those happier evenings--the time of
smoke and vapor; when, after a whole day's delectable "chawing," they
beguiled themselves with their genial, and most companionable puffs.

One night, when they seemed more than usually cast down and
disconsolate, Blunt, the Irish cockney, started up suddenly with an idea
in his head--"Boys, let's search under the bunks!" Bless you, Blunt! what
a happy conceit! Forthwith, the chests were dragged out; the dark places
explored; and two sticks of nail-rod tobacco, and several old "chaws,"
thrown aside by sailors on some previous voyage, were their cheering
reward. They were impartially divided by Jackson, who, upon this
occasion, acquitted himself to the satisfaction of all.

Their mode of dividing this tobacco was the rather curious one generally
adopted by sailors, when the highest possible degree of impartiality is
desirable. I will describe it, recommending its earnest consideration to
all heirs, who may hereafter divide an inheritance; for if they adopted
this nautical method, that universally slanderous aphorism of Lavater
would be forever rendered nugatory--"Expert not to understand any man
till you have divided with him an inheritance."

The nail-rods they cut as evenly as possible into as many parts as there
were men to be supplied; and this operation having been performed in the
presence of all, Jackson, placing the tobacco before him, his face to
the wall, and back to the company, struck one of the bits of weed with
his knife, crying out, "Whose is this?" Whereupon a respondent,
previously pitched upon, replied, at a venture, from the opposite corner
of the forecastle, "Blunt's;" and to Blunt it went; and so on, in like
manner, till all were served.

I put it to you, lawyers--shade of Blackstone, I invoke you--if a more
impartial procedure could be imagined than this?

But the nail-rods and last-voyage "chaws" were soon gone, and then,
after a short interval of comparative gayety, the men again drooped, and
relapsed into gloom.

They soon hit upon an ingenious device, however--but not altogether new
among seamen--to allay the severity of the depression under which they
languished. Ropes were unstranded, and the yarns picked apart; and, cut
up into small bits, were used as a substitute for the weed. Old ropes
were preferred; especially those which had long lain in the hold, and
had contracted an epicurean dampness, making still richer their ancient,
cheese-like flavor.

In the middle of most large ropes, there is a straight, central part,
round which the exterior strands are twisted. When in picking oakum,
upon various occasions, I have chanced, among the old junk used at such
times, to light upon a fragment of this species of rope, I have ever
taken, I know not what kind of strange, nutty delight in untwisting it
slowly, and gradually coming upon its deftly hidden and aromatic
"heart;" for so this central piece is denominated.

It is generally of a rich, tawny, Indian hue, somewhat inclined to
luster; is exceedingly agreeable to the touch; diffuses a pungent odor,
as of an old dusty bottle of Port, newly opened above ground; and,
altogether, is an object which no man, who enjoys his dinners, could
refrain from hanging over, and caressing.

Nor is this delectable morsel of old junk wanting in many interesting,
mournful, and tragic suggestions. Who can say in what gales it may have
been; in what remote seas it may have sailed? How many stout masts of
seventy-fours and frigates it may have staid in the tempest? How deep it
may have lain, as a hawser, at the bottom of strange harbors? What
outlandish fish may have nibbled at it in the water, and what
un-catalogued sea-fowl may have pecked at it, when forming part of a
lofty stay or a shroud?

Now, this particular part of the rope, this nice little "cut" it was,
that among the sailors was the most eagerly sought after. And getting
hold of a foot or two of old cable, they would cut into it lovingly, to
see whether it had any "tenderloin."

For my own part, nevertheless, I can not say that this tit-bit was at
all an agreeable one in the mouth; however pleasant to the sight of an
antiquary, or to the nose of an epicure in nautical fragrancies. Indeed,
though possibly I might have been mistaken, I thought it had rather an
astringent, acrid taste; probably induced by the tar, with which the
flavor of all ropes is more or less vitiated. But the sailors seemed to
like it, and at any rate nibbled at it with great gusto. They converted
one pocket of their trowsers into a junk-shop, and when solicited by a
shipmate for a "chaw," would produce a small coil of rope.

Another device adopted to alleviate their hardships, was the
substitution of dried tea-leaves, in place of tobacco, for their pipes.
No one has ever supped in a forecastle at sea, without having been
struck by the prodigious residuum of tea-leaves, or cabbage stalks, in
his tin-pot of bohea. There was no lack of material to supply every
pipe-bowl among us.

I had almost forgotten to relate the most noteworthy thing in this
matter; namely, that notwithstanding the general scarcity of the genuine
weed, Jackson was provided with a supply; nor did it give out, until
very shortly previous to our arrival in port.

In the lowest depths of despair at the loss of their precious solace,
when the sailors would be seated inconsolable as the Babylonish
captives, Jackson would sit cross-legged in his bunk, which was an upper
one, and enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke, would look down upon the
mourners below, with a sardonic grin at their forlornness.

He recalled to mind their folly in selling for filthy lucre, their
supplies of the weed; he painted their stupidity; he enlarged upon the
sufferings they had brought upon themselves; he exaggerated those
sufferings, and every way derided, reproached, twitted, and hooted at
them. No one dared to return his scurrilous animadversions, nor did any
presume to ask him to relieve their necessities out of his fullness. On
the contrary, as has been just related, they divided with him the
nail-rods they found.

The extraordinary dominion of this one miserable Jackson, over twelve or
fourteen strong, healthy tars, is a riddle, whose solution must be left
to the philosophers.



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