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Updated: May 29, 2025
Then came the steady tramp of the jollies along the deck, lanterns were quickly lighted, and looking out I could see the Frenchmen scampering off, tumbling down the hatchways, or hiding under the guns. They discovered that they had made a slight mistake.
The boy, a young marine, who did this part of our musical business, puffed out his cheeks, inflating his lungs the while, and blew a blast that seemed to make the air shake; the boatswain's mates, who always act on such occasions like the chorus at the opera, screeching with their whistles fore and aft up and down the hatchways, repeating with an exasperating repetition the same order little Joey the bugler had already given; while, all the officers who had charge of the respective boats stood up at the gangways to inspect the crews of these as they went down the side to take their places on the thwarts, so as to see they were all properly equipped.
There could be no possible doubt as to this last, for there was a thin, bluish-white vapour of steam curling up through the gratings which closed the hatchways, the effluvium emanating from which was almost unendurable.
The beams which supported the deck had lost their stiffness and sunk downward; the masts, as before stated, had toppled over for the same reason, yielding to their own weight, which, as the vessel was slightly on one side, had gradually borne them down; the bowsprit also had fallen. The hatchways had yielded, and, giving way, had sunk down within the hold.
He sank shafts into the banks, tunnelled long living rooms, both above and below the gully-bottom, linked the rooms together with galleries, and cut hatchways and bolting holes to lead to the surface as well as to the gully. All this work was securely done, with balks of seasoned wood, iron girders, and concreting.
The sky was entirely veiled by an unbroken mass of dark, purplish, slate- coloured cloud that was almost black in its deeper shadows, with long, tattered streamers of dirty whitish vapour scurrying wildly athwart it; a heavy, leaden-hued, white-crested, foam-flecked sea was running, and in the midst of the picture was the poor crippled frigate, rolling and labouring and staggering onward like a wounded sea-bird under her jury- spars and spray-darkened canvas, with a miniature ocean washing hither and thither athwart her heaving deck, and a crowd of panting, straining, half-naked men clustering about her pumps, while others were as busily employed in passing buckets up and down through the hatchways; the whole set to the dismal harmony of howling wind, hissing spray, the wearisome and incessant wash of water, and the groaning and complaining sounds of the labouring hull.
This, I seized immediately, and going to my hammock, lay there, swinging and reading, until the watch was out. The between-decks were clear, the hatchways open, and a cool breeze blowing through them, the ship under easy way, and everything comfortable. I had just got well into the story, when eight bells were struck, and we were all ordered to dinner.
This afternoon the wind blew fresh from the north-west, which occasioned the sea to break very high across the Dolphin bank; and in the night such a heavy broken sea came into the bay that we were obliged to batten all the hatchways down, and to keep everybody upon deck all night though the rain came down in torrents. The ship rolled in a most violent manner. Saturday 6.
In the steerage there are fifteen hundred Chinese steerage passengers, all men. The Chinese are a noisy people, their language is inharmonious, and the lower class male voices, at least, are harsh and coarse. The fifteen hundred men seem to be all shouting at once, and the din which comes up through the hatchways is fearful.
If you will imagine a long narrow room, only six feet high, you will know what a 'tweendecks is like. A glare of light comes down the hatchways. Away from the hatchways a few battle-lanterns are hung, to keep up some pretence of light in the darkest corners.
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