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Updated: June 9, 2025
Two or three take it by turns to watch in the bows and see after the braces and halyards of the great sails; the two steersmen are below in the steerage; our captain, or the juragan, gives the course, guided partly by the compass and partly by the direction of the wind, and a watch of two or three on the poop look after the trimming of the sails and call out the hours by the water-clock.
We have taken up an Egyptian pilot at the river mouth, and he stands on a little platform at the bow of the galley, and shouts his directions to the steersmen, who work the two big rudders, one on either side of the ship's stern.
The Mètifs, or, as they are sometimes called, Bois brulés, have displayed the most striking ability as steersmen of boats, through the most difficult rapids, and in the navigation of the rivers; and if advantages were given them in education, they have capacities of usefulness which might adorn the highest stations of civilized life.
Slaves, both white and colored, rowers and steersmen, in various costumes, were hurrying hither and thither, while the ships' captains, either dressed in the Greek fashion or in Phoenician garments of the most glaring colors, were shouting orders to their crews and delivering up their cargoes to the merchants.
The men who have charge of the boats are generally experienced steersmen, and it is an interesting sight to see them take the rush of water with their boats, and with cool intrepidity and skill direct the sweep, or steer-oar to their arrival in safety at the bottom of a rapid of almost a perpendicular fall of many feet, or through a torrent of water of a quarter of a mile or more in length.
Famous harpooners, steersmen who winked no eye when the wounded whale drew their boat through a smother of foam, shanghaied gentlemen, sweepings of harbors, Nantucket deacons, pirates, and the whole breed of sailors and fighting fellows, congregated here to bathe and to fill their water-casks.
"Ali, summon the steersmen. Hasten! Vigitello, set your whips about the slaves, and rouse them." Then as the shrill whistle of the boatswain rang out and the whips of his mates went hissing and cracking about the shoulders of the already half-awakened slaves, to mingle with all the rest of the stir and bustle aboard the galeasse, the Basha turned once more to Biskaine.
He, on succeeding to his uncle's estate, at once rewarded with a huge donation the steersman of the boat in which we had been saved, saying that the other steersmen did their best, but that, if the others had been as dexterous as he, his aunt and uncle would not have perished by so deplorable and so untimely a death.
Soldiers take the towing-ropes; try to continue it a little; but now the steersmen also manage to call halt: "We won't! Let us out, let us out! We will steer you aground on the Prussian shore if you don't!" making night hideous. And the towing enterprise breaks down for that bout; double barges mooring on the Saxon shore, I know not precisely at what point, nor is it material. No, you have n't.
Rutowski made, at least, no delay. Browne's messenger, we find, had come to him, "Thursday, 7th:" and on Friday night Rutowski has a squad of boatmen, steersmen and twoscore of towing peasants ready; and actually gets under way.
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