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SPACE TIME PLAY
SPACE TIME PLAY
COMPUTER GAMES,
ARCHITECTURE
AND URBANISM:
THE NEXT LEVEL

Edited by

Friedrich von Borries,

Steffen P. Walz,
Matthias Böttger

In collaboration with

Drew Davidson, Heather Kelley, Julian Kücklich

Birkhäuser
Basel _ Boston _ Berlin
Imprint Acknowledgements

Design: onlab, Nicolas Bourquin Space Time Play would not exist without the help, inspiration and sup-
Prepress: Sebastian Schenk port of many colleagues and friends. Our deepest thanks go out to all
Translation from German into English: Jenna Krumminga, Ian Pepper the authors of the book, without whose contributions this compen-
Translation from Italian into English: Federico Roascio dium could not have come into being. We would also like to thank the
Copyediting: Jenna Krumminga, Tobias Kurtz, Ian Pepper studios and publishers that granted us the right to print pictures of
Proofreading: Lucinda Byatt (Edinburgh) their games.
Fonts: Grotesque MT, Walbaum
Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF ∞ We thank Ludger Hovestadt, Hans-Peter Schwarz, Gerhard M. Buurman
Printed in Germany and Kees Christiaanse for both their content contributions and their
financial commitment, without which we would not have been able to
www.spacetimeplay.org produce this book.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007933332 We owe the selection of Game Reviews collected in this book, as well
as our connections to many authors, to Drew Davidson, Heather Kelley
Bibliographic information published by the German National Library. and Julian Kücklich. We thank Nicolas Bourquin for the design and the
The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche patience with which he conducted his work. With much dedication,
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Jenna Krumminga edited the diverse texts into an easy-to-read whole.
Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
Monika Annen, Tobias Kurtz, Anne Mikoleit, Caroline Pachoud and
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the Sibylla Spycher supported us in the editorial work with great dedication
whole or part of the material is concerned. Specifically, the rights of and great exertion, for which we would like to thank them sincerely.
translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting,
reproduction on microfilms or in other formats, and storage in data We thank our editor Robert Steiger for his faith, without which this
bases are reserved. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright experimental project would not have materialized; we thank Nora
owner must be obtained. Kempkens for a smooth work flow.

© 2007 Birkhäuser Verlag AG In addition to the many whom we unfortunately cannot name here, we
Basel _ Boston _ Berlin also thank Ulrich Brinkmann and Katrin Schöbel for their encourage-
P.O. Box 133, CH-4010 Basel, Switzerland ment, guidance and counsel.
Part of Springer Science+Business Media
© 2007 Friedrich von Borries, Steffen P. Walz, Matthias Böttger, au- This book has been sponsored by:
thors and individual copyright holders. ETH Zurich, Institute of Building Technology, Chair for Computer
© 2007 for images see detailed list in the appendix. Images not oth- Aided Architectural Design, Switzerland. Zurich University of the
erwise indicated are the property of the named project authors, text Arts (ZHdK), Switzerland. ZHdK, Department of Design, Interaction
authors and game developers. Design & Game Design Study Program, Switzerland. ETH Zurich,
Institute for Urban Design, Chair of Architecture and Urban Design,
ISBN: 978-3-7643-8414-2 Switzerland. KCAP, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. ASTOC, Architects
and Planners, Cologne, Germany.

Interaction Design
Game Design

The editors’ work on this book has been partially funded by the
National Competence Center in Research on Mobile Information and
Communication Systems (NCCR-MICS), a center supported by the
987654321 Swiss National Science Foundation under grant number 5005-67322
www.birkhauser.ch and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

4
Table of contents

6 Table of contents: Essays, Statements, Interviews

8 Table of contents: Game Reviews

9 Table of contents: Project Descriptions

10 Introduction
Friedrich von Borries,
Steffen P. Walz,
Matthias Böttger

Level 1 14 THE ARCHITECTURE OF COMPUTER

AND VIDEO GAMES
A SHORT SPACE-TIME HISTORY OF
INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT

Level 2 138 MAKE BELIEVE URBANISM

THE LUDIC CONSTRUCTION OF
THE DIGITAL METROPOLIS

Level 3 216 UBIQUITOUS GAMES

ENCHANTING PLACES, BUILDINGS,
CITIES AND LANDSCAPES

Level 4 320 SERIOUS FUN

UTILIZING GAME ELEMENTS FOR ARCHITECTURAL
DESIGN AND URBAN PLANNING

Level 5 410 FAITES VOS JEUX

GAMES BETWEEN UTOPIA AND DYSTOPIA

488 Author biographies

495 Image copyrights

5
Table of contents Essays, Statements, Interviews

Level 1 16 PLACES TO PLAY Level 3 218 NEW BABYLON RELOADED

What Game Settings Can Tell Us about Games Learning from the Ludic City
Andreas Lange Lukas Feireiss
26 A SHORT HISTORY OF DIGITAL 230 PLAY AS CREATIVE MISUSE
GAMESPACE Barcode Battler and the Charm of the Real
Dariusz Jacob Boron Claus Pias
44 ALLEGORIES OF SPACE 233 UBIQUITOUS GAMING
The Question of Spatiality in Computer Games A Vision for the Future of Enchanted Spaces
Espen Aarseth Jane McGonigal
56 NARRATIVE SPACES 238 CREATING ALTERNATE REALITIES
Henry Jenkins A Quick Primer
61 GAME PHYSICS Christy Dena
The Look & Feel Challenges of Spectacular Worlds 248 PERVASIVE GAMES
Ronald Vuillemin Bridging the Gaps between the Virtual and the Physical
74 LABYRINTH AND MAZE Steve Benford, Carsten Magerkurth,
Video Game Navigation Challenges Peter Ljungstrand
Clara Fernández-Vara 251 THE POETICS OF AUGMENTED SPACE
88 STEERING THROUGH THE MICROWORLD The Art of Our Time
A Short History and Terminology of Video Game Lev Manovich
Controllers 266 URBAN ROLE-PLAY
Winnie Forster The Next Generation of Role-Playing in Urban Space
100 VARIATION OVER TIME Markus Montola
The Transformation of Space in Single-screen 276 CHANGING URBAN PERSPECTIVES
Action Games Illuminating Cracks and Drawing Illusionary Lines
Jesper Juul Staffan Björk
110 LISTEN TO THE BULK OF THE ICEBERG 290 PERVASIVE GAMESPACES
On the Impact of Sound in Digital Games Gameplay Out in the Open
Axel Stockburger Bo Kampmann Walther
118 WALLHACKS AND AIMBOTS 304 PERSUASION AND GAMESPACE
How Cheating Changes the Perception of Gamespace Ian Bogost
Julian Kücklich 312 LIFE IS NOT COMPLETELY A GAME
132 FORM FOLLOWS FUN Urban Space and Virtual Environments
Working as a Space Gameplay Architect Howard Rheingold
Olivier Azémar
134 LOAD AND SUPPORT Level 4 328 PLAY STATIONS
Architectural Realism in Video Games Neil Leach
Ulrich Götz 332 TACTICS FOR A PLAYFUL CITY
Iain Borden
Level 2 146 USE YOUR ILLUSION 335 WHY GAMES FOR ARCHITECTURE?
Immersion in Parallel Worlds Ludger Hovestadt
Florian Schmidt 340 GAME OF LIFE
158 MAKING PLACES On Architecture, Complexity
Richard A. Bartle and the Concept of Nature as a Game
164 ACTIVITY FLOW ARCHITECTURE Georg Vrachliotis
Environment Design in Active Worlds and EverQuest 351 DESIGN PATTERNS ARE DEAD
Mikael Jakobsson Long Live Design Patterns
174 WHAT IS A SYNTHETIC WORLD? Jussi Holopainen, Staffan Björk
Edward Castronova, James J. Cummings, 352 THE UNINHIBITED FREEDOM
Will Emigh, Michael Fatten, Nathan Mishler, OF PLAYFULNESS
Travis Ross, Will Ryan Marc Maurer, Nicole Maurer
182 COMPETING IN METAGAME GAMESPACE 354 VIVA PIÑATA
eSports as the First Professionalized Computer Architecture of the Everyday
Metagames Tor Lindstrand
Michael Wagner 358 798 MUTIPLAYER DESIGN GAME
186 PLAYING WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILIES A New Tool for Parametric Design
Current Scene of Reality-based Games in Beijing Kas Oosterhuis, Tomasz Jaskiewicz
Zhao Chen Ding 372 RULE-BASED URBAN PLANNING
200 NARRATIVE ENVIRONMENTS The Wijnhaven Project, KCAP (Rotterdam)
From Disneyland to World of Warcraft Kees Christiaanse
Celia Pearce 376 TIT FOR TAT AND URBAN RULES
206 PLAYING WITH URBAN LIFE Alexander Lehnerer
How SimCity Influences Planning Culture 380 LIGHTLY AUGMENTING REALITY
Daniel G. Lobo Learning through Authentic Augmented Reality Games
214 NEW PUBLIC SPHERE Eric Klopfer
The Return of the Salon and the End of Mass Media 384 SCENARIO GAMES
Peter Ludlow Vital Techniques for Interactive City Planning
Raoul Bunschoten

6 SPACE TIME PLAY

Table of contents Essays, Statements, Interviews

398 THE NEW MENTAL LANDSCAPE

Why Games are Important for Architecture
Antonino Saggio
401 “CAN I TELEPORT AROUND?”
Jesse Schell
404 TOWARDS A GAME THEORY OF
ARCHITECTURE
Bart Lootsma
407 ACTION IN THE HANDS OF THE USER
William J. Mitchell

Level 5 416 WAR/GAMES AFTER 9/11

James Der Derian
420 WAR PLAY
Practicing Urban Annihilation
Stephen Graham
425 ENDER’S GAME
Towards a Synthetic View of the World
James H. Korris
430 FORBIDDEN GAMES
Eyal Danon, Galit Eilat
438 OUTDOOR AUGMENTED REALITY
Technology and the Military
Wayne Piekarski, Bruce H. Thomas
441 AFTER NET ART, WE MAKE MONEY
Artists and Locative Media
Marc Tuters
444 “EASTERN EUROPE, 2008”
Maps and Geopolitics in Video Games
Stephan Günzel
450 THE GAME OF INTERACTION
Gerhard M. Buurman
452 ATOPIA (ON VICE CITY)
McKenzie Wark
456 PLAYING WITH ART
Hans-Peter Schwarz
462 CHINESE GOLD FARMERS
Immigrant Workers in the Game Land
Ge Jin
466 ADVERTISEMENT IN VIDEO GAMES
“Sell My Tears,” Says the Game Publisher
Christian Gaca
480 RE-PUBLIC PLAYSCAPE
A Concrete Urban Utopia
Alberto Iacovoni
484 GAMESPACE
Mark Wigley

7
Table of contents Game Reviews

Level 1 20 DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION 130 QUAKE

Gillian Andrews Patrick Curry
24 Wii SPORTS
Heather Kelley Level 2 140 TRON
32 TENNIS FOR TWO/PONG Rolf F. Nohr
Cindy Poremba 142 NEUROMANCER
34 ASTEROIDS Espen Aarseth
Jesper Juul 144 SNOW CRASH
36 BATTLEZONE Neil Alphonso
Andreas Schiffler 150 THE SIMS
38 DEFENDER Mary Flanagan
Jesper Juul 152 THERE
40 WOLFENSTEIN 3D Florian Schmidt
Alex de Jong 154 ENTROPIA UNIVERSE
42 COUNTER-STRIKE Florian Schmidt
Alex de Jong 156 SECOND LIFE
48 MYST Florian Schmidt
Drew Davidson 168 LINEAGE
50 SUPER MARIO BROS. Sungah Kim
Martin Nerurkar 170 KINGDOM HEARTS
52 TETRIS Troy Whitlock
Katie Salen 172 WORLD OF WARCRAFT
54 ICO Diane Carr
Drew Davidson 178 SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION
64 ZORK Jochen Hamma
Nick Montfort 180 ANIMAL CROSSING
66 LEMMINGS Heather Kelley
Martin Nerurkar 190 DARK CHRONICLE
68 WORMS Dean Chan
Clara Fernández-Vara 192 THE GETAWAY
70 MAX PAYNE Gregory More
Paolo Ruffino 194 GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS
78 PAC-MAN Gregory More
Chaim Gingold 196 GRIM FANDANGO
80 DIABLO Julian Kücklich
Stephen Jacobs 198 PSYCHONAUTS
82 SILENT HILL 2 Drew Davidson
Frank Degler 210 SIMCITY
84 SPLINTER CELL David Thomas
Thé Chinh Ngo 212 MAJESTIC
86 SAM & MAX HIT THE ROAD Kurt Squire
Julian Kücklich
94 KIRBY: CANVAS CURSE Level 3 242 I LOVE BEES
Thiéry Adam Sean Stewart
96 KATAMARI DAMACY 244 PERPLEX CITY
Julian Kücklich Steve Peters
98 EYETOY PLAY 316 eXistenZ
Heather Kelley Adriana de Souza e Silva
104 ELITE
Ed Byrne Level 4 368 PASSPORT TO …
106 PRINCE OF PERSIA Ragna Körby, Tobias Kurtz
Drew Davidson
108 SUPER MARIO 64 Level 5 414 WARGAMES
Troy Whitlock Rolf F. Nohr
114 REZ 434 KUMA\WAR
Julian Kücklich Stefan Werning
116 DESCENT 436 AMERICA’S ARMY
James Everett Stefan Werning
122 SUPER MONKEY BALL 458 S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: SHADOW OF CHERNOBYL
Troels Degn Johansson Ernest W. Adams
124 TONY HAWK’S AMERICAN WASTELAND 460 SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS
Dörte Küttler David Thomas
126 LEGACY OF KAIN: SOUL REAVER 470 THE TRUMAN SHOW
Phil Fish Rolf F. Nohr
128 RESCUE ON FRACTALUS 472 MONOPOLY
Noah Falstein Marie Huber, Achim Nelke

8 SPACE TIME PLAY

Table of contents Project Descriptions

Level 1 22 BREAKOUT FOR TWO 344 SAUERBRATEN

Florian “Floyd” Müller Andreas Dieckmann, Peter Russell
72 CHARBITAT 346 TINMITH
Michael Nitsche Wayne Piekarski, Bruce H. Thomas
348 IMPLANT
Level 3 222 GEOCACHING Wayne Ashley
Jack W. Peters 350 GAMEGAME
224 MOGI Aki Järvinen
Benjamin Joffe 362 SPACEFIGHTER
226 BOTFIGHTERS Winy Maas
Mirjam Struppek, Katharine S. Willis 364 KAISERSROT
228 THE BEAST Alexander Lehnerer
Dave Szulborski 366 REXPLORER
246 THE ART OF THE HEIST Rafael Ballagas, Steffen P. Walz
Dave Szulborski 370 PLASTICITY
256 PIRATES! Mathias Fuchs
Staffan Björk, Peter Ljungstrand 388 THE HARBOUR GAME
258 CAN YOU SEE ME NOW Tobias Løssing, Rune Nielsen,
Steve Benford Andreas Lykke-Olesen, Thomas Fabian Delman
260 M.A.D. COUNTDOWN 390 BIG URBAN GAME
Steffen P. Walz Frank Lantz
262 PACMANHATTAN 392 SUBCITY
Frank Lantz Elizabeth Sikiaridi, Frans Vogelaar
264 TYCOON 394 SUPERCITY
Gregor Broll Troels Degn Johansson
270 PROSOPOPEIA 1 396 BLINKENLIGHTS
Staffan Jonsson Rahel Willhardt
272 RELIVING THE REVOLUTION
Karen Schrier Level 5 412 OPS ROOM
274 EPIDEMIC MENACE Sabine Himmelsbach
Irma Lindt 474 CHANGING THE GUARD
280 URBAN FREE FLOW Stephan Trüby, Stephan Henrich, Iassen Markov
Lukas Feireiss 476 THE SCALABLE CITY
282 ARQUAKE Sheldon Brown
Bruce H. Thomas, Wayne Piekarski 478 THE MINISTRY OF RESHELVING
284 CONQWEST Jane McGonigal
Frank Lantz
286 WHAVSM?
Martin Budzinski, Henrik Isermann
288 DEMOR
Claus Pias
294 INSECTOPIA
Johan Peitz, Staffan Björk
296 ’ERE BE DRAGONS
Stephen Boyd Davis, Rachel Jacobs,
Magnus Moar, Matt Watkins
298 FAUST – ACOUSTIC ADVENTURE
KP Ludwig John
300 CATCHBOB!
Nicolas Nova, Fabien Girardin
302 GEOGAMES
Christoph Schlieder, Sebastian
Matyas, Peter Kiefer
308 .WALK
a watchful passer-by
310 MANHATTAN STORY MASHUP
Jürgen Scheible, Ville Tuulos
318 FIRST PERSON SHOOTER
Aram Bartholl

Level 4 322 ARCHITECTURE_ENGINE_1.0

Jochen Hoog
324 NOZZLE ENGINE
Wolfgang Fiel, Margarete Jahrmann
326 GAMESCAPE
Beat Suter, René Bauer

9
WHY SHOULD AN
ARCHITECT CARE
ABOUT COMPUTER
GAMES?

10 SPACE TIME PLAY

Introduction

AND WHAT CAN A

GAME DESIGNER
TAKE FROM
ARCHITECTURE?

Computer games are part and parcel of our present; both their audiovisual language and the interaction
processes associated with them have worked their way into our everyday lives. Yet without space, there
is no place at which, in which or even based on which a game can take place. Similarly, the specific space
of a game is bred from the act of playing, from the gameplay itself. The digital spaces so often frequented
by gamers have changed and are changing our notion of space and time, just as film and television did
in the 20th century.
But games go even further: with the spread of the Internet, online role-playing games emerged
that often have less to do with winning and losing and more to do with the cultivation of social communi-
ties and human networks that are actually extended into “real” life. Equipped with wireless technologies
and GPS capacities, computer games have abandoned their original location – the stationary computer
– and made their way into physical space as mobile and pervasive applications. So-called “Alternate
Reality Games” cross-medially blend together the Internet, public phone booths and physical places and
conventions in order to create an alternative, ludic reality. The spaces of computer games range from
two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional spaces to complex constructions of social com-
munities to new conceptions of, applications for and interactions between existent physical spaces.
In his 1941 book Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, Siegfried
Giedion puts modern architecture and its typologies in their social and chronological context. Today, we
again face the development of new typologies of space – spaces that are emerging from the superimposi-
tion of the physical and the virtual. The spaces of the digital games that constitute themselves through
the convergence of “space,” “time” and “play” are only the beginning.
What are the parameters of these new spaces? To what practices and functional specifications
do they give rise? What design strategies will come into operation because of them?
In Space Time Play, authors with wholly different professional backgrounds try to provide
answers to these questions. Practitioners and theorists of architecture and urban planning as well as of
game design and game studies have contributed to the collection. The over 180 articles come in various
forms; in essays, short statements, interviews, descriptions of innovative projects and critical reviews of
commercial games, the synergies between computer games, architecture and urbanism are reflected
upon from diverse perspectives.

11
Introduction

Space Time Play contains five levels that – played on their own or in sequence – train a variety of skills
and address a range of issues:
The first level, THE ARCHITECTURE OF COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES, traces a short, spatiotemporal
history of the architecture of digital games. Here, architects are interested in the question of what spatial
qualities and characteristics arise from computer games and what implications these could have for con-
temporary architecture. For game designers and researchers, on the other hand, it’s about determining
what game elements constitute space and which spatial attributes give rise to specific types of interac-
tion. Moreover, it’s not just about the gamespaces in the computer, but about the places where the games
are actually played; playing on a living-room TV is different from playing in front of a PC, which, in turn,
is different from playing in a bar.
Many computer games draw spatial inspiration from physical architecture. Like in a film,
certain places and configurations are favored and retroactively shape our perceptions. Computer game
players also experience physical space differently and thus use it differently. Newer input possibilities
like gesture and substantial physical movement are making this hybridization of virtual and real space
available for the mass market, thereby posing new questions to game designers and bringing the dis-
ciplines of built and imagined spaces closer together. Computer game design is thus not just about the
“Rules of Play” anymore, but also about the “Rules of Place.”
In the second level, MAKE BELIEVE URBANISM, the focus of the texts is shifted to the social
cohesion of game-generated spaces – that is, to the ludic constructions of digital metropolises – and
the question of how such “community spaces” are produced and presented. At the same time, the
central topic of this level is the tension between the representation of the city in games and the city
as metaphor for the virtual spatialization of social relations. How can sociability across space-time
be established, and how will identity be “played out” there? The communities emerging in games,
after all, constitute not only parallel cultures and economies, but also previews of the public spaces
of the future.
The third level, UBI QUITOUS GAMES, on the other hand, demonstrates how real space – be it a
building, city or landscape – changes and expands when it is metamorphosed into a “game board” or
“place to play” by means of new technologies and creative game concepts. Here, a new dimension of the

12 SPACE TIME PLAY

notion and use of the city becomes conceivable, one which has the potential to permanently change the
composition of future cities. What happens when the spaces and social interactions of computer games
are superimposed over physical space? What new forms and control systems of city, architecture and
landscape become possible?
The migration of computer games onto the street – that is, the integration of physical spaces
into game systems – creates new localities; games intervene in existent spaces. Game designers are
thereby made aware of their social responsibility. Ubiquitous games fulfill not only the utopian dreams
of the Situationists, but also the early 1990s computer-science vision of a “magicization” of the world.
As in simulacra, the borders of the “magic circle” coined by Johan Huizinga blur, and the result is
ludic unification.
In the fourth level, SERIOUS FUN, the extent to which games and game elements also have se-
rious uses – namely, as tools for design and planning processes – is examined through examples from
architecture and city planning. The articles in this level demonstrate how the ludic conquest of real and
imagined gamespace becomes an instrument for the design of space-time. For the playing of cities can
affect the lived environment and its occupants just as the building of houses can. In this sense, playing is
a serious medium that will increasingly form part of the urban planner’s repertory and will open up new
prospects for participation. Play cannot replace seriousness, but it can help it along.
The concluding fifth level, FAITES VOS JEUX, critically reflects upon the cultural relevance
of games today and in the future. Which gamespaces are desirable and which are not? Which ones
should we expect? Life as computer-supported game? War as game? The possibilities range from lived
dreams to advertisements in gamespaces to the destruction of cities in games and in today’s reality of
war and terrorism.
What is the “next level” of architecture and game design? Both these creative worlds could
benefit from a mutual exchange: by emulating the complex conceptions of space and design possibilities
of the former and by using the expertise, interaction, immersion and spatial fun of the latter.
Game designers and architects can forge the future of ludic space-time as a new form of interactive
space, and they can do so in both virtual gamespaces and physical, architectural spaces; this is the “next
level” of Space Time Play.

13
THE
ARCHITECTURE OF
COMPUTER
AND VIDEO GAMES
 A SHORT SPACE-
TIME HISTORY
OF INTERACTIVE
ENTERTAINMENT
Level

1
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
heavily, and the comparative evenness of her decks after the late
fearful slope of them came with something of novelty to my strained
and tired little legs.
On passing through the booby-hatch, I found the ship almost
hidden in a snowstorm. The fall had the density of a fog, and I do
not exaggerate when I say that nothing was to be seen of the spars
above the maintop, whilst the forecastle was an indistinguishable
outline in the white smother blowing like steam along the decks.
One of us midshipmen had to be on the poop within eyeshot of the
mate. We took turn and turn about at this, Poole going first, and the
others of us hanging together in the cuddy embrasure under the
break of the deck, where there was some shelter to be obtained
from the marrow-freezing, man-killing wind.
When my turn came round, the weather, that had been tolerably
clear for half-an-hour, grew as thick as “mud in a wine-glass” again
with snow. From the poop-rail the two men who were keeping a
look-out on the forecastle head were hardly to be seen. It was
blowing half a gale of wind, but, being dead aft, much of its weight
was taken out of it.
Under reefed topsails and yawning foresail dark with saturation
and iron-hard with frost, the ship drove before the blast, chased by
huge seas which scared me to watch, as the summits rose in grey,
freckled, and foaming hills high above the heads of the steersmen,
who were clinging to the wheel with nervous, sinewy grip. The mate
stood at the head of the weather-poop ladder; the captain, clothed
in water-proof garments from head to foot, paced a bit of deck from
the grating abaft the wheel to the mizzen-shrouds. Through the
weeping skylight you caught a dim glimpse of the outlines of
passengers cuddling themselves in the cabin. Heavens, how did I
envy them! What would I have given for the liberty to exchange this
freezing, snow-swept deck for the warmth of the glowing cuddy-
stove and the luxury of the wine-scented atmosphere, the
comfortable sofas, the piano, and the little library of books which the
steward had charge of!
 “Well, Master Rockafellar,” said the chief mate, “pray, sir, what do
you think of Cape Horn?”
“I don’t like it, sir,” said I.
“Isn’t it cold enough?” he asked.
“I prefer the equator, sir,” I exclaimed.
I could see by a laugh in his eye that he was about to deliver
something mirthful; but all on a sudden he fell as grave as a mute,
and began to sniff, as though scenting something in the air whilst he
cast a look at the captain, who continued to patrol the after part of
the deck with a careless step. He sniffed again.
“I smell ice!” he exclaimed.
I thought he might wish me to sniff too, which I did, somewhat
ostentatiously, perhaps, that he might notice me; but as to smelling
ice—why, ’twas all snow to me, with a coldness in it that went
beyond ice, to my mind. The flakes were still rolling over us, dense
as smoke, from the lead-coloured sky, and the ship’s bowsprit was
nearly out of sight.
Once more the mate sniffed up the air with wide nostrils, went to
the rail and thrust his head over, with a long, probing look ahead,
and then came back to where I was standing. He was about to
speak, when, out from the whirling, wool-white thickness forward,
came the loud and fearful cry:
“Ice right ahead, sir!”
“Ice right ahead, sir!” re-echoed the mate in a shriek, whipping
round his face towards the captain.
“I see it, sir! I see it!” cried the skipper. “Hard a starboard! hard a
starboard! over with it for your lives, lads!”
The spokes revolved like the driving-wheel of a locomotive in the
hands of the two seamen, and the ship paid off with a slow, stately
sweep of her head, as she swung upon the underrun of a huge
Pacific sea, brimming to her counter, and roaring in thunder along
the line of her water-ways—and just in time!
For, out upon the starboard bow there leapt out of the snowstorm,
in proportions as huge as those of the cathedral of St. Paul’s, a
monster iceberg. It all happened in a minute, and what a minute
was that! It was a prodigious crystalline mass, some of the sharp
curves of it of a keen blue, the summits deep in snow, and the sides
frightfully scored and gashed into ravines and gorges and caverns,
whilst all about the sky-line of it, showing faintly in the whirling
flakes, were forms of pinnacles and spires, of towers and minarets,
columns like those of ruins, and wild and startling shapes like
couchant beasts of colossal size, giant helmets, forts, turreted heads
of castles, and I know not what besides.
In the fair and streaming sunshine, that would have filled it with
flaming jewels of light, and kindled all kinds of rich and shining
colours, it would have glowed out upon the sea as a most glorious,
most magnificent object; but now, with the shadow upon it of the
storm-laden sky, and rendered wild beyond imagination by the
gyrations of the clouds of snow all about it, it offered a most
dreadful and terrifying picture as it swept past, with the noise of the
great seas bursting at its base, smiting the ear like shocks of
earthquake.
We had escaped it by a miracle. Our ship’s head had been pointed
for it as neatly as the muzzle of a musket at the object to be shot at.
In another three minutes our bows would have been into it, and the
ship have ground herself away from the bows aft, as you shut up the
tubes of a telescope!
Our captain seemed to take fright at this experience, and whilst
the loom of the mighty mass was still visible on the lee quarter,
orders were given for all hands to turn out and heave the ship to.
Nor was way got upon her again till the weather cleared, and even
then for several days our progress was exceedingly stealthy, the
order of the time being that whenever it came on thick the ship was
to be hove-to. It was weary, desperate work, and every hand on
board the ship soon grew to yearn, with almost shipwrecked
longings, for the blue skies and the trade-winds of the South
Atlantic.
 CHAPTER X.
HE SIGHTS A WRECK.

But at last came a day when the meridian of Staten Island was
passed under our counter; and when eight bells had been made, the
ship’s course was altered, and we were once more heading for the
sun with a strong wind on the beam, the ocean working in long
sapphire lines of creaming billows, the ship leaning down under a
maintopgallant sail, with a single reef in the topsail under it, and the
sailors going about their work with cheerful countenances; for this
northward course made us all feel that we were really and truly
homeward bound at last.
It was thought that our passage would be a smart one, as good a
run as any on record, for though, to be sure, we had been detained
a bit off the Horn by the frequent heaving to of the ship, yet we had
traversed the long stretch of the South Pacific very briskly, whilst for
a long eight days now there blew a strong, steady beam wind that
drove us through it at an average of two hundred and fifty miles in
the twenty-four hours. With less weight in the breeze we should
have done better still. We could never show more than a
maintopgallant sail to it, and the high seas were by no means helpful
to the heels of the ship. Yet Cape Horn was speedily a long way
astern of us; the horrible weather of it was forgotten as pain is.
Every night, stars which had become familiar to us were sinking in
the south, and new constellations soaring out of the horizon over the
bows. It was delightful to handle the ropes, and find them supple as
coir instead of stiff as iron bars, to pick up the sails, and feel them
soft again to the touch instead of that hardness of sheets of steel
which they gathered to them in the frosty parallels. The sun shone
with a warmth that was every day increasing in ardency; the dry
decks sparkled crisply like the white firm sand of the sea-beach. The
live-stock grew gay and hearty with the Atlantic temperature: the
cocks crew cheerily, the hens cackled with vigour, the sheep bleated
with voices which filled our salted, weather-toughened heads with
visions of green meadows, of fields enamelled with daisies, of
hedges full of nosegays, and of twinkling green branches melodious
with birds.
We slipped into the south-east trade wind, and bore away for the
equator under fore-topmast studding-sail.
 “I ... SAT RIDING A-COCK-HORSE OF
IT” (p. 231).

One moonlight night a fancy to view the ship from the bowsprit entered my
mind. I went on to the forecastle and crawled out on to the jibboom, and
there sat riding a-cock-horse of it, holding by the outer jib-stay. The moon
shone brightly over the maintopsail yard-arm; all sail was on the ship, and she
was leaning over from the fresh breeze like a yacht in a racing match. The
moonlight made her decks resemble ivory, and stars of silver glory sparkled
fitfully along them in the glass and brass work. The whole figure of the noble
fabric seemed to be rushing at me; the foam poured like steam from her stem
that was smoking and sheering through the ocean surge. Over my head
soared the great jibs, like the wings of some mighty spirit. My heart leapt up
in me to the rise and fall of the spar that I jockeyed. It was like sitting at one
end of a leviathan see-saw, and every upheaval was as exhilarating as a flight
through the air. Ah, thought I, as I leisurely made my way inboards, if
sailoring were always as pleasant as this, I believe I should wish to continue
at sea all my life.
It was two days afterwards, at about half-past six in the morning watch,
that a fellow in the foretop hailed the deck and reported a black object on the
lee-bow which, he said, didn’t look like a ship, though it was a deal too big for
a long-boat. I was staring wistfully in the direction the man had indicated. Mr.
Johnson noticed this, and said, with a kind smile (I seemed to be a favourite
of his, maybe because I was but a little chap to be at sea, otherwise I do not
know what particularly entitled me to his kindness)—
“Here, Rockafellar, take my glass into the foretop, and see what you can
make of the object.”
I was very proud of this commission, and not a little pleased to escape even
for a short spell the grimy, prosaic business of scrubbing the poop. The
telescope was a handsome instrument in a case, the strap of which I threw
over my shoulder; and, slipping on a pair of shoes (for I never could endure
the pressure of the ratlines against the soles of my naked feet), I got into the
shrouds and arrived in the foretop.
“Where is it?” said I to a man who stood peering seawards, with a hairy tar-
stained hand protecting his eyes.
He pointed.
I levelled the glass, and in an instant beheld the black hull of a ship lying
deep in the water, rolling heavily, yet very sluggishly. All three masts were
gone, and a few splinters forking out between her knight-heads were all that
remained of her bowsprit.
The sailor asked leave to look, and putting his eye to the telescope,
exclaimed—
“Here’s a bad job, I lay. She’s a settling down too. She’ll be out of sight
under water afore we’re abreast, or I’m a Kanaka,” by which he meant a
South Sea Islander.
I made my way to the deck, and reported what I had seen to the chief
mate. It was not twenty minutes after this when a loud cry arose from the
forecastle, followed by a rush of men to the rail, to see what the fellow who
had called out was pointing at. We of
the poop, forgetting the ship’s
discipline in the excitement raised by
the shout and headlong hurry of men
forward, ran to the side to look also,
and we saw close against the lee-bow
of the ship, fast sliding along past the
side, the figure of a man in a lifebuoy.
He was naked to the waist; his arms
overhung the circle, but his form,
leaning forward, had so tilted the buoy
that his head lay under water. He rose
and fell upon the seas, which
sometimes threw him a little way out
and then submerged him again, with
his long hair streaming like grass at the
bottom of a shallow running stream.
The sailors along the waist and on
the forecastle were looking aft, as
though they expected that the mate
would back the topsail yard and send a
boat; but the man that had gone past
“HE POINTED.”
was dead as dead can be: even my
young eyes could have told that,
though his head had been above water
all the time.
“It is a recent wreck, I expect, sir,” I heard Mr. Johnson say to the captain,
who stepped on deck at that moment. “The poor fellow didn’t look to have
been in the water long.”
“There was no doubt he was a corpse?” inquired the captain, to whose
sight the form of the drowned man was invisible, so rapidly had it veered
astern into the troubled and concealing foam of our wake.
“Oh yes, sir,” answered Mr. Johnson. “His face only lifted now and again.”
At eight bells the wreck was in sight from the poop, but at a long distance.
I went below to get some breakfast, and then returned, too much interested
in the object that had hove into view to stay in the cabin, though I had been
on deck since four o’clock, and had scarcely slept more than two hours during
the middle watch.
 Our ship’s helm had been slightly shifted, so that we might pass the wreck
close. As we advanced, fragments of the torn and mutilated fabric passed us;
portions of yards, of broken masts with the attached gear snaking out from it,
casks, hatch-covers, and so forth. It was easy to guess, by the look of these
things, that they had been wrenched from the hull by a hurricane. I noticed a
length of sail-cloth attached to a yard, with a knot in it so tied that I did not
need to have been at sea many months to guess that nothing could have
done it but some furious ocean blast.
We all stood looking with eagerness towards the wreck—the ladies with
opera-glasses to their eyes, the gentlemen with telescopes; the captain aft
was constantly viewing her through his glass, and the second mate, who had
charge of the deck, watched her through the shrouds of the main rigging with
the intentness of a pirate whose eyes are upon a chase.
The fact was, it was impossible to tell whether there might be human
beings aboard of her, let alone the sort of pathetic interest one found in the
sight of the lonely object rolling out yonder in a drowning way amidst the
sparkling morning waters of the blue immensity of the deep. Only a little while
ago, I thought to myself as I surveyed her, she was a noble ship; her white
sails soared, she sat like a large summer cloud upon the water, the foam
sparkled at her fore-foot; like ourselves, she might have been homeward
bound—and now see her! Hearts which were lately beating in full life, are
silent—stilled for ever in those cold depths upon whose surface she is
heaving.
There is no object in life, I think, that appeals more solemnly to the mind
than a wreck fallen in with far out at sea. She is an image of death, and the
thought of the eternity that follows upon death is symbolized by the secret
green profound in whose depths she will shortly be swallowed up.
The hull lay so deep in the water that the name under her counter was
buried, and not to be read. A flash of light broke from her wet black side each
time she rolled from the sun, and the brilliant glare was so much like the
crimson gleam of a gun, that again and again I would catch myself listening
for the noise of the explosion, as though forsooth there were people firing
signals to us aboard her.
“An eight hundred ton ship at least,” the captain told the ladies, “and a very
fine model. Oh yes! She’s been hammered to pieces by a storm of wind. She
has no boats, you see, so let us hope her people managed to get away in
safety, and that they are by this time on board a ship.”
 “I daresay,” said a young fellow, one of the cuddy passengers, “that her
hold is full of valuable goods. Pity we couldn’t take her in tow and carry her
home with us. Why shouldn’t the cargo of such a vessel as that be worth—call
it twenty thousand pounds if you will? There’s just money enough in that
figure to make me tolerably comfortable for the rest of my life. Confounded
nonsense to have a fortune under your nose, and be obliged to watch it sink!”
“Well, Mr. Graham,” said the captain, laughing, “there’s the hulk, sir. If you
have a mind to take charge of her, I’ll put you on board. Nothing venture
nothing have, you know. That’s particularly the case at sea.”
“Too late! too late!” growled out the bass voice of an old major who had
been making the tour of the world for his health. “See there!” and he pointed
a long, skinny, trembling forefinger at the wreck.
She was sinking as he spoke! It was as wild a sight in its way as you could
conceive; she put her bow under and lifted her stern, and made her last dive
as though she were something living. She disappeared swiftly; indeed the
ocean was rolling clear to the horizon before you could realise that the
substantial object, which a moment or two before was floating firm to your
sight, was gone.
The young gentleman named Graham shuddered as he turned away.
It was an hour after this that one of the midshipmen came into our berth,
and said that a ship’s boat had been made out right ahead. Nothing living in
her had as yet been distinguished.
“The notion of course is,” said he, “that she belonged to the wreck that we
passed this morning.”
I was reading in my bunk, but on hearing this, I immediately hopped out
and went on deck. There was more excitement now than before. A crowd of
the passengers were staring from the poop, with knots of steerage folks and a
huddle of the ship’s idlers on the forecastle, craning their necks under the
bowsprit and past the jibs to get a view. Indeed, whilst the midshipmen had
been telling us about this boat below, a glimpse had been caught of
something moving over the low gunwale of her—some said it was a cap that
had been waved; but whatever it was it had not shown again. However,
everybody was now sure that there was something alive in the boat, and we
all seemed to hold our breath whilst we waited. It was an ordinary ship’s
quarter-boat painted white.
“There again!” shouted somebody. “Did you see it? A man’s head it looked
like.”
 “Ay,” said the second mate, who had his telescope bearing on the boat at
the moment: “a head, and no mistake; but of what kind, though? More like a
cocoa-nut, to my fancy, than a man’s nob.”
“There he is! there’s the poor creature!” cried a lady in a sort of shriek, with
an opera-glass at her eyes. “He’s standing up—he has fallen backwards—ah!
he’s up again. But, oh dear me!—can it be a man?”
“With a tail!” said the second mate, who continued to ogle the boat through
his telescope. “Bless my heart!—why—why—captain, I believe it’s a great
monkey!”
In a few minutes the boat was under the bow, and a strange roar of
mingled wonder and laughter came floating aft to us from the crowd on the
forecastle. It was a monkey, as the second mate had said—a big ape, with
strong white whiskers, which ringed the lower part of his face like wool. He
had evidently been some crew’s pet; a small velvet cap with a yellow tassel,
like a smoking cap, was secured to his head; he also wore a pair of large
spectacles apparently cut out of thin white wood. His body was clothed in a
short jacket of some faded reddish material, with a slit behind for the
convenience of his tail, the end of which was raw, as though he had been
lately breakfasting off it. His legs were cased in their native hair, which was
long, something like a goat’s.

“IT WAS A MONKEY.”

 One could see that the poor beast was terribly weak. He would climb up on
a thwart, then fall backwards, and, as his boat slipped past, he lay on his side
looking up at us through his spectacles with the most woebegone, piteous,
grinning face of appeal that ever monkey in this world assumed.
There was a sudden explosion of laughter from amongst us; no man could
help himself. Indeed, the first sight of the boat had put some fancies of
horrors to be disclosed into our heads, and the change, from our notion of
beholding dead or dying human beings, into this apparition of a huge monkey
in a smoking cap and spectacles, was so violent and ridiculous a surprise that
it proved too much for the gravest amongst the crowd aft.
“Hands to the topsail braces!” bawled the captain; “lay the maintopsail to
the mast. We must pick the poor brute up.”
The Lady Violet was brought to a stand. Five men in charge of the second
mate sprang into a lee-quarter boat; the tackles were slacked away, and in a
few minutes our boat was alongside the other, with two of the fellows handing
out the monkey, that lay as quiet as a baby in their arms.
Everybody crowded on to the main-deck to get a view of the poor beast
when the boat had brought him alongside. He had the look of an old man;
and though you saw that the unhappy animal was suffering, his grimaces
were so ugly, the appeal of his bloodshot eyes through his spectacles so
ludicrously human-like, that he made you laugh the louder at him somehow or
other for the very pity that he excited in you.
“Get him water and food, lads, some of you,” cried the second mate from
the poop; “treat him as though he were mortal like yourselves. He’ll take all
ye’ll give him and more than he ought to have; and we haven’t saved him to
perish of a bust-up.”
He was carried to the forecastle followed by a crowd of sailors and steerage
people, and I lost sight of him, though I hung about, boy-like, for a bit,
hoping they would bring him forth presently. However, it seemed that after
the seamen had given him a drink of water and a couple of biscuits to eat,
they took off his cap and spectacles and put him into a hammock with a
blanket up to his throat, where he lay like a human being, rolling a
languishing eye round upon those who looked at him, until he fell asleep.
The name Dolphin, Boston, was painted in the stern-sheets of the boat in
which the monkey was, and of course it was supposed, fore and aft, that that
was the name of the wreck we had fallen in with. But I afterwards heard—
when I had been home some months—that the hull we had seen founder was
a large English barque called the Elijah Gorman, whilst the boat from which
we had taken the monkey had belonged to the Yankee craft whose name was
on her. How the boat happened to have been adrift, and how her sole
occupant should have been a monkey, I never could get to hear, though my
father made many inquiries, being much interested in my story of this little
affair. The crew of the Elijah Gorman had been taken off by a steamer bound
to England from a South American port; so full particulars concerning her loss
had been published in the newspapers some time before we arrived in the
Thames.
 CHAPTER XI.
HE SEES A STRANGE LIGHT.

Well, the sailors made a great pet of this immense monkey, who proved a
very inoffensive, gentle, well-tamed creature, abounding in such tricks as a
rough forecastle would educate a monkey in. The Jacks tried him with a pipe
of tobacco, and he was observed to take several whiffs with an air of great
relish, though he put the pipe down long before the bowl was empty. Once,
seeing a man shaving, he imitated the fellow to such perfection as to show
that he had been taught to feign to handle a razor; whereupon the carpenter
shaped a piece of wood to resemble a razor, with which the monkey,
whenever he was asked, would shave himself, pretending to lather his beard,
after, with his own hands, putting a little bit of canvas under his chin. The
sailors also discovered that the creature could play the fiddle—that is to say, if
you put two sticks in his hand and told him to fiddle, he would adjust one of
them to his shoulder, and saw away with the other, making the most horrible
faces the while, as though ravished by the exquisite sounds he was
producing.
Again and again would I stand watching him till the tears flowed from my
eyes. The sailors called him Old Jacob, dimly conceiving that was a good
name for anything with a white beard. But alas! the ocean had marked him
for her own, and poor Old Jacob did not live to see land again. His death was
very tragical, and the manner in which I was startled by it leaves the incident,
to this moment, very clear in my memory.
We had run out of the north-east trades, and were sweeping along over a
high sea before a strong breeze of wind. We had met with a bothersome spell
of baffling weather north of the equator, and the captain was now “cracking
on,” as the term goes, to make up for lost time, carrying a main-royal, when,
at an earlier season, he would have been satisfied with a furled topgallant
sail, and through it the Lady Violet was thundering with foam to the hawse-
pipe, the weather-clew of her mainsail up, and the foretop-mast staysail and
jibs flapping and banging in the air over the forecastle, where they were
becalmed by the forecourse and topsail.
 “WOULD SHAVE HIMSELF.”

There was a sailor at work on the rigging low down on the fore-shrouds. I
had been watching him for some minutes, observing the carelessness of his
pose as he stood poised on a ratline, whilst I thought how utterly hopeless
would be the look-out of a man who should fall overboard into the white
smother roaring alongside; and I turned my back to walk aft, when I heard a
loud cry of “Man overboard!”
I looked; the fellow I had been watching had disappeared! I rushed to the
side and saw poor Old Jacob skimming along astern! He had his spectacles
and his cap on, and he was swimming like a man, striking out with vigour. He
swept to the height of a sea, and his poor white-whiskered face most
tragically comical with its spectacles stood out clear as a cameo for a breath,
ere it vanished in the hollow. It then disappeared for good.
I glanced forward again and perceived the man whom I thought had fallen
into the sea climbing out of the forechains to the part of the rigging where he
had been at work.
 The mate, coming forward, cried, “Who was it that sang out man
overboard?”
“I did, sir,” answered the sailor.
“Step aft!” said the mate.
The fellow dropped on to the deck and approached the officer.
“What do you mean,” cried the mate in a passion, “by raising over a
monkey such an alarm as man overboard?”
“I thought it was a man, sir,” answered the sailor. “I had caught sight of him
on the jibboom, and believed it was Bill Heenan.”
“What!” shouted the mate, “with those spectacles on?”
“I didn’t notice the spectacles, sir,” said the man; “I see a figure out on the
jibboom, and whilst I was looking the jib-sheet chucked him overboard, and
that’s why I sung out.”
The mate stared hard at the man, but seemed to think he was telling the
truth, on which he told him to go forward and get on with his work, biting his
underlip to conceal an expression of laughter, as he walked towards the
wheel.
That evening, in the second dog-watch, there was a fight between the
sailor, whose name was Jim Honeyball, and Bill Heenan. Bill had heard that
Jim had mistaken him for Old Jacob, and had told the mate so; and thereupon
challenged him to stand up like a man. There was a deal of pummeling, much
rolling about, encouraging cheers from the sailors, and “language,” as it is
called, on the part of the combatants; but neither was much hurt.
Such was the end of the poor monkey; yet he seemed to have found a
successor in Bill Heenan, for, to the end of the voyage, the Irishman was
always called Old Jacob.
We were talking in the midshipmen’s berth over the loss of the monkey,
when Poole, the long midshipman, who was in my watch, spun us the
following yarn:—“I made my first voyage,” said he, “in a ship called the
Sweepstakes, to Madras, Calcutta, and Hong Kong. On our way home we
brought up off Singapore for a day on some business of cargo, of which I
forget the nature. I was standing at the gangway, my duty as midshipman
being to keep the ship’s side clear of loafers, when I saw a large boat heading
for us. She was like one of those surf-boats you see at Madras. There were
five fellows rowing her, and one chap steered with a long oar. They were all
darkies, naked to the waist. I was struck by the manner in which one of them,
as the boat approached, looked over the shoulder at our ship. The others kept
their eyes on their oars or gazed over the stern; but this chap stared
continuously behind him as the boat advanced; by which I mean that he
looked ahead, for of course a fellow rows with his back upon the bow of a
boat. They came alongside, and I found that the men had a great number of
monkeys to sell. I looked hard at the fellow whose chin had been upon his
shoulder as he rowed, and was wondering what on earth sort of native he
was, when, on a sudden, I caught sight of his tail! He was a huge ape, of the
size of a man—at all events, of the size of his shipmates. He so much
resembled the others at a little distance that there was nothing wonderful in
my not having distinguished him quickly. He had pulled his oar with fine
precision, keeping time like one of the University Eight, and there had been
nothing odd about him at all, saving his manner of looking over his shoulder.
The others held up monkeys to show us, and, I tell you, I burst into a roar of
laughter when I saw this great ape pick up a bit of a marmozette and flourish
it up at me as if he would have me buy. In a very little while the ship was full
of monkeys. Almost every man amongst us bought one. I chose a pretty little
creature that slept in the clews of my hammock all the way home; but he
grew so tall and quarrelsome that my mother, when I was absent last year,
gave him away to an old gentleman, who shortly afterwards, in the most
mysterious manner, disappeared, together with the monkey.”
“Where wath the mythtery?” asked Kennet.
“Well,” said Poole, “the notion was that the monkey had eaten up the old
gentleman, dressed himself up in his clothes, and gone to London to consult a
solicitor, with a view of contesting the old man’s will, as being next of kin.”
We were gradually now drawing near home. The English Channel was no
longer so far off but that we could think of it as something within reach of us.
All my clothes had shrunk upon me, whence I might know that I had grown
much taller and broader than I was when I left England. My face was dark
with weather, the palms of my hands hard as horn with pulling and hauling. I
had the deep-sea rolling gait that is peculiar to sailors, and, indeed, I had
been transformed during the months I had been away into as thorough a little
“shellback” as was ever made of a boy by old ocean. I was wonderfully hearty
besides—had the appetite of a wolf and the spirits of a young spaniel. I was
equal to doing “my bit” on board ship, whatever might be the job I was set to.
I could put as neat a bunt to the furl of the mizzen-royal as any lad aboard,
knew how to send the yard down, how to pass an earing—though I was too
small, and without sufficient strength, to jockey the yard-arm in reefing—was
well acquainted with all the parts of the rigging, and the various uses of the
complicated gear; could steer, make knots of twenty different kinds—in short,
I had picked up a great deal of sea knowledge of a working sort; but I knew
nothing of navigation beyond the art of bringing the sun down to the horizon
through a sextant, and working out a simple proposition of latitude, for which
I had to thank Mr. Cock; Captain Tempest taught me nothing.
I was very eager to get home; I had never before been so long absent from
my parents. I was pining, too, for comforts which when at home I had made
nothing of, but which I would now think upon as the highest luxuries. How
often when hacking with a black-handled knife at a piece of iron-hard salt
junk and rapping the table with a biscuit to free the mouthful of any stray
weevil which might be lurking in the honeycombed fragment—how often, I
say, has the vision of my father’s table arisen before my eyes: the basin of
soup at which I have known myself to sometimes impatiently turn up my
nose; the fried sole or delicious morsel of salmon; the roast leg of mutton or
sirloin of beef, with its attendant vegetables—things not to be dreamt of at
sea—the jam tarts, the apple pies, the custards, not to mention the dessert!
Oh, how often has the lump of cold salt fat pork or the mouthful of nauseous
soup and bouilli come near to choking me with those thoughts of breakfast,
dinner, and supper at home, which the odious nature of the food on our cabin
table has excited in my hungry imagination!
After we had crossed the parallels of the Horse Latitudes, as they are
called, we met with some strange weather: thick skies with a look of smoke
hanging about the horizon, sometimes the sun showing as a shapeless
oozing, like a rotten orange, a dusky green swell rolling up out of two or three
quarters at once, as it seemed, and shouldering one another into a jumble of
liquid hills which strained the ship severely with rolling, making every tree-
nail, bolt, and strong fastening cry aloud with a voice of its own, whilst the
masts were so wrung that you would have expected them any minute to snap
and fall away overboard.
Some of our passengers whom the mountainous seas of the Horn had not
in the least degree affected were now sea-sick; in fact, I heard of one lady as
lying below dangerously ill with nausea. The men declared it made them feel
squeamish to go aloft. I should have laughed at this in such salt toughened
Jacks as they but for an experience of my own; for being sent to loose the
mizzen topgallant sail, I was so oppressed with nausea on my arrival at the
cross-trees, that it was as much as I could do to get upon the yard and cast
the gaskets adrift. This was owing to the monstrous inequalities of the ship’s
movements, to the swift jerks and staggering recoveries which seemed to
displace one’s very stomach in one; added to which was the close oppressive
temperature, a thickness of atmosphere that corresponded well with the
pease-soup-like appearance of the ocean, and that seemed to be explained by
the sulphur-coloured, smoky sort of sky that ringed the horizon.
It was on this same day, or rather in the night of it, during the first watch,
from eight o’clock to midnight, that a strange thing happened. It was very
dark, so black indeed that though you stood shoulder to shoulder with a man
you could see nothing of him. There was no wind, but a heavy swell was
running on whose murky, invisible coils the ship was violently rolling. There
was not a break of faintness, not the minutest spot of light in the sky, whose
countenance, with a scowl of thunder upon it, seemed to press close to our
wildly sheering mast-heads.
There was something so subduing in the impenetrable gloom, something
that lay with so heavy a weight upon the spirits, that the noisiest amongst us
insensibly softened his voice to a whisper when he had occasion to speak. I
particularly noticed this when some of the watch came aft to clew up the main
topgallant sail and snug the main sail with its gear; there was no singing out
at the ropes; instead of the hoarse peculiar songs sailors are wont to deliver
when they drag, the men pulled silently as ghosts, and not a syllable fell from
them that was audible to us when they were upon the yard rolling the sail up.
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