American Merchant Ships and Sailors

CHAPTER X

THE SAILOR'S SAFE­GUARDS--IM­PROVE­MENTS IN MA­RINE AR­CHI­TEC­TURE--THE MAP­PING OF THE SEAS--THE LIGHT­HOUSE SYS­TEM--BUILD­ING A LIGHT­HOUSE--MINOT'S LEDGE AND SPEC­TA­CLE REEF--LIFE IN A LIGHT­HOUSE--LIGHT­SHIPS AND OTH­ER BEA­CONS--THE REV­ENUE MA­RINE SER­VICE--ITS FUNC­TION AS A SAFE­GUARD TO SAILORS--ITS WORK IN THE NORTH PA­CIF­IC--THE LIFE-​SAV­ING SER­VICE--ITS RECORD FOR ONE YEAR--ITS ORI­GIN AND DE­VEL­OP­MENT--THE PI­LOTS OF NEW YORK--THEIR HARD­SHIPS AND SLEN­DER EARN­INGS--JACK ASHORE--THE SAILORS' SNUG HAR­BOR.

In­to the long strug­gle be­tween men and the ocean the last half cen­tu­ry has wit­nessed the en­trance of Sys­tem, Sci­ence and Co­op­er­ation on the side of man. They are three el­ements of strength which or­di­nar­ily as­sure vic­to­ry to the com­bat­ant who en­lists them, but com­plete vic­to­ry over the ocean is a thing nev­er to be ful­ly won. Build his ships as he may, man them as he will, map out the ocean high­ways nev­er so pre­cise­ly, and mark as he may with flar­ing bea­cons each dan­ger point, yet in some mo­ment of wrath the winds and the waves will rise un­con­quer­able and sweep all the bar­ri­ers, and all the ed­ifices erect­ed by man out of their path. To-​day all civ­ilized gov­ern­ments join in de­vices and ex­pe­di­ents for the pro­tec­tion and safe­guard of the mariner. Steel ves­sels are made un­sink­able with wa­ter-​tight com­part­ments, and of­fi­cial­ly marked with a Plim­soll load line be­neath which they must not be sub­merged. Charts of ev­ery ocean are pre­pared un­der gov­ern­men­tal su­per­vi­sion by trained sci­en­tists. Myr­iads of lights twin­kle from head­land to reef all round the world. Pi­lots are taught to find the way in­to the nar­row­est har­bors, though they can scarce see be­yond the ship's jib­boom, and elec­tric-​light­ed buoys mark the chan­nel, while foghorns and sirens shriek their warn­ings through fly­ing scud and mist. Rev­enue cut­ters ply up and down the coast spe­cial­ly charged to go swift­ly to the res­cue of ves­sels in dis­tress, and life-​sav­ing sta­tions dot the beach­es, fit­ted with ev­ery de­vice for cheat­ing the break­ers of their prey. The skill of ma­rine ar­chi­tects, and all the re­sources of Gov­ern­ment are taxed to the ut­most to de­feat the wrath of Ocean, yet with­al his toll of life and prop­er­ty is a heavy one.

Now and again men dis­cuss the na­ture of courage, and try to fix up­on the bravest deed of his­to­ry. Doubt­less _the_ bravest deed has no place in his­to­ry, for it must have been the act of some un­known man com­mit­ted with none to ob­serve and re­count the deed. Gal­lantry un­der the stim­ulus of on­look­ers ready to cheer on the ad­ven­tur­er and to make his­to­ry out of his ex­ploit, is not the supremest type. Sure­ly first among the brave, though un­known men, we must rank that nav­iga­tor, who, ig­no­rant of the com­pass and even of the art of steer­ing by the stars, pressed his shal­lop out be­yond sight of land, in­to the track­less sea af­ter the fall of night. Such a one braved, be­side the or­di­nary dan­gers of the deep, the un­couth and myth­ical ter­rors with which world-​wide ig­no­rance and su­per­sti­tion had in­vest­ed it. The sea was thought to be the do­main of fierce and ravenous mon­sters, and of gods quite as dan­ger­ous to men. Prodi­gious whirlpools, rapids, and cataracts, quite with­out any phys­ical rea­son for ex­is­tence, were thought to roar and roll just be­yond the hori­zon. It is on­ly with­in a few decades that the ge­ogra­phies have aban­doned the pleas­ing fic­tion of the mael­strom, and a few cen­turies ago the sud­den down­pour of the wa­ters at the “end of the world” was a thor­ough­ly ac­cept­ed tenet of phys­ical ge­og­ra­phy. Yet men, ad­ven­tur­ous and in­quis­itive, kept ev­er push­ing for­ward in­to the un­known, un­til now there re­main no strange seas and few un­chart­ed and un­light­ed. The mariner of these days has lit­er­al­ly plain sail­ing in com­par­ison with his for­bears of one hun­dred and fifty years ago.

Eas­ily first among the sailor's safe­guards is the light­house sys­tem. That of the Unit­ed States is un­der the di­rect con­trol of the Light House Board, which in turn is sub­ject to the au­thor­ity of the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury. It is the prac­tice of ev­ery na­tion to light its own coast; though for­eign ves­sels en­joy equal ad­van­tages there­by with the ships of the home coun­try. But the Unit­ed States goes far­ther. Not on­ly does it fur­nish the bea­cons to guide for­eign ships to its ports; but, un­like Great Britain and some oth­er na­tions, it levies no charge up­on the ben­efi­cia­ries. In or­der that Amer­ican ves­sels might not be ham­pered by the light dues im­posed by for­eign na­tions, the Unit­ed States years ago bought free­dom from sev­er­al states for a lump sum; but Great Britain still ex­acts dues, a pen­ny a ton, from ev­ery ves­sel pass­ing a British light and en­ter­ing a British port.

The his­to­ry of the light­hous­es of the world is a long one, be­gin­ning with the sto­ry of the fa­mous Pharos, at Alexan­dria, 400 feet high, whose light, ac­cord­ing to Ptole­my, could be seen for 40 miles. Pharos long since dis­ap­peared, over­thrown, it is thought, by an earth­quake. France pos­sess­es to-​day the old­est and the most im­pres­sive light­house--the Cor­du­an tow­er, at the mouth of the Gironde, be­gun in the fif­teenth cen­tu­ry. In the Unit­ed States, the light­house sys­tem dates on­ly from 1715, when the first ed­ifice of this char­ac­ter was be­gun at the en­trance to Boston har­bor. It was on­ly an iron bas­ket perched on a bea­con, in which were burned “fi­er bales of pitch and ocum,” as the colo­nial records ex­press it Some­times tal­low can­dles il­lu­mi­nat­ed this pi­oneer light of the es­tab­lish­ment of which an­nounce­ment was made in the Boston _News_, of Septem­ber 17, 1716, in this wise: “Boston. By Vertue of an Act of As­sem­bly made in the First Year of His Majesty's Reign, For Build­ing & Main­tain­ing a Light House up­on the Great Brew­ster (called Bea­con Is­land) at the En­trance of the Har­bor of Boston, in or­der to pre­vent the loss of the Lives & Es­tates of His Majesty's Sub­jects; the said Light House has been built; And on Fry­day last the 14th Cur­rant the Light was kin­dled; which will be very use­ful for all Ves­sels go­ing out and com­ing in to the Har­bor of Boston for which all Mas­ters shall pay to the Re­ceiv­er of Im­post, One Pe­ny per Ton In­wards, and an­oth­er Pe­ny Out­wards, ex­cept Coast­ers, who are to pay Two Shillings each at their clear­ance Out. And all Fish­ing Ves­sels, Wood Sloops, &c. Five Shillings each by the Year.”

When the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment was formed, with the adop­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion in 1789, there were just eight lights on the coast, name­ly, Portsmouth Light, N.H.; the Boston Light, men­tioned above; Guer­ney Light, near Ply­mouth, Mass.; Brand Point Light, on Nan­tuck­et; Beaver Tail Light, R.I.; Sandy Hook Light; Cape Hen­lopen Light, Del.; and Charleston Main Light, on Mor­ris Is­land, S.C. The Pa­cif­ic coast, of course, was dark. So, too, was the Gulf of Mex­ico, though al­ready a con­sid­er­able ship­ping was find­ing its way thith­er. Of the mul­ti­tudes of lights that gleam and sparkle in Long Is­land Sound or on the banks of the nav­iga­ble rivers that open path­ways in­to the in­te­ri­or, not one was then es­tab­lished. But as soon as a na­tion­al gov­ern­ment took the du­ty in hand, the task of light­ing the mariner's path­way was pressed with vig­or. By 1820 the eight lights had in­creased to fifty-​five. To-​day there are 1306 light­hous­es and light­ed bea­cons, and forty-​five light­ships. As for buoys, foghorns, day bea­cons, etc., they are al­most un­count­ed. The board which di­rects this ser­vice was or­ga­nized in 1852. It con­sists of two of­fi­cers of high rank in the navy, two en­gi­neer of­fi­cers of the army, and two civil­ians of high sci­en­tif­ic at­tain­ments. One of­fi­cer of the army and one of the navy are de­tailed as sec­re­taries. The Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury is _ex of­fi­cio_ pres­ident of the board. Each of the six­teen dis­tricts in­to which the coun­try is di­vid­ed is in­spect­ed by an army and a navy of­fi­cer, and a small navy of light­house ten­ders per­form the du­ty of car­ry­ing sup­plies and re­lief to the light­hous­es up and down our three coasts.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: MINOT'S LEDGE LIGHT]

The plan­ning of a light­house to stand on a sub­merged reef, in a stormy sea, is an en­gi­neer­ing prob­lem which re­quires ex­traor­di­nary qual­ities of tech­ni­cal skill and sci­en­tif­ic dar­ing for its so­lu­tion, while to raise the ed­ifice, to seize the in­fre­quent mo­ments of low calm wa­ter for thrust­ing in the steel an­chors and lay­ing the heavy gran­ite sub­struc­ture on which shall rise the slen­der stone col­umn that shall de­fy the as­saults of wind and wave, de­mands cool­ness, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and reck­less courage. Many lights have been built at such points on our coast, but the pon­der­ous tow­er of Minot's Ledge, at the en­trance to Boston Har­bor, may well be tak­en as a type.

Minot's Ledge is three miles off the mouth of Boston Bay, a jagged reef of gran­ite, whol­ly sub­merged at high tide, and show­ing a scant hun­dred yards of rock above the wa­ter at the tide's low­est stage. It lies di­rect­ly in the path­way of ships bound in­to Boston, and over it, on even calm days, the break­ers crash in an in­ces­sant cho­rus. Two light­hous­es have reared their heads here to warn away the mariner. The first was com­plet­ed in 1848, an oc­tag­onal tow­er, set on wrought-​iron piles ex­tend­ing five feet in­to the rock. The skele­ton struc­ture was ex­pect­ed to of­fer lit­tle sur­face to the shock of the waves, and the wrought iron of which it was built sure­ly seemed tough enough to re­sist any com­bined force of wind and wa­ter; but in an April gale in 1851 all was washed away, and two brave keep­ers, who kept the lamp burn­ing un­til the tow­er fell, went with it. Late at night, the watch­ers on the shore at Co­has­set, three miles away, heard the tolling of the light­house bell, and through the fly­ing scud caught oc­ca­sion­al glimpses of the light; but morn­ing showed noth­ing left of the struc­ture ex­cept twist­ed stumps of iron piles, bent and gnarled, as though the waves which tore them to pieces had been hard­er than they.

Then, for a time, a light­ship tossed and tugged at its ca­bles to warn ship­ping away from Minot's Ledge. Old Bosto­ni­ans may still re­mem­ber the gal­lant New­found­land dog that lived on the ship, and, when ex­cur­sion boats passed, would plunge in­to the sea and swim about, bark­ing, un­til the ex­cur­sion­ists would throw him tight­ly rolled news­pa­pers, which he would gath­er in his jaws, and de­liv­er to the light­ship keep­ers to be dried for the day's read­ing. But, while the light­ship served for a tem­po­rary bea­con, a new tow­er was need­ed that might send the warn­ing pen­cil of light far out to sea. Minot's was too treach­er­ous a reef and too near a pop­ulous ocean high­way to be left with­out the best guardian that sci­ence could de­vise. Ac­cord­ing­ly, the present stone tow­er was planned and its con­struc­tion be­gun in 1855. The prob­lem be­fore the de­sign­er was no easy one. The fa­mous Ed­dy­stone and Sker­ryvore light­hous­es, whose tri­umphs over the sea are re­lat­ed in En­glish verse and sto­ry, were eas­ier far to build, for there the foun­da­tion rock is above wa­ter at ev­ery low tide, while at Minot's Ledge the bedrock on which the base of the tow­er rests is be­low the lev­el of low tide most of the year. The work­ing sea­son could on­ly be from April 1 to Septem­ber 15. Nom­inal­ly, that is al­most six months; but in the first sea­son the sea per­mit­ted ex­act­ly 130 hours' work; in the sec­ond sea­son 157, and in the third sea­son, 130 hours and 21 min­utes. The rest of the time the roar­ing surf held Minot's Ledge for its own. Nor was this all. Af­ter two years' work, the piles and de­bris of the old light­house had been cleared away, and a new iron frame­work, in­tend­ed to be an­chored in sol­id ma­son­ry, had been set, when up came a sav­age gale from the north­east; and when it cleared all was swept away. Then the spir­it of the builder wa­vered, and he be­gan to doubt that any struc­ture built by men could with­stand the pow­ers of na­ture at Minot's Ledge. But, in time, the truth ap­peared. A bark, the _New Ea­gle_, heavy laden with cot­ton, had been swept right over the reef, and ground­ed at Co­has­set. Ex­am­ina­tion showed that she had car­ried away in her hull the frame­work of the new tow­er. Three years' heart-​try­ing work were nec­es­sary be­fore the first cut stone could be laid up­on the rock. In the mean­time, on a great ta­ble at Co­has­set, a pre­cise mod­el of the new tow­er was built, each stone cut to the ex­act shape, on a scale of one inch to the foot, and laid in mor­tar. This mod­el com­plet­ed, the soil on the hill­side near by was scraped away. The gran­ite rock thus laid bare was smoothed and lev­eled off in­to a great flat cir­cle, and there, stone by stone, the tow­er was built ex­act­ly as in time it should rise in the midst of the seething caul­dron of foam three miles out at sea. While the ma­sons ashore worked at the tow­er, the men at the reef watched their chance, and the mo­ment a square yard of ledge was out of wa­ter at the fall of the tide, they would leap from their boats, and be­gin cut­ting it. A cir­cle thir­ty feet in di­am­eter had to be lev­eled, and iron rods sunk in­to it as an­chor­ages for the ma­son­ry. To do that took just three years of time, though ac­tu­al­ly less than twen­ty-​five days of work­ing time. From the time the first cut stone was laid un­til the com­ple­tion of the tow­er, was three years and three months, though in all there were but 1102 work­ing hours.

One keep­er and three as­sis­tants guard the light over Minot's Ledge. Three miles away across the sea, now blue and smil­ing, now black and wrath­ful, they can see the lit­tle group of dwellings on the Co­has­set shore which the Gov­ern­ment pro­vides for them, and which shel­ter their fam­ilies. The term of du­ty on the rocks is two weeks; at the end of each fort­night two hap­py men go ashore and two grumpy ones come off; that is, if the weath­er per­mits a land­ing, for keep­ers have been storm­bound for as long as sev­en weeks. The rou­tine of du­ty is much the same in all of the light­hous­es. By night there must be un­ceas­ing watch kept of the great re­volv­ing light; and, if there be oth­er lights with­in reach of the keep­er's glass, a watch must be kept on them as well, and any eclipse, how­ev­er brief, must be not­ed in the light­house log. By day the lens must be rubbed la­bo­ri­ous­ly with a dry cloth un­til it shines like the facets of a di­amond. Not at all like the lens we are fa­mil­iar with in tele­scopes and cam­eras is this sci­en­tif­ical­ly con­trived de­vice. It is built up of planes and prisms of the finest flint glass, cut and as­sem­bled ac­cord­ing to ab­truse math­emat­ical cal­cu­la­tions so as to gath­er the rays of light from the great sperm-​oil lamp in­to par­al­lel rays, a sol­id beam, which, in the case of Minot's Ledge light, pierces the night to a dis­tance of fif­teen miles. On fog­gy days, too, the keep­ers must toll the fog-​bell, or, if the light be on the main­land, op­er­ate the steam siren which sends its hoarse bel­low boom­ing through the gray mist to the alert ears of the sailor miles away.

The reg­ula­tions do not pre­scribe that the keep­er of a light shall hold him­self ready to go to the as­sis­tance of cast­aways or of wrecked ves­sels; but, as a mat­ter of fact, not a few of the most hero­ic res­cues in the his­to­ry of the coast have been per­formed by light-​keep­ers. In the num­ber of lives saved a wom­an--Ida Lewis, the keep­er of the Lime­rock Light in New­port Har­bor--leads all the rest. But there is hard­ly any light so placed that a boat can be launched that has not a sto­ry to tell of brave men putting out in frail boats in the teeth of a roar­ing gale to bring in some ex­haust­ed cast­aways, to car­ry a line to some strand­ed ship, or to guide some im­per­iled plea­sure-​seek­ers to safe­ty.

While the build­ing of the Minot's Ledge light had in it more of the pic­turesque el­ement than at­tach­es to the record of con­struc­tion of the oth­er bea­cons along the coast of the Unit­ed States, there are but few erect­ed on ex­posed points about which the builders could not tell some cu­ri­ous sto­ries of dif­fi­cult prob­lems sur­mount­ed, or dire per­ils met and con­quered. The Great Lakes, on which there are more than 600 light sta­tions, of­fer prob­lems of their own to the en­gi­neer. Be­cause of the shal­low­ness of their wa­ters, a gale speed­ily kicks up a sea which old Ocean it­self can hard­ly out­do, and they have an added dan­ger in that dur­ing the win­ter they are frozen to such a depth that nav­iga­tion is en­tire­ly aban­doned. The lights, too, are aban­doned dur­ing this sea­son, the Light­house Board fix­ing a pe­ri­od in the ear­ly win­ter for ex­tin­guish­ing them and an­oth­er in spring for reil­lu­mi­nat­ing them. But be­tween these dates the struc­tures stand ex­posed to the tremen­dous pres­sure of such shift­ing floes of ice as are not found on the ocean out­side of the Arc­tic re­gions. The lake light­house, the builders of which had most to ap­pre­hend from this sort of at­tack, is that at Spec­ta­cle Reef, in Lake Huron, near the Straits of Mack­inaw. It is ten miles from land, stand­ing on a lime­stone reef, and in the part of the lakes where the ice per­sists longest and moves out with the most re­sist­less crush. To pro­tect this light­house, it was nec­es­sary to build a ram­part all about it, against which the ice floes in the spring, as the cur­rent moves them down in­to Lake Huron, are piled up in tu­mul­tuous dis­or­der. In or­der to get a foun­da­tion for the light­house, a huge cof­fer-​dam was built, which was launched like a ship, towed out to the reef and there ground­ed. When it was pumped out the men worked in­side with the wa­ter sur­round­ing them twelve to four­teen feet above their heads. Twen­ty months of work, or three years in time, were oc­cu­pied in erect­ing this light. Once in the spring, when the keep­ers re­turned af­ter the closed sea­son to pre­pare for the sum­mer's nav­iga­tion, they found the ice piled thir­ty feet against the tow­er, and sev­en­ty feet above the door­way, so that they were com­pelled, in or­der to en­ter the light­house, to cut through a huge ice­berg of which it was the core.

The Spec­ta­cle Reef light, like that at Minot's Ledge, is a sim­ple tow­er of mas­sive ma­son­ry, and this is the ap­proved de­sign for light­hous­es ex­posed to very heavy strain from waves or ice. A sim­pler struc­ture, used in tran­quil bays and in the less tur­bu­lent wa­ters of the Gulf, is the “screw-​pile” light­house, built up­on a skele­ton frame­work of iron pil­ing, the piles hav­ing been so de­signed that they bore in­to the bed of the ocean like augers on be­ing turned. The “bug-​light” in Boston Har­bor, and the light at the en­trance to Hamp­ton Roads are fa­mil­iar in­stances of this sort of con­struc­tion. For all their ap­par­ent light­ness of con­struc­tion, they are stout and sea­wor­thy, and in their erec­tion the builders have of­ten had to over­come ob­sta­cles and per­ils of­fered by the sea scarce­ly less sav­age than those over­come at Minot's Ledge. In­deed, a light­house stand­ing in its strength, per­haps ris­ing out of a placid sum­mer sea, or tow­er­ing from a crest of rock which it seems in­cred­ible the sea should have ev­er swept, gives lit­tle hint to the ca­su­al ob­serv­er of the strug­gle that brave and skil­ful men had to go through with be­fore it could be erect­ed. The light at Tillam­ook Rock, near the mouth of the Columbia Riv­er, of­fers a strik­ing il­lus­tra­tion of this. It is no slen­der shaft ris­ing from a tu­mul­tuous sea, but a spa­cious dwelling from which springs a square tow­er sup­port­ing the light, the whole perched on the crest of a small rock ris­ing pre­cip­itous­ly from the sea to the height of some forty feet. Yet, stur­dy and se­cure as the light­house now looks, its erec­tion was one of the hard­est tasks that the board ev­er un­der­took. So steep are the sides of Tillam­ook Rock that to land up­on it, even in calm weath­er, is per­ilous, and the fore­man of the first par­ty that went to pre­pare the ground for the light was drowned in the at­tempt. On­ly af­ter re­peat­ed ef­forts were nine men suc­cess­ful­ly land­ed with tools and pro­vi­sions. Though on­ly one mile from shore they made pro­vi­sion for a pro­longed stay, built a heavy tim­ber hut, bolt­ing it to the rock, and be­gan blast­ing away the crest of the is­land to pre­pare foun­da­tions for the new light­house. High as they were above the wa­ter, the sea swept over the rock in a tor­rent when the storms raged. In one tem­pest the hut was swept away and the men were bare­ly able to cling to the rock un­til the waves mod­er­at­ed. That same night an En­glish bark went to pieces un­der the rock, so near that the work­men above, cling­ing for dear life to their pre­car­ious perch, could hear the shouts of her of­fi­cers giv­ing their com­mands. A bon­fire was kin­dled, in hope of warn­ing the doomed sailors of their per­il, but it was too late, for the ship could not be ex­tri­cat­ed from her po­si­tion, and be­came a to­tal wreck, with the loss of the lives of twen­ty of her com­pa­ny. To-​day a clear beam of light shines out to sea, eigh­teen miles from the top of Tillam­ook, and on­ly the crim­inal­ly care­less cap­tain can come near enough to be in any dan­ger what­so­ev­er. Such is one bit of progress made in safe­guard­ing the sea.

More wear­ing even than life in a light­house is that aboard the light­ships, of which the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment now has forty-​five in com­mis­sion. The light­ship is re­gard­ed by the Gov­ern­ment as mere­ly a makeshift, though some of them have been in use for more than a quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry. They are used to mark shoals and reefs where it has thus far been im­pos­si­ble to con­struct a light­house, or ob­struc­tions to nav­iga­tion which may be but tem­po­rary. While cost­ing less than light­hous­es, they are not in fa­vor with the Light­house Board, be­cause the very con­di­tions which make a light most nec­es­sary, are like­ly to cause these ves­sels to break from their moor­ings and drift away, leav­ing their post un­guard­ed. Their keep­ers suf­fer all the dis­com­forts of a sailor's life and most of its dan­gers, while en­joy­ing none of its nov­el­ty and free­dom. The ships are usu­al­ly an­chored in shoal wa­ter, where the sea is sure to run high, and the toss­ing and rolling of the craft makes life up­on it in­sup­port­able. They are al­ways far­ther out to sea than the light­hous­es, and the op­por­tu­ni­ties for the keep­ers to get ashore to their fam­ilies are cor­re­spond­ing­ly few­er. In heavy storms their decks are awash, and their cab­ins drip­ping; the lights, which must be watched, in­stead of be­ing at the top of a firm, dry tow­er, are perched on reel­ing masts over which the spray flies thick with ev­ery wave, and on which is no shel­ter for the watch­er. Dur­ing long weeks in the stormy sea­son there is no pos­si­ble way of es­cap­ing from the ship, or of bring­ing sup­plies or let­ters aboard, and the keep­ers are as thor­ough­ly shut off from their kind as though on a desert is­land, al­though all day they may see the great ocean lin­ers steam­ing by, and through their glass­es may be able to pick out the roofs of their cot­tages against the green fields far across the waves.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: WHISTLING BUOY]

Less pic­turesque than light­hous­es and light­ships, and with far less of hu­man in­ter­est about them, are the buoys of var­ious sorts of which the Light­house Board has more than one thou­sand in place, and un­der con­stant su­per­vi­sion. Yet, among the sailor's safe­guards, they rank near the head. They point out for him the tor­tu­ous path­way in­to dif­fer­ent har­bors; with clang­ing bell or dis­mal whis­tle, they warn him away from men­ac­ing shal­lows and sunken wrecks. The re­sources of sci­ence and in­ven­tive ge­nius have been drawn up­on to de­vise ways for mak­ing them more ef­fec­tive. At night they shine with elec­tric lights fed from a sub­ma­rine ca­ble, or with steady gas drawn from a reser­voir that needs re­fill­ing on­ly three or four times a year. If sound is to be trust­ed rather than light, re­course is had to a bell-​buoy which tolls mourn­ful­ly as the waves toss it about above the dan­ger spot, or to a whistling buoy which toots un­ceas­ing­ly a lo­co­mo­tive whis­tle, with air com­pressed by the ac­tion of the waves. The whistling buoy is the gi­ant of his fam­ily, for the ne­ces­si­ty for pro­vid­ing a heavy charge of com­pressed air com­pels the at­tach­ment to the buoy of a tube thir­ty-​two feet or more deep, which reach­es straight down in­to the wa­ter. The sea ris­ing and falling in this, as the buoy toss­es on the waves, acts as a sort of pis­ton, driv­ing out the air through the whis­tle, as the wa­ter ris­es, ad­mit­ting more air as it falls.

Serv­ing a pur­pose akin to the light­hous­es, are the post and range-​lights on the great rivers of the West. Very hum­ble de­vices, these, in many in­stances, but of prodi­gious im­por­tance to traf­fic on the in­te­ri­or wa­ter­ways. A lens lantern, hang­ing from the arm of a post eight or ten feet high, and kept light­ed by some neigh­bor­ing farmer at a cost of $160 a year, lacks the ro­man­tic qual­ity of a light­house tow­er­ing above a hun­gry sea, but it is be­cause there are near­ly two thou­sand such lights on our shal­low and crooked rivers that we have an in­te­ri­or ship­ping do­ing a car­ry­ing trade of mil­lions a year, and giv­ing em­ploy­ment to thou­sands of men.

Chief among the sailors' safe­guards is the ser­vice per­formed by the Unit­ed States rev­enue cut­ters. The rev­enue cut­ter ser­vice, like the light­house sys­tem, was es­tab­lished very short­ly af­ter the Unit­ed States be­came a na­tion by the adop­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion. Its pri­ma­ry pur­pose, of course, is to aid in the en­force­ment of the rev­enue laws and to sup­press smug­gling. The ser­vice, there­fore, is a branch of the Trea­sury De­part­ment, and is di­rect­ly un­der the charge of the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury. In the course of years, how­ev­er, the rev­enue cut­ter ser­vice has ex­tend­ed its func­tions. In time of war, the cut­ters have act­ed as ad­juncts to the navy, and some of the very best armed ser­vice on the high seas has been per­formed by them. Pira­cy in the Gulf of Mex­ico was large­ly sup­pressed by of­fi­cers of rev­enue cut­ters, and pitched bat­tles have more than once been fought be­tween small rev­enue cut­ters and the pi­rates of the Louisiana and the Cen­tral Amer­ican coasts.

But the fea­ture of the ser­vice which is of par­tic­ular per­ti­nence to our sto­ry of Amer­ican ships and sailors, is the part that it has tak­en in aid­ing ves­sels that were wrecked, or in dan­ger of be­ing wrecked. Many years ago, the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury di­rect­ed the of­fi­cers of the rev­enue ma­rine to give all pos­si­ble aid to ves­sels in dis­tress wher­ev­er en­coun­tered. Per­haps the or­der was hard­ly nec­es­sary. It is the chiefest glo­ry of the sailor, whether in the of­fi­cial ser­vice, or in the mer­chant ma­rine, that he has nev­er per­mit­ted a stranger ship to go un­aid­ed to de­struc­tion, if by any hero­ic en­deav­or he could save ei­ther the ship or her crew. The an­nals of the sea are full of sto­ries of cap­tains who risked their own ves­sels, their own lives, and the lives of their peo­ple, in or­der to take cast­aways from wrecked or founder­ing ves­sels in a high sea. But the records of the rev­enue ma­rine ser­vice are pe­cu­liar­ly fruit­ful of such in­ci­dents, be­cause it was de­ter­mined some thir­ty years ago that cut­ters should be kept cruis­ing con­stant­ly through­out the tur­bu­lent win­ter sea­sons for the one sole pur­pose of ren­der­ing aid to ves­sels in dis­tress. In these late years, when har­bors are thor­ough­ly po­liced, and when steam nav­iga­tion has come to dom­inate the ocean, there is lit­tle use for the rev­enue cut­ter in its pri­ma­ry qual­ity of a foe to smug­glers. Peo­ple who smug­gle come over in the cab­ins of the finest ocean lin­ers, and the old-​time con­tra­band im­porter, of the sort we read of in “Cast Up By The Sea,” who brings a lit­tle lug­ger in­to some ob­scure port un­der cov­er of a black night, has en­tire­ly dis­ap­peared.

A du­ty which at times has come very near to true war ser­vice, has been the en­force­ment of the _modus viven­di_ agreed up­on by Great Britain and the Unit­ed States, as a tem­po­rary so­lu­tion of the prob­lem of the threat­ened ex­tinc­tion of the fur-​bear­ing seals. This sto­ry of the seal “fish­ery,” and the cru­el and whole­sale slaugh­ter which for years at­tend­ed it, is one of the most re­volt­ing chap­ters in the long his­to­ry of civ­ilized man's war­fare on dumb an­imals. It is to be not­ed that it is on­ly the civ­ilized man who pur­sues an­imals to the point of ex­tinc­tion. The word “sav­age” has come to mean mur­der­ous, blood­thirsty, but the sav­ages of North Amer­ica hunt­ed up and down the forests and plains for un­count­ed cen­turies, liv­ing whol­ly on an­imal food, find­ing at once their liveli­hood and their sport in the chase, dress­ing in furs and skins, and deck­ing them­selves with feath­ers, but nev­er mak­ing such in­roads up­on wild an­imal life as to af­fect the herds and flocks. Civ­ilized man came with his ri­fles and shot-​guns, his ea­ger­ness to kill for the sake of killing, his cu­pid­ity, which led him to ig­nore breed­ing-​sea­sons, and seek the im­me­di­ate prof­it which might ac­crue from a big kill, even though there­by that par­tic­ular form of an­imal life should be ren­dered ex­tinct. In less than forty years af­ter his com­ing to the great west­ern plains, the huge herds of buf­fa­lo had dis­ap­peared. The prairie chick­en and the grouse be­came scarce, and fled to the more re­mote re­gions. Of less­er an­imal life, the woods and fields in our well-​set­tled states are prac­ti­cal­ly stripped bare. A few years ago, it be­came ap­par­ent that for the seals of the North Pa­cif­ic ocean and Bering Sea, ear­ly ex­tinc­tion was in store. These gen­tle and beau­ti­ful an­imals are eas­ily tak­en by hunters who land on the ice floes, where they bask by the thou­sands, and slaugh­ter them right and left with heavy clubs. The ea­ger de­mand of fash­ion­able wom­en the world over for gar­ments made of their soft, warm fur, stim­ulat­ed pot-​hunters to prodi­gious ef­forts of mur­der. No at­ten­tion was giv­en to the breed­ing sea­son, moth­ers with young cubs were slain as ruth­less­ly as any. Schooners and small steam­ers manned by as sav­age and law­less men as have sailed the seas since the days of the slave-​trade, put out from scores of ports, each cap­tain ea­ger on­ly to make the biggest catch of the year, and heed­less whether af­ter him there should be any more seals left for the fu­ture. This sort of hunt­ing soon be­gan to tell on the num­bers of the hap­less an­imals, and the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment sent out a par­ty of sci­en­tif­ic men in the rev­enue cut­ter “Lin­coln,” to in­ves­ti­gate con­di­tions, par­tic­ular­ly in the Pribylof Is­lands, which had long been the fa­vorite seal­ing ground. As a re­sult of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the Unit­ed States and Great Britain en­tered in­to a treaty pro­hibit­ing the tak­ing of seals with­in six­ty miles of these is­lands, thus es­tab­lish­ing for the an­imals a safe breed­ing-​place. The en­force­ment of the pro­vi­sions of this treaty has fall­en up­on the ves­sels of the rev­enue ser­vice, which are kept con­stant­ly pa­trolling the wa­ters about the is­lands, board­ing ves­sels, count­ing the skins, and in­ves­ti­gat­ing the ves­sel's move­ments. It has been a du­ty re­quir­ing much tact and firm­ness, for many of the seal­ers are British, and the gravest in­ter­na­tion­al dis­sen­sion might have arisen from any un­war­rantable or ar­bi­trary in­ter­fer­ence with their acts. The ex­tent of the du­ty de­volv­ing up­on the cut­ters is in­di­cat­ed by some fig­ures of their work in a sin­gle year. The ter­ri­to­ry they pa­trolled cov­ered six­ty de­grees of lon­gi­tude and twen­ty-​five of lat­itude, and the cruis­ing dis­tance of the fleet was 77,461 miles. Nine­ty-​four ves­sels were board­ed and ex­am­ined, over 31,000 skins count­ed, and four ves­sels were seized for vi­ola­tion of the treaty. In the course of this work, the cut­ters en­gaged in it have per­formed many use­ful and pic­turesque ser­vices. On one oc­ca­sion it fell to one of them to go to the res­cue of a fleet of Amer­ican whalers who, nipped by an un­usu­al­ly ear­ly win­ter in the po­lar re­gions, were caught in a great ice floe, and in grave dan­ger of starv­ing to death. The men from the cut­ters hauled food across the broad ex­panse of ice, and aid­ed the im­pris­oned sailors to win their free­dom. The rev­enue of­fi­cers, fur­ther­more, have been to the peo­ple of Alas­ka the re­spect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of law and or­der, and in many cas­es the ar­biters and en­forcers of jus­tice. Along the coast of Alas­ka live tribes of sim­ple and ig­no­rant In­di­ans, who were for years the prey of con­science­less whites, many of whom turned from the busi­ness of seal­ing, when the two Gov­ern­ments un­der­took its reg­ula­tion, to take up the eas­ier trade of fleec­ing the In­di­ans. The na­tives were all prac­tised trap­pers and hunters, and as the lim­ita­tions up­on seal­ing did not ap­ply to them, they had pelts to sell that were well worth the buy­ing. Ig­no­rant of the val­ues of goods, ea­ger for guns and glit­ter­ing knives, and al­ways eas­ily stu­pe­fied with whisky, the In­di­ans were easy prey to the sea traders. For a gun of doubt­ful util­ity, or a jug of fiery whisky, the In­di­an would not in­fre­quent­ly barter away the pro­ceeds of a whole year of hunt­ing and fish­ing, and be left to face the win­ter with his fam­ily pen­ni­less. It has been the du­ty of the of­fi­cers of the rev­enue cut­ters serv­ing on the North Pa­cif­ic sta­tion to sup­press this il­lic­it trade, and to pro­tect the In­di­ans, as far as pos­si­ble, from fraud and ex­tor­tion. The task has been no easy one, but it has been dis­charged so far as hu­man ca­pac­ity would per­mit, so that the Alas­ka In­di­ans have come to look up­on the men wear­ing the rev­enue uni­form as friends and coun­selors, while to a great ex­tent the se­mi-​pi­rat­ical sailors who in­fest­ed the coast have been driv­en in­to oth­er lines of dis­hon­est en­deav­or. Per­haps not since the days of Lafitte and the pi­rates of Barataria has any part of the coast of the Unit­ed States been cursed with so crim­inal and aban­doned a lot of sea ma­raud­ers as have for a decade fre­quent­ed the wa­ters off Alas­ka, the Pribylof Is­lands, and the seal­ing re­gions. The out­lawry of a great part of the seal trade, and the con­se­quent heavy prof­its of those who are able to make one or two suc­cess­ful cruis­es un­caught by of­fi­cers of the law, have at­tract­ed thith­er the reck­less and des­per­ate char­ac­ters of ev­ery sea, and with these the rev­enue cut­ters have to cope. Yet so di­ver­si­fied are the du­ties of this ser­vice that the rev­enue of­fi­cers may turn from chas­ing an il­lic­it seal­er to go to the res­cue of whalers nipped in the ice, or may make a cruise along the coast to de­liv­er sup­plies from the De­part­ment of Ed­uca­tion to mis­sion schools along Bering Sea and the Arc­tic Ocean, or to car­ry suc­cor to a par­ty of min­ers known to be in dis­tress. The rapid de­vel­op­ment of Alas­ka since the dis­cov­er­ies of gold has great­ly added to the du­ties of this fleet.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: REV­ENUE CUT­TER]

The rev­enue ser­vice stands mid­way be­tween the mer­chant ser­vice and the navy. It may al­most be said that the of­fi­cers en­gaged in it suf­fer the dis­ad­van­tages of both forms of sea ser­vice with­out en­joy­ing the ad­van­tages of ei­ther. Un­like navy of­fi­cers, they do not have a “re­tired list” to look for­ward to, against the time when they shall be old, de­crepit, and un­fit for du­ty. Congress has, in­deed, made pro­vi­sion for plac­ing cer­tain spec­ified of­fi­cers on a roll called “per­ma­nent wait­ing or­ders,” but this has been but a tem­po­rary makeshift, and no of­fi­cer can feel as­sured that this pro­vi­sion will be made for him. Pro­mo­tion, too, while quite as slow as in the navy, is lim­it­ed. The high­est of­fi­cer in the ser­vice is a cap­tain, his pay $2500 a year--but a sor­ry re­ward for a life­time of ar­du­ous la­bor at sea, dur­ing which the of­fi­cer may have been in fre­quent per­il of his life, know­ing all the time that for death in the dis­charge of du­ty, the Gov­ern­ment will pay no pen­sion to his heirs un­less the dis­as­ter oc­curred while he was “co­op­er­at­ing with the navy.” In one sin­gle year the records of the rev­enue ser­vice show more than one hun­dred lives saved by its ac­tiv­ity, with­out tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­ation those on ves­sels warned away from dan­ger­ous points by cut­ters. Yet nei­ther in pay, in pro­vi­sion for their old age, or for their fam­ilies in case of death met in the dis­charge of du­ty, are the rev­enue of­fi­cers re­ward­ed by the Gov­ern­ment as are navy of­fi­cers, while pub­lic knowl­edge and ad­mi­ra­tion for the ser­vice is vast­ly less than for the navy. It is a cu­ri­ous phe­nomenon, and yet one as old at least as the records of man, that the pro­fes­sion­al killer--that is to say, the of­fi­cer of the army or navy--has al­ways been held in high­er es­teem so­cial­ly, and more lav­ish­ly re­ward­ed, than the man whose call­ing it is to save life.

To a very con­sid­er­able de­gree the life-​sav­ing ser­vice of the Unit­ed States is an out­growth of the rev­enue ma­rine. To so­journ­ers by the wa­ter­side, on the shores of ei­ther ocean or lake, the trim lit­tle life-​sav­ing sta­tions are a fa­mil­iar sight, and sum­mer plea­sure-​seek­ers are en­ter­tained with the ex­hi­bi­tion drills of the crews in the surf. It is the hol­iday side of this ser­vice as a rule that the peo­ple chiefly know, but its records show how far from be­ing all hol­iday plea­sure it is. In 1901 the men of the life-​sav­ing corps were called to give aid to 377 wrecked ships. Of prop­er­ty in jeop­ardy val­ued at $7,354,000, they saved $6,405,035 worth. Of 93,792 hu­man be­ings in per­il of death in the wa­ters, all save 979 were saved. These are the fig­ures re­lat­ing on­ly to con­sid­er­able ship­wrecks, but as life-​sav­ing sta­tions are es­tab­lished at near­ly ev­ery har­bor's mouth, and are plen­ti­ful about the plea­sure cruis­ing grounds of yachts and small sail­boats, hun­dreds of lives are an­nu­al­ly saved by the crews in ways that at­tract lit­tle at­ten­tion. In 1901 the records show 117 such res­cues.

The idea of the life-​sav­ing ser­vice orig­inat­ed with a dis­tin­guished cit­izen of New Jer­sey, a State whose sandy coast has been the scene of hun­dreds of fa­tal ship­wrecks. In the sum­mer of 1839 William A. Newell, a young cit­izen of that State, des­tined lat­er to be its Gov­er­nor, stood on the beach near Barnegat in a rag­ing tem­pest, and watched the Aus­tri­an brig “Count Peras­to” drift on­to the shoals. Three hun­dred yards from shore she struck, and lay help­less with the break­ers foam­ing over her. The crew clung to the rig­ging for a time, but at last, fear­ing that she was about to go to pieces, flung them­selves in­to the rag­ing sea, and strove to swim ashore. All were drowned, and when the storm went down, the dead bod­ies of thir­teen sailors lay strewn along the beach, while the ship it­self was strand­ed high and dry, but prac­ti­cal­ly un­hurt, far above the wa­ter line.

“The bow of the brig be­ing el­evat­ed and close to the shore af­ter the storm had ceased,” wrote Mr. Newell, in de­scrib­ing the event long years af­ter, “the idea was forced quick­ly up­on my mind that those un­for­tu­nate sailors might have been saved if a line could have been thrown to them across the fa­tal chasm. It was on­ly a short dis­tance to the bar, and they could have been hauled ashore in their small boat through, or in, the surf.... I in­sti­tut­ed ex­per­iments by throw­ing light lines with bows and ar­rows, by rock­ets, and by a short­ened blun­der­buss with ball and line. My idea cul­mi­nat­ed in com­plete suc­cess, how­ev­er, by the use of a mor­tar, or a car­ronade, and a ball and line. Then I found, to my great de­light, that it was an easy mat­ter to car­ry out my de­sired pur­pose.”

Short­ly af­ter in­ter­est­ing him­self in this mat­ter Mr. Newell was elect­ed to Congress, and there worked un­tir­ing­ly to per­suade the na­tion­al Gov­ern­ment to lend its aid to the life-​sav­ing sys­tem of which he had con­ceived the fun­da­men­tal idea. In 1848 he se­cured the first ap­pro­pri­ation for a ser­vice to cov­er on­ly the coast of New Jer­sey. Since then it has been con­tin­ual­ly ex­tend­ed un­til in 1901 the life-​sav­ing es­tab­lish­ment em­braced 270 sta­tions on the At­lantic, Pa­cif­ic, and lake coasts. The ap­pro­pri­ation for the year was $1,640,000. For many years the ser­vice was a branch of the rev­enue ma­rine, and when in 1878 it was made a sep­arate bu­reau, the for­mer chief of the rev­enue ma­rine bu­reau was put at its head. The drill-​mas­ters for the crews are cho­sen from the rev­enue ser­vice, as al­so are the in­spec­tors.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: LAUNCH­ING A LIFEBOAT THROUGH THE SURF]

The meth­ods of work in the life-​sav­ing ser­vice have long been fa­mil­iar, part­ly be­cause at each of the re­cur­ring ex­po­si­tions of late years, the ser­vice has been rep­re­sent­ed by a mod­el sta­tion and a crew which went dai­ly through all the op­er­ations of shoot­ing a line over a strand­ed ship, bring­ing a sailor ashore in the breech­es-​buoy or the life-​car, and drilling in the non-​sink­able, self-​right­ing surf-​boat. Along the At­lantic coast the sta­tions are so thick­ly dis­tribut­ed that prac­ti­cal­ly the whole coast from Sandy Hook to Hat­teras is con­tin­ual­ly un­der pa­trol by watch­ful sen­tries. Night and day, if the weath­er be stormy or threat­en­ing, pa­trol­men set out from each sta­tion, walk­ing down the beach and keep­ing a sharp eye out for any ves­sel in the off­ing. Mid­way be­tween the sta­tions they meet, then each re­turns to his own post. In the bit­ter nights of win­ter, with an icy north­east­er blow­ing and the fly­ing spray, half-​frozen, from the surf, driv­en by the gale un­til it cuts like a knife, the pa­trol­man's task is no easy one. In­deed, there is per­haps no form of hu­man en­deav­or about which there is more con­stant dis­com­fort and pos­itive dan­ger than the life-​sav­ing ser­vice. It is the du­ty of the men to de­fy dan­ger, to risk their lives when­ev­er oc­ca­sion de­mands, and the long records of the ser­vice show un­count­ed cas­es of mag­nif­icent hero­ism, and none of fail­ure in the face of du­ty.

A form of sea­far­ing which still re­tains many of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the time when Yan­kee sailors braved all seas and all weath­er in trig lit­tle wood­en schooners, is the pi­lot ser­vice at Amer­ican ports, and no­tably at New York. Even here, how­ev­er, the in­roads of steam are be­gin­ning to rob the life of its old-​time pic­turesque­ness, though as they tend to make it more cer­tain that the pi­lot shall sur­vive the per­ils of his call­ing, they are nat­ural­ly wel­comed. Un­der the law ev­ery for­eign ves­sel en­ter­ing an Amer­ican port must take a pi­lot. If the cap­tain thinks him­self able to thread the chan­nel him­self, he may do so; but nev­er­the­less he has to pay the reg­ular pi­lot fee, and if the ves­sel is lost, he alone is re­spon­si­ble, and his own­ers will have trou­ble with the in­sur­ance com­pa­nies. So the law is ac­qui­esced in, per­haps not very cheer­ful­ly, and there have grown up at each Amer­ican port men who from boy­hood have stud­ied the chan­nels un­til they can thread them with the biggest steamship in the dens­est fog and nev­er touch bot­tom. New York as the chief port has the largest body of pi­lots, and in the old days, be­fore the tri­umph of steam, had a fleet of some thir­ty boats, trim lit­tle schooners of about eighty tons, rigged like yachts, and of­ten out­sail­ing the best of them. In those days the ri­val­ry be­tween the pi­lots for ships was keen and the pi­lot-​boats would not in­fre­quent­ly cruise as far east as Sable Is­land to lay in wait for their game. That was in the era of sail­ing ships and in­fre­quent steam­ers, and it was the pe­ri­od of the great­est mor­tal­ity among the pi­lots; for staunch as their lit­tle boats were, and con­sum­mate as was their sea­man­ship, they were not fit­ted for such long cruis­es. The ma­rine un­der­writ­ers in those days used to reck­on on a loss of at least one pi­lot-​boat an­nu­al­ly. Since 1838 forty-​six have been lost, thir­teen go­ing down with all on board. In late years, how­ev­er, changes in the meth­ods of pi­lotage have great­ly de­creased the risks run by the boats. When the great ocean lin­ers be­gan try­ing to make “record trips” be­tween their Eu­ro­pean ports and Sandy Hook, their cap­tains be­came un­will­ing to slow up five hun­dred miles from New York to take a pi­lot. They want to drive their ves­sels for ev­ery bit of speed that is in them, at least un­til re­port­ed from Fire Is­land. The slow­er boats, the ocean tramps, too, look with dis­fa­vor on ship­ping a pi­lot far out at sea, for it meant on­ly an idler aboard, to be fed un­til the mouth of the har­bor was reached. So the ri­val­ry be­tween the pi­lots gave way to co­op­er­ation. A steam­er was built to serve as a sta­tion-​boat, which keeps its po­si­tion just out­side New York har­bor, and sup­plies pi­lots for the eight boats of the fleet that cruise over fixed beats a few score miles away. But this change in the sys­tem has not so great­ly re­duced the in­di­vid­ual pi­lot's chance of giv­ing up his life in trib­ute to Nep­tune, for the great per­il of his call­ing--that in­volved in get­ting from his pi­lot-​boat to the deck of the steam­er he is to take in--re­mains un­abat­ed.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: THE EX­CIT­ING MO­MENT IN THE PI­LOT'S TRADE]

Pro­fes­sion­al pride no less than hope of prof­it makes the pi­lot take ev­ery imag­in­able risk to get to his ship. He draws no reg­ular salary, but his fee is grad­uat­ed by the draft of the ves­sel he pi­lots. When a ship is sight­ed com­ing in­to port, the pi­lot-​boat makes for her. If she has a blue flag in her rig­ging, half way up, by day, she has a pi­lot aboard. At night, the pi­lot-​boats show a blue flare, by way of query. If the ship makes no an­swer, she is known to be sup­plied, and pass­es with­out slow­ing up; but if in re­sponse to sig­nal she in­di­cates that she is in need of a pi­lot, the ex­cit­ing mo­ment in the pi­lot's trade is at hand. Per­haps the night is pitchy dark, with a gale blow­ing and a heavy sea on: but the pi­lot slips on his shore clothes and his der­by hat--it is con­sid­ered un­pro­fes­sion­al to wear any­thing more nau­ti­cal--and makes ready to board. The lit­tle schooner runs up to lee­ward of where the great lin­er, with her long rows of gleam­ing port­holes, lies rolling heav­ily in the sea. Sharp up in­to the wind comes the midget, and al­most be­fore she has lost steer­age way a yawl is slid over the side, the pi­lot and two oars­men tum­ble in­to it, and make for the side of the steamship. To climb a rope-​lad­der up the per­pen­dic­ular face of a precipice thir­ty feet high on an icy night is no easy task at best; but if your start is from a boat that is be­ing tossed up and down on a rolling sea, if your precipice has a way of vary­ing from a strict per­pen­dic­ular to an over­hang­ing cliff, and then in an in­stant thrust­ing out its base so that the climber's knees and knuck­les come with a sharp bang against it, while the next mo­ment he is dropped to his shoul­ders in icy sea-​wa­ter, the dif­fi­cul­ties of the task are nat­ural­ly in­creased. The in­stant the pi­lot puts his feet on the lad­der he must run up it for dear life if he would es­cape a duck­ing, and lucky he is if the up­ward roll does not hurl him against the side of the ship with force enough to break his hold and drop him over­board. Some­times in the dead of win­ter the ship is iced from the wa­ter-​line to the rail, and the task of board­ing is about equiv­alent to climb­ing a rolling ice­berg. But what­ev­er the dif­fi­cul­ty, the pi­lot meets and con­quers it--or else dies try­ing. It is all in the day's work for them. Ac­ci­dents come in the form of boats run down by care­less steam­ers, pi­lots crushed against the side or thrown in­to the sea by the roll of the ves­sel, the founder­ing of the pi­lot-​boat or its loss on a lee shore; but still the ranks of the pi­lots are kept full by the ad­mis­sion to a long ap­pren­tice­ship of boys who are ready to en­ter this ad­ven­tur­ous and ar­du­ous call­ing. Few oc­cu­pa­tions re­quire a more as­sid­uous prepa­ra­tion, and the mem­bers of but few call­ings are able to guard them­selves so well against the dan­ger of over-​com­pe­ti­tion. Nev­er­the­less the earn­ings of the pi­lots are not great. They come un­der the op­er­ation of the rule al­ready not­ed, that the more dan­ger­ous a call­ing is, the less are its re­wards. Three thou­sand dol­lars a year is a high in­come for a pi­lot sail­ing out of New York har­bor, and even this is de­creas­ing as the ships grow big­ger and few­er. Nor can he be at all cer­tain as to what his in­come will be at any time, for the el­ement of luck en­ters in­to it al­most as much as in­to gam­bling. For weeks he may catch on­ly small ships, or, the worst ill-​luck that can be­fall a pi­lot, he may get caught on an out­bound ship and be car­ried away for a six weeks' voy­age, dur­ing which time he can earn noth­ing. But the pi­lot, like the typ­ical sailor of what­ev­er grade, is in­ured to hard luck and ac­cus­tomed to dan­ger.

Such are some of the safe­guards which mod­ern sci­ence and or­ga­ni­za­tion have pro­vid­ed for the sailor in pur­suit of his al­ways haz­ardous call­ing. Many oth­ers of course could be enu­mer­at­ed. The ser­vice of the weath­er bu­reau, by which warn­ing of im­pend­ing storms is giv­en to mariners, is al­ready of the high­est util­ity. The new in­ven­tion of wire­less teleg­ra­phy, by which a ship at sea may call for aid from ashore, per­haps a thou­sand miles away, has great pos­si­bil­ities. Mod­ern ma­rine ar­chi­tec­ture is mak­ing steamships al­most un­sink­able, more quick­ly re­spon­sive to their helms, more sea­wor­thy in ev­ery way. Per­haps with the per­fec­tion of the sub­ma­rine boat, ships, in­stead of be­ing tossed on the bois­ter­ous sur­face of the waves, may go straight to their des­ti­na­tion through the placid depths of ocean. But what­ev­er the fu­ture may bring, the his­to­ry of the Amer­ican sailor will al­ways bear ev­idence that he did not wait for the per­fec­tion of safe­ty de­vices to wrest from the ocean all that there was of val­ue in the con­quest; that no per­il daunt­ed him, nor was any sea, how­ev­er dis­tant, a stranger to his ad­ven­tur­ous sail.

Much has been said and writ­ten of the im­prov­idence of the sailor, of his profli­ga­cy when in port, his child­like help­less­ness when in the hands of the land­sharks who haunt the wa­ter­side streets, his blind re­liance up­on luck to get him out of dif­fi­cul­ties, and his ut­ter in­dif­fer­ence to all pre­cau­tion­ary pro­vi­sions for the prover­bial rainy day. Per­haps the sailor has been get­ting a shade the worse of it in the lit­er­ature on this sub­ject, for he, him­self, is hard­ly lit­er­ary in his habits, and has not been able to tell his own sto­ry. The world has heard much of the jol­ly Jack Tars who spend in a few days' rev­el in wa­ter­side dives the whole pro­ceeds of a year's cruise; but it has heard less of the shrewd schemes which are de­vised for fleec­ing poor Jack, and ap­plied by ev­ery one with whom he comes in con­tact, from the pros­per­ous own­er who pays him off in or­ders that can on­ly be con­ve­nient­ly cashed at some out­fit­ter's, who charges usu­ri­ous rates for the ac­com­mo­da­tion, down to the tawdry drab who col­lects ad­vance mon­ey on ac­count of half a dozen sailor hus­bands. The sea­man land­ing with mon­ey in his pock­et in any large town is like the hap­less fish in some of our much-​an­gled streams. It is not enough to avoid the tempt­ing bait dis­played on ev­ery side. So thick are the hooks and snares that mere­ly to swim along, in­tent on his own busi­ness, is like­ly to re­sult soon­er or lat­er in his be­ing im­paled on some cru­el barb. Not enough has been said, ei­ther, of the hun­dreds of Amer­ican lads who shipped be­fore the mast, made their voy­ages around Cape Horn and through all the Sev­en Seas, re­sist­ed the temp­ta­tions of the sailors' quar­ters in a score of ports, kept them­selves clean moral­ly and phys­ical­ly, and came, in time, to the com­mand and even the own­er­ship of ves­sels. Among sailors, as in oth­er call­ings, there are the idle and the in­dus­tri­ous ap­pren­tices, and the les­son taught by Hog­arth's fa­mous pic­tures is as ap­pli­ca­ble to them that go down to the sea in ships as to the work­ers at the loom. It is doubt­ful, too, whether the sailor is ei­ther more gullible or more dis­so­lute when in port than the cow­boy when in town for a day's frol­ic, or the min­er just in camp with a pock­et full of dust, af­ter months of soli­tude on his claim. Men are much of a sort, what­ev­er their call­ing. Af­ter weeks of monotonous and wear­ing toil, they are apt to go to ex­tremes when the time for re­lax­ation comes. Men whose phys­ical na­tures on­ly are ful­ly de­vel­oped seek phys­ical plea­sures, and the sailor's life is not one to cul­ti­vate a taste for the qui­eter forms of recre­ation.

But the ro­mance that has al­ways sur­round­ed the sailor's char­ac­ter, his re­al im­prov­idence, and his sup­pos­ed­ly unique sim­plic­ity have, in some slight de­gree, re­dound­ed to his ad­van­tage. They have led peo­ple in all lands to form or­ga­ni­za­tions for his aid, pro­tec­tion, and guid­ance, hos­pi­tals to care for him in ill­ness, asy­lums and homes to pro­vide for the days of his old age and de­crepi­tude. Best known of all these char­ita­ble in­sti­tu­tions for the good of Jack Tar is the Sailor's Snug Har­bor, whose dig­ni­fied build­ings on Stat­en Is­land look out across the finest har­bor in the world to where New York's tall build­ings tow­er high above the main­top-​gal­lant mast of the biggest ship ev­er built. This in­sti­tu­tion, found­ed just one hun­dred years ago by the will of Cap­tain Robert R. Ran­dall, him­self an Amer­ican sailor of the old type, who amassed his for­tune trad­ing to all the coun­tries on the globe, now has an in­come of $400,000 an­nu­al­ly, and cares for 900 old sailors, each of whom must have sailed for at least five years un­der the Amer­ican flag.

* * * * *

A new chap­ter in the sto­ry of the Amer­ican sailor is open­ing as this book is closed. The pe­ri­od of the deca­dence of the Amer­ican mer­chant ma­rine is clear­ly end­ed, and ev­ery­thing gives as­sur­ance that the first quar­ter of this new cen­tu­ry will do as much to­ward re-​es­tab­lish­ing the Unit­ed States flag on the high seas as the first quar­ter of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry did to­ward first putting it there. As these words are be­ing writ­ten, ev­ery ship­yard in the Unit­ed States is busy, and some have or­ders that will tax their ca­pac­ity for three years to come. New yards are be­ing planned and small es­tab­lish­ments, de­signed on­ly to build plea­sure craft, are reach­ing out af­ter greater things. The two biggest steamships ev­er planned are build­ing near New Lon­don, where four years ago was no sign of ship­yard or fac­to­ry. The Great Lakes and the Pa­cif­ic coast ring with the sound of the steel ship-​builder's ham­mer.

But will the Amer­ican sailor share in the new life of the Amer­ican ship? The ques­tion is no easy one to an­swer. Mod­ern ship­ping meth­ods of­fer lit­tle op­por­tu­ni­ty for am­bi­tious lads to make their way from the fore­cas­tle to the own­er's desk. The meth­ods by which the Cleave­lands, Crown­in­shields, Lows, and their fel­lows in the ear­ly ship­ping trade won their suc­cess, have no place in mod­ern econ­omy. As I write, the ac­tu­al head of the great­est ship­ping con­cern the world has ev­er known, is a Wall Street banker, whose knowl­edge of the sea was gained from the deck of a pri­vate steam yacht or the cab­in _de luxe_ of a fast lin­er, and who has ap­plied to the ship­ping busi­ness on­ly the same meth­ods of stock ma­nip­ulat­ing that made him the great­est rail­road di­rec­tor in the world be­fore he thought to con­trol the ocean as well. With steam, the sailor has be­come a mere deck­hand; the cap­tain a man of busi­ness and a dis­ci­plinar­ian, who may not know the names of the ropes on a re­al ship; the own­er a cor­po­ra­tion; the voy­ages mere trips to and fro be­tween des­ig­nat­ed ports made with the reg­ular­ity and the monotony of a sleep­ing-​car's trips be­tween Chica­go and San Fran­cis­co. Un­til these con­di­tions shall ma­te­ri­al­ly change, there is lit­tle like­li­hood that the sea will again at­tract rest­less, en­er­get­ic, and am­bi­tious young Amer­icans. Men of the type that we have de­scribed in ear­li­er chap­ters of this book do not adopt a life call­ing that will for­ev­er keep them in sub­or­di­nate po­si­tions, sub­ject to the whims and dom­ina­tion of an em­ploy­ing cor­po­ra­tion. A ge­nial satirist, writ­ing of the sort of men who be­came First Lords of the Ad­mi­ral­ty in Eng­land, said:

“Mind your own busi­ness and nev­er go to sea, And you'll come to be the ruler of the Queen's navee.”

Per­haps a like sit­ua­tion con­fronts the Amer­ican mer­chant ma­rine in its new de­vel­op­ment.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTEN­BERG EBOOK AMER­ICAN MER­CHANT SHIPS AND SAILORS***

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