Chapter 2: Crossing the North Pacific - Seven Weeks Aboard a Russian Brig
"He was greatly pleased with the voyage, and experienced a joy unlike any other. Is there anyone who would try the same thing and not feel that way?" - Burton
Off the northwest coast of San Francisco, 700 miles out at sea. July 12th, 1865, Wednesday.
Ten days ago, the night before I set out for the Asian coast, filled with great hope and joyfully imagining the pleasures to come, I wrote the above lines by Burton on the first page of this diary in rounded, neat letters. Feverish with excitement, I did not doubt that the "future joys" which were reflected with such "bright uncertainty" in my "imaginary eyes" would be completely realized. I never imagined that a life "on the waves" might not be the greatest happiness attainable on land. This quote seemed like a very apt choice. I mentally thanked the eccentric author of Anatomy of Melancholy for giving me such a concise and fitting motto. Of course, "he was greatly satisfied with his voyage and experienced extraordinary joy." Since "he" felt that way, everyone else must certainly feel the same. This completely unfounded assumption did not seem at all unreasonable to me.
Moreover, I believed that it possessed the same weight as a rigorously proven argument. Even if someone said things like "You might be disappointed," I would have dismissed them with contempt. My ideas about life at sea were largely derived from the flamboyant descriptions in poetry. The sunset over the ocean, "islands of summer Eden floating on a deep purple sea," and the "moonlit nights illuminating an empty surface" that poets have long used to entice land dwellers into sailing – none of these phenomena I imagined included fog, storms, or seasickness. Even if I acknowledged the possibility of storms, they were merely picturesque and intensely poetic scenes unfolding between wind and water. There was not a single unpleasant aspect associated with them in my more prosaic understanding. Indeed, during our voyage to California, we experienced somewhat rough weather. However, my memory had long since embellished it into something grand and poetic. Even the Pacific storms that I anticipated were seen as enjoyable experiences that I eagerly looked forward to. This fantasy was a truly pleasant one while it lasted. But now – it's over. Ten days of actual life on board transformed the "bright uncertainty of future joys" into the dark, certain reality of future suffering. I can only lament that poetry and truth are incompatible. Burton is a charlatan, Tennyson is a fraud, and I am the victim. Byron and Procter were complicit accomplices in advance. I will never trust poets again. Perhaps they tell some truths to the extent that their poems make sense. However, even those judgments are hopelessly distorted, and imagination flourishes so vividly that it cannot accurately depict life at sea. Lord Byron's "The London Packet" is a magnificent exception, but otherwise, I can think of nothing else in the entire world of poetry.
Our lives, once we left the port, were certainly far from poetic.
For nearly a week, we have endured seasickness and every imaginable discomfort. There was nothing to offer us any solace. Every day, lying in our cramped bunks, feeling nauseous and unable to read even a book, too miserable to speak. We stared at the lamp swinging nervously from its oiled gimbal in the cabin, listening to the sound of water gurgling around the closing boards of the stern windows. Each time the ship rolled, the heavy boom swung back and forth, and the traveler ropes on the topsails creaked rhythmically with a "ga-chan, ga-chan" sound.
We all publicly declared our strong support for the Tapley philosophy of being cheerful no matter what circumstances. However, we miserably failed to align our actual actions with that principle. There was not a single trace of cheerfulness in the four figures lying motionless against the walls. Seasickness had triumphed over philosophy! Our only task was to indulge in endless gloomy thoughts about the future and the past. I strangely wondered if Noah ever experienced seasickness. How did the performance of the Ark compare to our brig? Did it experience unpleasant vertical shaking, like our ship, in large waves?
Item Content Tapley-style philosophy This refers to an expression based on the character Mark Tapley from Dickens' "Martin Chuzzlewit." It signifies a cheerful attitude even in difficult circumstances.
If that were the case, thinking about it almost made me laugh, but I imagine how much suffering those poor animals must have experienced!
I also thought that perhaps Jason and Ulysses were naturally able to withstand the rocking of ships. Or, did they have to go through the same unpleasant process as we do in order to acquire that ability?
In the end, I came to the conclusion that the ability to stand calmly on a swaying ship is undoubtedly like some kind of disease, and that ancient people must have somehow managed without it. Then, while staring intently at the fly's filth on the painted board just 10 inches from my eyes, I remembered all the bright hopes I had when we set sail from San Francisco. And with a sigh and a groan, I turned over towards the wall.
Item Content Legs that allow one to stand calmly on a swaying ship The original text is "sea-legs." This phrase refers to the ability to become accustomed to the rocking of a ship and be able to walk around. The narrator treats this as if it were a special set of legs that must be acquired, making a joke about it.
Has anyone written down their thoughts while experiencing seasickness? There are countless examples of "evening musings," "musings of a single man," and "coastal musings." However, to my knowledge, not even one person has adequately explored the theme of personal reflections experienced during seasickness in literature. This is a strange oversight. I would like to respectfully tell aspiring writers with talent for introspection that there is an infinitely vast and unexplored field here. A single voyage across the North Pacific on a small brigantine ship would provide endless material.
The life we have been living has been so monotonous, and there hasn't been a single noticeable event. The weather is cold and damp, with thick fog, a weak headwind, and large swells. We are confined to our cabins, which measure 7 feet by 9 feet. The smell of bilge water, lamp oil, and tobacco smoke permeates the air, making it narrow and suffocating, which greatly depresses our mood. Nevertheless, today I am happy to see that everyone in the crew is awake. There seems to be a slight interest in dinner. However, even the lively "Faust" march played by the captain on his old accordion cannot bring life back to the miserable faces gathered around the table in the cabin. Mahood pretends to be completely fine, displaying an almost heroic composure while playing checkers with the captain. But sometimes, unexpectedly, he is seen going out onto the deck. And each time he returns, his face is even more pale and wretched. When asked why he goes out to the stern deck regularly, he puts on a transparently cheerful facade and says, "I'm just going to check the compass to see which direction the ship is heading." It is surprising that looking at the compass causes such pain and sadness to be reflected in Mahood's face when he returns. Nevertheless, he faithfully performs the duty he has set for himself, greatly alleviating our anxieties about the safety of the ship. The captain seems somewhat negligent, sometimes not even looking at the compass once a day. But Mahood keeps watch with unwavering vigilance.
Brig ship Olga, 800 miles northwest of San Francisco. July 16, 1865, Sunday.
The night before last, a violent storm from the northwest eased the monotony of life and worsened seasickness. Therefore, we had to furl only one top sail on the main mast and keep the ship pointing into the wind for 20 hours. The storm began late in the afternoon, and by 9 o'clock, the wind was at its strongest, and the sea quickly became rough. The waves struck the trembling wooden structure of the ship like giant mallets. The squall passed through the rigging, making a deep bass sound. The regular "thump, thump, thump" of the pumps and the long, sad whistling sound of the wind passing through the pulleys filled our hearts with gloomy anxiety and completely banished any desire to sleep.
The morning dawned gloomily and reluctantly. The first gray light entered through the watery film covering the small rectangular window on the deck, illuminating a ridiculous scene of chaos. The ship was swaying heavily, struggling against the waves. Mahmood's trunk had somehow come loose and was bouncing back and forth across the floor of the cabin. Bush's large pumice pipe, along with a swollen sponge, were nestled in what used to be the top part of my best hat, serving as temporary lodgings. The lieutenant's box of cigars was clinging tightly to a dirty shirt, rotating repeatedly from corner to corner. Books, documents, cigars, brushes, a soiled collar, socks, an empty wine bottle, slippers, a jacket, and old boots were sliding and rolling across the carpet in all directions. A large box containing telegraph equipment seemed about to come loose from its latches, threatening to destroy everything. The first sign of life came from the lieutenant, who sat up on his elbow in bed and stared at the objects that were sliding and rolling around. He then shook his head thoughtfully and said, "Well, this is strange! Really, it's very strange!" It was as if the moving boots and cigar box were demonstrating some new and inexplicable phenomenon that could not be explained by known laws of physics. Just then, the ship suddenly lurched violently, further reinforcing his feeling. This reaffirmed my conviction that matter in general, especially in the Pacific Ocean, is inherently evil. The lieutenant returned his head to the pillow.
In such a precarious situation, it required considerable determination to "get up." Nevertheless, Bush groaned twice or three times, yawned, and then tried to get out of bed. Taking advantage of the moment when the ship tilted towards the windward side, he quickly climbed down from his bunk, grabbing one boot in each hand. He began jumping around the cabin with surprising agility, dodging and leaping over sliding trunks and rolling bottles. It seemed that he was desperately trying to put both feet into a single boot at the same time. In the midst of this difficult task, he was suddenly hit by a violent jolt, which sent him crashing headfirst into an innocent washbasin. He stepped on a bottle that rolled in his own direction and finally ended up as a complete wreck in the corner of the room. The lieutenant shook with laughter, barely managing to say, "That's why I said... absolutely... it's amazing how much it sways!" Bush retorted angrily, rubbing his knee, "Try getting up and doing it yourself!" However, the lieutenant was quite satisfied just watching Bush struggle, finding amusement in his misfortune. Finally, Bush succeeded in changing clothes. After hesitating for a moment, I decided to follow suit. I stumbled over my trunk twice, knelt on top of my own heel, rested my hips on my elbow, and performed several other equally impossible feats before finally putting on my vest inside out and wearing the boots on the wrong feet. Stumbling, I climbed up the ladder to the deck. The wind was still fierce, and only one topsail from the fully furled mainmast was unfurled. Huge masses of blue water rose up, hidden by low-hanging rain clouds, forming a white foamy crest that towered ten feet above the stern and surged towards us. Waves crashed against the forecastle and over the galley, creating blinding sprays of water that filled our lungs. The ship rolled violently, the bell on the stern rang, and water poured over the leeward rail. This was not quite what I had imagined a storm to be like. However, it was undeniable that it possessed many characteristics typical of a real storm. As usual, the wind howled through the rigging, the sea reached a level sufficient for its defined purpose, and the ship swayed back and forth in a way that would satisfy even the most discerning observer. Nevertheless, the sense of grandeur I had expected was almost completely overshadowed by discomfort. A person who has just been thrown out into the open air from a strange movement of the ship or soaked to the skin with splashes has no time for contemplation of sublimity. Through such experiences, which are shared equally and without exception by everyone, romantic notions about the beauty and grandeur of the sea are often shattered and drowned. Rough weather quickly dispels poetry and sentimentality. The poet's "wet sail" and "flowing sea" take on a meaning quite opposite to that of poetry when one finds a wet sheet in his bed instead of a "wet sail," or sees the "flowing sea" filling the floor of his cabin. Our experience suggests that, more than the grandeur of a storm at sea, it is its discomfort and unpleasantness that are most prominent.
Item Content Wet sail This is a wordplay using the original phrase "wet sheet." It combines poetic expressions reminiscent of ship sails with the image of wet sheets on a bed.
Brig ship Olga, at sea. July 27, 1865.
When I lived in San Francisco, I often wondered where that cold fog came from that crossed over Lone Mountain and flowed through the Golden Gate Bridge as evening approached. I discovered its source. For the past two weeks, we have been constantly sailing within a dense, moist gray cloud of fog. Sometimes it is so thick that it almost hides the topgallant sails, and it penetrates even into our small stern cabin, soaking our clothes with fine droplets of water. Perhaps it rises from the warm waters of the large Gulf Stream in the Pacific Ocean, and its vapor condenses into fog due to the cold northwest wind coming from Siberia. There is nothing more unpleasant during a voyage than this kind of fog.
Item Content The large Gulf Stream of the Pacific Ocean The original text is "great Pacific Gulf Stream." This translation preserves the author's way of referring to the ocean current and their speculation about fog formation. It does not explain that it is the same ocean current as the Gulf Stream in the Caribbean Sea, as modern translators might do.
Our lives have finally settled into a quiet, monotonous routine of eating, smoking, observing the barometer, and sleeping for 12 hours a day. Two weeks ago, the welcome storm provided a pleasant stimulation and valuable conversation topics. However, everyone now agrees that it was an "oddity." And we are desperately waiting for something else to happen. Cold, rainy days with thick fog continue, only occasionally broken by headwinds or a flurry of snow. Of course, we have plenty of time on our hands. Around 7:30 in the morning, we are awakened by the second mate, a funny and laid-back Dutchman. He always shouts "Wake up!" and encourages us to imagine seeing whales. These whales appear every morning before breakfast, but they mysteriously disappear before we go out onto the deck, just like in Moby Dick. However, after a while, even the whales become boring, so he resorts to equally strange and whimsical sea serpents. He describes their magnificent appearance in his broken English, vainly hoping that we will come out into the cold fog to see them. We never do. Bush opens his eyes, yawns, and looks sleepily at the breakfast table in the captain's cabin ahead. Since I can't see it from my bunk, I watch Bush. Soon, the shuffling footsteps of a bent-over steward are heard from above on the deck. And then, with a clatter, six boiled potatoes roll down the stairs into our room – an announcement of breakfast. As the steward brings in the food, Bush and I both become increasingly focused on the table and each other, respectively. We judge whether it's worth getting up based on his expression. If he groans and turns over to face the wall, we know it's just hash, so I groan too and follow suit. But if he smiles and gets up, I do the same. Fresh lamb chops or rice with curry and chicken are a welcome sight. After breakfast, the lieutenant smokes his pipe and looks thoughtfully at the barometer. The captain takes out an old accordion and squeezes out the Russian national anthem. Meanwhile, Bush and I go out on deck to breathe in the clean, fresh fog and tease the second mate about his sea serpents. We spend our days reading books, playing checkers, practicing swordsmanship, and climbing ropes when the weather permits. We have already spent 20 days like this, and we must endure another 20 before we can see land again.
Item Content Hash Refers to a dish made by finely chopping meat and vegetables and cooking them.
Near the Aleutian Islands, August 6, 1865.
"Now, I would gladly exchange a thousand leagues of sea for one acre of barren land. Heather, heather, gorse, or even broom – anything will do."
Anything but this endlessly monotonous expanse of water! No matter what Kamchatka may be like, we would welcome it with the same joy that Columbus felt when he first saw the flowering shores of San Salvador. Even a sandbar and two blades of grass would satisfy us. If there is truly a sandbar, we will not even ask for any grass. It has been 34 days since we set out to sea, and we have not encountered a single ship, nor have we seen land even briefly.
Recently, my main source of enjoyment has been discussing controversial topics in history and science. The power of rhetoric and argumentation that develops through these discussions is remarkable. It's become truly interesting. However, the only drawback is that we never reach satisfying conclusions because there are no definitive authorities to rely on. We have been debating the purpose of whale blowholes for 16 days now. I firmly believe that even if this voyage were to continue indefinitely, like the ship of the Wandering Dutchman, we will never arrive at an answer that satisfies everyone involved in the debate. The captain possesses a complete set of 26 volumes of an old Dutch "World History" book in large format. He appeals to this book as the ultimate authority on any and all matters under heaven, whether it's about love, science, war, art, politics, or religion. Whenever he is cornered in a debate, he retreats behind the imposing volume of his history book and continues to bombard us with long, intimidating Dutch words. He does this until we are willing to surrender unconditionally. If even the slightest doubt arises as to whether there is such a close relationship between whale blowholes and "World History," he relentlessly accuses us of being cynical skeptics. He claims that we don't even believe what is printed – especially in a Dutch history book! However, the captain distributes the dinner pies. Therefore, I have realized that it is wise to suppress my own thoughts about whether this Dutch historian is writing the truth. And together with the captain, I condemn that harmful heretic Bush for trying to be wiser than what is written. As a result, Bush only receives one slice of pie, while I receive two. Of course, this is very gratifying to me and also contributes to the spread of healthy historical knowledge!
At dinner, I began to notice that my respect for Bush's book on Dutch history was gradually increasing.
[Illustration: Snow shoveling tools]