Overhead, every carline was
sooty, and here and there deep holes were burned in them, a freak of
some drunken sailors on a voyage long previous.
From above, you entered by a plank, with two elects, slanting down
from the scuttle, which was a mere hole in the deck. There being no
slide to draw over in case of emergency, the tarpaulin temporarily
placed there was little protection from the spray heaved over the
bows; so that in anything of a breeze the place was miserably wet.
In a squall, the water fairly poured down in sheets like a cascade,
swashing about, and afterward spirting up between the chests like the
jets of a fountain.
Such were our accommodations aboard of the Julia; but bad as they
were, we had not the undisputed possession of them. Myriads of
cockroaches, and regiments of rats disputed the place with us. A
greater calamity than this can scarcely befall a vessel in the South
Seas.
So warm is the climate that it is almost impossible to get rid of
them. You may seal up every hatchway, and fumigate the hull till the
smoke forces itself out at the seams, and enough will survive to
repeople the ship in an incredibly short period. In some vessels, the
crews of which after a hard fight have given themselves up, as it
were, for lost, the vermin seem to take actual possession, the
sailors being mere tenants by sufferance. With Sperm Whalemen,
hanging about the Line, as many of them do for a couple of years on a
stretch, it is infinitely worse than with other vessels.
As for the Julia, these creatures never had such free and easy times
as they did in her crazy old hull; every chink and cranny swarmed
with them; they did not live among you, but you among them. So true
was this, that the business of eating and drinking was better done in
the dark than in the light of day.
Concerning the cockroaches, there was an extraordinary phenomenon, for
which none of us could ever account.
Every night they had a jubilee. The first symptom was an unusual
clustering and humming among the swarms lining the beams overhead,
and the inside of the sleeping-places. This was succeeded by a
prodigious coming and going on the part of those living out of sight
Presently they all came forth; the larger sort racing over the chests
and planks; winged monsters darting to and fro in the air; and the
small fry buzzing in heaps almost in a state of fusion.
On the first alarm, all who were able darted on deck; while some of
the sick who were too feeble, lay perfectly quiet - the distracted
vermin running over them at pleasure.
