Tent Life in Siberia | Page 5

Sea, was still much better than any which could be selected on the Asiatic coast of the North Pacific; and a party was soon organised to sail in the Olga for Kamchatka and the mouth of the Amur. This party consisted of Major S. Abaza, a Russian gentleman who had been appointed superintendent of the work, and leader of the forces in Siberia; James A. Mahood, a civil engineer of reputation in California; R. J. Bush, who had just returned from three years' active service in the Carolinas, and myself,--not a very formidable force in point of numbers, nor a very remarkable one in point of experience, but strong in hope, self-reliance, and enthusiasm.
On the 28th of June, we were notified that the brig Olga had nearly all her cargo aboard, and would have "immediate despatch."
This marine metaphor, as we afterward learned, meant only that she would sail some time in the course of the summer; but we, in our trustful inexperience, supposed that the brig must be all ready to cast off her moorings, and the announcement threw us into all the excitement and confusion of hasty preparation for a start. Dress-coats, linen shirts, and fine boots were recklessly thrown or given away; blankets, heavy shoes, and overshirts of flannel were purchased in large quantities; rifles, revolvers, and bowie-knives of formidable dimensions gave our room the appearance of a disorganised arsenal; pots of arsenic, jars of alcohol, butterfly-nets, snake-bags, pill-boxes, and a dozen other implements and appliances of science about which we knew nothing, were given to us by our enthusiastic naturalists and packed away in big boxes; Wrangell's (vrang'el's) Travels, Gray's Botany, and a few scientific works were added to our small library; and before night we were able to report ourselves ready--armed and equipped for any adventure, from the capture of a new species of bug, to the conquest of Kamchatka!
As it was against all precedent to go to sea without looking at the ship, Bush and I appointed ourselves an examining committee for the party, and walked down to the wharf where she lay. The captain, a bluff Americanised German, met us at the gangway and guided us through the little brig from stem to stern. Our limited marine experience would not have qualified us to pass an ex cathedra judgment upon the seaworthiness of a mud-scow; but Bush, with characteristic impudence and versatility of talent, discoursed learnedly to the skipper upon the beauty of his vessel's "lines" (whatever those were), her spread of canvas and build generally,--discussed the comparative merits of single and double topsails, and new patent yard-slings, and reef-tackle, and altogether displayed such an amount of nautical learning that it completely crushed me and staggered even the captain.
I strongly suspected that Bush had acquired most of his knowledge of sea terms from a cursory perusal of Bowditch's Navigator, which I had seen lying on the office table, and I privately resolved to procure a compact edition of Marryat's sea tales as soon as I should go ashore, and overwhelm him next time with such accumulated stores of nautical erudition that he would hide his diminished head. I had a dim recollection of reading something in Cooper's novels about a ship's deadheads and cat's eyes, or cat-heads and deadeyes, I could not remember which, and, determined not to be ignored as an inexperienced landlubber, I gazed in a vague way into the rigging, and made a few very general observations upon the nature of deadeyes and spanker-booms. The captain, however, promptly annihilated me by demanding categorically whether I had ever seen the spanker-boom jammed with the foretopsailyard, with the wind abeam. I replied meekly that I believed such a catastrophe had never occurred under my immediate observation, and as he turned to Bush with a smile of commiseration for my ignorance I ground my teeth and went below to inspect the pantry. Here I felt more at home. The long rows of canned provisions, beef stock, concentrated milk, pie fruits, and a small keg, bearing the quaint inscription, "Zante cur.," soon soothed my perturbed spirit and convinced me beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Olga was stanch and seaworthy, and built in the latest and most improved style of marine architecture.
I therefore went up to tell Bush that I had made a careful and critical examination of the vessel below, and that she would undoubtedly do. I omitted to state the nature of the observations upon which this conclusion was founded, but he asked no troublesome questions, and we returned to the office with a favourable report of the ship's build, capacity, and outfit.
On Saturday, July 1st, the Olga took in the last of her cargo, and was hauled out into the stream.
Our farewell letters were hastily written home, our final preparations