The Life of William Hodge

he knew all about it. So away we had to go for the port of Adelaide Anyhow we knew that we was all free that month. So we got into the Boarding house at the port, it was kept by a man called Hanley Anyhow the job was to get ships and get away as the most of the ships was laying in the Stream waiting for the Wool season. So I stopped for a week or two. And a big ship came in from London loaded with Govnt stores, and I thought I would like to join her as she was bound to Penang in the Mallaca Straits. So I enquired on board and I found I could Join her as an ordinary Seaman so I signed on. And we got her already for sea and sailed for for Penang. And while we was of Cape Leuin while we was furling the jib the footropes carried away, and one man fell over-board, and was drowned, the life boat was lowred But could no pick him up. So poor Yorkie as that was his name was drowned and to lower a life boat in those days in a heavy sea was no Joke as there was none of the patents about in those days as there is now in the steamers now a days, as there was nearly nothing but windjammers in those days. Anyhow in a couple of months we arrived outside Penang, then got ordered to go to Madras. So we up anchor and sailed for Madras right across the Indian Ocean. so in two and a half months arrived at Madras roads which is the open Coromandel Coast as at that time Madras had no protection, only mooring buoys laid down in the open coast, and shackle both your cable chains on to this buoy, then have your chains bouyed off and the fifteen fathom shackles abaft the windlass for fear of a Hurricane, and lay with your sails bent, and all ready to slip your cables and get out to sea, and sure enough the Hurricane came and all the ships laying at the bouys on the coast had to leave, that was the Hurricane at the latter end of 1865, and all the Ships that was in Ballast had to be the sufferers. So our Ship was in Ballast and the Ballast shifted with the force of the Hurricane on the one side of her, and hove her down on her beam ends, her lee Bulwarks was all gone. And the order came to cut away the Foremast, and in those days there used to be several Tomy Hawks placed round the mainmast

all ready for cutting away in case of striking a Hurricane which used to occur in the Bay of Bengal Anyhow our lee rigging was cut away first, then the men came up to Windward and cut away the Weather rigging then over the side the mast went and took everything with it, then the ship straitened herself up a bit. And the Gale was Blown out next day at 12 noon and there was not a stitch of canvas left. And we was only left the moorings at Madras about thirty hours. So the first job was for all hands to get below in the hold and shift the Stone Ballast over to the Weather side and Straighten her upon even keel then to get some spare spars we had in the between decks, and get them rigged. And another suit of sails bent, As a ship always carries three suits of sails. So we just Bent Sails whereever we could, and got back to Madras in fourteen days. And picked up our chains again that we slipped, as they were Bouyed where we first Arrived. But there was five of them ships lost in that Hurricane. and all the rest came back cripples. then the Job was to find masts and rigging for all those cripple ships, as Calcutta was full of them. And there was not so many Steamers about in those days. Anyhow we Just had to send to England for spurs and rigging. As there were so many ships dismasted and crippled in all the Big Seaports of India in that Hurricane that there was nothing left in the shape of spars and rigging. Anyhow, while we was laying at the Mooring Bouys, we got a mob of coolie carpenters on Board and commenced getting new Bulwarks and deck fittings and got all ready for taking in our Formast when it arrived and also the Fore Topmast. And yards also rigging and running Gear, anyhow when everything arrived by Steamer, All our carpenters, had finished and our ship half loaded. Just left room to take in the new Foremast, as it was a long Job loading a ship in Madras in those days, as all cargo had to come off in Boats, from a long iron Jetty run out from the shore. Anyhow it did not take us long to get the spars all aboard, and the Ship rigged while the coolies was loading her with cotton, coffee, Spices and after getting her ready for sea we sailed from Madras

bound for London and made a Long passage as far as the Cape of good hope for the want of wind. And after the cape it was found that our provisions was running short and had to go on half Allowance of beef and pork, and also half allowance of water & Buiscuit. Anyhow we just had to suffer it until we got to St Helena, the worst of it was there was no Tobacco. Anyhow we had a nobler of rum in place of Tobacco. So we arrived at St Helena, where we replenished all our Stores and Sailed for London once more, and made another long passage from St Helena to London. Anyhow we Arrived in London after Nearly six months from Madras, for the Want of wind, and the ship being one of the old school, was a very poor Sailer. So I got paid off at Greens Home in London, and bid Good Bye to the old [Akbar]. And made my way for Edinburg and arrived in the month of July 1866 after being away from home for two and a half years. Anyhow the Marine superintendent for the company that I had been serving my time in, found out that I was in Leith, as that is the seaport for Edinburgh, and also where my people lived. So he came to my Father. And asked him if I would be willing to come back and serve my time out, and I told my Father that I would not and I knew that they could not force me, as I had to suffer one month in Adelaide Jail, and I knew that I was free of the company. Anyhow I stayed at home for a week or two, and I found there was a Ship going to sign on for North America a Six Topsail yard ship belonging to Aberdeen. So I secured a birth as an ordinary seaman, at two pounds a month as the men was only getting three pounds a month, So I reconed I was very lucky to get two pounds. So we sailed for a place called Shukatuma [Chicoutimi] so we got out there in about six weeks and anchored in the Gulf of St Lawrence, off the mouth of a river until a Tug came down from Quebec to tow us up to our loading berth. Anyhow the Tug came down and towed us up about Eighty miles and loaded deals for Liverpool. And after an uneventful Voyage, we landed in Liverpool in the begininng of 1867, and berthed in the Brunswick dock at Bootle then got paid of and took the train for Edinburgh

and had a few weeks at home, then shipped again in a big ship called the City of Montreal belonging to Glasgow and Bound to Cardiff in Wales to load patent feul for the West coast of South America to port called Callao in Peru, and we was Just exactly five months on the passage. As it was the dead of Winter of Cape Horn which is in 56 ° South of the Equator, and we got driven to nearly 60° South with nothing but Westerly Gales. But eventually we arrived in Callas, which is in 17° South of the Equator and laid there discharging our cargo of patent feul, for two months, as there was no wharfs for a ship to discharge her cargo in those days. But discharged into Lighters, a very slow process. But I may say that ships was never in such a hurry in those days. Anyhow as soon as we was discharged, and took in Ballast enough to stiffin her, we hove up our anchor. And sailed for the Chincha Islands, about a hundred & ninety miles from Callao, to load Guana, where we arrived in two days, and dropped our two Anchors right between the South and Middle Islands. Now these Islands belonged to Peru, which got a big source of revenu from those Islands, as when you arrive there the peruvian Government gives you ninety laying days and will not give you Lighters to load you, before that time, unless you like to Buy time at so many peruvian dollars per day and if you are in a Hurry to get your ship away, you will have to buy time, or else lay there for ninety days. So we laid the ninety days as our captain was in no hurry. Now the Guana on the middle Island was supposed to be eighty feet deep, and worked by Chinamen, on the top of the Island. And they send the Guana down long canvas shutes into your Lighter, and the stench of it with Amonia will bring the Blood from your nose and mouth if you have not got a covering for your face when the cloud comes down the shute. Anyhow we laid our ninety days and got Eighteen Hundred tons into her. and sailed again for Callao, as you have got to go back to Callao before you can clear out at the customs. So we

was back in Callao to catch the Christmas and also the New Year of eighteen sixty eight, then we sailed again for queenstown in Ireland for orders, and made a fair run as far as Cape Horn with a gale behind us this time and Cape Horn in sight, and after rounding the cape we made a lovely passage to queenstown in ninety days, and got orders for Glasgow, where we arrived in two weeks, and got paid off in port Glasgow and then of to Leith by train, after being away eighteen months, then I joined one of the Leith Hull and Hamburg companies Steamers called the Dresden running to Stettin in Germany. I run in her for six months until the Winter drove us out of that trade, for it was a severe Winter in the Baltic that year. Anyhow I left her in Leith. And joined a ship called the James Wishart. She was a ship that was built at Mortons in Leith. and at this time she was lying in Sunderland loading for Calcutta. And the Captain came through to Leith to get his crew, as he wanted a crew of eighteen able seamen from Leith as the ship belonged to Leith. But appearingly this Captain had a very bad name amongst the Leith sailors, and there was none cared about shipping with him, only myself and another man called Bob Laurie. So of we went to Sunderland and had a week there, and sailed for Calcultta and arrived there at the princes mooring alongside of the Esplanade in the beginning of eighteen sixy nine after a passage of one hundred and twenty days . We was there about three months, discharging then commenced to load cotton, jute and castor oil for Hamburg in Germany. Now that was the year the Suez Canal was opened. Anyhow sailed and the Tug Hunsdon towed us down the river Hoogley two hundred miles into the Bay of Bengal and rounded the Cape of Good Hope in fifty days and another fifty five days we was in the English channel, laying of Deal with our signals up for a pilot to take the ship ac[c]ross the north sea, but there was no pilot came off so as there was a fair wind blowing over squared away and ran ac[c]ross the North Sea and picked up a German pilot and took us in to BremarHaven and Anchored for the night, and in the morning at day light we hove up