Undertow

“ One sees a good many funny incidents up the river in connection with towing. One of the most common is the sight of a couple of towers, walking briskly along, deep in an animated discussion, while the man in the boat, a hundred yards behind them, is vainly shrieking to them to stop, and making frantic signs of distress with a scull. Something has gone wrong; the rudder has come off, or the boat-hook has slipped overboard, or his hat has dropped into the water and is floating rapidly down stream. ”

“ Many of these will not even sit upright in the water unless someone gets inside. Yet great fat man, whose weight sinks the boat to the very edge of the water, and tiny children, whose weight looks little more than nothing, can be seen at all hours of the day darting here and there, like so many flies, on the surface of the water.
The rua-changs are larger, and are used for carrying people about from one part of the river to another. They serve the same purpose as our omnibuses. The boatman, who is naked except for a cloth round the loins, stands to his work like a Venetian gondolier. ”

“ They who know what it is to have a reprieve brought to them upon the ladder, or to be rescued from thieves just going to murder them, or who have been in such-like extremities, may guess what my present surprise of joy was, and how gladly I put my boat into the stream of this eddy; and the wind also freshening, how gladly I spread my sail to it, running cheerfully before the wind, and with a strong tide or eddy under foot. ”

“ But the liar of the Ullswater, who had saved more crews in worse circumstances than he could count, actually whistled as he sat in the stern-sheets with a steering oar in his hands. To handle a boat in a heavy sea, with the wind blowing a real gale, is a thing that mighty few deepwater seamen are good at. But the skipper of the Ullswater knew his business even then as if he had been a Deal puntman, a North Sea trawler, or a Grand Bank fisherman all his life. ”

“ Sometimes we could scarcely see a yard ahead, and we ran a great risk of being run down by a vessel, or of running into one. Still we could do nothing further to help ourselves.
Away we flew into the pitchy darkness, the seas hissing and roaring around us, the boat tumbling and tossing about, now in the trough of a sea, now on the summit, surrounded by dense masses of foam, which seemed at times completely to wrap us up—the wind howling, and the rain coming down in torrents, sufficient of itself to swamp the boat. ”

“ Did you ever hear of the Mothers' Boat, Jock Hamill? When the big transports got in, sometimes they'd send a little tug down the harbor to meet them, with mothers, and sweethearts, and wives, I was on one of those little tugs. Early one morning. Foggy and wet and cold—in March, it was. You coufdn't see the land, nor anything but gray fog and gray water all around. They took the tug boat out a way and then they let it drift, and everybody stood so quiet and tense, staring all in one direction. ”

“ From our tent here on the hillside, through that isosceles door, I see our lonely mast on the shore, it may be as an eternity fixture, to be seen in landscapes henceforth, or as the most temporary standstill of time, the boat just come to anchor, and the mast still rocking to find its balance. [7]
No human life is in night,—the woods, the boat, the shore,—yet is it lifelike. [8] The warm pulse of a young life beats steadily underneath all. ”

“ When I say the yard and sail are never lowered, I mean while we are getting up the stream, before the wind; for, otherwise, when the vessel returns, they take out the mast, lay down the yards, and put by their sails, so that the boat descends like a wreck broadside forwards; otherwise, being so heavy a-loft, were she to touch with her stem going down the stream, she could not fail to carry away her masts, and perhaps be staved to pieces. ”

“ Our tow-rope veered us out a long way, too far astern of the tug for her to help us as a breakwater, and the manner in which we were flung towards the sky with half our keel out of water and then dropped into a hollow—like falling from the top of a house, sir,—while the heads of the seas blew into and tumbled over us all the time, made us all reckon that, so far from getting any rest, most of our time would be spent in preventing ourselves from being washed overboard. ”

“ Once in the free spaces of the estuary I raised the sail, and the sea- winds swept into it with a rush. Over heeled the boat and began to leap toward the distant shore. With the tiller in my hand I sat by Miss Fuller and Miss Harvey, while the wretched sail obscured my view of Perdita, but under the boom I could see the lemon gold of the Maréchal Niel in her belt. I put the tiller up, and we bounded over the freshening water, and cantered up the estuary. ”

“ He seized the other side of the wheel and helped to spin it around until it was hard down, and then we held it so. The boat resisted, and refused to answer for a while, and next she came surging to starboard, mounted the reef, and sent a long, angry ridge of water foaming away from her bows.
'Now watch her; watch her like a cat, or she'll get away from you. When she fights strong and the tiller slips a little, in a jerky, greasy sort of way, let up on her a trifle; it is the way she tells you at night that the water is too shoal; but keep edging her up, little by little, toward the point. ”

“ To me, accustomed to the scrambling, and shouting, and hauling up above high-water mark, the running of naked-legged boys into the water, and the energetic doings of the crew when a fishing boat comes to land at home, there is something of the comically sublime in the contrast presented by these good Flemings. As one of the old brown tubs rolls towards the shore, looking as if she scarcely had made up her mind which end to send in first, you see a man quietly pitch a small anchor over the bows, and then down come the two sails. ”

“ A great basket of oranges is hoisted in, and the white sails spread; and with "Youth at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm," away we go, the breezes blowing manfully at our sails. The river is about five miles from shore to shore, and we have known it of old for a most enticing and tricksy customer. It gently wooes and seduces you; it starts you out with all manner of zephyrs, until you get into the very middle, two miles from land on either side, when down goes your limp sail, and the breeze is off on some other errand, 55 and you are left to your reflections. ”

“ I leaned over the boat's side with great interest and excitement, while she skillfully handled the long line of hooks, and made scornful remarks upon worthless, bait-consuming creatures of the sea as she reviewed them and left them on the trawl or shook them off into the waves. ”

“ Nearer the shore boats were passing to and fro—from the graceful Swan (1.) and rapid Fish, full of gay parties of pleasure, to the gigantic Hippopotamus and slow Tortoise, bearing burthens of various kinds of produce towards the wharfs that lined each side of that noble river; and many other boats of different dimensions, some impelled by oars, others by sails, and others by machinery, were passing from ship to ship, from the ship to the shore, or from the metropolis to the neighbouring villages. ”

“ A passenger boat had been caught in a storm on the lake, and had gone down, carrying her people with her. A few days later the young diver descended, with his armor on, and entered the berth-saloon of the boat, and stood at the foot of the companionway, with his hand on the rail, peering through the dim water. Presently something touched him on the shoulder, and he turned and found a dead man swaying and bobbing about him and seemingly inspecting him inquiringly. ”

“ Fortunately the wind generally blows up the stream; when it don't it's a case of down anchor. There are places where one can hardly get along unless the wind happens to be unusually strong, and there I generally get a tow. The boss has got about twenty steamers on the river, so we don't generally have to wait many hours before one comes along. The tugs is gradually doing away with sailing boats, and in time there won't be many of our kind of craft left; but they are [105] useful, you see, for small places where the steamers don't stop, and for the rivers which run into the Mississippi. ”

“ Boats coming down with the tide keep the middle of the river; those going against it hug the shore on either side, but in passing other boats coming in the same direction they must go out in a semicircle, leaving the front boat the shore. Tow-boats are always given this advantage. ”

“ And do you know what was making the steamer move? What was pulling her out into the river? It was a little tug boat and the tug boat had hold of one end of a big rope and the other end of the rope was tied fast to the steamer. And the little tug boat was puffing and chucking and working away as hard as he could and calling out:
[Listen] [PDF]
And do you know why the tug boat and the steamer were talking like this? It is because they were afraid they might bump into some other ship in the fog for they can’t see in the fog. You know how white and thick the fog can be. ”

“ From morning till night, unless the wind is so fair that his single sail will suffice without other labor than steering, the boatman walks backwards and forwards on the side of his boat, now stooping with his shoulder to the pole, then drawing it back slowly to set it again, meanwhile moving steadily forward through an endless valley and an everchanging scenery, now distinguishing his course for a mile or two, and now shut in by a sudden turn of the river in a small woodland lake. ”

“ I took the tiller, and steered gradually toward the middle of the river. The wind blew steadily, and the yacht moved bravely on. I was as proud as a man drawn by a conquered lion, and as happy as one who did not know that conquered lions may turn and rend. Sometimes the vessel rolled so much that the end of the boom skimmed the surface of the water, and sometimes the sail gave a little jerk and flap, but I saw no necessity for changing our course, and kept our bow pointed steadily up the river. ”

“ This operation is very similar to the way a canal-boat is dragged along a canal through the green fields of England, only that men have, in the case I am describing, to do the work of horses. A tow-rope was made fast to the fore-mast, and about a third of each ship’s company were ordered to drag their respective ship ahead. Away we went, as usual, with song and laughter, tramping along the ice for miles together, and towing our homes, like snails, after us. ”

“ I was put into a boat (I do not remember when) and pushed off from an unknown shore, shown the direction of the opposite shore, had oars put into my unpractised hands, and was left alone. I rowed as best I could and moved forward; but the further I advanced towards the middle of the stream the more rapid grew the current bearing me away from my goal and the more frequently did I encounter others, like myself, borne away by the stream. There were a few rowers who continued to row, there were others who had abandoned their oars; there were large boats and immense vessels full of people. ”

“ He despises a tree “before the mast,” and would give all the singing birds of Creation for a Boatswain’s whistle. He hates prospects, but enjoys retrospects. An old boat, a stray anchor, or decayed mooring ring, will set him dreaming for hours. ”

“ Not even the sullen pounding to pieces of the vessels on the bar had so impressed them as the sight of the tug coasting with railroad speed down the rush of a comber like a child's toy-boat in the surf. One moment the whole of her deck was visible as she was borne with the wave; the next her bow alone showed high as the back suction caught her and dragged her from the crest into the hollow. A sea rose behind. Nothing of the tug was to be seen. It seemed that no power or skill could prevent her feeling overwhelmed. ”

“ A spit of sand will project itself, followed by deepwater, through which the men will have to wade in order to bring the boat round; occasionally the rope must be passed round trees which overhang the caving bank; and often freight-boats, tied to the shore, must be passed. The leisure with which the line is carried outside another boat is amusing even in this land of deliberation. The groups on these boats sit impassive and look at us with a kind of curiosity that has none of our eagerness in it. ”

“ A noisily-puffing tug, towing a flotilla of empty barges, was approaching, and, as a hoarse blast came over the silent air and was answered by the whistle of another boat, the stout boy gave unmistakable evidence of a desire to hold up the crowd for the double purpose of rest and observation. ”

“ As the steamer passed by, churning the muddy water into big waves, the tug put on all steam, the hawser straightened out as tense as iron, the big ship gave a lazy lurch as a wave struck her, and to the unspeakable delight of all hands they found themselves once more afloat and in deep water. ”

“ The day we left the throng of beautiful women seemed to extend up and down the levee as far as the eye could reach. As the boat pushed off for Mobile our poor fellows crowded the deck and the excitement on shore grew intense. ”

“ Seated in a boat on the lake in a calm, one may see the stones and pebbles at the bottom, with trout cruising about, where the sounding line shows seventy-five feet of water. The whole dome of the sky, with every fleecy cloud, is there perfectly reflected. ”

“ We should offer to tow the trading barges in and out of the creek, which would be one of the best pastimes imaginable, besides bringing us many devoted friends. And then when we wanted to shift our anchorage! You should just be there to see us start: first the tug, then the Ark Royal, then the Overdraft, then the other extra rooms, then the Perhaps, then the sailing dinghy, and lastly the duck punt. When the moment came to anchor again there would be no orders in the manner of ‘Let go the ’ook, Bill,’ but a dignified signal from the tug in the way described by the best of English sea songs ”