During
this operation, her crew were a long time heaving at the windlass, and
I listened for nearly an hour to the musical notes of a Sandwich
Islander, called Mahannah, who "sang out" for them. Sailors, when
heaving at a windlass, in order that they may heave together, always
have one to sing out; which is done in a peculiar, high and long-drawn
note, varying with the motion of the windlass. This requires a high
voice, strong lungs, and much practice, to be done well. This fellow
had a very peculiar, wild sort of note, breaking occasionally into a
falsetto. The sailors thought it was too high, and not enough of the
boatswain hoarseness about it; but to me it had a great charm. The
harbor was perfectly still, and his voice rang among the hills, as
though it could have been heard for miles. Toward sundown, a good
breeze having sprung up, she got under weigh, and with her long, sharp
head cutting elegantly through the water, on a taught bowline, she
stood directly out of the harbor, and bore away to the southward.
She was bound to Callao, and thence to the Sandwich Islands, and
expected to be on the coast again in eight or ten months.
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