Dana is describing things done to apparel needed in very cold wet weather:
"Boots, too, were brought up; and having got a little tar and slush from below, we gave them a thick coat."
It is obviously something to waterproof the boots. Most likely some form of grease, perhaps cooking residue?
OED:
The refuse fat or grease obtained from meat boiled on board ship.
Dear Faldage: I managed to find a nautical glossary that had it, but part of a different topic.
"Dandyfunk:Biscuits pulverized with a belayin' pin (after being put in a canvas bag), the resultant mass being smeared with[redslush]/red] left over from the boiling of salt beef and baked in the galley oven (if permitted by the cook) in a cut down bully tin."
The tar Dana mentioned would have been from pine pitch,
and the cooking rat would make an emulsion for easier application of coating of desired thickness.
Hey, Faldage! the phrase "slush fund" popped up in my slushy brain, so I looked it up. I had heard of it as money
set aside for unexpected expenses, but had no idea it started as a nautical term!
slush fund
1 orig., a fund established aboard ship from the sale of refuse fat, etc. and used to buy small luxuries
2 money used for bribery, political pressure, or other corrupt purposes
Now I'm wondering about the phrase "slush pile" used by magazine editors for the place (conceptual) where unsolicited submissions are kept.
How very odd! The nautical definition! Sell fat = buy luxuries. How very odd! Wonder what kind of luxuries they bought with the fat fund?
Dana didn't mention a slush fund. He does tell about the captain having coffee, but being unwilling to provide the crew with any. I can imagine other ships having crews buy coffee and other small luxuries in some of the ports they visited. Of course California ports had only hides to sell.
The captain would not have allowed liquor broght on board.
Dana's vessel was bound by a Temperance regulation. The more I read of the horrible conditions he had to work under, I marvel that he ever went to sea. Imagine having to go aloft in total darkness, bare handed in freezing weather, with a toothache so bad he couldn't open his mouth far enough to eat anything but rice, which the mate stole for him from the captain's mess.
I too have marvelled.. (re: The more I read of the horrible conditions he had to work under, I marvel that he ever went to sea. )
It does say something about how wonderful 'farm life' and 'city life' was at the time for many people, that they would think to go out to sea.
life, as short a while as a 150 years ago, was short and brutal for the poor and most everyone was poor.
as for working in the dark, i think people were much more used to it, and their eyes were more accustom to seeing in the dark. a single 60 watt bulb gives off about 700 lumens. 1 lumen is the light given off by 1 candle at 1 foot distance from the flame. I would hate do light a room with a single 60 watt bulb, and can't imagine how people managed with less than a "night light" (10 watt bulb's worth of light to light up a whole room) worth of light.
but if you got used to do doing things by star light or moon light, or even doing them in the dark, all the time, anyway, i guess it wouldn't make much difference. (in fact it might be easier to climb, if you couldn't look down and see how high up you were!
we don't think much of everyday comforts like lights, running water, (both hot and cold!) and all that we can do with just water (washing; body, clothes, dishes, food,) drinking,ice. even foods that nowdays are cheap, (oranges and lemons) used to be imported luxury foods for most of US and UK!
Fat too, was a luxury food.. my parent's spoke fondly of 'bread and drippings' as a treat, and another form of the same, 'fried bread'(bread fried in left over bacon fat).
Dear of troy: what I meant was that it must have been hell having to go aloft in the dark, which would have made it hard to see where you hand holds were, and he had to beat his hands against the yard, or the furled sail, in order to stimulate cirulation enough so that his hands could function, while really sick with an abscessed tooth. And to top it off, they were short several men.
In about the middle of the book, he describes his first captain flogging a guy who was dim witted enough not to say what the captain wanted him to say, and a guy who tried to speak up for him got flogged for interfering. And for two years hard dangerous work, they got paid hardly enough to pay for the clothing they wore out. Dana sure was a better man than I ever was.
Oh, Bingley, it's been over thirty years since I read either Boswell or Johnson, but, heavens, seeing Johnson's biting wit quoted makes me look forward to the retirement years when I will pick him up again and read him with the luxurious expanse of time and focus he and Boswell deserve!