Squeaky Drama

It is well known that rats have always been among the most undesirable travel companions for seafarers. The consequences of allowing just a couple of them to embark could be catastrophic. I have come across some Early Modern stories lamenting such an eventuality, with the one told by the English seaman Richard Hawkins (1562-1622) being my favorite. It is narrated in his celebrated The observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knight, in his Voyage into the South Sea in the year 1593 (ed. 1622), which recounts the voyage he commanded from Plymouth to the Pacific, via the Strait of Magellan:

Here [at the Strait of Magellan] we made also a survey of our victuals; and opening certain barrels of oaten meal, we found a great part of some of them, as also of our pipes and vats of bread, eaten and consumed by the rats; doubtless, a fifth part of my company did not eat so much as these devoured, as we found daily in coming to spend any of our provisions. When I came to the sea, it was not suspected that I had a rat in my ship; but with the bread in cask, which we transported out of the Hawke, and going to and again of our boats unto our prise (though we had diverse cats and used other preventions), in a small time they multiplied in such a manner as is incredible. It is one of the general calamities of all long voyages; and would be carefully prevented, as much as may be. For besides that which they consume of the best victuals, they eat the sails; and neither pack nor chest is free from their surprises. I have known them to make a hole in a pipe of water, and saying the pump, have put all in fear, doubting lest some leak had been sprung upon the ship. Moreover, I have heard credible persons report, that ships have been put in danger by them to be sunk, by a hole made in the bulge. All which is easily remedied at the first, but if once they be somewhat increased, with difficulty they are to be destroyed. And although I propounded a reward for every rat which was taken and sought means by poison and other inventions to consume them, yet their increase being so ordinary and many, we were not able to clear ourselves from them [quoted in Moreno Madrid, José María & Henrique Leitão, Atravessando a Porta do Pacifico. Roteiros e relatos da Travessia do Estreito de Magalhães, 1520-1620 (Lisboa: ByTheBook), p.209].

If you are about to set sail, take a good note of Hawkins’ advice and revise carefully your ship… you do not want to start hearing squeaks in the middle of the ocean! [José María Moreno Madrid]