The first scene of this eventful drama closed with my embarkation on
board the _Rottenbeam Castle_, bound for Bengal. Saving an Irish packet,
this was the first ship on which I had ever set foot, and it presented a
new world to my observation—a variety of sights and sounds which, by
giving fresh occupation to my thoughts and feelings, served in some
measure to banish the tristful remembrance of home. All, at first, was a
chaos to me; but when the confusion incidental to embarkation and
departure (the preliminary shake of this living kaleidoscope), a general
clearing out of visitors, custom-house officers, bum-boat women, _et hoc
genus omne_, had subsided, things speedily fell into that regular order
characteristic of vessels of this description—each individual took up
his proper position, and entered in an orderly manner on his prescribed
and regular routine of duty; and I began to distinguish officers from
passengers, and to learn the rank and importance of each respectively.
Before proceeding further with ship-board scenes, a slight sketch of a
few of the _dramatis personæ_ may not be unacceptable. And first, our
commander, the autocrat of this little empire. Captain McGuffin was a
raw-boned Caledonian, of some six foot three; a huge, red-headed man of
great physical powers, of which, however, his whole demeanour,
singularly mild, evinced a pleasing unconsciousness; bating the latter
quality, he was just such a man of nerves and sinews as in the olden
time, at Falkirk or Bannockburn, one could fancy standing like a tower
of strength, amidst the din and clash of arms, “slaughing” off heads and
arms, muckle broad-sword in hand, with fearful energy and effect. He had
a sombre and fanatical expression of visage; and I never looked at his
“rueful countenance” but I thought I saw the genuine descendant of one
of those stern covenanters of yore, of whom I had read—one of those
“crop-eared whigs” who, on lonely moor and mountain, had struggled for
the rights of conscience, and fought with indomitable obstinacy the
glorious fight of freedom.
I soon discovered I was not “alone in my glory,” and that another cadet
was destined to share with me the honours of the “Griffinage.” He was a
gawky, wide-mouthed fellow, with locks like a pound of candles, and
trousers half-way up his calves; one who, from his appearance, it was
fair to infer had never before been ten miles from his native village.
It was a standing source of wonder to all on board (and to my knowledge
the enigma was never satisfactorily solved), by what strange concurrence
of circumstances, what odd twist of Dame Fortune’s wheel, this Gaspar
Hauserish specimen of rusticity had attained to the distinguished honour
of being allowed to sign himself “gentleman cadet,” in any “warrant,
bill, or quittance;” but so it was. The old adage, however, applied in
his case; he turned out eventually to be much less of a fool than he
looked.
Our first officer, Mr. Gillans, was a thorough seaman, and a no less
thorough John Bull; he had the then common detestation of the French and
their imputed vices of insincerity, &c., and in endeavouring to avoid
the Scylla of Gallic deceit, went plump into the Charybdis of English
rudeness. He was in truth, a blunt, gruff fellow, who evidently thought
that civility and poltroonery were convertible terms. The captain was
the only person whom his respect for discipline ever allowed him to
address without a growl; in short, the vulgar but expressive phrase, as
“sulky as a bear with a sore head,” seemed made for him expressly, for
in no case could it have been more justly applied. The second mate,
Grinnerson, was a gentlemanly fellow on the whole, but a most eternal
wag and joker. Cadets had plainly, for many a voyage, furnished him with
subjects for the exercise of his facetious vein, and “Tom,” _i.e._ Mr.
Thomas Grundy, and myself, received diurnal roastings at his hands. If I
expressed an opinion, “Pardon me, my dear sir,” he would say, with mock
gravity, “but it strikes me that, being _only a cadet_, you can know
nothing about it;” or, “in about ten years hence, when you get your
commission, your opinion ‘on things in general’ may be valuable.” If I
flew out, or the peaceable Grundy evinced a disposition to “hog his
back,” he would advise us to keep our temper, to be cool, assuring us,
with dry composure, that the “cadets on the last voyage were never
permitted to get into a passion.” In a word, he so disturbed my
self-complacency, that I long gravely debated the question with myself,
whether I ought not to summon him to the lists when I got to India,
there to answer for his misdeeds. As the voyage drew towards a close,
however, he let off the steam of his raillery considerably, and treated
us with more deference and respect; thereby showing that he had studied
human nature, and knew how to restore the equilibrium of a young man’s
temper, by adding to the weight in the scale of self-esteem. Our doctor
and purser are the only two more connected with the ship whom I shall
notice. The first, Cackleton by name, was a delicate, consumptive,
superfine person, who often reminded me of the injunction, “physician,
heal thyself.” He ladled out the soup with infinite grace, and was quite
the ladies’ man. His manners, indeed, would have been gentlemanly and
unexceptionable had they not been for ever pervaded by an obviously
smirking consciousness on his part that they were so. As for Cheesepare,
the purser, all I shall record of him is, that by a happy fortune he had
dropped into the exact place for which nature and his stars appeared to
have designed him. He looked like a purser—spoke like a purser—ate and
drank like a purser—and locked himself up for three or four hours _per
diem_ with his hooks and ledgers like a very praiseworthy purser.
Moreover, he carved for a table of thirty or forty, with exemplary
patience, and possessed the happy knack of disposing of the largest
quantity of meat in the smallest given quantity of time of any man I
ever met with, in order to be ready for a renewed round at the mutton.
Of passengers we had the usual number and variety: civilians, returning
with wholesale stocks of English and continental experiences and
recollections of the aristocratic association, &c., for Mofussil
consumption; old officers, going back to ensure their “off-reckonings”
preparatory to their final “off-reckoning;” junior partners in
mercantile houses; sixteenth cousins from Forres and Invernesshire
obeying the spell of kindred attraction (would that we had a little more
of its influence south of the Tweed!); officers to supply the wear and
tear of cholera and dysentery in his (then) Majesty’s regiments; matrons
returning to expectant husbands, and bright-eyed spinsters to get—a peep
at the country—nothing more;—then we had an assistant surgeon or two,
more _au fait_ at whist than Galenicals, and the two raw, unfledged
griffins—to wit, Grundy and myself—completed the list. But of the
afore-mentioned variety, I shall only select half a dozen for particular
description, and as characteristic of the mass.
First, there was Colonel Kilbaugh, a colonel of cavalry and ex-resident
of Paugulabad, who, in spite of his high-heeled Hobys, was a diminutive
figure, pompous, as little men generally are, and so anxious,
apparently, to convince the world that he had a soul above his inches,
that egad, sir, it was dangerous for a man above the common standard of
humanity to look at him, or differ in opinion in the slightest degree.
His was in truth
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay.
He excelled (in his own estimation) in long stories, which he told with
an extraordinary minuteness of detail. They generally began with,
“Shortly after I was appointed to the residency of Paugulabad,” or, “The
year before, or two years after, I left the residency of Paugulabad:” in
short, that was his chronological starting-point. The colonel’s _yarns_
principally (though not entirely) related to wonderful sporting
exploits, and the greater the bounce the more scrupulously exact was he
in the _minutiæ_, magnanimously disregarding the terrors of
cross-examination, should a seven-foot mortal venture one. “It was the
largest tiger that, sir, I ever killed; he stood 4 feet 4¾ inches to the
top of his shoulder—4 feet 4¾ was it, by-the-bye?—no, I’m wrong; 4 feet
4½. I killed him with a double Joe I got from our doctor; I think it was
the cold season before I left the residency of Paugulabad.” It was one
of the most amusing things in the world to see him marching up and down
the poop with our Colossus of a skipper—“Ossa to a wart”—one little fin
of a hand behind his back, and laying down the law with the other;
skipper, with an eye to future recommendation, very deferential of
course.
Next, in point of rank, was Mr. Goldmore, an ex-judge of the Sudder
Dewanny Adawlut; a man of birth and education, and an excellent sample
of the distinguished service to which he belonged. His manners were kind
and urbane, though he was a little peppery sometimes, particularly when
I beat him at chess. He had come home a martyr to liver; and the yellow
cheek, the lacklustre eye, and the feeble step, all told too plainly
that he was returning to die. His wife, fifteen years younger than
himself, exhibited beside him a striking contrast; she, “buxom, blithe,
and _debonnair_”—a vigorous plant in florid pride; he, poor fellow, in
the “sear and yellow” leaf. She was a warm-hearted, excellent creature,
native goodness beaming in her eye, but had one fault, and that a
prominent one. Having in India, as is often the case with the sex, been
thrown much at out-stations amongst male society, she had insensibly
adopted a “mannish” tone, used terms of Indian conventional slang—bad in
a man, but odious from female lips—laughed heartily at stories seasoned
with equivoque, and sometimes told such herself with off-hand _naïveté_
at the cuddy-table, producing a wink from Mr. Grinnerson to Ensign
O’Shaughnessy, and an uncommon devotion to his plate on the part of Mr.
Goldmore himself.
Major Rantom, of the Dragoons—soldierly, gentleman-like, and
five-and-thirty—commanded the detachment of troops, to which were
attached Ensigns Gorman and O’Shaughnessy, two fine “animals,” that had
recently been caught in the mountains of Kerry; and an ancient
centurion, Capt. Marpeet, of the Native Infantry, must conclude these
samples of the masculine gender. Marpeet was a character, upon the
whole—a great man for short whist and Hodgson’s pale ale. The Sporting
Magazine, Taplin’s Farriery, and Dundas’s Nineteen Manœuvres, seemed to
have constituted the extent of his reading, though some conversation he
one day had about “zubber, zeer, and pesh,” and that profound work the
Tota Kuhannee, seemed to indicate that he had at least entered on the
flowery paths of Oriental literature. Dundas, however, was his strong
point—his tower of strength—his one idea. Ye powers! how amazingly
convincing and fluent he was when he took that subject in hand! Many a
tough discussion would he have with the pompous little colonel, whether
the right or left stood fast, &c., and who, having been a Resident, and
knowing, therefore, everything, of course knew something of that also.
But _places aux demoiselles_! make way for the spinsters! Let me
introduce to the reader’s acquaintance Miss Kitty and Miss Olivia
Jenkins, Miss Maria Balgrave, and Miss Anna Maria Sophia Dobbikins. The
first two were going to their father, a general officer in the Madras
Presidency; the eldest, Kitty, was a prude, haunted by the “demon of
propriety,” the youngest, dear Olivia, a perfect giggle—with such a pair
of eyes!—but “thereby hangs a tale.” Miss Maria Balgrave was consigned
to a house of business in Calcutta, to be forwarded, by the first safe
conveyance, up the country to her dear friend Mrs. Kurrybhat, the lady
of Ensign Kurrybhat, who had invited her out; she was very plain, but of
course possessed its usual concomitant, great amiability of temper. Miss
Dobbikins was a Bath and Clifton belle, hackneyed and _passé_, but
exhibiting the remains of a splendid face and figure; it was passing
strange that so fine a creature should have attained a certain age
without having entered that state which she was so well calculated to
adorn, whilst doubtless many a snub-nosed thing had gone off under her
own nose. I have seen many such cases; and it is a curious problem for
philosophical investigation, why those whom “every one” admires “nobody”
marries.
Having given these sketches of a few of my companions, let me now
proceed with my voyage. Leaving Deal we had to contend with contrary
winds, and when off Portsmouth, they became so adverse, that the captain
determined on dropping anchor, and there wait a favourable change. In
three days the wind became light, veered to the proper quarter, and our
final departure was fixed for the following morning. My last evening off
Portsmouth long remained impressed on my memory. Full often, in my
subsequent wanderings in the silent forest or the lonely desert, in the
hushed camp, or on the moon-lit rampart, where nought save the
sentinel’s voice broke through the silence of the night, have I pictured
this last aspect of my native land. I had been engaged below, inditing
letters for home and other occupations, the whole day, when, tired of
the confinement, I mounted on the poop: the parting glow of a summer’s
evening rested on the scene—a tranquillity and repose little, alas! in
consonance with the state of my feelings, once more painfully excited at
the prospect of the severance from all that was dear to me. Hitherto
excitement had sustained me, but now I felt it in its full force.
Land of my sires, what mortal hand
Can e’er untie the filial band
That knits me to thy rugged strand?
I leant my head upon my hand, and gave myself up to sad and melancholy
reflections. On one side stretched the beautiful coast of the Isle of
Wight, whilst the fast-gathering shades of evening were slowly blending
into one dark mass the groves and villas of Cowes; lights from many a
pleasant window streamed across the rippling sea—lights, methought,
cheering circles of happy faces, like those I lately gazed upon, but
which I might never see more. Many a tall and gallant man-of-war rode
ahead of us, fading in the gathering mist; boats, leaving their long,
silvery tracks behind them, glided across the harbour; whilst the lights
of the town, in rapid succession, broke forth as those of the day
declined. The very tranquillity of such a scene as this, to a person in
my then state of mind, by mocking, as it were, the inward grief, made it
to be more deeply felt. I looked at my native shores, as a lover gazes
on his mistress for the last time, till the boom of the evening gun, and
the increasing darkness, warned me that it was time to go below.
Calm were the elements, night’s silence deep,
The waves scarce murmuring, and the winds asleep.
In a few days we were in the Bay of Biscay—and now my troubles began.