In the last chapter I left the _Rottenbeam Castle_ just arrived in the
roads of Madras, and the frigate’s boat alongside. Our commander, with a
grave look, advanced to meet the officer, who, saluting him in an easy
and off-hand manner, announced himself as lieutenant of H.M. ship
_Thunderbolt_, and desired him “to turn up the hands.” Captain McGuffin
was beginning to remonstrate, declaring that some of his best sailors
had been pressed a few days before (which was the fact), and that he had
barely sufficient to carry the ship round to Bengal, &c., when the
lieutenant cut him short, declaring he had nothing to do with that
matter; that his orders were peremptory, and must be obeyed.
“I shall appeal to the admiral,” said our skipper, rather ruffled.
“You may appeal to whom you choose, sir,” replied the lieutenant,
somewhat haughtily, and giving his hanger a kick, to cause it to resume
its hindward position; “but now, and in the meantime, if you please,
you’ll order up your men.”
These were “hard nuts” for McGuffin “to crack;” on his own deck too,
where he had reigned absolute but a few minutes before—
The monarch of all he survey’d,
Whose right there was none to dispute.
But he felt that the iron heel of a stronger despotism than his own was
upon him, and that he had no resource but submission. He consequently
gave the necessary orders, and straightway the shrill whistle of the
boatswain was soon heard, summoning the sailors to the muster.
“Onward they moved, a melancholy band,” slouching and hitching up their
trousers, and were soon ranged in rank and file along the deck. The
lieutenant stalked up the line (he certainly was a noble-looking fellow,
just the man for a cutting-out party, or to head a column of boarders),
and turned several of them about, something after the manner in which a
butcher in Smithfield selects his fat sheep, and then putting aside
those he thought worthy of “honour and hard knocks” in his Majesty’s
service, he ordered them forthwith to bring up their hammocks and kits,
and prepare for departure. Amongst those thus unceremoniously chosen to
increase the crew of the _Thunderbolt_, were two or three ruddy, lusty
lads, who had come out as swabs, or loblolly boys, and were making their
first voyage, to see how the life of a sailor agreed with them, little
thinking, a few days before, of the change that awaited them. I think I
see them now, blubbering as they descended the side, with their hammocks
and small stocks of worldly goods on their shoulders, waving adieu to
their comrades, and thinking, doubtless, of “home, sweet home,” and what
“mother would say when she heard of it.” On one old man-of-war’s man of
the _Rottenbeam Castle_, whom I had often noticed, the lieutenant, keen
as a hawk, pounced _instanter_; his experienced eye detecting at once in
the long pigtail, corkscrew ringlets, and devil-may-care air of honest
Jack, the true outward characteristics of that noble but eccentric
biped, a downright British tar, and prime seamen. “You’ll do for us,”
said the lieutenant, taking him by the collar of his jacket, and leading
him out. “There’s two words to that there bargain, sir,” said Jack (who
had had _quantum suff._ of the reg’lar sarvice), with the air of one who
knew that he stood on unassailable ground. So squirting out a little
’baccy juice, and rummaging his jacket-pocket, he produced therefrom a
tin tobacco-box, of more than ordinary dimensions, from which, after
considerable fumbling (for Jack was evidently unused to handling
literary documents of any kind), he extracted a soiled and tattered
“protection,” which, deliberately unfolding (a ticklish operation, by
the way, the many component parallelograms being connected by the
slenderest filaments), he handed it over to the lieutenant. Having so
done, he hitched up his waistband, with his dexter fin, tipped his
comrades something between a nod and a wink, as much as to say, “I think
that’ll bring him up with a round turn,” and stroking down his hair,
awaited the result. The officer cast his eye over the thing of shreds
and patches. It contained a “true bill,” so he returned it; and Jack,
having carefully packed and re-stowed his “_noli me tangere_,” gave
another squirt, and rolled off in triumph to the forecastle. The only
fellow glad to go “to sarve him Majesty”—I blush whilst I record it—was
Massa Sambo, a good-humoured nigger, and a fine specimen of the mere
animal man, who, having received more of what is vulgarly termed
“monkey’s allowance” on board the _Rottenbeam Castle_ than suited him,
left us in a high glee, grinning, capering, slapping his hands and
singing “Rule Britannia” in regular “Possum up a gum-tree” style, to the
great amusement of us all.
Madras, from the roads, wore to me a very picturesque and interesting
appearance; the long ranges of white verandahed buildings, the noble
fort, with England’s meteor standard floating from the flag-staff, the
beach, the blue sky, the cocoa-nut trees, the white wreaths of breaking
surf, the shipping, the Massoolah boats, the native craft, all
constituted a novel and striking _coup d’œil_, which fully realized what
in imagination I had pictured it. Looking over the side, shortly after
we had anchored, I perceived to my astonishment, a naked figure walking
apparently on the surface of the sea, and rapidly approaching us. This
was a catamaran man, the bearer of a despatch from the shore. His
diminutive bark, three or four logs, half submerged, and on which he had
ploughed through the surf, was soon alongside, and the brown and
dripping savage (for such he looked) scrambling on board. He sprung upon
the deck, as a favourite opera-dancer bounds upon the stage, confident
of an applauding welcome, and, making a ducking salaam, proceeded, in a
very business-like manner, to disengage from his head a conical
salt-basket sort of hat, from which, secured under a fold of linen, he
produced his letters safe and dry; these with the words, “chit, sahib,”
spoken in tones as delicate as the frame of the speaker, he immediately
delivered to the captain. The arrival of this messenger caused a
considerable sensation, and the griffs of all descriptions gathered
round him, conning the strange figure with open mouths and wondering
eyes. The ladies, too (stimulated by curiosity), rushed to the cuddy
door to have a peep at him, but made a rapid retreat on perceiving the
paradisiacal costume of our hero. I shall never forget Miss Olivia’s
involuntary scream, or Miss Dobbikins’ expression of countenance, on
suddenly confronting this little swarthy Apollo:—
Horror in all his majesty was there,
Mute and magnificent without a tear.
Our admiration of the catamaran man had hardly subsided when a far more
extraordinary character made his appearance. “Avast there, my hearties!”
sounded the rough voice of a seaman, “and make way for the commodore.”
As he spoke, the crowd of sailors and recruits opened out, and his
Excellency Commodore Cockle, chief of the catamarans, was seen advancing
in great state from the gangway. This potent commander, who, by the way,
had performed his toilet _in transitu_, after passing through the surf,
was attired in an old naval uniform coat, under which appeared his naked
neck and swarthy bosom; a huge cocked-hat, “which had seen a little
service,” a pair of kerseymere dress shorts, without stockings, and a
swinging hanger banging at his heels, made up as strange a figure of the
genus scarecrow as I ever remember to have seen out of a cornfield.
“By the powers, Pat, and what have we here?” said Mick Nolan, one of the
recruits, to his comrade Pat Casey.
“Faith,” says Pat, “and myself can’t tell ye, unless ’tis one of them
_Ingine_ rajahs, or ould Neptune himself, that should have been after
shaving us off the line.”
“Devil a bit,” rejoined Mick; “I’m thinking it’s something of an
_Aistern_ Guy Fawkes, that’s going to play off some of his fun amongst
us.”
Thus speculated the jokers, whilst the commodore, fully impressed with a
sense of his importance, swaggered about the deck with all the quiet
pride of a high official, putting questions, and replying to the queries
of old acquaintance. Alas! poor human nature! thou art everywhere
essentially the same. Dear to thee is a little power and authority in
any shape, and thou exhibitest thy “fantastic tricks” as much in the
bells and feathers of the savage, as under the coif of the judge, or the
ermine of the monarch! The “Commodore,” to whom the English cognomen of
“Cockle” had been given, exercised his high functions under a commission
furnished him by some wag, but of which he was quite as proud as if it
had emanated from royalty itself. It was couched in the proper _lingua
technica_ of such instruments, and commenced in something like the
following manner: “Know all men by these presents, that our trusty and
well-beloved Cockle is hereby constituted Commodore and Commander of the
Catamaran Squadron, and duly empowered to exercise all the high
functions thereunto appertaining. The aforesaid Cockle is authorized to
render his services to all parties requiring them, on their paying for
the same. All captains and commanders of his Majesty’s and the
Honourable Company’s ships, and of all other ships and vessels
whatsoever, are hereby required and directed to take fruit, fish, eggs,
&c., from the said Cockle (if they think fit), on their paying him
handsomely in the current coin of the realm, &c.”
The next day the passengers went ashore; officers full fig; ladies,
civilians, and cadets, all in their best attire, crowding the benches of
the Massoolah boat, and balancing, and holding on as best they could. Of
all sea-going craft, from the canoe of the Greenlander to the
line-of-battle-ship, the Massoolah boat is, perhaps, one of the most
extraordinary. Imagine a huge affair, something in shape like one of
those paper cock-boats which children make for amusement, or an
old-fashioned tureen, or the transverse section of a pear or pumpkin,
stem and stern alike, composed of light and flexible planks, sewn
together with coir, and riding buoyant as a gull on the heaving wave,
the sides rising six feet or so above its surface, the huge empty shell
crossed by narrow planks or benches, on which, when seated, or rather
roosted, your legs dangle in air several feet from the bottom: further,
picture in the fore-part a dozen or more spare black creatures, each
working an unwieldy pole-like paddle to a dismal and monotonous
chant—and you may have some idea of a Massoolah boat and its equipage;
the only thing, however, that can live in the tremendous surf that
lashes the coast of Coromandel.
“Are you all right there, in the Massoolah boat?” shouted one of the
ship’s officers.
“Ay, ay, sir,” responded a little middy in charge of us.
“Cast her off then,” said the voice; and immediately the connecting rope
was thrown on board, and off we swung, gently rising and falling on the
long undulations, which were soon to assume the more formidable
character of bursting surges. As we advance, I honestly confess, though
I put a bold face on it, I felt most confoundedly nervous, being under
serious apprehensions that one of the many sharks I had just seen would
soon have the pleasure of breakfasting on a gentleman cadet,
_cote-lettes à la Griffin_, no doubt, if gastronomy ranks as an art
amongst that voracious fraternity. On approaching the surf, the
boatmen’s monotonous chant quickened to a wild _ulluloo_. We were _in
medias res_. I looked astern, and there, at some distance, but in full
chase, advanced a curling mountain-billow, opening its vast concave
jaws, as if to devour us. On, on it came. “_Ullee! ullee! ullee!_”
shouted the rowers; smash came the wave; up flew the stern, down went
the prow; squall went the ladies, over canted the major, Grundy, and the
ex-resident, while those more fortunate in retaining their seats held on
with all the energy of alarm with one hand and dashed the brine from
their habiliments with the other. The wave passed, and order a little
restored, the boatmen pulled again with redoubled energy, to make as
much way as they could before the next should overtake us. It soon came,
roaring like so many fiends, and with nearly similar results. Another
and another followed, till, at last, the unwieldy bark, amidst an awful
bobbery, swung high and dry on the shelving beach; and out we all
sprung, right glad once more to feel ourselves on _terra firma_,
respecting which, be it observed, _en passant_, I hold the opinion of
the Persian, that a yard of it is worth a thousand miles of salt-water.
Here then was I at last, in very truth, treading the soil of India—of
that wondrous, teaming, and antique land, the fertile subject of my
earliest thoughts and imaginations—that land whose “barbaric pearl and
gold” has stimulated the cupidity of nations down the long stream of
time, from Sabæan, Phœnician, Tyrian, and Venetian, to Mynheer Van
Stockenbreech, and honest John Bull himself—whose visionary luxuries
have warmed full many a Western poet’s imagination, and whose strange
vicissitudes have furnished such ample matter to adorn the moralist’s
and historian’s pages.
As I gazed on the turbaned crowds, the flaunting robes, the huge
umbrellas, the passing palankeens, the black sentinels, the strange
birds, and even (pardon the climax) the little striped squirrels, which
gambolled up and down the pillars of the custom-house—sights so new and
strange to me,—I almost began to doubt my own identity, and to think I
had fallen into some new planet. Assuredly, of all the sunny moments
which chequer the path of life’s pilgrimage here below, there are few
whose brightness can compare with those of our first entrance on a new
and untrodden land. What music is there in every sound! What an
exhilarating freshness in every object! The peach’s bloom, the
butterfly’s down, or the painted bubble, however, are but types of them.
Alas! as of all sublunary enjoyments, they vanish upon contact, or at
best, bear not long the grasp of possession.
My feelings were still in a state of tumultuous excitement, when, gazing
about, I observed a native, in flowing robes and large gold ear rings,
bearing down upon me. With a profound salaam, and the smirking smile of
an old acquaintance, he proceeded to address me:
“How d’ye do, Sare?” said he.
“Pretty well, thank you,” said I, smiling; “but who are you?”
“I, Ramee Sawmee Dabash, Sare, come to make master proper compliment.
Very glad to see master safe on shore; too much surf, I think, and
master’s coat leetle wet.”
“Not a little,” said I, “for we have all had a complete sousing.”
“Oh, never mind souse, Sare; I take to Navy Tavern there makee
changee—eat good dinner. Navy Tavern very good place—plenty gentlemen go
there.”
“Where you please,” said I; “I am at your service.”
“Ver well, Sare; but (in a tone of entreaty) you please not forget my
name, Ramee Sawmee Dabash—master’s dabash—I am _ver_ honest man; too
much every gentleman know me.”
Here Ramee Sawmee unconsciously spoke the truth, as I had afterwards
full occasion to discover. I was soon besieged with more of these gentry
offering their services; but Ramee Sawmee, having the best right to
pluck me, by reason of prior possession, ordered them off indignantly;
and not to incur risks by unnecessary delays, he called a palankeen, and
requested me to get into it. In I tumbled, wrong side foremost, and off
we started for the Navy Tavern. He ran alongside, not wishing to lose
sight of me for a moment, pouring his disinterested advice into my ear
in one voluble and continuous stream.
“Master, you please take care; dis place,” said he, “too much dam rogue,
this Madras; plenty bad beebee, and some rascal dabash ver much cheatee
gentlemen. I give master best advice. I ver honest man.”
I thought myself singularly fortunate, in the simplicity of my
griffinish heart, in having fallen in with so valuable a character; but,
in the sequel, as has been before hinted, I discovered what, I dare say,
many a griff had discovered before, that Ramee Sawmee had a little
overestimated himself in the above particular article of honesty.
Sweltering through a broiling sun, and abundance of dust, we reached the
Navy Tavern, a building somewhat resembling, if I recollect rightly, one
of our own green verandah’d suburban taverns, in which comfortable cits
dine and drink heavy wet in sultry summer evenings. Here I found a vast
congregation of naval and military officers, red coats and blue; mates,
midshipmen, pursers, captains, and cadets; some playing billiards, some
smoking, and others drowning care in bowls of sangaree, in which
fascinating beverage, by the way, with guavas, pine-apples, &c., I also
indulged, till brought up, some time after, by a pleasant little touch
of dysentery, which had nearly produced a catastrophe; amongst the dire
consequences of which would have been the non-appearance of these
valuable Memoirs. From the Navy Tavern, Grundy and I went the next day
to the quarters appointed for young Bengal officers detained at Madras.
These consisted of some tents pitched in an open sandy spot, within the
fort, and presented few attractions; besides some small ones for
dormitories, there was a larger one dignified with the appellation of
the mess-tent. Here, at certain stated hours, a purveyor, denominated a
butler, but as unlike “one of those gentlemanly personages so called at
home as can well be imagined, placed breakfast, tiffin, and dinner, on
table at so much ahead. For two or three days I revelled in the delights
of sour Madeira, tough mutton, and skinny kid, with yams, and other
miserable succedanea for European vegetables. An Egyptian plague of
flies, and a burning sun beating through the single cloth of the tent,
made up the sum of the agreeables to which we were subjected. My faith
in the “luxuries of the East” had received a severe shock, and I was
fast tending to downright infidelity on that head, when a big-whiskered
fellow, with turban, badge, and silver stick, put a billet into my hand,
which was the means of soon restoring me to the pale of orthodoxy. It
was from an eccentric baronet, to whom I had brought letters and a
parcel from his daughter in England, and ran thus:
“Col. Sir Jeremy Skeggs presents his compliments to Mr. Gernon, and
thanks him for the care he has taken of the letters, &c., from his
daughter. Mrs. Hearty, Sir J. Skeggs sister, will be happy to see Mr.
G., and will send a palankeen for him.”
I packed up my all (an operation soon effected), got into an elegant
palankeen, which made its appearance shortly after the note, and
escorted by a body of silver-stick men (for Mr. Hearty was “a man in
authority”), I bade adieu to the tents, and leaving Grundy and some
other cadets, though with a strong commiserative feeling, to struggle
with the discomforts I have mentioned, was conveyed at a slapping pace
to my host’s garden residence, on the Mount Road. This was a flat roofed
building, in the peculiar style of the country, of two stories—a large
portico occupying nearly the whole length of the front. It was
approached by a long avenue of parkinsonias, and surrounded, and partly
obscured, by rich masses of tropical foliage, in which the bright green
of the plantain contrasted pleasingly with the darker hues of the mango
and the jack. Beyond the house stretched a pleasant domain, slightly
undulating, dotted with clumps, and intersected by rows of cocoa-nut
trees. Here it constituted one of my chief pleasures to saunter, to
chase the little striped squirrels up the trees, or to watch the almost
as agile ascent of the toddyman, as he mounted by a most simple
contrivance the tall and branchless stems to procure the exhilarating
juice; or to pelt the paroquets, as they clung screaming to the pendent
leaves. To possess a parrot of my own, in England, had long constituted
one of the unattainable objects of my juvenile ambition. I had longed so
much for it, that an inordinate idea of the value of parrots had clung
to me ever since. To see them, therefore, by dozens, in their wild
state, was like in some measure spreading out before me the treasures of
Golconda.
Mr. Hearty met me at the entrance, shook me very cordially by the hand,
and taking me into the apartment where his wife and several other ladies
were sitting, he presented me to the former, by whom I was very
graciously received.
“Mr. Gernon, my love,” said he, “whom your brother, Sir Jeremy, has been
so kind as to introduce to us.”
“We are very glad indeed to see you,” said the lady, rising and taking
my hand, “and hope you will make this house your home whilst the ship
remains.” I profoundly bowed my thanks.
“Mr. Hearty, my dear, will you shew Mr. Gernon his room—he may wish to
arrange his things—and then bring him back to us?”
This was cordial and gratifying. I am apt to generalize from a few
striking particulars. So I set the Madrassees down at once as polished
and hospitable in the extreme—a perfectly correct inference, I believe,
however precipitately formed by me on that occasion. Mr. Hearty was a
fine, erect, fresh old gentleman, of aristocratic mien and peculiarly
pleasing address. His manners, indeed, were quite of what is termed the
old school, dignified and polished, but withal a little formal; far
superior, however, to modern _brusquerie_, and that selfishness of
purpose which, too often disdaining disguise, sets at nought the “small
courtesies” which so greatly sweeten existence. His wife, much his
junior, was a handsome woman of eight-and-twenty, gay and lively, and
apparently much attached to her lord, in spite of the disparity of their
years. He, in fact, was one of those rarely-seen well-preserved old men,
of whom a young woman might be both proud and fond. My host lived in the
good old style of Indian hospitality, of which absence of unnecessary
restraint, abundance of good cheer, and the most unaffected and cordial
welcome, constituted the essential elements.
In India, from various causes, perhaps sufficiently obvious, the English
heart, naturally generous and kind, has or had full room for expansion;
and the “luxury of doing good,” in the shape of assembling happy faces
around the social board, can be enjoyed, without, as too frequently the
case here, the concomitant dread of outrunning the constable, or
trenching too deeply on the next day’s quantum of hashed mutton.
Certainly, our close packing in these densely populated lands may give
us polish, but it rubs off much of the natural enamel of our virtues.
Mr. Hearty’s house was quite Liberty Hall, in its fullest meaning. Each
guest had his bedroom, where he could read, write, or doze; or if he
preferred it, he could hunt squirrels, shoot with a rifle, as my friend,
the Scotch cadet, and I did; sit with the ladies in the drawing room and
play the flute, or enjoy any other equally intellectual amusement,
between meals, at which the whole party, from various quarters, were
wont to assemble, rubbing their hands, and greeting in that warm manner,
which commonly results where people have been well employed in the
interim, and not had too much of each other’s company. Mr. Hearty’s
house was full of visitors from all points of the compass.
There was a captain of cavalry and lady, from Bangalore; a very
dyspeptic-looking doctor from Vizagapatam; a missionary, bent on making
the natives “all samo master’s caste,” through the medium of his proper
vernacular; a strapping Scotch artillery cadet, before alluded to, some
six feet two, and who was my particular friend and crony, with several
others, birds of passage like myself. Amongst these, to my great delight
and astonishment, I found the lovely Miss Olivia and her sister. Now,
then, reader, prepare yourself for one of the most soul-stirring and
pathetic passages of these Memoirs. Shade of Petrarch, I invoke thee!
spirit of Jean Jacques, impart thy aid, whilst in honest but tender
guise I pour forth my “confessions.” Yes, as an honest chronicler of
events, I am bound to tell it—the candour of a griffin demands that it
should out. I fell over head and ears in love—’twas a most violent
attack I had, and I think I was full three months getting the better of
it. It would be, however, highly derogatory to the dignity of that
pleasing passion, were I to trail the account of its manifestations at
the fag end of a chapter; I shall, therefore, reserve my confessions of
the “soft impeachment,” and my voyage to Calcutta, for the next.