OFF TO SEA.
Next morning, my boxes having been sent down to the coach-office, Willie
and I bade good-bye to my schoolfellows, Mrs. Stevens, and old Abe. I
found, just before leaving, that Abe had sold my rabbits to Smith for
seven shillings and my tumblers to Jones Major for five shillings; so
that when I gave him the five shillings which was his allotted share of
the money my father had sent me to make presents with, he had made
nearly a pound out of me.
Our farewell from Mr. Poynter was last. He gave me much good advice and
his blessing, and specially impressed on me what he had told me the day
before about the necessity of obedience. “And now,” he said, “I will
give you your sailing directions for life. Your brother can tell you
that in all strange seas the captain consults his sailing directions in
order to avoid shoals and dangers, and find out where there are safe
anchorages. Life is a strange sea which has to be navigated by all of
us, and the shoals and dangers are sins and temptations. In this Bible
you will find directions how you may steer clear of them, and in it also
you will find refreshment for your soul when it is weary; and it
contains directions how we may all at length attain to that haven for
which we all long--the kingdom of heaven. God bless you, my boy; and
tell your father that I have great cause to be satisfied with your
conduct while under my care, and I trust he may find that his confidence
in me has not been misplaced. Good-bye, Frank; and good-bye, Willie.
Remember whenever either of you have time to come and see your old
schoolmaster, you will be welcome. Remember me to your father. And now
you must go, or you will be too late for your coach.”
We said good-bye to Mr. Poynter, and hurried away to the hotel from
which the Bristol coach started. We found the horses being put to, and
soon we were bowling along for Bristol.
I may now just tell in a few words the history of my family up to this
time, so that my readers may understand any allusions that I may make in
the course of this narrative of my adventures.
My father was the younger son of a Bristol merchant, and chose at an
early age the sea for a profession; and as soon as possible my
grandfather got him placed in command of one of the vessels trading
between Liverpool and the West Coast of Africa. His only brother on my
grandfather’s death left the business and settled down on a small estate
in Somersetshire which he had bought; and when my father was away from
England it was at his house that my brother and I had usually spent our
holidays.
My father had married shortly before the death of my grandfather, and
having given up going to sea had taken up his position as a partner in
the business. Two years after my birth my mother died, and my father,
finding that his home was lonely without her, took command of one of the
ships of the firm, his widowed sister Fanny, whose husband, Mr. Carter,
had been unfortunate in trade, taking charge of his house and Willie and
myself.
For some time my father’s ventures had prospered exceedingly; but there
came a time when fire and shipwreck caused him heavy losses, and he
found that he had not sufficient capital to employ more ships than the
_Petrel_. At the time this story commences the _Petrel_ had been
launched about three years, and in it my father traded to the coast of
Africa on his own account. He was already looking forward to the time
when he could turn over her command to my brother, and, giving up the
toil of a seafaring life, again settle down in his old house at Bristol
on the quayside, where he would see the ships arriving and sailing,
loading and discharging their cargo, and by his knowledge of trade find
means to start me as well as my brother in a ship of my own.
My aunt Fanny was a second mother to Willie and myself, and, though a
sailor’s sister, she had a horror of the sea, and often begged my
father to give up the _Petrel_, and earn a living as a merchant, finding
some employment for us boys either in his own office or in that of some
of his friends, who were numerous and influential. Her entreaties,
however, were of little avail; and if my father did at times show signs
of yielding to her arguments, Willie and myself were always in favour of
a sailor’s life, and carried the day against her.
During the last voyage of the _Petrel_, my father, having visited
Kinsimbo, where he had done a good trade with the natives, went as far
south as St. Paul de Loanda, thinking that perchance at Loanda he might
more quickly complete his cargo than he could elsewhere.
In this he had been greatly favoured; for a few days after he anchored,
David Livingstone, a missionary from South Africa, arrived, having
penetrated through countries which up to that time had been unknown, and
was accompanied by some men belonging to a tribe called Makololo, who
were seeking a market for their ivory. This ivory my father was able to
purchase at a rate which returned him a fair profit.
Willie was full of what Livingstone, whom he regarded as a hero, had
gone through, and he told me that even better and more exciting than the
life of a sailor was that of a traveller and explorer in Africa.
“Only fancy, Frank, herds of elephants to be shot! adventures with lions
and all sorts of strange people! Then Livingstone himself, he is loved
by the natives, and so doubtless would any man who treated them fairly.
Livingstone could well have come home from Loanda, and every one at home
would have run after him to hear what he had got to tell; but to all who
urged him to return to England he replied that he had promised Sekeletu,
the chief of the Makololo, to take his people back to their homes, and
that he could not go back from his plighted word. He had an ox which he
rode called Sindbad, and it was as good as any horse. I do wish father
would let me try to travel in Africa. There are all sorts of people who
come down to the coast with ivory and india-rubber to buy guns, brass
rods, beads, and calico, and I am sure that a journey into the interior
would bring more profit than a dozen voyages to the coast.”
I was quite infected with Willie’s African fever, and listened with a
greedy ear to all the stories he told me of hunting and shooting which
he had picked up from Livingstone’s men, and of the bravery and devotion
Livingstone had shown.
These stories and descriptions of different places that the _Petrel_ had
visited in her last voyage made the time seem short, and I was almost
sorry when the coach drew up in front of the Admiral Nelson.
“Welcome, Frank,” shouted my father, who was waiting for us. “Here’s
Jack Adams,” pointing to a seaman who was standing by; “he will look
after your traps, while we will go round by Harris the outfitter’s and
give orders about your sea-going kit. And then, after you’ve seen your
aunt Fanny, you can go on board the _Petrel_, and Willie will show you
where you’re to sling your hammock. Her stern is hauled to the quay just
abreast of our door. There’s no place like Bristol quay for the house of
a shipmaster and owner. Now, Will, what sort of report did Mr. Poynter
give of the lad?”
“A good one, sir,” he answered. “And he wound up his school-days well by
playing cricket as he had never played before yesterday.”
“That’s right, Frank; whatever you do, do it well. And though you won’t
have much chance for cricket now, the same qualities which make a boy a
good cricket-player are useful to the seaman.”
“O my dear father,” I said, “I am so glad to see you again, and to think
that I am to go to sea with you, and not be long months without hearing
anything of you or Willie.”
“All right; but I am taking you in my own ship to watch over you and not
to pet you. I expect that you, as the captain’s son, will be an example
to the other apprentices, and mind that the first thing that you’ve got
to learn is to obey orders without any questioning. ‘Obey orders and
break owners’ is a downright good maxim.”
“Why, Mr. Poynter told me the same in different words. He said obedience
was the thing which was most necessary to me.”
“Yes, lad, and he’s right. Now I have never found you disobedient, and
Aunt Fanny says that though you do get into scrapes you are a biddable
boy; but you will have many orders given you which are disagreeable to
obey, and which seem foolish. Never question them, but obey at once. You
will have to obey Willie, now he is second mate, as well as myself and
the chief officer. But here is Harris’s shop. Come in and we will look
after your kit.”
Mr. Harris, who had known my father for many years, was delighted to see
him, and still more pleased when he found that he was to receive a
liberal order for my outfit.
It was amusing to see the various things that he said were absolutely
necessary for a young gentleman on going to sea, and which, as Willie
said, would, if we had taken them all, have freighted the brig; but my
father soon put much on one side. Among the chiefest of my delights in
Mr. Harris’s shop, after the all-important orders had been given for my
jackets of navy blue with brass buttons and my suit of oilskins and
south-wester all complete, was the choosing of a telescope ornamented
with flags of Marryat’s code and a quadrant, which my father said Willie
would have to teach me to use as soon as we got to sea.
From Mr. Harris’s shop we made our way to the house on the quayside; and
there Aunt Fanny was waiting to welcome us, and had dinner ready, for
which I was well prepared by the drive on the top of the coach from
Clifton. But my eagerness to see as much as possible of the _Petrel_
kept me running to the window of the room, which was on the first
floor,--the ground floor being used as offices and sample-rooms,--to
have a look at her.
My aunt said, “You will see enough of her, Frank; sit still now and eat
your dinner. I daresay many a time while you are away you will wish
yourself in this old house, and long to have as good a meal as you are
now neglecting.”
“Perhaps so, aunt; but I do want to see the _Petrel_. There is all her
cargo coming on shore; and oh, there are such a lot of tusks of
ivory.--Father, mayn’t I go and look at them?”
“Directly, my boy. Willie, you must go and relieve Mr. Hammond [the
chief officer]; and be careful how you check the things as they are
landed. All the ivory is to go to Messrs. King, and I am going to see if
they will advance their price on the oil and rubber. Let Jack Adams take
charge of Frank, and teach him something of the masts and rigging.”
“O father, I know all the names of the masts, yards, and sails, and can
tie lots of sailors’ knots.”
“Good, my boy, but you must learn the use of them; and you cannot go to
work to-day as I intend you to, but to-morrow you will have a canvas
suit, and then you will begin to really learn to be a sailor.”
Grace being said, I flew downstairs and across to the _Petrel_, Willie
following me in a more leisurely manner suited to his dignity as second
mate; and Mr. Hammond gave over to him the work of superintending the
discharging cargo; while Jack Adams, who was employed in serving a new
set of tacks and sheets, was called from his work to give me my first
lesson in practical seamanship.
“You see,” said Jack, “as how in all seamanship and rigging there is a
reason; and though many a man is rated A.B. ’cause he can hand, reef,
and steer, heave the lead, and sew a seam, he can get no further, ’cause
why he don’t know the reason why the helm is put up or down, and only
knows his work as Black Bill’s parrot knows how to talk without knowing
the meanin’ o’ what he says,--though, maybe, I wrongs old Poll, for as
soon as he sees the coppers a-boiling for dinner he sings, ‘Hot
potatoes,’ which he never does afore breakfast or tea. But now I wants
you to learn why things is; and we will go forward in the ship, and take
a look at the bowsprit, for that’s the principal spar in the ship, and
on it others depend.”
I went along with Jack Adams, and was soon deep in the mystery of inner
and outer gammonings, bob-stays, bowsprit shrouds, and forestay collars.
I thought when I had been once through them that I should remember; but
Jack was a thorough seaman, and he said as far as an old tarpaulin’s
teaching should go I should be one too.
After a time he was satisfied that I understood the names, uses, and
places of the various fittings of the bowsprit, and said, “Now, you must
larn how they are put in their place and secured. Our gammoning, you
see, is covered over with lead, for to presarve it from damage; and you
can’t see how it is passed, nor perceive the merits of a thorough-put
turn. But there’s the _Mohican_, belonging to Mr. King, got her bows
into the quay, and they are gammoning her bowsprit. Now you can come and
see with me the most important piece of work in fitting out a ship, and
which must be done judgematically by a good seaman. Bobstays,
fore-stays--all your rigging may be well fitted, but if the gammoning is
wrong you’ll spring your bowsprit to a sartainty; and why then, you
sees, your foremast must follow, and your main-topmast follows that.
Gammoning, to my mind, is a sort of thing like the heart of the rigging:
when it’s finished, it’s hidden from you; but if it goes, all goes. So
your heart you can’t see; but if your heart’s wounded, the man dies. I’m
not larned, but you understand what I means.”
“Certainly, Jack. Where is the _Mohican_? Oh, there--is that she--that
ship with a great cask hanging from her bowsprit, and some men heaving
at a capstan under her bows?”
“Right. Now we’ll go and have a squint at them, and then you will see
how the gammoning’s passed and secured; and if you remembers that, why
you’ll have made a good bit of headway.”
We were soon under the bows of the _Mohican_; and when her mate, who was
superintending the work, heard from Jack Adams that I was a son of
Captain Baldwin, he told me to come up on the knight-heads, and
explained everything to me; and when the men knocked off work, I
considered that I thoroughly understood the mystery of gammoning a
bowsprit.
My father seemed well pleased when I told him how my afternoon had been
passed; and next day, in a canvas suit, I was again put under the charge
of Jack, and passed the ball for him while he served the tacks and
sheets. Afterwards for several days I worked with him in fitting
different parts of the rigging; for my father said the only way to
become a sailor was to begin at the beginning, and though I was a
skipper’s son, I should put my arm in the tar-pot and slush-bucket as
well as the other boys belonging to the _Petrel_.
At last the cargo which the _Petrel_ had brought home was all
discharged, and her hold clean swept; and I was put under the charge of
Mr. Hammond, to learn how a hold should be stowed. In the evenings my
father showed specimens of the various articles used in the African
trade, and told me where each sort of cloth, bead, wire, or what not,
was of value, and for what it should be exchanged.
The day came when the holds were stowed and the sails bent, and we were
all ready for sea. My father arranged for the pilot to come on board for
us to sail the next morning; but, unfortunately, that very same day Mr.
Hammond broke his leg, and his berth as mate had to be filled up at a
moment’s notice. His place was taken by one Simon Pentlea, a Cornish
man, who had capital papers from the master of the last ship he had
sailed in, and who was evidently a thorough seaman. But he was as
different in manner as possible from the open-hearted, sunny-tempered
Mr. Hammond, being a silent, taciturn man, who never seemed to look one
straight in the face, but at the same time managed to see all that was
going on, and when speaking, one felt as if his shifty eyes were
fathoming the very depths of one’s heart and spying out one’s inmost
thoughts.
My father had not time to make further inquiries into the antecedents of
Mr. Pentlea, who said all his other papers were at his home in an
outlying village in Cornwall, where the post seldom went, and that it
would be impossible for him to say how soon he would be able to get
them; and as he had not sailed out of Bristol before, he could give no
references in that town. However, as the papers he had from the master
of the British _Queen of Liverpool_, which had been engaged in the West
African trade, said he had given full satisfaction for two years, and
fully understood the African trade, and was acquainted with the
different anchorages in the Bight of Benin, my father thought himself
lucky to be able at once to secure so good a substitute for Mr. Hammond.
Nothing worthy of note happened during our departure, and a fresh
easterly wind carried us out of the Bristol Channel, past Lundy, and
well out to sea beyond the Admiralty Bank. I was not at all seasick,
and I was delighted to see the _Petrel_, with all her snowy canvas set,
slipping through the water, and passing a number of colliers and
coasting craft, and I felt very proud of being one of her crew.
The _Petrel_, indeed, was a vessel of which any one might be proud. For
a brig, she was a very large craft, being three hundred and fifty tons
burden, and a very handsome one into the bargain; and my father insisted
on her being kept in such perfect order that she was often taken for a
man-of-war, and as she carried four twelve-pound carronades on either
side the mistake was a very natural one. The crew consisted of my
father, the two mates, Simon Pentlea and my brother, and sixteen men
before the mast, including Jack Adams, who was called the boatswain; Sam
Peters, who was sailmaker; the cook, Black Bill, who had many years
before been picked up on part of the wreck of a slaver by my father; Tom
Sentall, the carpenter; besides myself and another apprentice, James
Harris, whom we always called Jimmy Duds, and a steward, a black Sierra
Leone man, named Augustus Warspite, the latter name being that of a
man-of-war which had captured a Spanish slaver, of which he formed part
of the cargo. My father, with Willie and Mr. Pentlea, had berths in the
cabin, which was right aft; and forward of this was an open space
bulkheaded off from the hold, which was called the trade-room, and here
Adams, Peters, Sentall, Jimmy Duds, and I had our chests, and messed and
slept. Black Bill and Augustus had a berth each in the galley, which
was on deck just forward of two large surf-boats which we carried on
skids before the mainmast. The rest of the men had their berths below
forward; but there was a fine roomy top-gallant forecastle, under which
they could sleep in the tropics, whilst aft there was a small
monkey-poop running ten feet from the taffrail, which was useful for the
officers in hot weather. Besides the surf-boats, we carried two cutters
and a gig; and as is the good custom in the Bristol trade, there was a
library on board, which was kept in a cupboard in the trade-room, and
which my father put under my charge. We were also provisioned
differently from ordinary merchant-ships, many little extra luxuries
being provided, to cheer the lot of the men during the monotonous days
that must be spent off the African coast in waiting for trade.
All the men were regular Bristol men, and the work went easy enough, for
every man pulled his pound; and though I had just the same work to do as
Jimmy Duds, and had to stand my watch and take my turn at the look-out,
and always in my watch to help in furling and loosing the upper sails,
yet my father found time for me to learn how to use my quadrant and to
teach me navigation.