[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 130.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]
BLOCKADES AND BLOCKADE-RUNNERS.
For three-quarters of a century, England differed from the other great
maritime states of Europe as to the way in which blockade should be
defined. To begin with, it may be enough to explain that a territory
is said to be blockaded when access to or egress from its seaports
is prevented by the naval forces of another state. When a state, for
purposes of its own, fiscal or hygienic, declares that certain of its
own ports shall be closed against foreign vessels, that decree must be
respected by other states to whose notice it is duly brought, provided
that those ports are really under the control of the executive of that
state. But that is not a blockade; it is a mere closure of ports,
which any government, in virtue of its inherent sovereignty within the
borders of its own territory, is quite entitled to announce. Blockade
is essentially a war measure. When the President of the United States,
in April 1861, proclaimed that a forcible blockade of the Southern
States would be forthwith instituted, England and France immediately
declared their neutrality, and although that meant that they recognised
the Confederates as belligerents, and not as rebels, their action was
unobjectionable, because, whenever the Northern States issued that
proclamation, they by implication admitted that they were engaged
in war, and not merely in the suppression of a rebellion. In recent
times, however, recourse has been had to what has been termed ‘pacific
blockade;’ thus, the coasts of Greece were blockaded in 1827 by the
English, French, and Russian squadrons, although all three powers
professed to be at peace with Turkey (under whose dominion Greece then
was); and from 1845 to 1848, France and England prevented access to
La Plata, although no war was declared. To admit such procedure as
legitimate would simply mean that one state might put in force against
another measures destructive of the trade of neutral countries, and yet
expect those countries to view the whole operations as pacific. This
objection might not apply to that pacific blockade which we have this
year seen put in force against Greece, for we know that every vessel
flying the flag of any other state than Greece has been unmolested.
But the liberty allowed to other nations did nothing to mitigate the
coercion applied to Greek trading-vessels, and had the object of
the blockaders been merely to divert to their own merchantmen the
carrying trade of the Archipelago, they could scarcely have devised
a measure better fitted to attain that end. Lord Palmerston at least
had a decided opinion as to how far such action was in accordance
with law: his own words are: ‘The French and English blockade of the
Plata has been from first to last illegal.’ In truth, pacific blockade
is a contradiction in terms. In practice, it is enforced by the same
methods as blockade between belligerents; and a recent Dutch writer has
well pointed out that the sole reason why it has not yet met with the
unanimous disapproval of European powers is that hitherto it has been
levelled against only the weakest states.
It had from time out of mind been reckoned a perfectly regular
proceeding to declare a port or a territory under blockade, and to
affix penalties to the violation of that declaration, although, in
point of fact, not a single vessel should be present to enforce its
observance. But gradually this tenet met with less toleration; and in
1780, when America and France were combined against England, the three
great powers of the North, Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, entered into a
league known as the ‘Armed Neutrality,’ with the object of evading the
severe but ancient method of dealing with neutral commerce which Great
Britain adopted. One of the articles which this confederacy agreed
upon was: ‘A port is blockaded only when evident danger attends the
attempt to run into it’—a principle which boldly denied the right of
any power to close by a mere edict a single hostile port. But Britain
doggedly persisted in the exercise of a right which had undoubtedly the
sanction of custom; and the maritime powers of Europe were to wrangle
and recriminate through still darker years before agreement could
be reached. On the 21st of November 1806, Napoleon promulgated the
famous Berlin Decree, which announced that every port in Great Britain
was blockaded; and by an Order in Council, issued a year afterwards,
the British government declared France and all the states which owned
her supremacy to be subject to the same embargo. However far short
the English performance might fall of their announced intention,
the egregious pretentiousness of the French decree will be apparent
enough to any one who remembers Macaulay’s saying of the Emperor: ‘The
narrowest strait was to his power what it was of old believed that a
running stream was to the sorceries of a witch.’ Yet, both governments
were only carrying to its logical issue the old doctrine which neither
had renounced—that a valid blockade might be constituted by mere
notification. It was only in 1856 that, with the express purpose
of removing as far as possible the uncertainty which hung over the
rules of naval war, the great powers concurred in the Declaration of
Paris, which has been called ‘a sort of doctrinal annex’ to the treaty
of that year. Important as has been the operation of all the rules
contained in that Declaration, the only one which concerns us here is
the fourth: ‘Blockades in order to be binding must be effective—that
is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access
to the coast of the enemy.’ This being practically an adoption of the
principle for which the neutrals of 1780 had so strenuously contended,
was an argumentative victory for them; but it was far more; it was a
triumph for those thinkers who have always maintained that all law must
rest upon a basis of fact, that except in so far as law declares the
relation which ought to subsist between facts which a previous analysis
has ascertained, it is useless, and even mischievous.
The first fifteen years of the present century were marked by all that
turbulence which had characterised the closing years of that which
went before, and there were not wanting in both periods instances of
blockades perseveringly prosecuted and gallantly resisted. In the
beginning of 1800, for example, Genoa was the only city in Italy held
by the French; the Austrian troops invested it by land, and English
war-ships blocked the passage seaward. The beleaguered Genoese saw
the usual incidents of an old-fashioned blockade. From time to time,
one of the light privateers which lay behind the little island of
Capraja, north-east of Corsica, would succeed in eluding all the
vigilance of Admiral Keith’s squadron, and carry in provisions enough
to prolong for a while the desperate resistance of Massena’s garrison;
and now the blockaders would retaliate by ‘cutting out’ a galley from
beneath the very guns of the harbour. One day a gale might drive the
jealous sentinels to sea; but on the next, they were back at their
old stations, there to wait with patience until pestilence and famine
should bring the city to its doom. Sixty years later and in another
hemisphere, the maritime world was to see how far the new appliances of
elaborate science had altered the modes in which blockades were to be
enforced and evaded.
On the 27th of April 1861, President Lincoln issued a proclamation in
which the following announcement appeared: ‘A competent force will
be posted so as to prevent the entrance and exit of vessels from the
ports’ of the Southern States. ‘If, therefore, with a view to violate
such blockade, any vessel shall attempt to leave any of said ports,
she will be duly warned; and if she shall again attempt to enter
or leave a blockaded port, she will be captured.’ All Europe was
prepared to watch and to deride this attempt to lock up a coast-line
of thirty-five hundred miles against the intrusion of traders, whose
appetite for gain would be whetted to the keenest by artificially
raised prices. Already, indeed, the scheme had been ridiculed as a
‘material impossibility’ by European statesmen, who pointed to the fact
that not one of all the blockades established during the preceding
seventy-five years had succeeded in excluding trade even where the
coast to be watched was comparatively limited. But as a set-off against
the long and broken stretch of coast which lay open to the operations
of the blockade-runners, there were difficulties in their way which
were at the outset of the struggle too lightly esteemed. Almost the
whole extent of the seaboard was protected by a treacherous fringe of
long low islands, scarcely rising above the surface of the water; the
channels between and behind these were winding and intricate; and when
these obstacles were passed, there still remained the crucial bar to
imperil the entrance to every harbour.
The conditions of the impending conflict were new, and sagacious men
foresaw that under them the risk of neutral powers being entangled in
disputes with the belligerents was immensely increased. The agency of
steam was to be employed for the first time to enforce a blockade on a
gigantic scale. It was plain that a blockading squadron was no longer
liable to be blown off the port it was watching by continued gales; but
it was not so easy to say how far this new motive-power would alter the
chances of the blockade-runners. The naval strength of the Northern
States was at the beginning of the war so puny that the blockade when
first instituted was little better than one of those ‘paper blockades’
which the voice of international law had condemned at Paris seven years
before; for many months, indeed, the trade of the Confederacy with
Europe was but little affected. It was in view of this that the _New
York Tribune_ urged Lincoln’s government to economise their sea-force,
and close entrance channels by means of sunken hulks. This plan was
adopted at Charleston, and carried out under the superintendence of
an officer whose aim was ‘to establish a combination of artificial
interruptions and irregularities resembling on a small scale those of
Hell-gate,’ that rock which so long impeded the navigation to New York
harbour, and which was removed only a few months ago.
In Europe, both military critics and Chambers of Commerce protested
against this barbarous method of making good a blockade; but the
stone-laden whale-ships sunk at Charleston did no permanent damage
to the port, for before the war closed, the hulks broke up, and the
harbour was filled with floating timber. But it was quickly felt that
only an adequate fleet could render the blockade effective, and in
response to the ceaseless activity of the dockyards, the northern
war-ships multiplied with marvellous rapidity. The blockade grew
strict. Gradually, the pressure of diminished imports began to tell
on the resources of the Southern States; iron, liquors, machinery,
articles of domestic use, medicinal drugs and appliances of all kinds
became scarce. In Richmond, a yard of ordinary calico which was
formerly sold for twelve and a half cents, brought thirty dollars; a
pair of French gloves was worth one hundred and fifty dollars; and the
price of salt had risen to a dollar a pound. The export trade, too,
was being slowly strangled; immense stores of cotton and tobacco lay
waiting shipment at every port. A bale of cotton worth forty dollars at
Charleston would have brought two hundred at New York; and some idea
of the price it might have yielded at Liverpool may be obtained from a
consideration of the fact that half a million of English cotton-workers
were subsisting only upon charity.
But the war sent trade into new channels. Nassau, the capital of
New Providence, one of the Bahamas group, became one huge depôt for
the goods which sought a market in the forbidden ports. Articles of
household economy and of field equipment lay piled in heterogeneous
masses on her wharfs, the cotton which had escaped the grasp of
the Federals lay in her warehouses for reshipment to Europe; her
coal-stores overflowed with the mineral which was to feed the greedy
furnaces of the blockade-runners lying at anchor in the bay, and the
patois of every seafaring people in Europe could be daily heard upon
her quays. Hardly less numerous and varied were the groups of sailors,
merchants, adventurers, and spies, who discussed the fortunes of the
war upon the white-glancing terraces of Hamilton in the Bermudas.
Blockade-running had now become a business speculation. But the great
bulk of the trade was in very few hands, for the risks were great, and
the capital involved was large. The initial cost of a blockade-runner
was heavy; the officers were highly paid; a pilot well acquainted
with the port to be attempted often demanded one thousand pounds for
his services; and besides all this, it is to be remembered that on
a fair calculation not above one trip in four was successful. It is
computed that in three years there were built or despatched from the
Clyde no less than one hundred and eleven swift steamers specially
designed for the adventurous trade with the Confederate ports. Almost
any day in August 1864, one of these vessels might have been seen
cruising about at the Tail of the Bank, preparing to try her speed
against the swiftest passenger steamers of the river. The _Douglas_
was in those days the fastest boat on the Mersey; but one of the new
blockade-runners, named the _Colonel Lamb_, easily beat her, attaining
on the trial a speed of sixteen and three-quarter knots (or about
nineteen miles) per hour. A careful observer might almost have guessed
the character of the enterprise for which a blockade-runner was
designed by a scrutiny of her build. Two taper masts and a couple of
short smoke-stacks were all that appeared above the deck; her object
was to glide in the darkness past her watchers, and the tall spars of a
heavily-rigged ship would have been too conspicuous a mark for eager
eyes. Her hull was painted white, for experience showed that on dark
nights or in thick weather that colour most easily escaped observation.
Although she had considerable stowage-room, her draught was light, and
she was propelled by paddle or side wheels, in order that she might
turn readily in narrow or shallow waters. To aid their war-vessels
in capturing and destroying light-heeled cruisers such as this, the
Federal government built twenty-three small gunboats. They, too, drew
but little water, and rarely exceeded five hundred tons burden. For
armament they carried one eleven-inch pivot-gun and three howitzers—two
of twenty-four pounds, and one of twenty pounds—well-chosen weapons
for the work they had to do. Their weak point was their rate of speed,
which did not amount to more than nine or ten knots an hour. So
deficient were they in this respect, that a blockade-runner has been
known to run out, get damaged, and sail round a gunboat into port again.
There was so much in blockade-running that was attractive to the
adventurous, that we are hardly surprised to learn that officers of our
navy engaged in the work, wholly forgetful of the neutral position to
which their country’s policy bound them. The remonstrances, however,
which were made to our government on that subject, and the Gazette
Order which they elicited, would probably prevent those who had an
official status from taking their capture so phlegmatically as the
youth who took his passage out in a blockade-runner with the intention
of enjoying a tour through the Southern States, and who, when the
vessel was captured, wrote home saying that he would now explore the
Northern States, ‘which would do quite as well.’ One can well imagine
the tiptoe of expectation to which every one on board would rise as the
Bermudas sank into the distance, and the time drew near which was to
decide the fortune of their enterprise. How warily they lie off until
the evening favours their approach, and then, with every light but the
engine-fires extinguished, speed quietly but rapidly past the large
looming hulls of the outer blockaders. But they have yet to run the
gantlet of the inner cordon of gunboats, and now comes the real crisis
of their venture. Shall they steam with cunning effrontery slowly
and ostentatiously close past a gunboat? The plan offers a chance of
success, for some of their watchers have once been blockade-runners
themselves, and in the darkness the similarity of build might deceive.
No; they perceive what seems to be a practicable gap in the line, and
driving their engines to their utmost pitch, they rest their fate upon
their speed. Yet they are detected: there goes a heavy swivel gun; the
alarm is raised, and now a perfect fusillade rages round the intruder.
But everything is against good practice; only one shot takes effect
in her hull, that going clean through the bow; and with little other
damage, the daring vessel steams into Wilmington with a valuable cargo
of liquors, leather, and iron.
Blockade-running soon became almost as much an art as a trade, and
there were some grumblers in this country who made it a ground of
complaint that no English officers had been sent to observe the
new development in this branch of naval warfare. The most ingenious
expedients were resorted to on both sides. A system of signalling by
means of blue lights and rockets was in many cases established between
the forts and their friends in the offing. The steamer _Hansa_ ran into
Wilmington while Fort Fisher was being bombarded, and prevented pursuit
by boldly sailing close past the powder-ship, which shortly afterwards
blew up. Occasionally, a furious cannonade was begun from some adjacent
fort, so as to draw off the blockading squadron, and leave the entrance
free, if only for a few hours. The blockaders had their tricks too.
Sometimes heavy smoke was seen rising as from a ship on fire; but when
the blockade-runner steered to render help, she found out too late that
the supposed burning vessel was a Federal cruiser, which had resorted
to this device in order to bring the swifter craft within range of her
guns. One dark rainy night the _Petrel_ ran out of Charleston, and
shortly afterwards fell in with what appeared to be a large merchant
vessel. Hoping to crown a successful run with the capture of a valuable
prize, she gave chase, and fired a shot to bring the stranger to. The
reply was a single broadside, so well directed that there was no need
for another. The supposed merchantman was the frigate _St Lawrence_. A
favourite ruse of the privateer _Jeff Davis_ was to hoist the French
flag of distress, and when a ship bore down in response to this appeal,
she would, under pretence of handing in a letter, send aboard a boat’s
crew armed to the teeth.
But of all the remarkable incidents of this remarkable blockade there
was none more noteworthy than the voyage of the British ship _Emily St
Pierre_. The story rivals the inventions of a sea-romancer. This vessel
left Calcutta with orders to make the coast of South Carolina and see
if the blockade of Charleston was still in force. Now, although this
was a proceeding not in any way illegal, she was nevertheless captured
by a Federal warship; a prize crew of two officers and thirteen men
was put on board; and her own crew, with the exception of the master,
the cook, and the steward, was taken out of her. Thus manned, she was
being steered for a northern port, when her deposed captain persuaded
his cook and steward to assist him in making one effort to regain
possession of the ship. They caught the mate asleep in his berth,
ironed and gagged him; the prize-master they found on deck, and
treated similarly; three seamen who had the watch on deck were asked
to go down into the scuttle—a storeroom near the helm—for a coil of
rigging. The captain gave them this order as if he had accepted the
inevitable, and was aiding the captors to navigate the ship. As soon as
the three leaped down, the hatch was closed, and they were prisoners.
The remainder of the prize crew, who were in the forecastle, were shut
down and liberated one by one; but those who would give no promise of
help to their new master were confined beside the unfortunates in the
scuttle. Three, indeed, consented, but only one of them was a sailor;
and with this crew of five, a vessel of eight hundred and eighty-four
tons was brought to Liverpool through thirty days of bad weather. It
is only a fitting conclusion to such a tale of daring to record that
the intrepid seaman who conceived and carried out the enterprise was a
native of the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, which had already numbered
among her sons the renowned Paul Jones.
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XXXII.
‘This is awkward, Tom, awfully awkward,’ Mr Theodore Dupuy said to
his nephew as they rode homeward. ‘We must manage somehow to get rid
of this man as early as possible. Of course, we can’t keep him in the
house any longer with your cousin Nora, now that we know he’s really
nothing more—baronet or no baronet—than a common mulatto. But at the
same time, you see, we can’t get rid of him anyhow by any possibility
before the dinner to-morrow evening. I’ve asked several of the best
people in Trinidad especially to meet him, and I don’t want to go and
stultify myself openly before the eyes of the whole island. What the
dickens can we do about it?’
‘If you’d taken my advice, Uncle Theodore,’ Tom Dupuy answered
sullenly, in spite of his triumph, ‘you’d have got rid of him long ago.
As it is, you’ll have to keep him on now till after Tuesday, and then
we must manage somehow to dismiss him politely.’
They rode on without another word till they reached the house; there,
they found Nora and Harry had arrived before them, and had gone in to
dress for dinner. Mr Dupuy followed their example; but Tom, who had
made up his mind suddenly to stop, loitered about on the lawn under
the big star-apple tree, waiting in the cool till the young Englishman
should make his appearance.
Meanwhile, Nora, in her own dressing-room, attended by Rosina Fleming
and Aunt Clemmy, was thinking over the afternoon’s ride very much
to her own satisfaction. Mr Noel was really after all a very nice
fellow: if he hadn’t been so dreadfully dark—but there, he was really
just one shade too dusky in the face ever to please a West Indian
fancy. And yet, he was certainly very much in love with her! The very
persistence with which he avoided reopening the subject, while he
went on paying her such very marked attention, showed in itself how
thoroughly in earnest he was. ‘He’ll propose to me again to-morrow—I’m
quite sure he will,’ Nora thought to herself, as Rosina fastened up
her hair with a sprig of plumbago and a little delicate spray of wild
maiden-hair. ‘He was almost going to propose to me as we came along by
the mountain-cabbages this afternoon, only I saw him hesitating, and I
turned the current of the conversation. I wonder why I turned it? I’m
sure I don’t know why. I wonder whether it was because I didn’t know
whether I should answer “Yes” or “No,” if he were really to ask me? I
think one ought to decide in one’s own mind beforehand what one’s going
to say in such a case, especially when a man has asked one already.
He’s awfully nice. I wish he was just a shade or two lighter. I believe
Tom really fancies—he’s so dark—it isn’t quite right with him.’
Isaac Pourtalès, lounging about that minute, watching for Rosina, whom
he had come to talk with, saw Nora flit for a second past the open
window of the passage, in her light and gauze-like evening dress, with
open neck in front, and the flowers twined in her pretty hair; and he
said to himself as he glanced up at her: ‘De word ob de Lard say right,
“Take captive de women!”’
At the same moment, Tom Dupuy, strolling idly on the lawn in the
thickening twilight, caught sight of Pourtalès, and beckoned him
towards him with an imperious finger. ‘Come here,’ he said; ‘I want to
talk with you, you nigger there.—You’re Isaac Pourtalès, aren’t you?—I
thought so. Then come and tell me all you know about this confounded
cousin of yours—this man Noel.’
Isaac Pourtalès, nothing loth, poured forth at once in Tom Dupuy’s
listening ear the whole story, so far as he knew it, of Lady Noel’s
antecedents in Barbadoes. While the two men, the white and the brown,
were still conversing under the shade of the star-apple tree, Nora, who
had come down to the drawing-room meanwhile, strolled out for a minute,
beguiled by the cool air, on to the smoothly kept lawn in front of the
drawing-room window. Tom saw her, and beckoned her to him with his
finger, exactly as he had beckoned the tall mulatto. Nora gazed at the
beckoning hand with the intensest disdain, and then turned away, as if
perfectly unconscious of his ungainly gesture, to examine the tuberoses
and great bell-shaped brugmansias of the garden border.
Tom walked up to her angrily and rudely. ‘Didn’t you see me calling
you, miss?’ he said in his harsh drawl, with no pretence of unnecessary
politeness. ‘Didn’t you see I wanted to speak to you?’
‘I saw you making signs to somebody with your hand, as if you took me
for a servant,’ Nora answered coldly; ‘and not having been accustomed
in England to be called in that way, I thought you must have made a
mistake as to whom you were dealing with.’
Tom started and muttered an ugly oath. ‘In England,’ he repeated. ‘Oh,
ah, in England. West Indian gentlemen, it seems, aren’t good enough
for you, miss, since this fellow Noel has come out to make up to you.
I suppose you don’t happen to know that he’s a West Indian too, and a
precious queer sort of one into the bargain? I know you mean to marry
him, miss; but all I can tell you is, your father and I are not going
to permit it.’
‘I don’t wish to marry him,’ Nora answered, flushing fiery red all over
(‘Him is pretty for true when him blush like dat,’ Isaac Pourtalès said
to himself from the shade of the star-apple tree). ‘But if I did, I
wouldn’t listen to anything _you_ might choose to say against him, Tom
Dupuy; so that’s plain speaking enough for you.’
Tom sneered. ‘O no,’ he said; ‘I always knew you’d end by marrying a
woolly-headed mulatto; and this man’s one, I don’t mind telling you.
He’s a brown man born; his mother, though she _is_ Lady Noel—fine sort
of a Lady, indeed—is nothing better than a Barbadoes brown girl; and
he’s own cousin to Isaac Pourtalès over yonder! He is, I swear to
you.—Isaac, come here, sir!’
Nora gave a little suppressed scream of surprise and horror as the tall
mulatto, in his ragged shirt, leering horribly, emerged unexpectedly,
like a black spectre, from the shadows opposite.
‘Isaac,’ the young planter said with a malicious smile, ‘who is this
young man, I want to know, that calls himself _Mister_ Noel?’
Isaac Pourtalès touched his slouching hat awkwardly as he answered,
under his breath, with an ugly scowl: ‘Him me own cousin, sah, an’ me
mudder cousin. Him an’ me mudder is fam’ly long ago in ole Barbadoes.’
‘There you are, Nora!’ Tom Dupuy cried out to her triumphantly. ‘You
see what sort of person your fine English friend has turned out to be.’
‘Tom Dupuy,’ Nora cried in her wrath—but in her own heart she knew it
wasn’t true—‘if you tell me this, trying to set me against Mr Noel,
you’ve failed in your purpose, sir: what you say has no effect upon me.
I do not care for him; you are quite mistaken about that; but if I did,
I don’t mind telling you, your wicked scheming would only make me like
him all the better. Tom Dupuy, no real gentleman would ever try so to
undermine another man’s position.’
At that moment, Harry Noel, just descending to the drawing-room,
strolled out to meet them on the lawn, quite unconscious of this little
family altercation. Nora glanced hastily from Tom Dupuy, in his planter
coat and high riding-boots, to Harry Noel, looking so tall and handsome
in his evening dress, and couldn’t help noticing in her own mind which
of the two was the truest gentleman. ‘Mr Noel,’ she said, accepting his
half-proffered arm with a natural and instinctively gracious movement,
‘will you take me in to dinner? I see it’s ready.’
Tom Dupuy, crest-fallen and astonished, followed after, and muttered to
himself with deeper conviction than ever that he always knew that girl
Nora would end in the longrun by marrying a confounded woolly-headed
mulatto.
(_To be continued._)
THE ASCENT OF CLOUDY MOUNTAIN, NEW GUINEA.
BY CAPTAIN CYPRIAN BRIDGE, R.N.
The Rev. James Chalmers—known all along the southern coast of New
Guinea, throughout the original British protectorate in fact, as
‘Ta-ma-té’—will always be held responsible for the first ascent
of Cloudy Mountain. Taking advantage of the presence of Commodore
Erskine’s squadron at South Cape, he instilled into the minds of some
of the officers a desire to get to the summit. With the persuasive
eloquence of which his many friends know him to be a master, he
expatiated on the honourable nature of the enterprise, dwelling on the
fact that no white man had as yet attempted it. It is not wonderful
that he excited considerable enthusiasm; nor is it, perhaps, wonderful
that, as the climate is a moist one and as the warm tropical season
was well advanced, some of the enthusiasm had greatly decreased
when the day for starting arrived. It was interesting to observe
how many pressing engagements happened to prevent some of the more
eager aspirants for alpine honours from attempting Cloudy Mountain,
when the expedition was definitely determined on. One had arrears of
correspondence to make up; another had promised to join a friend in
a shooting excursion; whilst a third wisely took into consideration
the fact of his being no longer young. It would have been well for at
least one of the party that afterwards made the ascent if he also had
remembered that the middle age is not the best time of life at which to
try climbing almost precipitous elevations through trackless forests in
the atmosphere of a hothouse.
On Friday, the 21st of November, the union-jack had been hoisted, and
the British protectorate over the southern coast of New Guinea had been
proclaimed with imposing ceremonies on Stacey Island, South Cape. Time,
which is usually deficient when naval officers visit places from which
interesting excursions can be made, did not allow of the start for
the summit of the mountain being deferred till the following day. It
was compulsory to get away as soon as possible after the ceremony. Mr
Chalmers, whom no exertion can tire, made arrangements for collecting a
body of native carriers. He advised each excursionist to take a change
of clothes, a blanket, and enough food for twenty-four hours. By about
eleven A.M. there were assembled at the village of Hanod, at the head
of Bertha Lagoon, the following: Captain C. Bridge; Lieutenants R.
N. Ommanney and M. Thomson; R. Millist, captain’s steward, of H.M.S.
_Espiègle_; Commander W. H. Henderson; Lieutenant T. C. Fenton; Mr
Glaysher, engineer; Mr T. W. Stirling, midshipman; four blue-jackets,
and one R.M. artilleryman of H.M.S. _Nelson_; Lieutenant John L. Marx,
commanding H.M.S. _Swinger_; Sub-lieutenant A. Pearson, of H.M.S.
_Dart_; and Mr Stuart of Sydney, New South Wales.
The tribes inhabiting the country about South Cape are of the dark
race, and were cannibals, until their recent renunciation of the
practice, under the influence of the missionaries. They are a much
merrier and more talkative people than the non-cannibal light-coloured
race, which dwells farther to the westward. The work of selecting
carriers proceeded with much vociferation; the carriers themselves,
their friends, and all the ladies of the village—in this part of New
Guinea the influence of woman is great—considering it necessary to
address lengthy speeches in a loud tone to the white strangers. That
not one of these understood a sentence of what was being said to them,
by no means discouraged the eloquence of the villagers. ‘Ta-ma-té’s’
extraordinary faculty of influencing the natives in a cheery way soon
introduced order into what looked very much like hopeless confusion.
With the aid of the teacher Biga, who could speak both the Motu and
the South Cape languages, he chose a sufficient number of carriers,
appointed as guide an elderly native who professed to have been to
the top of the mountain, and set about distributing the loads to be
carried. The wages agreed upon were a small ‘trade’ knife and three
sticks of tobacco, value in all about eightpence per man. Some biscuit
and a little extra tobacco were given afterwards, to keep up the
spirits of the party during the journey.
Though not much troubled with clothes, our new friends were, at all
events relatively to the western tribes, decently clad. The women wear
a becoming petticoat of leaves and fibre, coming down to the knee.
They often put on several of these garments one above the other, the
effect being much the same as that of a capacious crinoline. In New
Guinea, the women are tattooed from forehead to ankles, occasionally
in very elaborate patterns. The name Papua given to New Guinea is said
to mean ‘woolly-headed,’ and the appellation has been well bestowed.
The men of both races ‘tease’ their hair out into a prodigious mop. So
do the girls. Married women cut theirs short. The bushy wig which many
of the natives of this region seem to be wearing decidedly improves
their appearance. When their hair is cut short, the similarity of their
features to those of African negroes becomes more obvious. They are
not tall; but they have well-shaped limbs, and many of them are sturdy
fellows. The usual weight for a native carrier is twenty-five pounds.
But, as the number of travellers likely to ascend Cloudy Mountain had
greatly fallen off, we found ourselves with more carriers than we could
supply loads for. The result was that some at all events had very light
burdens. One man, for instance, carried an empty tin case for specimens
of plants; another, a few sheets of blotting-paper between two thin
pieces of board provided for the same purpose.
When officers land in the South Sea Islands, nicety of dress is not
much attended to. A helmet or straw-hat, a shirt, a pair of flannel
trousers, and boots or shoes more remarkable for utility than elegance,
are found quite sufficient. In a moist hot climate, the less clothing
the better; and in countries in which there are no roads, not many
paths, and where, as a rule, progress is only possible through thick
forest and over muddy ground, the fewer garments worn, the fewer there
are to be cleaned at the end of an excursion.
For the first half-hour after leaving the village on Bertha Lagoon, the
way ran across a mangrove swamp of soft mud, interspersed with pools
of black-looking water, and studded with the peculiar and aggravating
knobs that the roots of the mangrove bush delight to form. It was worth
while to note the care with which most of the excursionists began to
pick their way; some even evinced a desire not to wet their boots.
To keep the nether garments clean was clearly in general considered
an object worth trying for. But after a few rapid and involuntary
descents from slippery logs, seductively resembling bridges, placed
across the most forbidding sloughs, a determination to push on straight
and discontinue efforts to circumvent puddles, became universally
apparent. When the swamp had been left behind some distance, our
carriers, who belonged to a humorous race, kindly informed us, through
the interpreters—their faces beaming with delight as the information
was imparted—that they could have taken us by a route which would
have avoided it altogether. This statement was proved to be true on
our return, as some of the party escaped traversing the swamp a
second time by taking a path which led to the westward of it, and
others descended in canoes the lower part of a river that discharges
itself into the lagoon. When asked why they had not let us know of
the existence of a more agreeable road, our native friends made the
unanswerable reply, that none of our party had suggested to them any
wish to avoid the mangroves.
For an hour we had now to move along through a well-timbered country,
occasionally passing small cultivated patches, where yams, bananas,
and taro were grown. The path in most places was not difficult; but
it lost itself from time to time in a stream of clear water, whose
frequent rapids showed that we had begun to ascend. Repeated wadings
had at all events the advantage of removing all traces of our passage
across the swamp. The scenery was highly picturesque, especially at
some of the reaches of the little river. The pebbly banks were crowned
with a rich vegetation; the number and variety of the trees and
shrubs—amongst which the wild plantain, palms of various kinds, and the
pandanus were conspicuous—were at least as great as in most tropical
lands. Glimpses of lofty wooded heights were frequently obtained. A
few tuneful birds were heard, and we saw some azure-hued kingfishers.
But, as a rule, particularly as the lower country was left, the music
of the woods was monopolised by screeching white cockatoos. The scene
was greatly enlivened by the number and beauty of the butterflies which
flitted amongst the bushes. One of our party had provided himself with
a net; and, though occasional bad shots at some peculiarly nimble
_lepidoptera_ were made, his ‘bag’ turned out a very good one. On a
broad stretch of gravel and pebbles by the side of the water, towards
one o’clock, a halt was made for luncheon. The spot was fairly shady,
and the heat, considering our position, was not excessive. A biscuit or
two was handed to the carriers, and—what delighted them still more—a
few small fragments of tobacco. The New Guinea fashion of smoking is
peculiar. The pipe is a bamboo tube about two feet long and two inches
in diameter, with one end closed. Near this end, a small hole like
the mouth-hole of a flute is made, and in it a piece of leaf, twisted
into a pointed cup or ‘horn’ containing a little tobacco, is inserted.
Applying a light to the tobacco, the smoker sucks vigorously at the
open end of the tube; when this is filled with smoke, he puts his lips
to the small hole and takes several ‘draws,’ after which the tobacco
has to be replenished and the pipe relighted. Politeness flourishes
throughout the south-western Pacific Isles; even the naked cannibals
of New Britain exhibit to friends that true courtesy which consists
in doing as one would be done by. The New Guinean who lights the
pipe, when he has filled it with smoke, usually hands it to some one
else to have the first whiff. On the present occasion, the pipe was
offered first to the white man, to whom, so long as he behaves to them
becomingly, Pacific Island natives are almost invariably polite.
The lateness of our start rendered any but a short halt impossible, so
the repast was a hasty one. The increasing steepness showed that we
had begun the ascent in earnest. A path there certainly was, but, as
a rule, it was not easily discerned amid the thick growth of tropical
shrubs. As far as the density of the forest would allow us to examine
the country to any distance, we appeared to be mounting the ridge of
a spur of the main mountain mass. A deep valley lay on either hand,
at the bottom of which we could hear the rumbling of a stream. The
number of cockatoos increased as we got higher, and some were shot for
culinary purposes subsequently. We saw some handsome pigeons, and at
least one small flight of the large beaked bird called toucan, though
probably it differs from the South American bird to which that name
rightly belongs. Ignorance of ornithology made some of us doubt if
it were the hornbill or _buceros_, one of which we heard afterwards
overhead puffing like a locomotive, on our way down. The profusion of
ferns, palms, orchids, and flowering shrubs was striking. The ascent
was really a climb, as the hands had to be used nearly as much as the
feet. At one or two points, the face of a steep water-worn rock had
to be scaled. Frequent short halts became absolutely necessary; and
the head of our long and straggling line of white men and carriers
usually resumed the work of ascending as the rear reached the point at
which the former had rested. When the afternoon had well advanced—the
only watch in the company having been broken at a specially stiff
bit of climbing, the exact time could not be told—we had reached a
comparatively open space, which our guide declared to be the summit.
The impossibility of this being so was demonstrated by the appearance
of the true summit, of which a temporary break in the clouds usually
hiding it, now permitted a glimpse. Our guide thereupon asserted that
it was the only summit which he knew; that no native of the country had
ever attempted to mount higher; and that, anyhow, no path was to be
found farther on. These assertions were probably true. The correctness
at least of the last was soon established beyond the chance of doubt;
subsequent progress disclosed the fact that the path, which for the
last hour had been scarcely visible by the naked eye, ceased altogether.
When the rear of the line came up, these questions were being debated:
Should arrangements be made for camping for the night on the spot then
occupied? or should a further attempt to reach the summit be made?
Lieutenant Fenton and Mr Stirling settled the matter as far as they
were concerned by pushing on with the determination of crowning the
mountain by themselves, if no one else cared to follow them. ‘Ta-ma-té’
reviewed the situation in a short and fitting address, which closed
with a reminder that not even a native, it was now proved, had ever got
to the top. This was enough to prevent any flagging of the enthusiasm
necessary to carry the travellers higher. Even the oldest member of
the party, who had already begun to doubt the wisdom of joining in
such an enterprise by one who had years ago qualified as a member of
the ‘senior’ United Service Club, unhesitatingly gave his vote for a
continuance of the ascent and for the conquest of the virgin height.
It had been held that the previous part of the journey had afforded
instances of some rather pretty climbing. It was child’s play to
what followed. Path there was none; the vegetation became if possible
denser; and the only practicable line of advance ran along the edge
of a ridge nearly as ‘sharp and perilous’ as the bridge leading
to the Mohammedan Paradise. This ridge was so steep that, thickly
clothed as it was with trees, shrubs, and creepers, it was frequently
impossible to advance without pulling one’s self up by one’s hands.
In selecting something to lay hold of to effect this, great care had
to be exercised. The ‘lawyer’ palm, which sends out trailing shoots
admirably adapted to the purpose of tripping up the unwary, is studded
with thorns in the very part where it is most natural for a climber
requiring its aid to seize it. In the most difficult places, there
flourished an especially exasperating variety of pandanus. This tree
has many uses, and in this instance it seemed to have been purposely
placed just where it might best help the ascending traveller. The
pyramid of stalks or aërial roots, which unite several feet above
the surface of the soil to form the trunk, always looked so inviting
to those in want of a ‘lift,’ that no experience was sufficient to
prevent repeated recourse to its assistance. Unhappily, each stalk
of a diameter convenient for grasping by the hand was studded with
sharp prickles, almost invariably hidden by a coating of deliciously
soft moss. It was not until the weight of the body was thrown on the
hand encircling one of these deceptive stalks, that the situation was
fully realised. In the absence of a path, it was of some advantage to
keep amongst the rearward members of the party. A few persons in front
quickly made a trail, which was not very often lost, particularly when
the leaders had had the forethought to break branches off adjacent
shrubs, so that the fractures served as guideposts to those following.
The great steepness of the sides of the spur on the ridge of which was
the line of advance, rendered it most desirable not to stray from the
path, as serious injury, if not complete destruction, would in such
case have been inevitable. Sometimes a climber dislodged a stone that
went crashing amongst the thick growth with which the precipitous sides
were covered, downwards for hundreds of feet, till the noise of its
fall died away in the distance.
Clouds were collecting about the mountain, and the sun was about to
set, when at length the whole party stood upon the summit. There was
a comparatively level space, perhaps thirty feet square, thickly
overgrown with trees and shrubs. The moist heat on the way up had been
great enough to render every one’s clothes dripping wet, even had
not occasional thick mists drenched our scanty garments. It was so
late, that no time was to be lost in making arrangements for spending
the night on the top of the mountain. Tomahawks were brought into
requisition, and several trees were felled and laid one on another
along two sides of a small square, thus forming a low wall, under
shelter of which a bivouac might be formed. Many showers had fallen on
the higher parts of the mountain during the day, and so general was the
humidity that it was difficult to light a fire. When this was at length
accomplished, a meal was prepared, and soon despatched. The kindling
of a fire incited the native carriers to do the same on every available
spot, amongst others at a point dead to windward of the bivouac, to the
grievous annoyance of the travellers’ eyes, till a more suitable place
was substituted.
With leaves and twigs plentifully strewed under the lee of the felled
logs, the white men had managed to get themselves ‘littered down’ for
the night. The small rain which had been falling nearly ever since
the summit had been reached, turned into sharp showers, and showed
symptoms of continuing. The supply of water was found to be very
short, as, trusting to the statements of the natives before it was
ascertained that their knowledge of the country did not extend beyond
the termination of the path, it was thought unnecessary to carry a
large supply to the end of the journey, where, it was anticipated,
it would be found in abundance. The prospect for the night was not
cheering. Those who had brought a change of clothing now put it on in
place of the dripping garments hitherto worn, and rolling themselves
in their blankets, lay down to sleep, or to try to sleep. Many things
conspired to prevent slumber. It was soon discovered that some of the
party had no blanket. Mr Chalmers at once set himself to rectify this,
and did so in characteristic fashion. He borrowed a knife, and, cutting
his own blanket in two, insisted upon its being accepted by a companion
who had none. It is related of one of the several Saints Martin—on
board men-of-war, we cannot be expected to be very familiar with the
hagiology, so it will be well not to attempt to specify which of them
it was—that seeing a beggar in want of a cloak, he gave him his own.
Now, seriously, without in the least desiring to disparage the charity
of the saint, it may be pointed out that beggars are usually met with
in the streets of towns, and that to give away a cloak therein is at
the best not more meritorious than giving to a companion half of your
only blanket at the beginning of a rainy night on the summit of a
distant mountain. But this was not all. It was decided that the best
protection against rain would be the erection of some sort of tent.
‘Ta-ma-té’ was soon employed in helping to construct this shelter, and
in spite of all opposition, persisted in contributing the remaining
portion of his blanket to form the roof.