THE WONDERFUL LINGUIST--I STUDY ARABIC--MY FIRST VOYAGE TO SEA--WE SAIL
FOR THE COAST OF AFRICA--THE BRIG CAPSIZED--SAVED ON A RAFT.
"Never throw away a piece of string, a screw, or a nail, or neglect an
opportunity, when it offers, of gaining knowledge or learning how to do
a thing," my father used to say; and as I respected him, I followed his
advice,--and have, through life, on many occasions had reason to be
thankful that I did so.
In the town near which we resided lived a tailor, Andrew Spurling by
name. He was a remarkable man, though a mere botcher at his trade; for
he could never manage to make his customers' clothes fit their bodies.
For fat men he invariably made tight coats, and for thin people loose
ones. Few, therefore, except those who were indifferent on that point,
went a second time to him for new ones. He repaired clothes, however,
to perfection, and never refused to attempt renovating the most
threadbare or tattered of garments. He had evidently mistaken his
vocation; or rather, his friends had committed a great error when they
made him a tailor. Yet perhaps he succeeded as well in it as he would
have done at any handicraft. He possessed, in fact, a mind which might
have raised him to a respectable, if not a high position, in the walks
of literature or science. As it was, however, it was concentrated on
one object--the acquisition of languages. Andrew had been sent to the
grammar-school in our town, where he gained the rudiments of education,
and a certain amount of Latin and Greek; and where he might, possibly,
have become well-educated, had he not--his father dying insolvent--been
taken from school, and, much to his grief, apprenticed to the trade he
was now following.
Instead of perfecting himself in the languages of which he already knew
a little, and without a friend to guide him,--having saved up money
enough to buy a grammar and dictionary,--he commenced the study of
another; after mastering the chief difficulties of which he began still
another; and so he had gone on through life, with the most determined
perseverance, gaining even more than a smattering of the tongues not
only of Europe but of the Eastern world, though he could make no
practical use of his acquisitions.
Apparently slight circumstances produce important results. Coming out
of school one day, and while playing, as usual, in our somewhat rough
fashion, my class-mate, Richard Halliday, tore my jacket from the collar
downwards.
"That is too bad," I exclaimed. "A pretty figure I will make, going
through the streets in this state."
"Never mind, Charlie," he answered. "Come into old Spurling's shop; he
will sew it up in a trice. He always mends our things; and I will pay
for it."
I at once accepted my school-fellow's offer; and we made our way to the
narrow lane in which Andrew's small shop was situated. I had never
before been there, though I had occasionally seen his tall, gaunt figure
as he wended his way to church on Sunday; for on no other day in the
week did he appear out of doors.
"Here's Charlie Blore, who wants to have his jacket mended, Mr
Spurling," said Dick, introducing me.
"A grammar-school boy?" asked the tailor, looking at me.
"Yes; and in my class," answered Dick.
"Oh! then you are reading Xenophon and Horace," observed the tailor; and
he quoted a passage from each author, both of which I was able to
translate, greatly to his satisfaction. "You will soon be turning to
other languages, I hope," he observed, not having as yet touched my
jacket, which I had taken off and handed to him.
"I should like to know a good many," I answered: "French, German, and
Italian."
"Very well in their way," observed Andrew; "but there are many I prefer
which open up new worlds to our view: for every language we learn, we
obtain further power of obtaining information and communicating our
thoughts to others. Hebrew, for instance: where can we go without
finding some of the ancient people? or Arabic, current over the whole
Eastern world, from the Atlantic shores of Africa to the banks of the
Indus? Have you ever read the `Arabian Nights'?" asked Andrew.
"Yes, part of it," I answered.
"Then think how delightful it would be to read it in the language in
which it is written, and still more to visit the scenes therein
described. I began six years ago--and I wish that some great man would
invite me to accompany him to Syria, or Morocco, or Egypt, or other
Eastern lands; though that is not likely." And Andrew sighed.
"However, my young friends, as you may have a chance of visiting those
regions, take my advice: Study Arabic; you will find it of more use than
Greek or Latin, which no one speaks nowadays--more's the pity. I will
instruct you. Come here whenever you can. I will lend you my books, or
tell you where you may purchase others. I won't say how soon you will
master the language; that depends on capacity,"--and Andrew gave a
self-satisfied smile; "but the sooner you begin, the better."
"But, Mr Spurling, I should like much to have my jacket mended," I
observed.
"So you shall; I will do it while you take your first lesson in Arabic."
And Andrew, without rising from his seat, shuffled along in a curious
fashion to a bookcase hanging against the wall, from which he drew forth
a well-thumbed volume. "It's as precious as gold," he observed. "Don't
be daunted by the strange characters," he added, as he gave the book
into my hands. "Now, you and Master Halliday stand there; while I
stitch, you shall learn the first principles of the language."
Then taking my jacket on his knee, and needle and thread in hand, he
commenced a lecture, from which, as Dick and I listened attentively, we
really gained a considerable amount of information. It was, I
afterwards discovered, in the first pages of the book, which he knew by
heart; so he had not to draw his eyes from his work. I grew so
interested, that I was quite sorry when my jacket was mended.
From that day onward, Dick and I became constant visitors at Andrew's
shop after school-hours, and really made considerable progress in
Arabic. I believe, indeed, that we should before long have advanced
almost as far as our master had done,--for he had three or four
languages in hand at the same time, to which he added a new one every
year or so. My school-days, however, came suddenly to an end. I had
always had a hankering for the navy, though I did not talk much about
it. An old friend of my father, who had just been appointed to the
command of a frigate destined for the Mediterranean, called before
starting for Portsmouth.
"I will take one of your boys, Blore, as an offering to Neptune."
My father looked at me. "Charlie is rather too old, I fear, to enter
the navy," he observed.
"Oh no! Lord Dundonald was much older," I exclaimed. "Let me go."
"He will do; I will take him," said the captain. "He must work hard and
make up for lost time. He had better accompany me, and see the ship
fitted out."
My father was an old soldier; and my mother being a strong-minded,
active woman, directly my future captain left us all hands in the house
were set to work, down to the nursery-maid, to prepare my kit; while I
ran into the town to get my measure taken by Andrew Spurling, who
promised to have a "nautical cut" suit ready for me by the next day. I
had, in an impulse of gratitude, begged that he might make my clothes.
It was fatal to my appearance as a trim midshipman; and I had to discard
some, and get others altered, before I was fit to present myself on the
quarter-deck.
As I was leaving his shop, Andrew took down a volume from his bookcase.
"Receive this as a parting gift from one who wishes you well, and who,
although his body is chained to his counter, will accompany you in
spirit to those far-off Eastern lands it may be your happy destiny to
visit," he said, as he handed the book to me, with a kind look which
showed the sincerity of his feelings.
It was a grammar and vocabulary, with a portion of the "Arabian Nights"
in Arabic. I promised to keep up the study of the language in which he
had initiated me, and to add others as I might find opportunity.
The next night I set off with the captain to Portsmouth. As he had
promised to make me a sailor, and I wished to become one, I soon picked
up a fair amount of nautical knowledge; and by the time the ship was
ready for sea, I could not only knot and splice, but had acquainted
myself with every portion of her from "truck to keelson."
We had gone out to Spithead, and were expecting to sail in a few days,
when who should come up the side but my old school-fellow, Dick
Halliday.
"When I found that you had actually gone, I could not bear the thought
of remaining behind; and I so worked upon my guardians to let me go to
sea, by telling them that I should be miserable if I didn't, and fit for
nothing else, that I succeeded. Moreover, at my urgent request, they,
as you see, got me appointed to your frigate," he exclaimed in a tone of
triumph. "I have my chest in the boat; what am I to do with it?" he
asked, after I had expressed my pleasure at seeing him.
"We will soon hoist it on board," I answered.
The first lieutenant cast an angry glance at the chest, for it was
unusually large; and before many hours were over, its owner, to his
great dismay, saw it cut down into much smaller proportions.
We were at length at sea, running down Channel with a strong
north-easterly breeze. I had the start of Halliday, and felt myself
already a sailor, while he knew nothing about a ship; but I found that I
had still a good deal to learn. I managed to keep well ahead of him
while the ship remained in commission. Our captain, one of the best
officers in the service, wished his midshipmen to see as much as
possible of the places the ship visited, so as to gain all the
information they could; and we, accordingly, had opportunities offered
us of going on shore and making excursions into the interior. We
visited Jerusalem, Cairo, Algiers, Athens, and many other places of
interest. Halliday and I found our acquirements as linguists of very
considerable value.
I cannot stop, however, to describe our adventures. Three years passed
rapidly away, and we returned home nearly full-grown men, with a greatly
increased stock of nautical and general knowledge.
We went, during our brief stay on shore, to visit Andrew Spurling; who
listened eagerly to our accounts of what we had seen, and was delighted
when I presented him with several really valuable volumes which I had
picked up at Cairo. "You have amply repaid me, Mr Blore," he
exclaimed, fondly clutching the books. "I knew you would find an
immense advantage from your knowledge of the chief language of the East,
and let me now advise you to study Spanish; it is spoken over a large
portion of the globe, and you are sure to find a use for it."
I so far followed his advice as to send for a Spanish grammar and
dictionary, which I intended to use as soon as I had leisure. My stay
on shore, however, was short; for in a couple of weeks I was appointed
to the _Viper_, a ten-gun brig destined for the coast of Africa. Her
commander knew my family, and had offered to take me. And I found
Halliday on board, he having been appointed to her by the Admiralty.
She was a very different craft from the fine frigate to which I had
before belonged. She was of narrow beam, and carried taunt masts and
square yards; indeed, we all saw that she would require careful handling
to avoid being capsized. But she was a new, tidy, fast little craft,
and no one on board allowed forebodings of evil to trouble his mind.
The commander did not express his opinion till we were clear of the
Channel, when he addressed the crew.
"You will have to be smart in shortening sail, my lads," he said, after
making some other observations. "The last man off the lower deck when
the hands are turned up must look out for the consequences."
They all knew what that meant,--a "black listing," "six water grog," or
walking the deck with a shot in each hand during a watch. Still, though
they did not like it, they knew it was for the good of all. And
besides, we were continually exercised in shortening and making sail, to
get the crew into proper discipline.
One day--the commander being on deck--a sudden squall struck the brig
and heeled her over till the water rushed through her lee-scuppers.
"All hands save ship!" he shouted. The men came springing up from
below, some through the fore-hatchway, but a greater number through the
main. The commander himself was standing near the companion-hatch--
intended only for his own and the gun-room officers' use. Our tall,
thin commander had just turned round to take his spy-glass from the
beckets in which it hung, when a petty officer,--a knowing fellow, who
had slipped through the gun-room passage in order to take advantage of
the other men,--springing on deck, butted right into the pit of his
stomach. The blow, doubling him up, sent him sprawling over on his
back, with his legs in the air. But, without waiting to apologise, the
seaman sprang up the rigging like lightning, and was laying out among
the others on the main-topsail-yard before the commander could open his
eyes to ascertain who had capsized him. He was, naturally, excessively
angry, but probably did not like to shout out, "You fellow, who knocked
me over, come down from aloft." And just then, indeed, all hands were
really required for shortening sail. Few of the officers had seen the
man upset the commander, and those who had could not say positively who
he was. I had my suspicions; having caught sight of an old shipmate--
Ben Blewett--running up the main rigging over the heads of several
others in a way which showed he had some reason for so doing. All the
efforts of the officers to discover the culprit, however, were
unavailing; and I thought it wisest to say nothing about the matter.
The commander could not justly have punished the man for knocking him
down, as it was done unintentionally, though he might have done so for
coming up the officers' passage. And so we enjoyed a hearty laugh in
the berth at the whole affair.
I should have said that the caterer for our mess was a steady old mate,
Reuben Boxall; a most excellent fellow, for whom I entertained a great
regard. He followed the principle my father had advised me to adopt,
and never threw away a piece of string--that is to say, when an
opportunity occurred of acquiring knowledge he never neglected it. His
chief fancy, however, was for doctoring--that is to say, the kindness of
his heart made him wish to be able to relieve the sufferings of his
fellow-creatures; and he could bleed, and bind up broken limbs, and
dress wounds, as well as the surgeon himself, while he had a good
knowledge of the use of all the drugs in the medicine-chest. Boxall had
indeed a good head on his shoulders, and was respected by all.
Many of us were still laughing at the commander's capsize, some
declaring that it served him right for being in such a hurry.
"Let me tell you youngsters that we must be in a hurry on board this
craft," observed Boxall. "Do you know the name given to ten-gun brigs
such as ours? I will tell you: `Sea-Coffins.' And the _Viper_ will
prove _our_ coffin, if we do not keep very wide-awake, let me warn you."
Most of the mess thought that old Boxall was trying to frighten them;
but I cannot say that I was comfortable, as we had already discovered
that the brig, to say the best of her, was excessively crank. The two
lieutenants and the master had served chiefly on board line-of-battle
ships and frigates before they got their promotion, and were inclined to
sneer at the commander's caution, and I know that during their watch
they carried on much longer than he would have approved of.
We were somewhere in the latitude of Madeira, when we encountered a
heavy gale which severely tried the brig. Though we saved our spars by
shortening sail in time, two of our boats were lost and the rest
damaged, our weather-bulwarks were stove in, and we were in other
respects handled very roughly.
We had got somewhat to rights, and were running down the African coast,
keeping closer in-shore than usual. It was night, and the second
lieutenant's watch. Boxall and I--who had the first watch--having been
relieved, went into the berth to take a glass of "swizzel" and some
biscuit and cheese, after which we sat talking for some minutes before
turning in. The rest of the watch were below fast asleep. We were
standing by our hammocks, about to undress, when we felt the brig heel
over on her beam-ends.
"I advised him to shorten sail before he let the watch go below,"
exclaimed Boxall. "It's too late now. Stick by me, Charlie, whatever
happens."
"Turn out there, and save ship!" he shouted, as we sprang on deck; and
together we made our way up to the starboard hammock-nettings, on which
we found several people clinging, but in the darkness could not make out
who they were. The water was rushing in fast through the hatches, and
the brig was evidently sinking. Shrieks and cries for help came from
the lee side, to which most of those on deck had been thrown; but the
greater number of the watch had, I judged, been aloft at that moment,
about to shorten sail, and were already struggling in the water.
"Now, my lads, the brig is going down, and we must find something to
cling to if we don't want to go down with her," sung out Boxall. "Who
is there will try and make a struggle for life?"
"I will," cried a voice, which I recognised as Halliday's.
"And I," said Ben Blewett, who worked his way up to us with an axe in
his hand.
The boats which had escaped the previous gale were under repair; so we
could not trust to one of them. Making our way to the booms, Blewett
cut several away; and, providentially, some planks had been left by the
carpenters, which we got hold of, together with a few fathoms of rope.
The planks and spars, under Boxall's directions, we rapidly lashed
together, and Halliday and I each got hold of a small piece of board.
Launching our roughly-constructed raft abaft the mainmast, we threw
ourselves on it and paddled away from the wreck for our lives. The
officer of the watch must have been thrown to leeward when the brig went
over; neither the commander nor any of the other officers had time to
make their escape from their cabins. We heard several men, however, who
were forward, crying out for help; but it was impossible for us to go to
their assistance, and we could only hope that they were attempting to
save their lives by constructing a raft, as we had done.
Scarcely had we got clear of the brig when her masts rose as she
righted, and down she went, dragging with her all those on board, as
well as the men clinging to the rigging.
The dark clouds passed away, and the moon shone forth brightly on the
sparkling waters, revealing to us a few floating planks and spars--all
that remained of our brig. Not a human being was to be seen; every one
of our shipmates had been engulfed by the hungry sea. We paddled back,
and getting hold of such spars and planks as we could find, placed them
crosswise under our raft to prevent it from upsetting, though it was
even thus a ticklish affair. Ben had taken his seat forward, I sat
astride at the other end, Boxall and Halliday occupied the middle. How
far we were off the coast of Africa we could not exactly tell, but we
judged that we should have fifteen or twenty leagues to paddle before we
could reach it. This would take us two or three days at least; and,
without food or water, how could we expect to hold out? Our prospects
were indeed miserable in the extreme; still, we had reason to be
thankful that we had escaped the fate which had overtaken our shipmates.
On and on we paddled, till our arms began to ache. "We are making no
way, I've a notion; and as for reaching the shore, that is more than we
can do," exclaimed Ben at length, as he placed under him the piece of
board with which he had been paddling. "Our best chance is to be picked
up by some passing vessel; and I hope one will heave in sight when a
breeze gets up."
"I fear there is but little chance of that," said Halliday in a
desponding tone; "a vessel may pass close by and not see us, seated as
we are scarcely above the surface."
"Trust in God," exclaimed Boxall, pointing upwards. "See! the morning
is breaking--the clouds overhead are already tinged with the sun's rays;
a breeze, too, has sprung up: let us hope that before long one of our
own cruisers or some African trader may sight us and take us on board."
Fortunately Boxall and I had had supper, and could hold out longer than
our companions. Halliday said that he was not hungry; but I knew that
he would be before long, when he would be singing out for food.
"When you are, sir, say so," said Ben. "I shoved a biscuit into my
pocket at tea-time last night; and I have got three or four quids in my
baccy-box, so that I shall not want it."
"Thank you, but I cannot take it from you," answered Halliday.
"Do you think, sir, that I could munch it up and see you starving,"
answered Ben. "Come, that would be a good joke. I shan't get hungry,
for you must know that I have more than once been three days without
putting a morsel of food between my teeth--and wasn't much the worse for
it, either. I shouldn't mind a drop of grog, I will allow; but what we
can't get we must do without--and, as Mr Boxall says, `Trust in God.'"
I was thankful that we had so right-minded a man as the old mate with
us; still, I could not help thinking about the fearful probability there
was that we should perish. We were already in the latitude in which
sharks abound; and should those foes of the seaman find us out, they
would certainly attack us,--tempted, as they would be, by our feet
hanging in the water. I said nothing, however, as I did not wish to
impart my uncomfortable feelings to my companions--especially to
Halliday, who was already downcast.
At length the sun rose, and we eagerly looked out for a sail; but not a
speck could be seen above the horizon. Eastward was a haze, which Ben
asserted indicated land; and Boxall, who had before been on the coast,
agreed with him, though he said it was a long way off. No remark was
made about the non-appearance of a vessel; we could not trust ourselves
to speak on the subject.
Slowly the sun got higher in the sky, and the outline of the land, as
his rays dissipated the mist, became more distinct. This encouraged us
once more to attempt gaining it. Boxall and Halliday took their turn at
the paddles; but as we could not venture to shift places, they were
unable to make so much use of the pieces of wood as Ben and I were, who
were seated at either end. As we were paddling on we caught sight of
some spars floating at a little distance on one side. We made towards
them, and found an oar and boat-hook.
"These may serve us as a mast and yard; we must manage to make a sail
with our handkerchiefs and shirts, and then, when the sea-breeze sets
in, we shall make more progress," said Boxall.
Having secured the boat-hook and oar, we soon fastened our handkerchiefs
and shirts together; and the breeze setting in shortly afterwards, we
went skimming along at a much greater rate than at first. It again fell
calm, however, and we were left as before, scarcely moving unless we
used our paddles. The heat, as may be supposed, was very great; and
what would we not have given for a few pints of water! We should have
infinitely preferred that precious fluid to the choicest of wines.