Mr Mackay, however, made it clear to me after a little explanation,
showing me, too, how simple a matter it was with a good chronometer to
find a ship's position at sea.
"For every degree of longitude we go westwards from the meridian of
Greenwich, which is marked with a great round 0 here, you see, my boy,
we gain four minutes," said he, pointing out the lines of longitude
ruled straight up and down the chart as he spoke, for my information;
"and thus, the fact of the hands of your watch telling, truly enough,
that it is now about eight minutes to one o'clock in London, shows that
we are thirteen degrees further to the west than at the place where your
time is set--for we are going with the sun, do you see?"
"Yes, I see, sir," said I; "but suppose we were going to the east
instead of the west?"
"Why then, my boy," he replied, "your watch, in lieu of gaining, would
appear to lose the same number of minutes each day, according to our
rate of sailing. A ship, consequently, which goes round the world from
the east to the west will seem to have gained a clear day on
circumnavigating the globe; while one that completes the same voyage
sailing from the west continually towards the east, loses one."
"How funny!" cried I. "Is it really so?"
"Yes, really," said he; "and I've seen, on board a ship I was once in,
the captain skip a day in the log, to make up for the one we lost on the
voyage, passing over Saturday and writing down the day which followed
Friday as `Sunday'--otherwise we would have been all out of our
reckoning with the almanac."
"How funny!" I repeated. "I never heard that before."
"Probably not, nor many other things you'll learn at sea, my boy, before
you're much older," answered Mr Mackay, as he turned to the log slate
on which Captain Gillespie had been putting down his calculation about
the ship's position after taking the sun and working out his reckoning.
"Let us see, now, if your watch is a good chronometer for telling our
longitude. Ha, by Jove, 13 degrees 10 minutes west, or, nearly what we
made out just now. Not so bad, Graham, for a turnip!"
"Turnip, sir!" cried I indignantly. "Father told me it was one of
Dent's best make, and to be careful of it."
"I'm sure I beg both your father's and Dent's pardon," said Mr Mackay,
laughing at my firing up so quickly. "I was only joking; for your watch
is a very good one, and nicely finished too. But I must not stop any
more now. I hope you won't forget your first lesson in navigation and
the knowledge you've gained of the difference between `mean time' and
what is called `apparent time' on board a ship, and how this will tell
her correct longitude--eh?"
"Oh, no, sir," I answered as he went off down the companion way below,
to wind up the chronometers in the captain's cabin, a task which he
always performed every day at the same hour, having these valuable
instruments under his especial charge; "I won't forget what you've told
me, sir."
Nor did I.
Shortly afterwards Mr Mackay showed me how to use the sextant and take
the sun's altitude, on his learning that I was acquainted with
trigonometry and rather a dab at mathematics, the only portion indeed of
my studies, I'm sorry to confess, in which I ever took any interest at
school. I was thus soon able under his instruction to work out the
ship's reckoning and calculate her position, just like the captain, who
sniffed and snorted a bit and crinkled his nose a good deal on seeing me
engaged on the task; although he gave me some friendly commendation all
the same, when he found that I had succeeded in actually arriving at a
similar result to himself!
Wasn't I proud, that's all.
But, before advancing so far in my knowledge of navigation, I had to be
initiated into my regular duties on board, and learn the more practical
parts of seamanship; however, having willing tutors in Mr Mackay and
the boatswain, and being only too anxious myself to know all they could
teach me, it was not long before I was able to put it out of the power
of either Tom Jerrold or Weeks to call me "Master Jimmy Green," as they
at first christened me--just because they had the advantage of going to
sea a voyage or two before me! I may add, too, that my progress towards
proficiency in picking up the endless details of nautical lore was all
the more accelerated by the desire of excelling my shipmates, so as to
have the chance of turning their chaff back upon themselves.
Spurred on by this motive, I quickly learnt all the names of the ropes
and their various uses from Mr Mackay; while Tim Rooney showed me how
to make a "reef knot," a "clove hitch," a "running bowline," and a
"sheep-shank," explaining the difference between these and their
respective advantages over the common "granny's knot" of landsmen--my
friend the boatswain judiciously discriminating between the typical
peculiarities of the "cat's-paw" and the "sheet bend," albeit the one
has nothing in connection with the feline tribe and the other no
reference to one's bed-covering!
The wind moderated when we got below the Azores, while the sea also
ceased its tumultuous whirl, so that we were able to make all plain sail
and carry-on without rolling as before; so, now, at last, I was allowed
to go aloft, my first essay being to assist Tom Jerrold in setting the
mizzen-royal. Really, I quite astonished Tom by climbing up the futtock
shrouds outside the top, instead of going through "the lubber's hole,"
showing myself, thanks to Tim Rooney's private instructions previously,
much more nimble in casting off the gaskets and loosening the bunt of
the sail than my brother mid expected; indeed, I got off the yard, after
the job was done, and down to the deck a good half minute in advance of
him.
On our sixth day out, we reached latitude 35 degrees north and 17
degrees west, drifting past Madeira a couple of days later, the
temperature of the air gradually rising and the western winds growing
correspondingly slack as we made more southing; until, although it was
barely a week since we had been experiencing the bitter weather of our
English February, we now seemed to be suddenly transported into the
balminess of June. The change, however, took place so imperceptibly
during our gradual progress onward to warmer latitudes, that, in looking
back all at once, it seemed almost incredible.
I found the work which we apprentices had to do was really very similar
to that of the hands forward, Tom Jerrold and I in the port watch, and
Weeks and Matthews--who, although styled "third mate," had still to go
aloft and do the same sort of duties as all the rest of us--in the
starboard watch under the second mate, having to attend to everything
connected with the setting and taking in of sail on the mizzen-mast, as
well as having to keep the ship's time, one of us striking the bell
every half-hour throughout our spell on deck.
After the first few days at sea, too, I came to the conclusion that if
our work was like that of the sailors our food was not one whit the
better; albeit, one of the stipulations in the contract when my father
paid the premium demanded by the owners of the ship for me as a "first-
class apprentice," was that I should mess aft in the cabin.
I certainly did so, like Tom Jerrold and the two others; but all that
either they or I had of cabin fare throughout the entire voyage was an
occasional piece of "plum duff" and jam on Sundays--on which day, by the
way, we had no work to do save attending to the sails and washing decks
in the morning; while, in the afternoon, Captain Gillespie read prayers
on the poop, his congregation being mainly limited to ourselves and the
watch on deck, the crew spending their holiday, on this holy day, in
mending their clothes in the forecastle.
Yes, our rations were the same as those of the ordinary hands; namely,
salt junk and "hard tack," varied by pea-soup and sea-pie occasionally
for dinner, with rice and molasses as a treat on Saturdays. Our
breakfast and tea consisted of a straw-coloured decoction known on
board-ship as "water bewitched," accompanied by such modicums of our
dinner allowance as we were able to save conscientiously with our
appetites. This amounted to very little as a rule, for, being at sea
makes one fearfully hungry at all hours, and, fortunately, seems to
endow one, also, with the capacity for eating anything!
Really, if it had not been by currying favour with Ching Wang and
bribing the steward, Pedro Carvalho, between whom there were continual
rows occurring about the provisions, which it was the duty of the
Portuguese to serve out, we must have starved ere reaching the Equator;
for Captain Gillespie, in order to "turn an honest penny" and make his
Dundee venture prove a success, persuaded the men forward and ourselves
to give up a pound and a quarter of our meat ration for a pound tin of
his marmalade, which he assured us would not only be more palatable with
our biscuit, being such "a splendid substitute for butter," as the
advertisements on the labels say, but would also act as an antiscorbutic
to prevent the spread of scurvy amongst us--it being, as he declared,
better than lime-juice for this purpose!
The hands consented to this arrangement at first as a welcome change;
but, when they presently found themselves mulcted of their salt junk,
they grumbled much at Old Jock for holding us all to the bargain, and he
and his marmalade became a by-word in the ship. I did not wonder at
all, after a bit, that Pedro the steward got into the habit of venting
his wrath when vexed by kicking the empty tins about!
I cannot say, however, that I disliked my new life, in spite of these
drawbacks in the way of insufficiency of food and constancy of appetite,
throughout which Ching Wang remained my staunch friend, bringing me many
a savoury little delicacy for supper when it was my night watch on deck.
These tit-bits in the "grub" line I conscientiously shared with Tom
Jerrold, who received similar favours from the steward, with whom he was
a firm favourite, the only one, indeed, to whom the Portuguese appeared
to take kindly on board.
No, on the contrary, the charm of being a sailor grew more and more upon
me each day as the marvels of the deep became unfolded to me, and the
better I became acquainted with the ship and my companions.
All was endless variety--the sky, the sea, and our surroundings changing
apparently every moment and ever revealing something fresh and novel.
It did not seem real but a dream.
Could that be the Madeira I had read about in the distance, and that the
Bay of Funchal of which I had seen pictures in books; and that the
little nautilus or "Portuguese man-of-war" floating by the side of the
vessel, now almost becalmed, with its cigar-shaped shell boat and pink
membraneous sail all glowing with prismatic colouring? Was it an
actuality that I saw all these things with my own eyes; or, was I
dreaming? Was it really I, Allan Graham, standing there on the deck of
the good ship Silver Queen, or somebody else?
An order from the captain, who came up from his cabin just then and
caught me mooning, to go forward and "make it eight bells," stopped my
reflections at this interesting point; and the next moment I was more
interested in a most appetising odour of lobscouse emanating from Ching
Wang's galley than in poetical dreams of Atlantic isles and ocean
wonders!
On passing Madeira, we soon got out of the Horse Latitudes, a soft
breeze springing up from the west again towards evening, which wafted us
down to the Canaries within the next two days. Here we picked up the
north-east trades south of Palma, just when we could barely discern the
Peak of Teneriffe far-away off high up in the clouds, and then we went
on grandly on our voyage once more with every sail set, logging over two
hundred miles a day and going by the Cape de Verde Islands in fine
style. We did not bring up again until we reached "the Doldrums," in
about latitude 5 degrees north and 22 degrees west, where the fickle
wind deserted us again and left us rolling and sweltering in the great
region of equatorial calm. The north-east and south-east trades here
fight each other for the possession of their eventful battle-ground, the
Line, and old Neptune finds the contest so wearisome that he goes to
sleep while it lasts, the tumid swelling of his mighty bosom only
showing to all whom it may concern that he merely dozes and is not dead!
The temperature of the sea seemed to increase each day after we lost
sight of the Peak of Teneriffe until it was now lukewarm, if one drew a
bucket from over the side; although Captain Gillespie said it was "quite
cold" for that time of year!
Talking about this, Mr Mackay told me that sea-water is composed of an
awful lot of things such as I would not have supposed--oxygen and
hydrogen, with muriate of soda, magnesia, iron, lime, copper, silica,
potash, chlorine, iodine, bromide, ammonia and silver being amongst its
ingredients, and the muriate of soda forming the largest of the solid
substances detected in it. With such a mixture of things as this, it is
not surprising that it should taste so nasty when swallowed--is it?
With the enforced leisure produced by the calm, I had plenty of
opportunity for observing the various strange varieties of animal life
which came about the ship--the flying-fish with beautiful silvery wings
that sparkled in the sunlight coming inboard in shoals, pursued by their
enemies the albacores, who drove them out of the sea to take refuge in
the air; besides numbers of grampusses and sharks swimming round us.
Adams, the sailmaker, killed one of these latter gentry with a harpoon,
spearing him from the bowsprit as he came past the ship. He looked up
with his evil eye, fancying perhaps that he would "catch one of us
napping," but no one was unwary enough to get within reach of his
voracious maw; and Mr Shark "caught a tartar" instead and got a taste
of cold steel for his pains, much to our delight, though the captain was
chagrined at the loss of the harpoon, the shark parting the line
attached to it in his death struggles, and carrying it below with him
when he sank. The brute, to end the story, was eaten up at once by his
affectionate comrades, the sea being dyed red with his blood.
We had not all leisure, though, thus hanging about the Equator under the
scorching sun, now at noon precisely perpendicular over our heads, the
heat at night too being almost as stifling and the stars as bright as
moons; for Captain Gillespie took advantage of our inaction to "set up"
the rigging, which had slackened considerably since we entered the
tropics, the heat making the ropes stretch so that our masts got loose
and the upper spars canted.
While doing this, of course, I had another practical lesson in
seamanship, learning all about "double luffs" and "toggles," "salvagee
strops" and "Burton tackles," and all the rest of such gear, whose name
is legion.
But I must go on now to a more important incident.
One morning, about a week after the wind left us, with the exception of
an occasional cat's-paw of air which came from every point of the
compass in turn, we ultimately drifted to the Line; accomplishing this
by the aid of the swell ever rolling southward and the eddy of the great
south equatorial current, setting between the African continent and the
Caribbean Sea. This meets the Guinea current running in the opposite
direction in the middle of the Doldrums, and helps to promote the
pleasant stagnation, of wind and water and of air alike, of this
delightful region so dear to mariners!
I recollect the morning well; for the night was unusually oppressive,
the heat between the middle watch and eight bells having been more
intense than at any period, I thought, during the week.
So, after tossing about my bunk, unable to get to sleep I was only too
glad when the time came to turn out for duty, the task of washing decks
and paddling about in the cool water--for it was cool at the earlier
hours of the morning if tepid at noon--being something to look forward
to.
I forgot, however, all about the terrible rites of Neptune for those
crossing the Line for the first time, and neither Tom Jerrold nor Weeks,
naturally, enlightened me on the subject; so that I was completely taken
by surprise when a loud voice hailed us from somewhere forward, just
about "four bells," as if coming from out of the sea.
"What ship is that?"
"The Silver Queen," answered Mr Saunders, who was on the poop and of
course in the joke, answering the voice, which although portentously
loud, had a familiar ring about it suspiciously like Tim Rooney's Irish
brogue. "Bound from London to Shanghai."
"Have ye minny of me unshaved sons aboard?"
"Aye, two," shouted back Mr Saunders, "a stowaway and an apprentice."
"Ye spake true," returned the voice. "I knows 'em both, Misther Allan
Gray-ham an' Joe Fergusson. I will come aboard an' shave 'em."
Then it all flashed upon me, and I tried to run below and hide; but two
of Neptune's tritons seized me and pushed me forward to where the
boatswain, capitally got up in an oakum wig with an enormous tow beard,
was seated on the windlass, trident in hand. Joe Fergusson, who had
been made prisoner before me, lay bound at his feet, close to an
improvised swimming bath made out of a spare fore-topsail, rigged up
across the deck on the lee-side and filled with water to the depth of
four feet or more.
The ceremonies were just about to begin; and, I could readily imagine
what was in store for both me and my companion in distress, the ex-
bricklayer, who, like myself, having never been to sea before would have
to go through the painful ordeal as well as being made fools of and
laughed at by all our grinning shipmates around; so, seeing Tom Jerrold
and Sam Weeks conspicuous right in front of me, and Mr Saunders looking
on too with much gusto, I made another desperate attempt to free myself
from those holding me, urging on Joe Fergusson to try and save himself
and me too.
Our struggles were in vain; but, strange to say, help came for us from a
most unexpected quarter.
As I have said before, the night had been extremely hot and the morning
lowering; and now, all at once, a violent squall caught the ship in the
midst of Neptune's carnival.
"Stand by your royal halliards!" roared out Captain Gillespie, who
coming up quickly behind Mr Saunders on the poop made him jump round in
consternation at his neglect in not keeping a look-out overhead while
watching the game going on in the bows amongst the crew.
Neptune darted down from his perch instanter in the most ungodlike
fashion; and, the rest of the men rushing to their stations, left Joe
Fergusson and I rolling on the deck.
"Let go!" next cried the captain; adding a moment later, "Bosun, go
forward and slack off the head sheets!"
And then the rain came down in a perfect deluge, as if it were being
emptied out of a tub, and as it only can pour down in the tropics; and
that is how we "crossed the Line!"