the entire effort of the navy upon our own coasts and inland waters,
the policy of the government reverted, irreflectively perhaps, to the
identical system of distribution in squadrons that had existed before.
The prolonged tension of mind and effort during four years of
overwrought activity was followed by a period of reaction, to which,
as far as the administration of the navy was concerned, the term
collapse would scarcely be misapplied. Of course, for a few years the
evil effects of this would not be observable in the military resources
of the government. Only the ravages of time could deprive us of the
hundreds of thousands of veterans just released from the active
practice of war; and the navy found itself in possession of a
respectable fleet, which, though somewhat over-specialized in order to
meet the peculiar conditions of the hostilities, was still fairly
modern. There was a body of officers fully competent in numbers and
ability, and comparatively young. In the first ship on board which I
made a long cruise, beginning in 1867, of ten in the ward-room, three
only, the surgeon, paymaster, and chief engineer, were over thirty;
and they barely. I myself, next to the captain, was twenty-six; and
there was not a married man among us. The seamen, though
professionally more liable to dispersion than the land forces, were
not yet scattered. Thus provided against immediate alarms, and with
the laurels of the War of Secession still fresh, the country in
military matters lay down and went to sleep, like the hare in the
fable, regardless of the incessant progress on every side, which,
indeed, was scarcely that of the tortoise. Our ships underwent no
change in character or armament.
Twenty years later, in the Pacific, I commanded one of these old
war-horses, not yet turned out to grass or slaughter, ship-rigged to
royals, and slow-steamed. One day the French admiral came on board to
return my official visit. As he left, he paused for a moment abreast
one of our big, and very old, pivot guns. "Capitaine," he said, "les
vieux canons!" Two or three days later came his chief of staff on some
errand or other. That discharged, when I was accompanying him to his
boat at the gangway, he stopped in the same spot as the admiral. His
gaze was meditative, reminiscent, perhaps even sentimental. "Ou
sont les neiges d'antan?" Whatever their present merits as
fighting-machines, he saw before him an historical memento, sweeping
gently, doubtless, the chords of youthful memories. "Oui, oui!" he
said at last; "l'ancien systeme. Nous l'avons eu." It was a summary of
American naval policy during the twenty years following 1865; we
"hail" things which other nations "had had," until Secretary Chandler
started the movement of renovation by the first of all necessary
steps, the official exposure of the sham to which we had allowed
ourselves to be committed. There is an expression, "quaker guns,"
applied to blackened cylinders of wood, intended to simulate cannon,
and mounted upon ramparts or a ship's broadside to impose upon an
enemy as to the force before him. We made four such for the
_Macedonian_, to deceive any merchant-men we spoke as to our battery,
in case she should report us to an _Alabama_; and, being carried near
the bows, much trouble they gave us, being usually knocked overboard
when we tacked ship, or set a lower studding-sail. Well, by 1885 the
United States had a "quaker" navy; the result being that, not the
enemy, but our own people were deceived. Like poor Steece's passengers
on board the _Ariel_, we were blissfully sheltering behind pine
boards.
In 1867, however, these old ships and ancient systems were but just
passing their meridian, and for a brief time might continue to live on
their reputation. They were beautiful vessels in outline, and repaid
in appearance all the care which the seamen naturally lavishes on his
home. One could well feel proud of them; the more so that they had
close behind them a good fighting record. It was to one such, the
_Iroquois_, which had followed Farragut from New Orleans to Vicksburg,
that I reported on the second day of that then new year. She was
destined to China and Japan, the dream of years to me; but, better
still, there was chalked out for her an extensive trip, "from Dan to
Beersheba," as a British officer enviously commented in my hearing. We
were to go by the West Indies to Rio de Janeiro, thence by the Cape of
Good Hope to Madagascar, to Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea, to
Muscat at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and so by India and Siam
to our first port in Chinese waters, Hong Kong. The time, too, was
apposite, for Japan had not yet entered upon the path of modernization
which she has since pursued with such revolutionary progress. Some
eight or ten years ago there lunched with me a young Japanese naval
officer, who I understand has occupied a position of distinguished
responsibility during the recent war with Russia. I chanced to ask him
if he had ever seen a two-sworded man. He replied, Never. He belonged
to the samurai class, who once wore them; but in actual life they have
disappeared. When the _Iroquois_ reached Japan, and throughout her
stay, two-sworded men were as thick almost as blackberries. To
European prepossessions it was illuminating to see half a dozen riding
down a street, hatless, crown of the head shaved, with a short pigtail
at the back tied tight near the skull and then brought stiffly forward
close to the scalp; their figures gowned, the handles of the two
swords projecting closely together from the left side of their
garments, and the feet resting in stirrups of slipper form, which my
memory says were of straw-work; but of that I am less sure. This
equipment was completed by a painted fan stuck in the belt, and at
times an opened paper umbrella. I have been passenger in the same boat
with some of these warriors, accoutred as above, and using their fans
as required, while engaged in animated conversation with the courtesy
and smiling affability characteristic of all classes in Japan. Such,
in outward seeming, then was the as yet raw material, out of which
have been evolved the heroic soldiery who have recently astonished the
world by the practical development they have given to modern military
ideas; then as unlike the troops which now are, except in courage, as
the ancient Japanese war-junk is to the present battle-ship. I was in
Japan at the arrival of their first iron-clad, purchased in the United
States, and doubtless long since consigned to the scrap-heap; but of
her hereafter.
A glance over the list of vessels in the _Navy Register_ of 1907 shows
me that the once abundant Indian names have disappeared, except where
associated with some State or city; or, worse, have been degraded to
tugboats, a treatment which the Indian, with all his faults, scarcely
deserves. They no longer connote ships of war. _Iroquois_, _Seminole_,
_Mohican_, _Wyoming_, _Oneida_, _Pawnee_, and some dozens more, are
gone with the ships, and like the tribes, which bore them. Yet what
more appropriate to a vessel meant for a scout than the tribal epithet
of a North American Indian! _Dacotah_, alone survives; while for it
the march of progress in spelling has changed the _c_ to _k_, and
phonetically dropped the silent, and therefore supposedly useless,
_h_. As if silence had no merits! is the interjection, _ah_,
henceforth to be spelled _a_? Since they with their names have passed
into the world of ghosts--can there be for them a sea in the happy
hunting-grounds?--it may be historically expedient to tell what manner
of craft they were. If only some contemporary had done the same by the
trireme, what time and disputation might have been saved!
The _Iroquois_ and her sisters, built in the fifties, were vessels of
the kind to which I have applied the term corvette, then very common
in all navies; cruisers only; scouts, or commerce-destroyers. Not of
the line of battle, although good fighting-ships. Ours were of a
thousand tons, as size was then stated, or about seven hundred tons
"displacement," as the more modern expression runs; displacement being
the weight of the water displaced by the hull which rests in and upon
it. Thus measured, they were from one-third to one-fourth the
dimensions of the vessels called third-class cruisers, which now
correspond to them; but their serviceableness in their time was
sufficiently attested by the Confederate _Alabama_, substantially of
this general type, as was her conqueror, the _Kearsarge_. For external
appearance, they were something over two hundred feet long, with from
one-fifth to one-sixth that width, and sat low in the water. Low and
long are nautical features, suggestive of grace and speed, which have
always obtained recognition for beauty; and the rail of these vessels
ran unbroken, but with a fine sweep, from bow to stern. Along the
water-line, and extending a few inches above it, shone the burnished
copper, nearly parallel to the rail, between which and it glistened
the saucy black hull.
Steam had not yet succeeded in asserting its undivided sway; but the
_Iroquois_ and her mates marked a stage in the progress, for they
carried sails really as auxiliary, and were intended primarily to be
fast steamers, as speed was reckoned in their time. The larger
vessels of the service were acceptedly slow under steam. They had it
chiefly to fight with, and to help them across the places where wind
failed or weakened. These corvettes carried sails with a view to
saving coal, by utilizing the well-defined wind zones of the ocean
when fair for their course. Though the practical result for both was
much the same, the underlying idea was different. In the one, sail
held the first place; in the other, steam; and it is the idea which
really denotes and maintains intellectual movement and material
progress. This was represented accordingly in the rig adopted. Like a
ship, they had three masts, yes; but only the two forward were
square-rigged, and on each of them but three sails. The lofty royals
were discarded. The general result was to emphasize the design of
speed under steam, and the use of sails with a fresh, fair wind only;
a distinct, if partial, abandonment of the "auxiliary" steam reliance
which so far had governed naval development. It may be added that the
shorter and lighter masts, by a common optical effect, increased the
impression of the vessel's length and swiftness, as was the case with
the old-time sailing-frigate when her lofty topgallant-masts were down
on deck.
Under sail alone the _Iroquois_ could never accomplish anything,
except with a fair wind. We played with her at times, on the wind and
tacking, but she simply slid off to leeward--never fetched near where
she looked. Consonant with the expedient of using sails where the wind
served, the screw could be disconnected from its shaft and hoisted;
held in position, clear of the water, by iron pawls. In this way the
hinderance of its submerged drag upon the speed of the ship was
obviated. We did this on occasions, when we could reckon on a long
period of favorable breezes; but it was a troublesome and somewhat
anxious operation. The chance of a slip was not great, but the
possibility was unpleasant to contemplate. When I add that for
armament we carried one 100-pounder rifled gun on a pivot, and four
9-inch smooth-bore shell guns--these being the naval piece which for
the most part fought the War of Secession, then just closed--I shall
have given the principal distinguishing features of a class of vessel
which did good service in its day, and is now a much of the past as is
the Spanish Armada. Yet it is only forty years since.
After being frozen up and snowed under, during a very bitter and
boisterous January, we at last got to sea, and soon ran into warmer
weather. Our first stop was at the French West India island
Guadeloupe, and there I had set for me amusingly that key-note of
travelling experience which most have encountered. I was dining at a
cafe, and after dinner got into conversation with an officer of the
garrison. I asked him some question about the wet weather then
reigning. "C'est exceptionnel," he replied; and exceptional we found
it "from Dan to Beersheba." At our next port, Ciara, there was drought
when every resident said it should have rained constantly--a variation
a stranger could endure; while at Rio it was otherwise peculiar--"the
warmest April in years." The currents all ran contrary to the books,
and the winds which should have been north hung obstinately at south.
Whether for natural productions, or weather, or society, we were
commonly three months too late or two months too soon; or, as one of
"ours" put it, we should have come in the other monsoon. Nevertheless,
it was impossible for youth and high spirits to follow our schedule
and not find it spiced to the full with the enjoyment of novelty; if
not in season, at least well seasoned.
However, every one travels nowadays, and it is time worse than wasted
to retell what many have seen. But do many of our people yet visit our
intended second port, that most beautiful bay of Rio de Janeiro? I
fancy not. It is far out of the ordinary line, and the business
immigration to South America is much more from Europe than from our
own continent; but, having since visited many harbors, in many lands,
I incline to agree with my old captain of the _Congress_, there is
none that equals Rio, viewed from the anchorage. Like Japan, I was
happy enough to see Rio before it had been much improved, while the
sequestered, primitive, tropical aspect still clung to it. I suppose
the red-tiled roofs still rise as before from among the abundant
foliage and the orange-trees, in the suburb of Bota Fogo; that the
same deliciously suggestive smell of the sugar and rum hogsheads hangs
about the streets; that the long, narrow Rua do Ouvidor is still
brilliant with its multicolored feather flowers; and that at night the
innumerable lights dazzle irregularly upward, like the fireflies which
also there abound, over the hill-sides and promontories that so
charmingly break the shore line. But already in 1867 the strides since
1860 were strikingly visible. In the earlier year I used frequently to
visit a friend living at Nichtherohy, on the opposite shore of the
bay. The ferriage then was by trig, long, sharp-bowed, black paddle
steamers, with raking funnels. They were tremendously fussy,
important, puffing little chaps, with that consequential air which so
frequently accompanies moderate performance. The making a landing was
a complicated and tedious job, characterized by the same amount of
needless action and of shortcoming in accomplishment. We would back
and stop about twenty feet away from the end of a long, projecting
pier. Then ropes would be got ashore from each extremity of the
vessel; which done, she would back again, and the bow line would be
shortened in. Then she would go ahead, and the like would be done by
the stern line. This would fetch her, say, ten feet away, when the
same processes must be repeated. I never timed, for why should one be
in a hurry in the tropics, where no one else is? but it seemed to me
that sometimes ten minutes were thus consumed. In 1867 these had
disappeared, and had been replaced by Yankee double-ended boats, which
ran into slips such as we have. Much more expeditious and sensible,
but familiar and ugly to a degree, and not in the least entertaining;
nor, I may add, congruous. They put you at once on the same absurd
"jump" that we North Americans practise; whereas in the others we
placidly puffed our cigars in an atmosphere of serenity. Time and tide
may be so ridiculous as not to wait; we knew that waiting was
enjoyment. The boat had time to burn, and so had we. At the later
date, street-cars also had been introduced, and we were told were
doing much to democratize the people. The man whose ability to pay for
a cab had once severed him from the herd now went along with it, and
saved his coppers. The black coats and tall black silk hats, with
white trousers and waistcoats, which always struck me as such an odd
blend, were still in evidence.
The _Iroquois_ did not succeed in making Rio without a stop. The
northeast trades hung well to the eastward after we left Guadeloupe,
and blew hard with a big sea; for it was the northern winter. Running
across them, as we were, the ship was held close to the wind under
fore and aft canvas. For a small vessel nothing is more uncomfortable.
Rolling and butting at waves which struck the bow at an angle of
forty-five degrees made walking, not impossible, indeed, to practised
sea legs, but still a constant succession of gymnastic balancings that
took from it all pleasure. For exercise it was not needed. You had but
to sit at your desk and write, with one leg stretched out to keep your
position. The varied movements of the muscles of that leg, together
with those of the rest of the body, in the continued effort "to
correct the horizontal deviation," as Boatswain Chucks phrased it,
sent you to bed wearily conscious that you had had constitutional
enough. The large consumption of coal in proportion to the ground
covered made a renewal necessary, and we went into Ciara, an open
roadstead sheltered only by submerged coral reefs, on the northeast
coast of Brazil. Here the incessant long trade swell sets in upon a
beach only partly protected; and boating is chiefly by catamarans, or
_jangadas_, as the Portuguese word is,--three or four long trunks of
trees, joined together side by side, without keel, but with mast.
These are often to be seen far outside, and ride safely over the heavy
breakers.
From Rio to Capetown, being in the month of May, corresponding to our
northern November, we had a South Atlantic passage which in
boisterousness might hold its own with that between the United States
and Europe, now familiar to so many. When clear of the tropics, one
strikes in both hemispheres the westerly gales which are, so to say,
the counter-currents of the atmosphere responding to the trade-winds
of the equatorial belt--almost as prevalent in direction, though much
more variable in force. The early Spanish navigators characterized
them as "vientos bravos," an epithet too literally and flatteringly
rendered into English by our seamen as "the brave west winds;" the
Spanish "bravo" meaning rude. For a vessel using sail, however,
"brave" may pass; for, if they hustled her somewhat unceremoniously,
they at least did speed her on her way. On two successive Thursdays
their prevalence was interrupted by a tempest, which in each case
surpassed for suddenness, violence, and shortness anything that I
remember; for I have never met a tropical hurricane, nor the full
power of a China typhoon. On the first occasion the sun came up yellow
and wet, with a sulky expression like that of a child bathed against
its will; but, as the wind was moderate, sail was made soon after
daylight. Immediately it began to freshen, and so rapidly that we
could scarce get the canvas in fast enough. By ten it was blowing
furiously. To be heard by a person standing at your elbow, you had to
shout at the top of your voice. The wind shifted rapidly, a cyclone in
miniature as to dimensions, though not as to strength; but the
_Iroquois_ had been hove-to on the right tack according to the law of
storms. That is, the wind hauled aft; and as she followed, close to
it, she headed to the sea instead of falling into the trough. When
square sails are set, this gradual movement in the same direction is
still more important; for, should the wind fly suddenly ahead, the
sails may be taken aback, a very awkward situation in heavy weather.
By five o'clock this gradual shifting had passed from east, by north,
to west, where the gale died out; having lasted only about eight
hours, yet with such vehemence that it had kicked up a huge sea. By 10
P.M. the stars were shining serenely, a gentle breeze barely steadying
the ship, under increased canvas, in the huge billows which for a few
hours continued to testify that things had been nasty. A spoiled child
that has carried a point by squalling could scarcely present a more
beaming expression than did the heavens; but our wet decks and clothes
assured us that our discomfort had been real and was not yet over.
Throughout the ordeal the little _Iroquois_--for small she was by
modern standards--though at a stand-still, lay otherwise as
unconcerned as a duck in a mill-pond; her screw turning slowly, a
triangular rag of storm-sail showing to steady her, rolling deeply but
easily, and bowing the waves with gentle movement up or down, an
occasional tremor alone betraying the shock when an unusually heavy
comber hit her in the eyes. Then one saw admiringly that the simile
"like a sea-fowl" was no metaphor, but exact. None were better
qualified to pronounce than we, for the South Atlantic abounds in
aquatic birds. We were followed continuously by clouds of them, low
flying, skirting the water, of varied yet sober plumage. The names of
these I cannot pretend to give, except the monarch of them all, in
size and majesty of flight, the albatross, of unsullied white, as its
name implies--the king of the southern ocean. Several of these
enormous but graceful creatures were ever sweeping about us in almost
endless flight, hardly moving their wings, but inclining them
wide-spread, now this way, now that, like the sails of a windmill, to
catch the breeze, almost never condescending to the struggle of a
stroke. By this alone they kept up with us, running eight or nine
knots. As a quiet demonstration of reserve power it was most
impressive; while the watching of the intricate manoeuvres of these
and their humbler companions afforded a sort of circus show, a relief
always at hand to the monotony of the voyage.
As this has remained my only crossing of the South Atlantic, my
experience cannot claim to be wide; but, as far as it goes, these
animating accompaniments of a voyage under sail are there far more
abundant and varied than in the northern ocean. How far the steamer in
southern latitudes may still share this privilege, I do not know; but
certainly I now rarely see the petrel, unfairly called stormy, numbers
of which hung ever near in the wake of a sailing-ship on her way to
Europe, keeping company easily with a speed of seven or eight knots,
and with spare power enough to gyrate continually in their wayward
flight. What instinct taught them that there was food there for them?
and, if my observation agree with that of others, why have they
disappeared from steamers? Is it the greater pace that wearies, or the
commotion of the screw that daunts them?