[Illustration: (cover)]
IDYLLS OF THE SEA
IDYLLS OF THE SEA
AND
Other Marine Sketches
BY
FRANK T. BULLEN, F.R.G.S.
FIRST MATE
AUTHOR OF THE ‘CRUISE OF THE CACHALOT’
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY J. ST. LOE STRACHEY
London
GRANT RICHARDS
9 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1900
_First printed February 1899_
_Reprinted April 1899; August 1899; December 1900_
TO
MY DEAR WIFE
THIS LITTLE BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED
Most of these sketches are, by the courtesy of the proprietors,
reprinted from the _Spectator_; the others have appeared in various
magazines--the _Cornhill_, _Good Words_, _Sunday Magazine_, _Chambers’s
Journal_, _Country Life_, _National Review_, and _Pall Mall Gazette_.
To the proprietors of all these journals my hearty thanks for their
kind permission to republish are hereby offered.
FRANK T. BULLEN.
PREFACE
In these little sketches of a few out of the innumerable multitude of
ways in which the sea has spoken to me during my long acquaintance with
it, I have tried with ’prentice hand to reproduce for shore-dwellers
some of the things it has told me. If I were to stop and consider what
other men, freeholders upon the upper slopes of the literary Olympus,
have done in the same direction, I should not dare to put forth this
little book.
Let my plea be that I have not seen with their eyes nor heard with
their ears, but with mine own. This may have some weight with my
judges--those who will buy the wares I have to sell.
FRANK T. BULLEN.
_Feb. 1899._
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Bullen’s work in literature requires no introduction. If it ever
did, it has received one so complete from Mr. Kipling, that not another
word is needed. Mr. Kipling, in phrases as happy as they are generous,
has exactly described the character of Mr. Bullen’s writings. After
that, to commend him to the public is superfluous. However, in spite of
this, Mr. Bullen has asked me to write a few words to put in the front
of his book, and I obey. If my introduction does no good, it will at
least do no harm, and I shall at any rate have the pleasure of being in
very good company. His whales and sharks and other monsters of the deep
are creatures with whom one is proud to be associated.
These Idylls--little pictures--strike me as some of the most vivid
things ever written about the sea. I take it that only a man who has
used the sea as a common sailor, and before the mast, really knows it
in all its humours,--has heard all those multitudinous voices that echo
along the vast waste spaces of the deep. The officer is either too busy
with his responsibilities of command, or else is off duty and so not at
close quarters with the winds and waves. As a rule the sailor,--the man
who heaves the lead, stands at the wheel, sits in the crow’s nest for
long hours together, and does the more wearisome and leisurely duties
of the ship, is not a person of sufficient imagination and education to
record the impressions that come to those who do battle with “a remote
and unhearing Ocean.” In Mr. Bullen, perhaps for the first time, we
have a man who has been a fo’c’s’le hand and yet has the power, first
to realise in a literary shape, and then to set down, the wonders of
the flood. It was a most happy combination that for once the man who
saw the tropic dawn from the crow’s nest of a whaler should be able to
communicate the full magic of the scene.
It is not conventionally that I have called Mr. Bullen’s work “vivid.”
It is of writing such as his that we can say, and say truly:
I watch no longer--I myself am there.
He transports us to the very place he describes--does not merely hand
us a stereoscopic glass in which to observe a well-defined photograph.
One other quality has always struck me in Mr. Bullen’s work. In spite
of the fact that he knows so much science, and makes so keen and
convincing a use of this knowledge, there is always an air of mystery
and enchantment about his writing. De Quincey’s brother told De Quincey
that all his arguments against the supernatural were perfectly sound
here in England, but that they did not hold “to the suth’ard of the
line.” In the Southern Seas were still to be found realms where pure
reason was not supreme. But Mr. Bullen’s experiences and Idylls are
“to the suth’ard of the line.” He deals as a rule with that region of
romance, and hence it is, I suppose, that a sense of something strange
and fateful, and so fascinating, haunts his pictures of the sea.
But I am doing the readers of this book a very ill turn in keeping them
waiting at the door. Let them be assured that there is matter well
worth their marking within, and that if they are capable of taking
pleasure in the sea and its secrets, they cannot fail of entertainment
here.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.
CONTENTS
IDYLLS OF THE SEA
PAGE
1. THE PASSING OF PETER 1
2. THE LOSS OF THE FIRST-BORN 9
3. A TRUE SHARK-STORY 14
4. THE SLAVER 18
5. THE CRUISE OF THE ‘DAISY’ 25
6. ‘RUNNING THE EASTING DOWN’ 32
7. IN THE CROW’S NEST 39
8. THE BIRTH OF AN ISLAND 47
9. A SUBMARINE EARTHQUAKE 54
10. THE SILENT WARFARE OF THE SUBMARINE WORLD 61
11. AN EFFECT OF REFRACTION 67
12. A WAKING NIGHTMARE 73
13. THE DERELICT 79
STUDIES IN MARINE NATURAL HISTORY
14. SOME OCEANIC BIRDS 91
15. THE KRAKEN 99
16. CONCERNING SHARKS 112
17. FLYING-FISH CATCHING AT BARBADOS 131
18. UNCONVENTIONAL FISHING 139
19. DEVIL-FISH 146
20. OF TURTLE 159
OTHER SKETCHES
21. ‘HOVELLING’ 175
22. THE LOSS OF THE ‘ST. GEORGE’ 187
23. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MERCHANT SERVICE 196
24. CANCER CAY 212
25. A NINETEENTH-CENTURY JONAH 219
26. THE TRAGICAL TALE OF THE BOOMERANG PIG 230
27. A DAY ON THE SOLANDER WHALING-GROUND 238
28. SEA-ELEPHANTS AT HOME 245
29. AN INTERVIEW 253
30. UP A WATERSPOUT 261
IDYLLS OF THE SEA
I
THE PASSING OF PETER
For six weeks we had simmered in unwinking sunblaze by day, and by
night had stared with ever-fresh wonder at the blue-black immensity
above, bejewelled with stars as the sand on the sea-shore for
multitude. Among the glorious host of heaven the dazzling moon sailed
on her stately way, the radiant splendour of her rays almost unbearable
in their penetrating power. Beneath us the waveless ocean lay like
another sky, its levelled surface unruffled by the faintest zephyr. On
moonless nights it was often hard to divest oneself of the idea that we
were floating in mid-air, so little difference was there between below
and above. Our passage, already over long, seemed to have ended here,
a thousand miles from land, and far out of the track of other ships.
For some time this wondrous restfulness of all the elements fell upon
our souls like the soothing touch of a mother’s hand upon the fevered
head of her child. In the night watches voices were hushed, and
whispered converse came gently from lips unaccustomed to such topics,
upon subjects exalted and solemn. Even during the day, while engaged
in severe toil--for our careful captain was utilising this unwelcome
opportunity in a general refit--it seemed as if all hands were under
a deep impression of gravity, as though conscious of contact with the
eternities. But this feeling of awe, which was almost involuntary
worship, gradually gave place as the days passed in changeless
procession to an increasing sense of indefinite fear. Each man looked
askance at his fellow’s face, fearfully seeking sight of that shadow
he felt upon his own. One unspoken question trembled on every lip, one
overmastering idea blended with and tinctured all others. A change,
unusual as unwholesome, came over the bright blue of the sea. No longer
did it reflect, as in a limpid mirror, the splendour of the sun,
the sweet silvery glow of the moon, or the coruscating clusters of
countless stars. Like the ashen-grey hue that bedims the countenance
of the dying, a filmy greasy skin appeared to overspread the recent
loveliness of the ocean’s surface. The sea was sick, stagnant, and
foul. From its turbid waters arose a miasmatic vapour like a breath of
decay, which clung clammily to the palate and dulled all the senses.
Drawn by some strange force from the unfathomable depths below,
eerie shapes sought the surface, blinking glassily at the unfamiliar
glare they had exchanged for their native gloom,--uncouth creatures
bedight with tasselled fringes like weed-growths waving around them,
fathom-long medusæ with coloured spots like eyes clustering all over
their transparent substance, wriggling worm-like forms of such elusive
matter that the smallest exposure to the sun melted them, and they were
not. Lower down, vast pale shadows crept sluggishly along, happily
undistinguishable as yet, but adding a half-familiar flavour to the
strange, faint smell that hung about us. Of the ordinary fish which
attend a vessel under healthful conditions few were to be seen. Such
stragglers as occasionally came near were languid and purposeless in
their movements, as if infected by the universal _malaise_ that only
fostered foul and fermenting growths. The sole exceptions were the
sharks, who came and went as stealthily, but as eagerly as ever.
Such a morbific, unwholesome condition of our environment as this
utter cessation of the revivifying motion of the aerial ocean, with
its beneficent reaction upon the watery world beneath, could not fail
sooner or later to affect the health of the crew. Doubtless the heavy
toil in which all hands were continually engaged during the day put off
the coming disaster longer than would otherwise have been the case.
But the ship was ill found, the meat was partially decayed, and the
bread honeycombed by various vermin. The water alone was comparatively
sweet, although somewhat flavoured with tar, for we had caught it as
it fell from the surcharged skies. There was no change of dietary, no
fresh provisions, except when, as a great banquet once in two months,
an allowance of soup and bouilli was served out, which only suggested
a change, hardly supplied it. Men grew listless and uncompanionable.
Each aloof from his fellows took to hanging moodily over the bulwarks
and staring steadfastly at the unpleasant surface of the once beautiful
sea. And the livid impalpabilities that, gigantic and gruesome, pursued
their shadowy, stealthy glidings beneath seemed to be daily growing
more definite and terrible. The watchers glared at them until their
overburdened imagination could support the sight no longer, and they
sought relief by hoarse cries from the undefinable terror. One by one
the seamen fell sick, apparently with scurvy, that most loathsome
ailment, that seems to combine in itself half a dozen other diseases
and reproduces old and long-forgotten wounds. It was accompanied,
too, by partial blindness, as of moon-stroke, rendering the sufferers
utterly unable to see anything at night, even though by day their
sight was still fairly good. Already short-handed, this new distress
added greatly to the physical sufferings of the patient mariners, who
endured with a fortitude seldom seen among merchant seamen the slowly
accumulating burden of their sorrows. The questioning look before noted
as visible in every man’s eyes now took another meaning. As a recent
and a most powerful writer, Joseph Conrad, has noticed, one of the
strongest superstitions current among seamen is the notion that such
an abnormal condition of the elements calls for a human victim. Life
must be paid that the majority may live. Whose would it be? No word was
spoken on the subject, but the sequel showed how deeply seated was the
idea.
At last from among the brooding men one figure detached itself and
became prominent with an unearthly significance. He was an old and
feeble man named Peter Burn, unfitted in any case to endure much longer
the ordinary stress of a sailor’s life. But suddenly his frailty seemed
to obtrude itself persistently upon our notice until his worn-out
frame became almost transparent. Towards the close of this moribund
state of the elements Peter’s mind grew retrospective. His present
surroundings seemed to fade from his knowledge, becoming, as far as
he was concerned, non-existent. Hour after hour he would lie yarning
incessantly of bygone exploits in long-forgotten ships on many seas. In
the long, quiet evenings all hands that were able would gather round
with pipes aglow and listen silently to his babbling, flowing like a
placid stream of sound, contrasting curiously with the lurid language
in which he revived the scenes of riot, bloodshed, and license of his
distant youth. He still relished a pipe, although he hardly seemed
aware whether it was alight or not. But there was always some one
ready to catch it as it fell from his trembling jaws, or to support it
tenderly with one hand while a light was applied with the other. Day by
day his detachment from present things increased. He lived only in the
misty past, his immediate environment became a perfect blank, and he
called his shipmates by strange names. Of any want of the consolations
of religion he manifested no sign, and as there was none to offer them,
the pathos of that dreadful indifference passed unnoticed.
At last, one evening, when a sticky haze rose sluggishly from the
fermenting sea, peopling the immediate vicinity of the ship with
fantastic shapes, Peter raised his voice in an astonishing volume
of sound, commanding his attendants to carry him on deck. They
instantly obeyed. Very tenderly and cautiously they bore him to the
top-gallant forecastle, whence a clear view could be obtained all
around. Through the hedge of mist the moon was rising, a vast blood-red
disc, across the face of which passed in weird procession formless
phantoms of indefinite and ever-varying suggestiveness. Overhead, the
lustreless stars looked down wearily out of a sky that had paled from
its deep azure to a neutral tint of green. From beneath, the foul
effluvia ascended like the air of a charnel-house. Even the gleaming
phosphorescence in the wake of the living things below glared pale
and slow. The heavy silence around was only broken at long intervals
by the melancholy wail of a weary sea-bird that feared to rest on
the glairy sea. On board the voice of our ancient shipmate prattled
on in tones scarcely human and in language unintelligible to any of
us. As the moon, rising clear of the steaming vapours, resumed her
normal appearance, she shot a pallid beam across us where, like a
group of ghosts, we crouched around Peter’s prone form. When the cold
ray touched his face it suddenly changed, and became beautiful, but
only for a moment. Then the withered, toothless jaw dropped, the dim
eyeballs settled in their sockets, and Peter passed from among us. Like
a voice from heaven came the command, breaking the heavy stillness,
“Square away the main-yard.” As men in a dream we obeyed. But the sweet
breeze aroused us as it swept away the fœtid mist in reluctant rolls
and eddies. A joyful sound like the musical murmur of a brooklet arose
from beneath the forefoot as the good ship resumed her long-hindered
journey through the reviving sea, and the long calm was over.
Then when sail had been trimmed, and gear coiled up again, came the
sailmaker softly, a roll of worn canvas under his arm, and his palm and
needle ready. In ten minutes a long white bundle was borne reverently
aft and laid on a hatch, where a mass of sandstone was secured to its
smaller end. The skipper produced a worn Prayer-book, from which, like
one determined to do his duty at all cost, he doggedly read the Order
for the Burial of the Dead right through. All hands stood round in the
moonlight with bare heads and set faces until the skipper’s voice
ceased. Then at a sign from the mate four of us lifted the hatch to the
rail, slowly raised its inner end and held it steadily, while, with
a slow hiss, its burden slid into the sea and disappeared beneath a
shining column of emerald green.
II
THE LOSS OF THE FIRST-BORN
She was his latest bride; the joy of his great heart as well as the
flower of his goodly flock. And as he swept proudly through the foaming
sea, with her graceful form gliding sinuously by his side, at the head
of the mighty school in all the exultation of his overlordship of those
Titans, he often sprang clear into the bright air in the fulness of
his gigantic life and measureless delight of living it. After having
in this way somewhat quieted his exuberant spirits, he swam sedately
enough by the side of his favourite again, and resumed the serious
conversation they had been having. He told her they would arrive at
the island to-morrow, and she would then see what a sweet spot he
had selected for the birthplace of their first-born. There was deep
water right up to the edge of the widespreading reef. Shallow winding
channels, that only sagacious whales, humpbacks like themselves, could
find or thread amid the incessant rolling of the enormous breakers, led
into a spacious lagoon behind, where there was no greater depth than
six fathoms. The floor of those quiet quarters was delightfully jagged,
so that she would be able easily to chafe off every last barnacle and
limpet from the lovely folds of her charming breast. As for food, the
place was alive with tender young squid and sea-slugs, all fat and
juicy. And as he spoke he caressed her lovingly with his fifteen-feet
fin that spread like a wing from the broad expanse of his side, while
she gazed up at him affectionately out of the corner of her tiny eye.
When she instinctively expressed her fear of the ever-vigilant sharks,
who love nothing better than a tender young calf, he comforted her
by an assurance that there was little need to fear them there. If a
stray one should come prowling round she was to attack him at once,
as he would almost certainly be alone. Then his voice took a graver
tone as his wound reminded him of the greatest danger of all, and one
of which she had no experience. He told her how to some of the quiet
haunts of their people came occasionally white things, with long thin
legs, walking on top of the water. They were not nearly as big as a
whale, but there seemed to be smaller living things in them that were
terrible and dangerous. They bit with long sharp teeth, they had arms
hundreds of feet long, and they knew no pity even for languid mother
and new-born calf. They had killed vast numbers of the whale-folk, and
the thought of his escape from them made him ache with fright, though
it was so many years ago. But, happily, they could not come everywhere,
and he had chosen this shelter for her because it was barred against
them.
Even as he spoke, the school swept into sight of a vast barrier of
coral, and, settling down many fathoms, they skirted its base rooted
in the eternal buttresses of the world. Grand and awful was the view,
but they heeded it not, being on business bent, with no admiration to
waste on the gorgeous scene or appreciation of the untellable marvels
of the deep,--matters of every day with them. Presently they rose near
enough to the surface to hear the solemn roar of the league-long line
of resistless breakers overhead, and, turning with them, followed their
lord and leader into one of the channels he had spoken of. It wound
its tortuous way for a couple of miles through the great reef, the
stillness of the placid shallows strangely disturbed by the thundering
return of the displaced water as the troop of leviathans paddled gently
through its intricacies. At length they emerged into a wide lagoon,
bounded on one side by towering masses of black rock rising tier upon
tier for over two thousand feet. In every other direction the sea
raised a rampart of dazzling foam, which seemed never to subside for
one moment, or reveal even a remote chance of entry.
For the next two days they stayed with her, exploring every corner,
finding it truly, as the Master had said, a place of ten thousand for
a refuge from all enemies. At last, when the patient mother-to-be
had settled upon a shady pool beneath a huge overhanging crag as her
favourite spot, they all bade her farewell, formed into line and
departed, leaving her to the unfailing ministrations of the good Nurse
Nature, with a promise to return again in about ten days.
On the second day of her loneliness a little son was born to her, a
pretty, frolicsome creature about eight feet long, his tender, shining,
dark skin elegantly mottled with splashes of grey, while the tiny
furrows of his belly were white as curd. And the proud mother lolled
in her cool corner feeding her babe from her bounteous breast, feeling
supremely happy. He was a very wellspring of joy to her, every move
of his lithe young body, every puff from his tiny spiracle, giving a
new pang of delight. Nor did anything harmful come near. But she never
relaxed her vigilant watch; not the faint splash of a gannet after a
fleeting flying-fish but sent a shudder of apprehensive energy through
her mighty frame.
For one blissful week there was perfect peace. Then came a morning
when the glorious blue sky grew grey and greasy, then black as soot.
A deathlike silence fell. The harmless fish and other denizens of
the reef crept into crevices of the coral, and all the birds fled
wailing away. She was filled with an undefinable dread; a loneliness
unfelt before shrank every fibre with fear. Moving uneasily about
the restricted area of her shelter, her calf clutched closely under
her fin, she saw spear after spear of crimson flame cleave the swart
heavens, while immense boulders of red-hot rock fell in a hurtling
hail around her. A seething torrent of molten lava amid a dense fog of
steam fell with a deafening hiss into the sea. Desperately she sought
to descend, but forgetting the bottom so near, dealt herself a fearful
blow. Then in frantic fear for her youngling, she rushed, holding him
closer to her breast, around the barrier, seeking the passage through
which they had entered. Almost exhausted with her exertions, she found
it, fled along its windings with the rock heaving and groaning around
her, and at last plunged exultantly through the boiling breakers down,
down into peace. But unsatisfied, still she toiled on to leave that
accursed place far behind, nor rested except to breathe her offspring
until she was a hundred miles away.
Then, secure from that terror, she took her ease, thinking poor mother,
that all danger was past. But alas for her hopes! A grim silent shadow
shot past as she lay basking on her side, her calf lazily sucking.
Startled into sudden activity, she sprang forward her full length,
swiftly sweeping her wide fins back and forth in search of her infant.
Again that dark form flew past her side, bearing away on the projecting
sword from its head the body of her first-born writhing in sudden
death.
III
A TRUE SHARK-STORY
“How very hard it is to provide for a young, fast-growing family
nowadays,” said the mother shark, turning, for the hundredth time that
morning, upon her broad side in order to get a better view of what
might be stirring above. For nearly a week she had been fasting--in
fact ever since she came in hurriedly at the close of a great feast
upon the stripped carcase of a recent whale. There, by dint of the
energy of her massive shoulders, her fourteen feet of length, and
fivefold rows of triangular teeth, she had managed to secure a
respectable proportion of the spoil for the replenishing of her own
huge maw as well as for the upkeep of the fourteen sharklings that were
now restlessly darting in and out of their cosy cave at the far end of
her capacious throat.
Within the immediate range of her glance a vast black shadow obscured
a wide, irregularly shaped area of the blazing sunshine. It was so
calm that the shadow seemed stationary. In the direction of this cool
penumbra her gaze lingered earnestly. For hereditary instinct as well
as long experience gave her the knowledge that from the substance of
such shadows came food dropping down, varied and toothsome, actually
alive upon rare occasions. Somewhat impatiently she wondered at the
long time that her little blue and gold attendant had been gone. He was
so seldom absent from his place between her eyes for a whole minute
that she got quite uneasy. But while she fidgeted fretfully, with many
twitchings of her flexible “gaff topsail,” back came the pilot-fish in
a tearing hurry. “Now then, partner, move along, do. There’s a lump of
fat pork almost as big as your head hanging over that ship’s stern. I
don’t quite understand why it doesn’t sink, but it _is_ good. I nibbled
just a crumb, and you can be sure this time that it’s no bagful of
cinders like that nasty mouthful that gave you the chest-ache so bad
this morning.” The latter part of this energetic exordium was lost upon
Mother Shark, being drowned in the wash set up by her great tail-fin,
which was going in grand style, starting her off at such a rate that
two or three stragglers of the family had to skip like shrimps to get
indoors before they were left behind and lost.
Straight as an arrow to the mark went the tiny guide, keeping just in
front of his huge friend’s snout. Together they swept into the shadow,
where, sure enough, a mass of meat hung just below the sea surface,
though gently lifted almost out of water every now and then. “Oh, do
look, Mamma! _there’s_ a big fish. Is he going to eat up that pretty
little one, do you think?”--“Oh, no, my little man,” struck in the
mate, “but you watch him _now_.” As he spoke the great grey body took a
curve laterally, a dazzling glare of white appeared, and there, beneath
the speaker, was a crescentic gap in the smooth, livid underside,
fringed with innumerable points like _chevaux-de-frise_, and as big as
the gape of a coal-sack. Around it the small pilot circled excitedly at
top speed. Slowly it rose beneath the bait, which the mate as gently
slacked away, there was a gulp, and the big joint disappeared. There
was a flash, a splash, and an eddy. Then the rope attached to the
shark-hook concealed in that pork groaned over the rail as it felt the
strain.
“Lay aft the watch,” roared the mate, and amid the trampling of many
feet, a babel of directions, and a tremendous tumult alongside, through
the writhings of the captive monster, she was transferred forward to
the lee gangway, where, by the aid of a stout watch-tackle, she was
hoisted out of water.
“Don’t take him aboard,” cried the captain; “make such an infernal mess
if you do. Just spritsle yard him ’n let him go agen.” So a piece of
scantling was got from the carpenter, pointed at both ends, about four
feet long. This they drove through her jaws from side to side. Another
wedge-shaped piece was planted diagonally down through her broad snout,
the upper end pointing forrard. Then they cut off the wide pectoral
fins, letting the quivering carcase fall into the sea again by the
simple expedient of chopping the hook out. “What abominable cruelty,”
muttered a gentle-faced man among the crowding passengers, as he turned
away sick at heart. But the bustling seamen looked pityingly at him,
wondering doubtless at his lack of sporting instincts. Thus disabled,
the miserable monster plunged blindly in uncertain directions, unable
to steer herself, unheeding the frantic caresses of her faithful little
satellite, who had almost exhausted himself by leaping up at her as she
hung struggling against the vessel’s side. Neither did she notice the
puzzled, wavering movements of her wondering brood. So she disappeared
from the view of the laughing, happy crowd on deck. But whichever way
she rushed she always fetched up to the surface promptly, because of
the vane in her head. Thus for a day and a night she fought aimlessly
with all the forces of amazing vitality pent up in her huge body
against these torturing disablements, until mercifully she fell in with
a couple of ravenous congeners. Scenting fresh blood they made for her
straightway. Like mad things they fell upon her. Long and hard they
strove, tearing their way through the tough framework until assistance
came from all quarters, and a motley multitude of various hungry
ones cleaned up every shred of the welcome banquet, leaving only the
deserted pilot to seek another partner.
IV
THE SLAVER
Ras Nungwe stood out boldly against the deep azure of the midnight
sky, its rugged outlines softened and etherealised by the flood of
molten light flowing from the rising moon. Within the velvety shadow
which extended far to the north-westward from that bold headland lay
our brig, a lonely, almost pathetic object, with sails all vertical in
the utter calm, and taut as boards with the drenching dew. The royals,
peering above the enwrapping dark, gleamed silvery-white where the
unintercepted moon-rays touched them, crowning the homely craft with a
radiant halo of silver sheen. I stood alone in the silent gloom of the
deck completely absorbed in the solemn beauty of the scene, and utterly
unmindful for the present of the severe stress of our encompassing
emergencies. After the fierce heat of the glowing day the caressing
coolness of the hour was a pure delight, for, although not a breath
lifted the down fringing the dog-vane suspended just above my head,
there was a freshness in the atmosphere which belied the thermometer.
A sound rippled along through the quiet, sending a responsive thrill
over my scalp, as of an attuned nerve. Mellow and sustained, the clear
call of the Muezzin from the minaret in Zanzibar Town had travelled
this great distance, bearing its tremendous challenge, “Allah ho
Akbar!” Dropping all consonants on its way, only the open vowels
persisted; but even so, none could mistake the words. Obedient even in
sleep to the call of his faith, Sa’adi, our Suahili steward, turned
upon his mat near the mainmast, and rising to his feet, with hands
outstretched before him, began in low gutturals the majestic ritual of
the Mussulmani, “Bismillahi ’Rahmanni ’Raheem.”
Meanwhile, the swelling tide of moonlight had invaded the sombre area
wherein we lay until the whole of the vessel was shining in purest
light. Every rope, spar, and sail, shimmering in that wonderful
luminosity, looked unearthly, a phantom that the returning sun would
dissipate with his workaday beams. Here and there on the deck, wherever
a little shelter could be found from the soaking dew, lay figures in
many an uneasy attitude, brokenly slumbering and muttering through
the helpless delirium of fever; for all hands save the second mate,
myself, two Malagasy, and two Arabs, were desperately sick. The
poisonous malaria which crawls stealthily to the Zanzibar anchorage
out of the foulness of that most filthy town, aided by the treacherous
exhalations from the soil everywhere, had stricken them down, and
their only hope of recovery seemed to lie in escape from that dangerous
vicinity. Therefore, but principally because of our affection for our
suffering skipper, with his wife and child all tossing in delirium, we
had dared to get under weigh and proceed to sea in such a plight. But
now, relieved by my careful brother officer, I went below, knowing from
painful experience that, stifling as the air might be down in my berth,
it was far safer than on deck.
I awoke streaming as if in the sudatorium of a Hammam, and after a
careful rub down and complete change of rig, returned on deck to
relieve my faithful partner. A small air from the African land was
just lifting the lighter sails, and making a pleasant little ripple
warble alongside. One of the Malagasy, a docile Betsimasaraka, came
to the wheel, necessitating a careful watch over his well-meant but
generally misdirected efforts on my part, since the duty was as yet
strange to him. Still, I had leisure to take my fill of admiring wonder
at the completely changed scene. We now sailed on a sea of silver,
the moon being almost vertical. Out of that radiant level rose the
dark battlements of the great island, its clear-cut outlines in sharp
contrast to the pellucid sky. Far ahead loomed the misty mass of Pemba,
and on the left a long, low streak of gloom, lit up here and there by
gleaming stretches of shining sand, showed the proximity of Africa,
ancient land of mystery. A subdued murmur, like that of a shell, but
with an occasional swell therein, was rather suggested than heard, so
unceasing was its deep monotone, the unresting roll of the Indian Ocean
upon those lonely shores. At no great distance from us a snowy feather
occasionally showed itself where the slumbering sea was momentarily
ruffled in its regular roll by an outlying spur of coral close to the
surface.
In striking contrast to those bright gleams the black blotch made by
some toiling fisherman’s small canoe showed up against the bright
waters like a patch of rock. Presently, out of the misty environs of a
small island to leeward, came the faint but unmistakable sound of oars
strenuously worked. The night-glasses revealed the sinister shape of a
dhow heading towards us, a foam-wreath sparkling at her bows as if she
was going at a great rate. “More slaves,” I thought bitterly, for night
navigation is not favoured by Arabs except upon excursions that do
not bear the light well. Fervently I hoped that some of my countrymen
were lying hidden near enough to stop those incarnate devils on their
infernal errand. Forgetting all else, I strained my eyes through the
glasses at the swiftly approaching dhow. The course he was making would
bring him closely past us, and eventually land him at the extreme
northern end of Zanzibar Island.
Hoping against hope, I swept the horizon earnestly with the glasses,
my gaze lingering for long in the direction where lay the guardship
with five hundred eager fellows on board ready to take any risk to
stop such a villainous craft as was now befouling the seascape, did
they but know of her presence. I had nearly given up all hope, when
to my intense delight I saw coming in our direction from Pemba a tiny
cloud of black smoke. Hardly knowing how to contain myself, I rushed
below, found a rocket, and leaning it against the rail, touched it
off. With a hiss like a bursting steampipe it soared aloft, scaring my
poor Malagasy helmsman almost into a fit, and bursting at a splendid
height into five blazing stars, an imperative call to any cruising
naval launch near. The flying slaver never swerved or halted. On the
contrary, she was evidently adding to her speed. But to my satisfaction
the small black thread of smoke ahead now showed a lurid glow running
through it. Doubtless they had grasped the intention of my signal, and
were making their little craft do her best to obey it. Within a cable’s
length the dhow passed our stern, her straining crew yelling curses at
us in mellifluous Suahili. Pitiful, indeed, would have been our case
could those merciless flesh-hunters then have had their will of us. But
with double-banked sweeps they strove to gain the shore, scenting the
pursuers they could not see. Nearer drew the trailing smoke-wreath,
until beneath it I could discern the slender shape of a steam-launch.
And then I rejoiced to see her change her course so as to cut off the
dhow ere she could reach the objective her crew were straining every
sinew to attain. Breathlessly I watched the manœuvre, disregarding the
unwelcome failure of the gentle breeze that again left us motionless.
At last there was a flash from the launch’s bow, followed by a sullen
boom, the sweetest sound imaginable to my hungry ears. Another flash,
and then the bright foam faded from the dhow’s sides, showing that they
had ceased their efforts to escape. A short silence ensued, followed by
a faint rattle of small-arm fire.
Although the grey light of dawn was now displacing the almost
blue-black of the night sky, the two craft were so far away that I
could not see how my brethren were faring, but almost unconsciously I
breathed a prayer for their success. Then, in gorgeous array of green
and purple and gold, conquering daylight rushed across the sky, paling
the bright moon and quenching the sweet stars in the ineffable glory of
a new morn. All the beauties of the adjacent shores sprang into sight,
completing the splendid picture. But, best of all, over that devilish
dhow now floated the white-and-red folds of St. George’s Cross,
whose appearance anywhere always gives an Englishman an accelerated
heart-beat. How much more, then, when it is seen sheltering those who
were lost, helpless, and hopeless slaves. Before long the dhow was
taken in tow by the launch, which headed towards us. I ran up the old
Red Ensign, dipping it gaily in salute to the victors in so noble a
cause. As she passed close under our stern the officer in charge,
waving his cap, shouted: “Many thanks, sir, for your signal. We should
certainly have missed the prize without it. She has one hundred and
fifteen slaves on board, all ages and both sexes, packed like sardines
in a tin. It is a splendid haul. Good-bye, sir, and a most pleasant
passage to you.” I would have answered him in many words, but something
choked my utterance, and I could only wave my hand in hearty farewell.
I could not help a feeling of satisfaction as I noticed several prone
figures on the dhow’s deck with crimson stains on their dingy white
garments. There are times when the Mosaic law seems to all of us the
only satisfying adjustment of rewards.
Of the long days that followed before we finally cleared those sultry
shores, days of anxiety and nights of constant care, much could be told
did space permit. One by one the haggard, quinine-saturated invalids
resumed their watch, wistfully seeking to help, but so weak that their
faltering steps failed them oftentimes. But gradually they gathered
strength, until by the time that Zanzibar had faded below the blue
horizon every one mustered at watch--changing, and our little company
remained complete.
V
THE CRUISE OF THE ‘DAISY’
Something, doubtless, akin to the contact of the naked soul with its
God is the feeling of conscious nothingness that enwraps a man who
finds himself alone in some tiny craft upon the unbroken circle of the
sea. Even more so, perhaps, when he has a vessel under his feet, than
when he survives upon some frail fabric of hastily gathered flotsam,
the lost company of his fellows. For in the former case he has leisure
for calm thought, need for skill and energy; none of which qualities
will avail him much in the latter, where it is but a question of a
little more or less firm hold upon fleeting life. To this conclusion I
am led from experience of both situations, about the former of which I
would fain speak now.
As the result of a series of adventures while mate of an old Cumberland
brig under the nominal command of one of the most besotted drunkards
I have ever known, I found myself adrift in an Acadian coast village
early in December, friendless and penniless. Already the icy barrier
was rapidly forming which would effectually bar all navigation until
the ensuing spring, and the thought of being thus frozen up in helpless
idleness for months, coupled with the prospect of winter for my young
wife in England without my support, was almost more than I could
bear. Kismet threw in my way the commander, owner, and builder of a
tiny schooner, who, disgusted with his “bad luck,” had freighted his
cockleshell with the harvest of his farm, three hundred barrels of
potatoes, and purposed sailing for the West Indies in order to sell
vessel and cargo. Of ocean navigation he knew nothing, all his previous
nautical experience having been confined to the rugged coasts of Nova
Scotia, so that he was highly elated at the idea of engaging a mate
with a London certificate. Not that he would have hesitated to launch
out into the Atlantic without any other knowledge than he possessed,
without chronometer, sextant, or ephemeris. Like many of the old school
of sea-farers, now perhaps quite extinct, he would have reckoned upon
finding his way to port in time by asking from ship to ship sighted on
the passage, for he was in no hurry. I was in no mood for bargaining--a
way of escape was my urgent need--and in a few hours from our meeting
we were busily rowing the wee craft down the fast-emptying river. The
crew consisted of the skipper, his ten-year-old son, myself, and a
gawky, half-witted lad of sixteen, who strutted under the title of
cook. Bitter, grinding poverty was manifest in every detail of our
equipment, principally in the provisions, which consisted solely of a
barrel of flour, a small tub of evil-smelling meat (source unknown),
and a keg of salt flavoured with a few herrings. Of course, there was
the cargo, and the skipper concealed, moreover, under his pillow a few
ounces of tea, about 3 lb. of wet sugar in an oozing bag, and a bottle
of “square” gin. “Medical comforts,” he explained, with an air of
knowing what ought to be carried on a deep-water voyage.
For the first five hundred miles we groped our way through fantastic
wreaths of frost-fog, its dense whiteness enclosing us like a wall, and
its pitiless embrace threatening to freeze the creeping blood in our
veins, while, invisible, the angry currents of the fiercest tideway
in the world bubbled beneath us like a witch’s cauldron, whose steam
was fluid ice, after whirling us top-wise in defiance of wind and
helm. Strange noises assailed our ears, and a feeling of uncertain
suspension as though sailing in the clouds possessed our benumbed
faculties. But as if guided by an instinctive sense of direction,
the skipper succeeded in fetching the New Brunswick shore, entering
Musquash Harbour without hesitation, and anchoring a scant bowshot
from the frozen strand. Wasting no time, very precious now, we landed,
restoring our feeble circulation by felling a large number of beautiful
young silver birches, which, like regular ranks of glittering ghosts,
stood thickly everywhere. Our sea-stock of fuel provided, we broke up
the armour-plated covering of ice over a swiftly-flowing streamlet and
filled our solitary water-cask, an irksome task, since the water froze
as we poured. With enormous difficulty we shipped these essentials, and
in all haste weighed again, and stole seaward into the gathering gloom.
Night brought a bitter gale, whose direction barely enabled us to creep
under a tiny triangle of canvas towards the narrow portals of the Bay
of Fundy. The flying spray clung to masts and rigging, clothing them
with many layers of ice, till each slender spar and rope gleamed huge
above our heads through the palpable dark. The scanty limits of the
deck became undistinguishable from the levels of an iceberg, to which
offspring of the sombre North our little craft was rapidly becoming
akin. Below, in the stuffy, square den, the “cook” continually fed the
ancient stove with crackling birchwood and made successive kettlesful
of boiling burnt-bread coffee, while the half-frozen skipper and his
mate relieved each other every half-hour for a brief thaw. In such
wise we reached a sheltered nook behind Cape Sable, anchoring in a
culminating blizzard of snow, and fleeing instantly to the steaming
shelter below. Outside our frail shell the tempest howled unceasingly
throughout the long, long night. When the bleak morning broke the
little ship was perched precariously, like some crippled sea-bird, upon
three pinnacles of rock. The sea had retreated from us for nearly a
mile, and all the grim secrets of its iron bed lay revealed under the
cold, grey dawn. Overhead hung gigantic icicles like sheaves of spears
from the massive white pillars that concealed our identity with man’s
handiwork, and at imminent risk we must needs break them down in order
to move the vessel when the inrushing flood should again set her free.
Presently it came, a roaring yellow mass of broken water, laden with
all the varied débris of that awful coast. But we were ready for it,
and by strenuous toil managed to get into a safe anchorage.
Seven short days and long ghastly nights we lay there waiting a chance
to escape. Christmas came and went, bringing with it bitter thoughts of
home, but no word was spoken on the subject. The skipper’s little son
lay feverishly tossing in the delirium of measles, his father’s face
an impenetrable mask, but whether of stoicism or stolidity I could not
tell. At last the wind softened, changed its direction, and breaking
up the gloomy pall of cloud, allowed a few pale gleams of sun to peep
through, welcome as sight to the blind. Scrambling ashore, we cut
down a widespreading young spruce-tree, and after a struggle of two
hours succeeded in getting it on board with all its matted branches
intact. Then, tearing out the anchor in a fury of energy and desire to
be gone, we stood to the southward with our strange deck-load. A few
short hours, and what a change! As if under the breath of some kindly
angel, the ice and snow melted from around us, the pleasant thrill
of expanding life returned. It was no new miracle, only the sweet
influence of that mild but mighty ocean river, the Gulf Stream, into
whose beneficent bosom we had crept like a strayed and perishing child.
How we revelled in the genial warmth. With what delight we bathed our
stiffened limbs in those tepid waters, feeling life and comfort surge
back to us as if from their very source.
Just a little while for recovery, and then round swung the wind again.
The dismal curtains of the sky were drawn, and the melancholy monotone
of the advancing storm wailed through our scanty rigging. Right across
the path of the great stream it blew, catching the waves in their
stately march, and tearing their crests furiously backward. Fiercer
and louder howled the gale, while the bewildered sea, irresistibly
borne north-eastward by the current and scourged southward by the
ever-increasing storm, rose in pyramidal heaps which fell all ways,
only their blinding spray flying steadfastly to leeward. In that welter
of conflicting elements, whence even the birds had fled, we were tossed
like any other bubble of the myriads bursting around. Sail was useless
to steady her, for the towering billows becalmed it; neither dared
we risk our only canvas blowing away. So when it appeared that there
was a little more truth in the trend of the sea, we moored the cable
to the trunk of our tree and cast it overboard. And to that strangely
transformed plant we rode as to a floating anchor, held up head to
sea, save when the persistent swell rose astern in a knoll of advancing
water and hurled us three hundred fathoms forward in a breath. Nine
weary watches of four hours each did I stand by the useless wheel,
breathlessly eyeing the tigerish leap of each monstrous wave until it
swept by leaving us still alive. Yet while the skipper stood his watch
I slept, serenely oblivious of the fearful strife without. So bravely,
loyally did the little _Daisy_ behave that hope rose steadily, until
just as the parting clouds permitted a ray of moonlight to irradiate
the tormented sea, there was a sudden change in her motion. As if
worn out by the unequal strife, she fell off into the sea-trough, a
mountain of black water towered above her, and in one unbearable uproar
she disappeared. Blinded and battered out of all sense, I knew no
more until I found myself clinging to the wheel with a grip that left
indented bruises all over my arms. She had survived, and, as if in
admiration for her valiant fight, the sea fell and left her safe. The
tree-trunk had been sawn right through, but its work was done.
* * * * *
Beneath pleasant skies we plodded southward to our destined port,
arriving uneventfully at Antigua after a passage of thirty-five days.
VI
‘RUNNING THE EASTING DOWN’