cats whose attachment to me for myself alone (for I had nothing to
give them to eat but a little chewed biscuit) effectually settled for
me the question of what some people are pleased to call the natural
selfishness of cats. My first experience was on my second voyage when
I was nearly thirteen years old. On my first voyage we had no cat,
strange to say, in either of the three ships I belonged to before I
got back to England. But when I joined the _Brinkburn_ in London for
the West Indies as boy, I happened to be the first on board to take
up my quarters in the fo’c’s’le. I crept into my lonely bunk that
night feeling very small and forgotten, and huddled myself into my
ragged blanket trying to get warm and go to sleep. It was quite dark,
and the sudden apparition of two glaring green eyes over the edge of
my bunk sent a spasm of fear through me for a moment, until I felt
soft feet walking over me and heard the pretty little crooning sound
usually made by a complacent mother-cat over her kittens. I put up
my hands and felt the warm fur, quite a thrill of pleasure trickling
over me as pussy pleasantly responded with a loud satisfied purr. We
were quite glad of each other I know, for as I cuddled her closely
to me, the vibrations of her purring comforted me so that in a short
time I was sound asleep. Thenceforward puss and I were the firmest of
friends. In fact she was the only friend I had on board that hateful
ship. For the crew were a hard-hearted lot, whose treatment of me was
consistently barbarous, and even the other boy, being much bigger and
stronger than I was, used to treat me as badly as any of them. But
when night came and the faithful cat nestled in by my side during
my watch below, I would actually forget my misery for a short time
in the pleasant consciousness that _something_ was fond of me. It
was to my bunk she invariably fled for refuge from the ill-natured
little terrier who lived aft, and never missed an opportunity of
flying at her when he saw her on deck. Several times during the
passage she found flying-fish that dropped on deck at night, and,
by some instinct I do not pretend to explain, brought them to where
I crouched by the cabin-door. Then she would munch the sweet morsel
contentedly, looking up at me between mouthfuls as if to tell me
how much she was enjoying her unwonted meal, or actually leaving
it for a minute or two to rub herself against me and arch her back
under my fondling hand. Two days before we left Falmouth, Jamaica, on
the homeward passage, she had kittens, five tiny slug-like things,
that lived in my bunk in their mother’s old nest. The voyage ended
abruptly on the first day out of harbour by the vessel running upon
an outlying spur of coral only a few miles from the port. After a day
and night of great exertion and exposure the ship slid off the sharp
pinnacles of the reef into deep water, giving us scant time to escape
on board one of the small craft that clustered alongside salving the
cargo. The few rags I owned were hardly worth saving, but indeed I
did not think of them. All my care was for an old slouch hat in which
lay the five kittens snug and warm, while the anxious mother clung
to me so closely that I had no difficulty in taking her along too.
When we got ashore, although it cost me a bitter pang, I handed the
rescued family over to the hotel-keeper’s daughter, a comely mulatto
girl, who promised me that my old shipmate should from that time live
in luxury.
From that time forward I was never fortunate enough to have a cat for
my very own for a long time. Nearly every ship I was in had a cat, or
even two, but they were common property, and their attentions were
severely impartial. Then it came to pass that I joined a very large
and splendid ship in Adelaide as second mate. Going on board for the
first time, a tiny black kitten followed me persistently along the
wharf. It had evidently strayed a long way and would not be put off,
although I made several attempts to escape from it, feeling that
perhaps I might be taking it away from a better home than I could
possibly give it. It succeeded in following me on board, and when I
took possession of the handsome cabin provided for me in the after
end of the after deckhouse facing the saloon, it installed itself
therein, purring complete approval of its surroundings. Now, in spite
of the splendour of the ship and the natural pride I felt in being an
officer on board of her, it must be confessed that I was exceedingly
lonely. The chief officer was an elderly man of about fifty-five who
had long commanded ships, and he considered it beneath his dignity to
associate with such a mere lad as he considered me. Besides, he lived
in the grand cabin. I could not forgather with the saloon passengers,
who rarely came on the main-deck at all where I lived, and I was
forbidden to go forward and visit those in the second saloon.
Therefore during my watch below I was doomed to solitary state, cut
off from the companionship of my kind with the sole exception of the
urbane and gentlemanly chief steward, who did occasionally (about
once a week) spend a fraction of his scanty leisure in conversation
with me. Thus it came about that the company of “Pasht,” as I called
my little cat, was a perfect godsend. He slept on my pillow when I
was in my bunk, when I sat at my table writing or reading he sat
close to my hand. And if I wrote long, paying no attention to him,
he would reach out a velvety paw and touch the handle of my pen,
ever so gently, looking up at my face immediately to see if my
attention had been diverted. Often I took no notice but kept on with
my work, quietly putting back the intruding paw when it became too
troublesome. At last, as if unable to endure my neglect any longer,
he would get up and walk on to the paper, sitting down in the centre
of the sheet with a calm assurance that now I must notice him that
was very funny. Then we would sit looking into the depths of each
other’s eyes as if trying mutual mesmerism. It generally ended by
his climbing up on to my shoulder and settling into the hollow of
my neck, purring softly in my ear, while I wrote or read on until
I was quite stiff with the constrained position I kept for fear of
disturbing him. Whenever I went on deck at night to keep my watch he
invariably came with me, keeping me company throughout my four hours’
vigil on the poop. Always accustomed to going barefoot, from which
I was precluded during the day owing to my position, I invariably
enjoyed the absence of any covering for my feet in the night watches.
My little companion evidently thought my bare feet were specially
put on for his amusement, for after a few sedate turns fore and aft
by my side, he would hide behind the skylights and leap out upon
them as I passed, darting off instantly in high glee at the feat he
had performed. Occasionally I would turn the tables on him by going
a few feet up the rigging, when he would sit and cry, baby-like,
until I returned and comforted him. I believe he knew every stroke of
the bell as well as I did. One of the apprentices always struck the
small bell at the break of the poop every half-hour, being answered
by the look-out man on the big bell forward. “Pasht” never took the
slightest notice of any of the strokes until the four pairs announced
the close of the watch. Then I always missed him suddenly. But when,
after mustering the mate’s watch and handing over my charge to my
superior, I went to my berth, a little black head invariably peeped
over the edge of my bunk, as if saying, “Come along; I’m so sleepy!”
So our pleasant companionship went on until one day, when about the
Line in the Atlantic, I found my pretty pet lying on the grating in
my berth. He had been seized with a fit, and under its influence
had rushed into the fo’c’s’le, where some unspeakable wretch had
shamefully maltreated him under the plea that he was mad! I could not
bear to see him suffer--I cannot say what had been done to him--so
I got an old marline-spike, looped the lanyard about his neck, and
dropped him overboard. And an old lady among the passengers berated
me the next day for my “heartless brutality”!
As a bereaved parent often dreads the thought of having another
little one to lose, so, although many opportunities presented
themselves, I refused to own another cat, until I became an
unconsenting foster-parent again to a whole family. I joined a
brig in the St. Katharine Docks as mate, finding when I took up
my berth that there was both a cat and a dog on board, inmates
of the cabin. They occupied different quarters during the night,
but it was a never-waning pleasure to me to see them meet in the
morning. The dog, a large brown retriever, would stand perfectly
still, except for his heavy tail, which swayed sedately from side
to side, while “Jane” would walk round and round him, arching her
back and rubbing her sides against him, purring all the time a
gentle note of welcome. Presently their noses would meet, as if in
a kiss, and he would bestow a slavering lick or two upon her white
fur. This always ended the greeting, sending “Jane” off primly to
commence her morning toilet. But alas! a blighting shadow fell
upon this loving intercourse. One of the dock cats, a creature
of truculent appearance, her fur more like the nap of a door-mat
than anything else, blind of one eye, minus half her tail, with a
hare-lip (acquired, not hereditary), and her ears vandyked in curious
patterns, stalked on board one afternoon, and took up her abode in
the cabin without any preliminaries whatever. Both the original
tenants were much disturbed at this graceless intrusion, but neither
of them felt disposed to tackle the formidable task of turning her
out. So “Jane” departed to the galley, and “Jack,” with many a loud
and long sniff at the door of the berth wherein the visitor lay,
oscillated disconsolately between the galley and the cabin, his duty
and his inclination. The new-comer gave no trouble, always going
ashore for everything she required, and only once, the morning her
family arrived, deigning to accept a saucer of milk from me. As soon
as she dared she carried the new-comers ashore one by one, being
much vexed when I followed and brought them back again. However, her
patience was greater than mine, for she succeeded in getting them
all away except one which I hid away and she apparently forgot.
Then we saw her no more; she returned to her duty of rat-catching
in the warehouses, and never came near us again. Meanwhile “Jane”
would scarcely leave my side during the day, asking as plainly as
a cat could, why, oh why, didn’t I turn that shameless hussy out?
Couldn’t I see how things were? or was I like the rest of the men?
Her importunity was so great that I was heartily glad when the old
“docker” was gone, and I lost no time in reinstalling “Jane” in her
rightful realm. It was none too soon. For the next morning when I
turned out, a sight as strange as any I have ever seen greeted me.
There, in the corner of my room, lay “Jack” on his side, looking
with undisguised amazement and an occasional low whine of sympathy
at his friend, who, nestling close up to his curls in the space
between his fore and hind legs, was busily attending to the wants
of two new arrivals. The dog’s bewilderment and interest were so
great, that the scene would have been utterly ludicrous had it not
been so genuinely pathetic and pretty. How he managed to restrain
himself I do not know, but there he lay perfectly quiet until pussy
herself released him from his awkward position by getting up and
taking possession of a cosy box I prepared for her. Even then his
attentions were constant, for many times a day he would walk gravely
in and sniff at the kittens, bestow a lick on the mother, and depart
with an almost dejected air, as of a dog that had met with a problem
utterly beyond his wisdom to solve. A visitor claiming one of the
new kittens, I filled its place with the one I had kept belonging to
the old “docker,” and “Jane” accepted the stranger without demur.
While we were in dock I gave them plenty of such luxuries as milk and
cat’s-meat, so that the little family prospered apace. As the kittens
grew and waxed frolicsome, their attachment to me was great,--quite
embarrassing at times, for while standing on deck giving orders,
they would swarm up my legs and cling like bats to my coat, so that
I moved with difficulty for fear of shaking them off. “Jane” was
a perfect “ratter,” and I was curious to see whether her prowess
was hereditary in her offspring. A trap was set and a rat speedily
caught, for we were infested with them. Then “Jane” and her own
kitten were called, the latter being at the time barely two months
old. As soon as the kitten smelt the rat she growled, set up her
fur, and walked round the trap (a large wire cage) seeking a way in.
“Jane” sat down a little apart, an apparently uninterested spectator.
We opened the door of the trap, the kitten darted in, and there in
that confined space slew the rat, which was almost her equal in
size, with the greatest ease. She then dragged it out, growling like
a miniature tiger. Her mother came to have a look, but the kitten,
never loosing her bite, shot out one bristling paw and smote poor
“Jane” on the nose so felly that she retired shaking her head and
sneezing entire disapproval. The other kitten, a “tom,” could never
be induced to interfere with a rat at all. My space is gone, much to
my disappointment, for the subject is a fascinating one to me. But
I hope enough has been said to show what a large amount of interest
clusters around cats on board ship.
THE OLD EAST INDIAMAN
An enthusiastic crowd of workmen and seafarers gathered one day long
ago at Blackwall to witness the launching of the _Lion_. Every man
among them felt a personal interest in the majestic fabric that,
under the proud labours of those skilful shipwrights, had gradually
grown up out of the trim piles of oak, greenheart, and teak, and
taken on the splendid shape of an East Indiaman, in the days when
those grand vessels were queens of the wide sea. Green’s renowned
draughtsmen had lavished all their skill upon her design, every
device known to men whose calling was their pride, and to whom the
Blackwall Yard was the centre of the shipbuilding world, had been
employed to make the _Lion_ the finest of all the great fleet that
had been brought into being there. Decked with flags from stem to
stern, the sun glinting brightly on the rampant crimson lion that
towered proudly on high from her stem, she glided gracefully from the
ways amid the thunder of cannon and the deafening shouts of exultant
thousands. And when, two months later, she sailed for Madras with
eighty prime seamen forrard and a hundred passengers in her spacious
cuddy, who so proud as her stately commander? His eye flashed as
he watched the nimble evolutions of his bonny bluejackets leaping
from spar to spar, and he felt that, given fitting opportunity, he
would have no overwhelming task to tackle a French line-of-battle
ship, even though he _was_ but a peaceful merchantman. For ranged
on either side of her roomy decks were ten 18-pounders, under the
charge of a smart gunner, whose pride in his new post was a pleasant
thing to see. And besides these bulldogs there were many rifles
and boarding-pikes neatly stowed in a small armoury in the waist.
But above and beyond all these weapons were the men who would use
them,--sturdy, square-set British sea-dogs, such as you may now see
any day swarming upon the deck of a British man-o’-war, but may look
for almost in vain on board the swarming thousands of vessels that
compose our merchant fleet.
The _Lion_ soon justified all the high hopes of her builders and
owners. In spite of her (then) great size and the taut spread of her
spars, she was far handier than any “Billy-boy” that ever turned up
the Thames estuary against a head wind, and by at least a knot and
a half the fastest ship in the East India trade. Her fame grew and
waxed exceedingly great. There was as much intriguing to secure a
berth in the _Lion_ for the outward or homeward passage as there was
in those days for positions in the golden land she traded to. Almost
all the hierarchy of India spoke of her affectionately as one speaks
of the old home, and the newly-arrived in her knew no lack of topics
for conversation if they only mentioned her name in any company. For
had she not borne safely and pleasantly over the long, long sea-road
from home hundreds and hundreds of those pale-faced rulers of dusky
millions, bringing them in their callow boyhood to leap at a bound
to posts of trust and responsibility such as the proud old Romans
never dreamed of? She was so tenderly cared for, her every want so
immediately supplied, that this solicitude, added to the staunchness
and honesty of her build, seemed to render her insusceptible of
decay. Men whose work in India was done spoke of her in their
peaceful retirement on leafy English countrysides, and recalled with
cronies “our first passage out in the grand old _Lion_.” A new type
of ship, a new method of propulsion, was springing up all around her.
But whenever any of the most modern fliers forgathered with her upon
the ocean highway, their crews felt their spirits rise in passionate
admiration for the stately and beautiful old craft whose graceful
curves and perfect ease seemed to be of the sea _sui generis_,
moulded and caressed by the noble element into something of its own
mobility and tenacious power.
It appeared almost a loss of dignity when the Company took her off
the India route and held her on the Australian berth. But very soon
she had taken the place that always appeared to be hers of right,
and she was _the_ ship of all others wherein to sail for the new
world beneath us. And in due course the sturdy Empire-builders
scattered all over the vast new country were speaking of her as
the Anglo-Indians had done a generation ago, and the “new chum”
who had “come out in the _Lion_” found himself welcome in far-away
bush homes, from Adelaide to Brisbane, as one of the same family,
a protégé of the benevolent old ship. She held her own well, too,
in point of speed with the new steel and iron clippers, in spite
of what foolish youngsters sneeringly said about her extended
quarter-galleries, her far-reaching head, and immense many-windowed
stern. But gradually the fierce stress of modern competition told
upon her, and it needed no great stretch of the imagination to
suppose that the magnificent old craft felt her dignity outraged as
voyage after voyage saw her crew lists dwindle until instead of the
eighty able _seamen_ of her young days she carried but twenty-two.
The goodly company of officers, midshipmen, and artificers were
cut down also to a third of their old array, and as a necessary
consequence much of her ancient smartness of appearance went with
them. Then she should have closed her splendid career in some great
battle with the elements, and found a fitting glory of defeat without
disgrace before the all-conquering, enduring sea. That solace was
not to be hers, but as a final effort she made the round voyage from
Melbourne to London and back, including the handling of two cargoes,
in five months and twenty days, beating anything of the kind ever
recorded of a sailing-vessel.
Then, oh woeful fall! she was sold to the Norwegians, those thrifty
mariners who are ever on the look-out for bargains in the way of
ships who have seen their best days, and manage to succeed, in ways
undreamed of by more lavish nations, in making fortunes out of such
poor old battered phantoms of bygone prosperity. Tenacious as the
seaman’s memory is for the appearance of any ship in which he has
once sailed, it would have been no easy task for any of her former
shipmates to recognise the splendid old _Lion_ under her Scandinavian
name of the _Ganger Rolf_, metamorphosed as she was too by the
shortening of her tapering spars, the stripping of the yards from
the mizen-mast, and the rigging up of what British sailors call the
“Norwegian house-flag,” a windmill pump between the main and mizen
masts. Thus transformed she began her degraded existence under
new masters, crawling to and fro across the Atlantic to Quebec in
summer, Pensacola or Doboy in winter, uneasily and spiritless as some
gallant hunter dragging a timber waggon in his old age. Unpainted,
weather-bleached, and with sails so patched and clouted that they
looked like slum washing hung out to dry, she became, like the rest
of the “wood-scows,” a thing for the elements to scoff at, and, seen
creeping eastward with a deck-load of deals piled six feet high fore
and aft above her top-gallant rail, was as pathetic as a pauper
funeral. Eight seamen now were all that the thrift of her owners
allowed to navigate her, who with the captain, two mates, carpenter,
and cook, made up the whole of her crew, exactly the number of the
officers she used to carry in her palmy days.
One day when she was discharging in London there came alongside an
old seaman, weather-worn and hungry-looking. Something in the build
of the old ship caught his eye, and with quivering lips and twitching
hands he climbed on board. Round about the deck he quested until,
half hidden by a huge pile of lumber, he found the bell and read on
it, “Lion, London, 1842.” Then he sat down and covered his face with
his hands. Presently he arose and sought the grimy mate purposefully.
At an incredibly low wage he obtained the berth of cook,--it was
either that or starve, although now he had found his old ship, he
felt that he would go for nothing rather than miss another voyage in
her. Soon after they sailed for the “fall voyage” to Quebec, making
a successful run over, much to the delight of the ancient cook, who
was never weary of telling any one who would listen of the feats of
sailing performed by the _Lion_ when he was quartermaster of her
“way back in the fifties.” Urged by greed, for he was part-owner,
and under no fear of the law, the skipper piled upon her such a
deck-load of deals that she no longer resembled a ship, she was only
comparable to a vast timber stack with three masts. She was hardly
clear of Newfoundland on her homeward passage, when one of the most
terrible gales of all that terrible winter set in. Snow and sleet
and frost-fog, a blinding white whirl of withering cold, assailed
her, paralysing the hapless handful of men who vainly strove on
their lofty platform to do their duty, exposed fully to all the
wrath of that icy tempest. One after one the worn-out sails, like
autumn leaves, were stripped from yard and stay; day after day saw
the perishing mariners die. The sea froze upon her where it fell,
so that now she resembled an iceberg; and though the remnant of the
crew tried many times to get at the fastenings of the chains that
secured the deck-load so as to send it adrift, they could not. At
last only one man was left alive, and he, strangely enough, was the
old cook. And while still the gale was at its height, he suddenly
seemed to renew all his lost strength. Buckling tight his belt with
firm fingers, a new light gleaming in his eyes, he strode aft and
seized the long-disused wheel. Standing erect and alert he conned
her gravely, getting her well before the wind. Onward she fled, as
if knowing the touch of an old friend. Gradually the lean fingers
stiffened, the fire died out of the eyes, until, just as the last
feeble drops in that brave old heart froze solid, the _Lion_ dashed
into a mountainous berg and all her shattered timbers fell apart.
Lovely and pleasant had she been in her life, and in her death she
was no danger to her wandering sisters.
THE FLOOR OF THE SEA
Who is there among us that has ever seen a lake, a pond, or a
river-bed laid dry that has not felt an almost childish interest and
curiosity in the aspect of a portion of earth’s surface hitherto
concealed from our gaze? The feeling is probably universal, arising
from the natural desire to penetrate the unknown, and also from a
primitive anxiety to know what sort of an abode the inhabitants of
the water possess, since we almost always consider the water-folk
to live as do the birds, really on land with the water for an
atmosphere. But if this curiosity be so general with regard to the
petty depths mentioned above, how greatly is it increased in respect
of the recesses of the sea. For there is truly the great unknown, the
undiscoverable country of which, in spite of the constant efforts of
deep-sea expeditions, we know next to nothing. Here imagination may
(and does) run riot, attempting the impossible task of reproducing to
our minds the state of things in the lightless, silent depths where
life, according to our ideas of it, is impossible,--the true valley
of the shadow of death.
Suppose that it were possible for some convulsion of Nature to
lay bare, let us say, the entire bed of the North Atlantic Ocean.
With one bound the fancy leaps at the prospect of a rediscovery of
the lost continent, the fabled Atlantis whose wonders have had so
powerful an effect upon the imaginations of mankind. Should we be
able to roam through those stupendous halls, climb those towering
temple heights reared by the giants of an elder world, or gaze with
stupefied wonder upon the majestic ruins of cities to which Babylon
or Palmyra with all their mountainous edifices were but as a suburban
townlet! Who knows? Yet maybe the natural wonders apparent in the
foundations of such soaring masses as the Azores, the Cape Verde
Islands, or the Canaries; or, greater still, the altitude of such
remote and lonely pinnacles as those of the St. Paul’s Rocks, would
strike us as more marvellous yet. To thread the cool intricacies
of the “still vext Bermoothes” at their basements and seek out the
caves where the sea-monsters dwell who never saw the light of day,
to wander at will among the windings of that strange maze of reefs
that cramp up the outpouring of the beneficent Gulf Stream and make
it issue from its source with that turbulent energy that carries it,
laden with blessings, to our shores; what a pilgrimage that would
be! Imagine the vision of that great chain of islands which we call
the West Indies soaring up from the vast plain 6000 feet below, with
all the diversity of form and colour belonging to the lovely homes
of the coral insects, who build ceaselessly for themselves, yet all
unconsciously rear stable abodes for mankind.