pre-eminently characteristic of mankind, is also a notable quality
of domesticated animals, they soon recover from their stupor and
malaise, arrange their locomotive powers to suit the mutations
of their unsteady home, and learn (perhaps soonest of all) to
distinguish the very number of strokes upon the ship’s bell which
announces the arrival of feeding-time. No doubt the attentions of
the sailors have much to do with the rapidity of acclimatisation
(if the term may be so employed) manifested by most of the animals,
since sailors have justly earned a high reputation for taming and
educating creatures of even the most ferocious and intractable
dispositions. Nevertheless, this result is attained by some of the
queerest and most ludicrous means (to a countryman) imaginable. But
what does that matter, since the conditions of their existence then
become, for the seaworthy animals, not only pleasant but undoubtedly
profitable to their owners. And where they are presently allowed the
run of the ship much fun ensues, fun, moreover, that has no parallel
in country life as ordinarily understood. Perhaps my experiences
have been more favourably enlarged than falls to the lot of most
seafarers, for I have been in several ships where the live-stock were
allowed free warren; and although the system had many inconveniences
and entailed a great deal of extra labour upon the crew, there were
also many compensations. But, like all things pertaining to the
sea, the practice of carrying live-stock has been replaced by more
modern methods. The custom of carrying fresh meat in refrigerators is
rapidly gaining ground, and, in consequence, latter-day seamen find
fewer and fewer opportunities for educating in seafaring behaviour
the usual farmyard animals that supply us with food. By few seamen
will this be regarded as a misfortune, since they find their labour
quite sufficiently onerous without the inevitable and disagreeable
concomitants of carrying live-stock.
By far the largest portion of my experience of farmyard operations
on board ship has been connected with pigs. These profitable animals
have always been noted for their adaptability to sea life, and I
fully believe, what I have often heard asserted, that no pork is so
delicious as that which has been reared on board ship. Be that as it
may, pigs of every nation under heaven where swine are to be found
have been shipmates with me, and a complete study of all their varied
characteristics and their behaviour under all sea circumstances
would occupy a far greater number of pages than I am ever likely
to be able or willing to give. Already I have endeavoured to set
forth, in a former article, a sketch of the brilliant, if erratic,
career of one piggy shipmate whose life was full of interest and
his death a blaze of lurid glory. But he was in nowise the most
important member of our large and assorted collection of grunters
in that ship. Our Scotch skipper was an enthusiastic farmer during
the brief periods he spent at Cellardyke between his voyages to the
East Indies, and consequently it was not strange that he should
devote a portion of his ample leisure to pig-breeding when at sea.
For some reason, probably economical, we carried no fowls or other
animals destined for our meat, with the exception of the pigs, two
large retriever dogs and two cats making up the total of our animal
passengers, unless a large and active colony of rats that inhabited
the recesses of the hold be taken into account. The day before
sailing from Liverpool a handsome young pair of porkers, boar and
sow, were borne on board in one sack by the seller, making the welkin
ring with their shrill protests. We already possessed a middle-aged
black sow of Madras origin, whose temper was perfectly savage and
unappeasable; in fact, she was the only animal I ever saw on board
ship that could not be tamed. The first few days of our passage
being stormy, the two young pigs suffered greatly from sea-sickness,
and in their helpless, enfeebled state endured many things from the
wrathful, long-snouted old Madrassee, who seemed to regard them
both with peculiar aversion. She ate all their grub as well as her
own, although, like the lean kine of Scripture, she was nothing
benefited thereby. But the sailors, finding the youngsters amicably
disposed, began to pet them, and in all possible ways to protect
them from ill-usage not only by the savage Indian but by the black
retriever Sailor, who had taken up his quarters in the fo’c’s’le
and became furiously jealous of any attention shown to the pigs by
his many masters. It should be noted that, contrary to the usual
practice, those pigs had no settled abiding-place. At night they
slept in some darksome corner beneath the top-gallant forecastle,
wherever they could find a dry spot, but by day they roamed the deck
whithersoever they listed, often getting as far aft as the sacred
precincts of the quarter-deck, until Neptune, the brown retriever
that guarded the after-end of the ship, espied them, and, leaping
upon them, towed them forrard at full gallop by the ears, amid a
hurly-burly of eldritch shrieks and rattling hoofs. I am not at all
sure that the frolicsome young things did not enjoy these squally
interludes in their otherwise peaceful lives. Certainly they often
seemed to court rather than to avoid the dog’s onslaught, and would
dodge him round the after-hatch for all the world like London Arabs
guying a policeman. The only bitter drop in their brimming cup of
delights came with distressing regularity each morning. As soon as
the wash-deck tub was hauled forrard and the fore part of the ship
was invaded by the barefooted scrubbers and water-slingers, two
hands would grope beneath the fo’c’s’le, where, squeezed into the
smallest imaginable space, Denis and Jenny were, or pretended to be,
sleeping the dreamless slumbers of youthful innocence. Ruthlessly
they were seized and hauled on deck, their frantic lamentations
lacerating the bright air, and evoking fragments of the commination
service from the disturbed watch below. While one man held each of
them down, others scrubbed them vigorously, pouring a whole flood
of sparkling brine over them meanwhile, until they were as rosy and
sweet as any cherub of the nursery after its bath. This treatment,
so mournfully and regularly resented by them, was doubtless one
reason why they throve so amazingly, although the liberal rations
of sea-biscuit and peasoup supplied to them probably suited them as
well as any highly-advertised and costly provender would have done.
Their tameness was wonderful and withal somewhat embarrassing, for it
was no uncommon thing for them to slip into the men’s house unseen
during the absence of the crew, and, climbing into a lower bunk,
nestle cosily down into the unfortunate owner’s blankets and snore
peacefully until forcibly ejected by the wrathful lessee.
Our passage was long, very long, so that the old black sow littered
off the Cape of Good Hope, choosing, with her usual saturnine
perversity, a night when a howling gale was blowing, and destroying
all her hapless offspring but one in her furious resentment at the
whole thing. Jenny, like the amiable creature she always was, delayed
_her_ offering until we were lying peaceably in Bombay Harbour. There
she placidly produced thirteen chubby little sucklings and reared
every one of them. They were a never-failing source of amusement to
the men, who, in the dog-watches, would sit for hours with pipes
aglow sedately enjoying the screamingly-funny antics of the merry
band. There is much controversy as to which of all tame animals are
the most genuinely frolicsome in their youth, kittens, lambs, calves,
pups, and colts all having their adherents; but I unhesitatingly give
my vote for piglings, especially when they are systematically petted
and encouraged in all their antics as were that happy family of ours.
Generally, the fat and lazy parents passed the time of these evening
gambols in poking about among the men, begging for stray midshipmen’s
nuts (broken biscuit), or asking in well-understood pig-talk to
be scratched behind their ears or along their bristly spines, but
occasionally, as if unable to restrain themselves any longer, they
would suddenly join their gyrating family, their elephantine gambols
among the frisky youngsters causing roars of laughter. Usually they
wound up the revels by a grand _galop furieux_ aft of the whole troop
squealing and grunting fortissimo, and returning accompanied by the
two dogs in a hideous uproar of barks, growls, and squeals.
Our stay on the coast was sufficiently prolonged to admit of another
litter being produced in Bimlia-patam, twelve more piglets being
added to our already sizeable herd of seventeen. So far, these
farming matters had met with the unqualified approval of all hands
except the unfortunate boys who had to do the scavenging, but upon
quitting the Coromandel coast for the homeward passage, the exceeding
cheapness of live-stock tempted our prudent skipper to invest in a
large number of fowls and ducks. Besides these, he bought a couple
of milch goats, with some wild idea of milking them, while various
members of the crew had gotten monkeys, musk-deer, and parrots. It
needed no special gift of prescience to foresee serious trouble
presently, for there was not a single coop or house of any kind on
board for any of the motley crowd. As each crate of cackling birds
was lowered on deck it was turned out, and by the time the last of
the new-comers were free, never did a ship’s decks look more like a
“barton” than ours. Forty or fifty cockfights were proceeding in as
many corners, aided and abetted, I grieve to say, by the sailors,
who did all they could to encourage the pugnacity of the fowls,
although they were already as quarrelsome a lot as you would easily
get together. The goats were right at home at once; in fact goats
are, I believe, the single exception to the general rule of the
discomfort of animals when first they are brought on shipboard. The
newcomers quietly browsed around, sampling everything they could
get a purchase on with their teeth, and apparently finding all good
alike. Especially did they favour the ends of the running gear.
Now if there is one thing more than another that is sharply looked
after at sea, it is the “whipping” or securing of ropes-ends to
prevent them fraying out. But it was suddenly discovered that our
ropes-ends needed continual attention, some of them being always
found with disreputable tassels hanging to them. And when the mates
realised that the goats apparently preferred a bit of tarry rope
before anything else, their wrath was too great for words, and
they meditated a terrible revenge. Another peculiarity of these
strange-eyed animals was that they liked tobacco, and would eat a
great deal of it, especially in the form of used-up quids. This
peculiar taste in feeding had unexpected results. As before said, the
_raison d’être_ of the goats was milk, and after sundry ineffectual
struggles the steward managed to extract a cupful from the unworthy
pair. It was placed upon the cabin table with an air of triumph,
and the eyes of the captain’s wife positively beamed when she saw
it. Solemnly it was handed round, and poured into the coffee as
if it had been a libation to a tutelary deity, but somebody soon
raised a complaint that the coffee was not up to concert pitch by a
considerable majority. A process of exhaustive reasoning led to the
milk being tasted by the captain, who immediately spat it out with
much violence, ejaculating, “Why, the dam’ stuff’s pwushioned!” The
steward, all pale and agitated, looked on dumbly, until in answer to
the old man’s furious questions he falteringly denied all knowledge
of any felonious addition to the milk. The storm that was raised by
the affair was a serious one, and for a while things looked really
awkward for the steward. Fortunately the mate had the common-sense
to suggest that the malignant goat should be tapped once more, and
the immediate result tasted. This was done, and the poor steward
triumphantly vindicated. Then it was unanimously admitted that tarry
hemp, painted canvas, and plug tobacco were not calculated to produce
milk of a flavour that would be fancied by ordinary people.
II
For the first time that voyage an attempt was made to confine a
portion of our farm-stock within a pen, instead of allowing them to
roam at their own sweet will about the decks. For the skipper still
cherished the idea that milk for tea and coffee might be obtained
from the two goats that would be palatable, if only their habit of
promiscuous grazing could be stopped. So the carpenter rigged up a
tiny corral beneath the fo’c’s’le deck, and there, in penitential
gloom, the goats were confined and fed, like all the rest of the
animals, on last voyage’s biscuit and weevily pease. Under these
depressing conditions there was, of course, only one thing left for
self-respecting goats to do--refuse to secrete any more milk. They
promptly did so; so promptly, in fact, that on the second morning the
utmost energies of the steward only sufficed to squeeze out from the
sardonic pair about half-a-dozen teaspoonfuls of doubtful-looking
fluid. This sealed their fate, for we had far too much stock on board
to waste any portion of our provender upon non-producers, and the
fiat went forth--the drones must die. Some suggestion was made by
a member of the after guard as to the possibility of the crew not
objecting to goat as a change of diet; but with all the skipper’s
boldness, he did not venture to make the attempt. The goats were
slain, their hides were saved for chafing gear, sheaths for knives,
&c., but, with the exception of a portion that was boiled down with
much disgust by the cook and given to the fowls, most of the flesh
was flung overboard. Then general complaints arose that while musk
was a pleasant perfume taken in moderation, a little of it went a
very long way, and that two musk deer might be relied upon to provide
as much scent in one day as would suffice all hands for a year. I
do not know how it was done, but two days after the demise of the
goats the deer also vanished. Still we could not be said to enjoy
much room to move about on deck yet. We had 200 fowls and forty ducks
roaming at large, and although many of the former idiotic birds tried
their wings, with the result of finding the outside of the ship a
brief and uncertain abiding-place, the state of the ship’s decks
was still utterly abominable. A week of uninterrupted fine weather
under the blazing sun of the Bay of Bengal had made every one but the
skipper heartily sick of sea-farming, and consequently it was with
many pleasurable anticipations that we noted the first increase in
the wind that necessitated a reduction of sail. It made the fellows
quite gay to think of the clearance that would presently take place.
The breeze freshened steadily all night, and in the morning it was
blowing a moderate gale, with an ugly cross sea, which, with the
_Belle’s_ well-known clumsiness, she was allowing to break aboard in
all directions. By four bells there were many gaps in our company
of fowls. Such a state of affairs robbed them of the tiny modicum
of gumption they had ever possessed, and every little breaking sea
that lolloped inboard drove some of them, with strident outcry, to
seek refuge overboard. Presently came what we had been expecting
all the morning--one huge mass of water extending from the break
of the poop to the forecastle, which filled the decks rail high,
fore and aft. Proceedings were exceedingly animated for a time. The
ducks took very kindly to the new arrangement at first, sailing
joyously about, and tasting the bitter brine as if they rather liked
the flavour. But they were vastly puzzled by the incomprehensible
motions of the whole mass of water under them; it was a phenomenon
transcending all their previous aquatic experiences. The fowls gave
the whole thing up, floating languidly about like worn-out feather
brooms upon the seething flood of water, and hardly retaining enough
energy to struggle when the men, splashing about like a crack team
in a water-polo match, snatched at them and conveyed them in heaps
to a place of security under the forecastle. That day’s breeze got
rid of quite two-thirds of our feathered friends for us, what
with the number that had flown or been washed overboard and those
unfortunates who had died in wet heaps under the forecastle. The old
man was much annoyed, and could by no means understand the unwonted
cheerfulness of everybody else. But, economical to the last, he
ordered the steward to slay as many of the survivors each day as
would give every man one body apiece for dinner, in lieu of the usual
rations of salt beef or pork. This royal command gave all hands
great satisfaction, for it is a superstition on board ship that to
feed upon chicken is the height of epicurean luxury. Dinner-time,
therefore, was awaited with considerable impatience; in fact, a
good deal of sleep was lost by the watch below over the prospect
of such an unusual luxury. I went to the galley as usual, my mouth
watering like the rest, but when I saw the dirty little Maltese cook
harpooning the carcasses out of the coppers, my appetite began to
fail me. He carefully counted into my kid one corpse to each man, and
I silently bore them into the forecastle to the midst of the gaping
crowd. Ah me! how was their joy turned into sorrow, their sorrow
into rage, by the rapidest of transitions. She was a hungry ship at
the best of times, but when things had been at their worst they had
never quite reached the present sad level. It is hardly possible to
imagine what that feast looked like. An East Indian jungle fowl is by
no means a fleshy bird when at its best, but these poor wretches had
been living upon what little flesh they wore when they came on board
for about ten days, the scanty ration of paddy and broken biscuit
having been insufficient to keep them alive. And then they had been
scalded wholesale, the feathers roughly wiped off them, and plunged
into a copper of furiously bubbling seawater, where they had remained
until the wooden-headed Maltese judged it time to fish them out and
send them to be eaten. They were just like ladies’ bustles covered
with old parchment, and I have serious doubts whether more than half
of them were drawn. I dare not attempt to reproduce the comments of
my starving shipmates, unless I gave a row of dashes which would be
suggestive but not enlightening. Old Nat the Yankee, who was the
doyen of the forecastle, was the first to recover sufficiently from
the shock to formulate a definite plan of action. “In my ’pinion,” he
said, “thishyer’s ’bout reached th’ bottom notch. I kin stan’ bein’
starved; in these yer limejuicers a feller’s got ter stan’ that, but
I be ’tarnally dod-gasted ef I kin see bein’ starved ’n’ insulted
at the same time by the notion ov bein’ bloated with lugsury. I’m
goin’ ter take thishyer kid full o’ bramley-kites aft an’ ask th’
ole man ef he don’t think it’s ’bout time somethin’ wuz said _an’_
done by th’ croo ov this hooker.” There was no dissentient voice
heard, and solemnly as a funeral procession, Nat leading the way
with the corpuses delicti, the whole watch tramped aft. I need not
dwell upon the interview. Sufficient that there was a good deal of
animated conversation, and much jeering on the skipper’s part at
the well-known cussedness of sailors, who, as everybody knows (or
think they know), will growl if fed on all the delicacies of the
season served up on 18-carat plate. But we got no more poultry,
thank Heaven. And I do not think the officers regretted the fact
that before we got clear of the bay the last of that sad crowd of
feathered bipeds had ceased to worry any of us, but had wisely given
up the attempt to struggle against such a combination of trying
circumstances.
The herd of swine, however, throve apace. To the manner born, nothing
came amiss to them, and I believe they even enjoyed the many quaint
tricks played upon them by the monkeys, and the ceaseless antagonism
of the dogs. But the father of the family was a sore trial to our
energetic carpenter. Chips had a sneaking regard for pigs, and knew
more than anybody on board about them; but that big boar, he said,
made him commit more sin with his tongue in one day than all the
other trying details of his life put together. For Denis’s tusks
grew amazingly, and his chief amusement consisted in rooting about
until he found a splinter in the decks underneath which he could
insert a tusk. Then he would lie down or crouch on his knees, and
fidget away at that sliver of pine until he had succeeded in ripping
a long streak up; and if left undisturbed for a few minutes, he
would gouge quite a large hollow out of the deck. No ship’s decks
that ever I saw were so full of patches as ours were, and despite
all our watchfulness they were continually increasing. It became a
regular part of the carpenter’s duties to capture Denis periodically
by lassoing him, lash him up to the pin-rail by his snout, and with
a huge pair of pincers snap off those fast-growing tusks as close
down to the jaw as possible. In spite of this heroic treatment, Denis
always seemed to find enough of tusk left to rip up a sliver of deck
if ever he could find a quiet corner; and the carpenter was often
heard to declare that the cunning beast was a lineal descendant of a
survivor of the demon-possessed herd of Gadara.
In the case of the pigs, though, there were compensations. By the
time we arrived off Mauritius, a rumour went round that on Friday
a pig was to be killed, and great was the excitement. The steward
swelled with importance as, armed with the cabin carving-knife, he
strode forward and selected _two_ of the first litter of piglets,
the Bombay born, for sacrifice. He had plenty of voluntary helpers
from the watch below, who had no fears for the quality of this
meat, and only trembled at the thought that perchance the old man
might bear malice in the matter of the fowls and refuse to send any
pork in our direction. Great was the uproar as the chosen ones were
seized by violent hands, their legs tied with spun-yarn, and their
throats exposed to the stern purpose of the steward. Unaware that
the critical eye of Chips was upon him, he made a huge gash across
the victim’s throat, and then plunged the knife in diagonally until
the whole length of the blade disappeared. “Man alive,” said Chips,
“ye’re sewerly daft. Thon’s nay wye to stick a pig. If ye haena
shouldert the puir beastie A’am a hog mysel’.” “You mind your own
business, Carpenter,” replied the steward, with dignity; “I don’t
want anybody to show me how to do _my_ work.” “Gie _me_ nane o’ yer
impidence, ye feckless loon,” shouted Chips. “A’am tellin’ ye thon’s
spilin’ guide meat for want o’ juist a wee bit o’ knowin’ how. Hae!
lat me show ye if ye’re thick heid’s able to tak’ onythin’ in ava.”
And so speaking, he brushed the indignant steward aside, at the same
time drawing his pocket-knife. The second pig was laid out, and
Chips, as delicately as if performing tracheotomy, slit his weasand.
The black puddings were not forgotten, but I got such a distaste for
that particular delicacy from learning how they were made (I hadn’t
the slightest idea before) that I have never been able to touch one
since.
Chips now took upon himself the whole direction of affairs, and truly
he was a past-master in the art and mystery of the pork-butcher. He
knew just the temperature of the water, the happy medium between
scalding the hair on and not scalding it off; knew, too, how to
manipulate chitterlings and truss the carcass up till it looked just
as if hanging in a first-class pork shop. But the steward was sore
displeased. For it is a prime canon of sea etiquette not to interfere
with another man’s work, and in the known incapacity of the cook,
whose duty the pigkilling should ordinarily have been, the steward
came next by prescriptive right. However, Chips, having undertaken
the job, was not the man to give it up until it was finished, and by
universal consent he had a right to be proud of his handiwork. That
Sunday’s dinner was a landmark, a date to reckon from, although the
smell from the galley at suppertime on Saturday and breakfast-time
on Sunday made us all quite faint and weak from desire, as well as
fiercely resentful of the chaffy biscuit and filthy fragments of beef
that were a miserable substitute for a meal with us.