grace of their curves and marvel of their motion to all mankind, the
waves of the sea take easily their high place with the stars and
the mountains as some of the chief glories attendant upon the round
world. Only an artist, perhaps, could do justice to the multiplicity
of lovely lines into which the ruffled surface of the ocean
enwreathes itself under the pressure of the storm. Yet any one with
an eye for the beautiful will find it hard to leave a sight so fair,
will watch unweariedly for hours the gliding, curling masses as they
rise, apparently in defiance of law, subside and rise again and yet
again.
Sailors often speak of an “ugly” sea, but the adjective has quite
another meaning to that usually attached to it. They do not mean
that it is ugly in appearance, for they well know that the beauty
of a wave is as much a part of it as is the water--it cannot be
otherwise than beautiful, as it cannot cease to be wet. What they
mean is a dangerous sea. And by “sea” they always mean wave. A sailor
never speaks of a “high wave,” “cross waves,” “heavy waves”; in
fact, on board ship, except when passengers are getting information
from officers, you will not hear the word “wave” mentioned at all.
It is necessary to mention this purely nautical detail to save
constant explanation and digression. To return, then, to the sailor’s
“ugly” sea. Its ugliness may be due to many different causes, but
in the result the waves do not run truly with the wind; they rise
unexpectedly and confusedly, changing the natural motion of the
ship into a bewildered stagger, such as one will sometimes see in
a horse when a brutal, foolish driver is beating him over the head
and wrenching first at one rein and then the other without knowing
himself what he wants the poor brute to do. It is very pitiful,
too, to watch a gallant ship being pressed through an ugly, untrue
sea--such, for instance, as may be met with in the North Atlantic
with a south-west gale blowing, and the vessel in the midst of the
Gulf Stream. The conflict between wind and current, all the more
terrible for its invisibility, is deep-reaching, so deep that every
excuse must be found for those who have spoken of seas running
mountains high. As the steady, implacable thrust of the storm booms
forth, the black breadths of water rise rebellious; they would fain
flow in the face of the wind, but that cannot be. So they rise,
sullenly rise, peak-like, against their persecutor, until his might
compels them forward against the mighty stream beneath, and their
shattered crags and pinnacles tumble in ruinous heaps around.
Even this, however, is less dangerous than that time--to be spoken
of by those who have seen it, and live, with bated breath--when,
rotating like some wheel of the gods, the tropical cyclone whirls
across the Indian seas. Round and round blow the incredibly furious
winds, having a centrifugal direction withal, and yet the whole
mighty system progresses in some given direction, until towards its
centre there is a Maelstrom indeed--a space where the wind hath left,
as it were, a funnel of calm in the world-tumult. And there the waves
hold high revel. Heap upon heap the waters rise, without direction,
without shape, save that of fortuitous blocks hurled skyward and
falling again in ruin. The fountains of the great deep appear to be
broken up, and woe to man’s handiwork found straying there in that
black hour.
All those who have ever “run the Easting down” will remember, but
not all pleasurably, the great true sea of the roaring “forties” or
“fifties.” How, unhindered in its world-encircling sweep, the premier
wind of all comes joyously, unwaveringly, for many a day without a
pause, while the good ship flies before it with every wing bearing
its utmost strain. In keeping with the wind, the wave--the long, true
wave of the Southern Seas, spreading to infinity on either hand, a
gorgeous concave of blue, with its direction as straightly at right
angles to the ship’s track as if laid by line, and its ridge all
glistening like a wreath of new-fallen snow under silver moon or
golden sun. It pursues, it overtakes, rises astern with majestic
sound as of all the war-chariots of Neptune; then, easily passing
beneath the buoyant keel, it is gone on ahead, has joined its fellows
in their stately progress to the East. Adown its far-spreading
shoulders stream pennons of white; in the broad valley between
it and the next wave the same bright foam creams and hisses until
wherever the eye can rest is no longer blue but white--a wilderness
of curdling snow just bepatched with azure.
The strong, exultant ship may rejoice in such a scene as this, but it
is far otherwise with the weakling. Caught up in this irresistible
march of wind and wave, she feels that her place is otherwhere; it
is not hers to strive with giants, but to abide by the stuff. Then
do the hapless mariners in charge watch carefully for a time when
they may lay her to, watch the waves’ sequence, knowing that every
third wave is greater, and leaves a broader valley of smooth behind
it than its fellows; while some say that with the third sequence of
three--the ninth wave--these differences are at their maximum. Why?
Who knows? Certain it is that some waves are heavier than others, and
equally certain it is that in the case of a truly running sea these
heavier seas appear at regularly recurrent intervals of three. And
that is all sailors know. Sufficient too, perhaps, as with their weak
and overladen ship they watch the smooth, to swing her up between two
rolling ranges of water, and without shipping more than thirty or
forty tons or so, heave her to, her head just quartering the oncoming
waves, and all danger of being overwhelmed by them removed.
Curious indeed are the waves to be found over uneven bottoms with
strong undercurrents--as, for instance, on the coast of Nova
Scotia--and known as “overfalls.” Sufficiently annoying to vessels
of large size that get among them, they are most dangerous to small
craft. The water rises in masses perpendicularly, and falls a dead
weight without apparent forward motion--a puzzling, deadly sea to
meet when a howling gale is driving your small vessel across those
angry waters. But the overfall character is common to nearly all
waves raised in shallow seas and tidal streams. It adds to the
dangers of navigation immensely, and although the eye must be charmed
when from the lofty cliff we see the green-bosomed, hoary-shouldered
wave come thundering shoreward, we need not expect those to greet him
lovingly who must do so in weakness and undefended.
What of the tidal wave; that mysterious indispensable swelling of the
waters that, following the “pull” of the moon, rolls round this globe
of ours twice in each twenty-four hours, stemming the outflow of
mighty rivers, penetrating far inland wherever access is available,
and doing within its short lease of life an amount of beneficent
work freely that would beggar the wealthiest Monarchy of the world
to undertake if it must needs be paid for? Mysterious it may well be
called, since, though its passage from zone to zone be so swift, it
is, like all other waves, but an undulatory movement of that portion
of the sea momentarily influenced by the suasion of the planet--not,
as is vulgarly supposed, the same mass of water vehemently carried
onward for thousands of miles. No; just as a tightly stretched
sheet of calico shows an undulation if the point of a stick be
passed along beneath its surface and pressed upward against it, an
undulation which leaves every fibre where it was originally, so does
the whole surface remain in its place while the long, long wave rolls
round the world carrying up to their moorings the homeward-bound
ships, sweetening mud-befouled tidal harbours, and giving to forlorn
breadths of deserted shallows all the glory and vitality of the
youthful sea.
To meet a tidal wave at sea is in some parts of the watery world a
grim and unforgettable experience. Floating upon the shining blue
plain, with an indolent swelling of the surface just giving a cosy
roll to your ship now and then, you suddenly see in the distance a
ridge, a knoll of water that advances vast, silent, menacing. Nearer
and nearer it comes, rearing its apparently endless curve higher and
higher. There is no place to flee from before its face. Neither is
there much suspense. For its pace is swift, although it appears so
deliberate, from the illimitable grandeur of its extent. It is upon
the ship. She behaves in accordance with the way she has been caught
and her innate peculiarities. In any case, whatever her bulk, she is
hurled forward, upward, backward, downward, as if never again could
she regain an even keel, while her crew cling desperately to whatever
holding-place they may have reached, lest they should be dashed into
dead pieces.
Some will have it that these marvellous upliftings of the sea-bosom
are not tidal waves at all--that they do not belong to that normal
ebb and flow of the ocean that owns the sway of the moon. If so,
they would be met with more frequently than they are at sea, and far
more disasters would be placed to their account. This contention
seems reasonable, because it is well known that lonely islets such as
St. Helena, Tristan d’Acunha, and Ascension are visited at irregular
intervals by a succession of appalling waves (rollers) that deal
havoc among the smaller shipping, and look as if they would overwhelm
the land. The suggestion is that these stupendous waves are due to
cosmic disturbance, to submarine earthquakes upheaving the ocean-bed
and causing so vast a displacement of the ocean that its undulations
extend for several thousands of miles.
As to the speed of waves, judging from all experience, they would
seem never to exceed sixteen to eighteen knots an hour in their
hugest forms. And yet it is well known that they will often outstrip
the gale that gave them birth, let it rage never so furiously. Lying
peacefully rolling upon the smoothest of summer seas, you shall
presently find, without any alteration in the weather, the vessel’s
motion change from its soothing roll to a sharp, irritable, and
irritating movement. And, looking overside, there may be seen the
forerunners of the storm that is raging hundreds of miles away, the
hurrying waves that it has driven in its path. So likewise, long
hours after a gale is over, the waves it has raised roll on, still
reluctant to resume their levelled peace, and should a new gale arise
in some contrary direction, the “old” sea, as the sailor calls it,
will persist, making the striving ship’s progress full of weariness
and unease to those on board. Of the energy of waves, of the lessons
they teach, their immutable mutability, and other things concerning
them that leap to the mind, no word can now be spoken, for space is
spent.
A BATTLESHIP OF TO-DAY
Last year it was my pleasant privilege to lay before the readers of
the _Spectator_ a few details upon the polity of a battleship, and
from the amount of interest shown in that subject, it would seem
acceptable to supplement it by a few more details upon the mechanical
side. First, then, as to the ship herself. Complaints are often heard
of the loss of beauty and ship-like appearance consequent upon the
gain of combative strength in these floating monsters. And it cannot
be denied that up till a few years ago in our own Navy, and at the
present date among the _cuirassés_ of France, the appearance of the
vessels made such a complaint well founded--such ships as the _Hoche_
and _Charlemagne_, for instance, from which it may truly be said that
all likeness to a ship has been removed. But in our own Navy there
has been witnessed of late years a decided return to the handsome
contour of vessels built, not for war, but for the peaceful pursuits
of the merchant service. And this has so far been attended by the
happiest results. These mighty ships of the _Majestic_ class, on
board of one of which I am now writing, have won the unstinted praise
of all connected with them. This means a great deal, for there are
no more severe critics of the efforts of naval architects than naval
officers, as would be naturally expected. In these ships the eye is
arrested at once by their beautiful lines, and the absence of any
appearance of top-heaviness so painfully evident in ships like the
_Thunderer_, the _Dreadnought_, and the _Admirals_. Their spacious
freeboard, or height from the water-line to the edge of the upper
deck, catches a seaman’s eye at once, for a good freeboard means
not only a fairly dry ship, but also plenty of fresh air below, as
well as a sense of security in heavy weather. It is not, however,
until their testing time comes, in a heavy gale of wind on the wide
Atlantic, that their other virtues appear. Then one is never weary
of wondering at their splendid stability and freedom from rolling,
which makes them unique fighting platforms under the worst weather
conditions. They steer perfectly, a range of over three and a half
degrees on either side of their course being sufficient to bring
down heavy censure upon the quartermaster. They have not Belleville
boilers, and so enjoy almost complete immunity from breakdowns,
maintaining their speed in a manner that is not approached by any
other men-of-war afloat. In addition to great economy of coal usage
they have, for a ship of war, very large coal bunkerage. In fact, in
this respect their qualifications are so high that there is danger of
being disbelieved in giving the plain facts. On a coal consumption of
50 tons per day for _all_ purposes a speed of eight knots per hour
can be maintained for forty days. Of course, with each extra knot of
speed the coal consumption increases enormously, reaching a maximum
of 220 tons a day for a speed of fifteen knots with forced draught.
It is necessary to italicise _all_ purposes, for it must always be
remembered that there is quite a host of auxiliary engines always at
work in these ships for the supply of electric light, ventilation,
steering, distilling, &c. And this brings me to a most important
detail of the economy of modern ships of war--their utter dependence
for efficient working upon modern inventions, all highly complicated,
and liable to get out of order. As, for instance, the lighting. It
is quite true that the work of the ship can be carried on without
electric light, but when one considers the bewildering ramifications
of utterly dark passages in the bowels of these huge ships, and
remembers how accustomed the workers become to the flood of light
given by a host of electric lamps, it needs no active exercise of
the imagination to picture the condition of things when that great
illumination is replaced by the feeble glimmer of candles or colomb
lights. Truly they only punctuate the darkness, they do not dispel
it, and work is carried on at great risk because of its necessary
haste. Then there is the steering. Under ordinary circumstances one
man stands at a baby wheel upon a lofty bridge, whence he has a view
from beam to beam of all that is going on, of the surrounding sea.
At a touch of his hand the obedient monster of 150 horse-power, far
down in the tiller-room aft, responds by exerting its great force
upon the rudder, and the ship is handled with ridiculous ease. Use
accustoms one to the marvel, and no wonder is ever evinced at the
way in which one man can keep that giant of 15,000 tons so steady
on her course. But of late we have had an object-lesson upon the
difference there is between steering by hand without the intervention
of machinery and steering with its aid. In the next water-tight
compartment forward of the tiller-room, there are four wheels, each
5 feet in diameter, and of great strength of construction. Some
distance in front of these there is an indicator--a brass pointer
moving along a horizontal scale marked in degrees. Forward of this
again, but about 2 feet to port of it, there is a compass, and
how any compass, however buttressed by compensators, can keep its
polarity in the midst of such an immense assemblage of iron and
steel furniture is almost miraculous. By the side of the compass is
a voice-tube communicating with the pilot-bridge forward. To each of
the wheels four men are allotted, sixteen in all. A quartermaster
watches, with eyes that never remove their gaze, the indicator,
which, actuated from the pilot-bridge 300 feet away, tells him
how many degrees of helm are needed, and he immediately gives his
orders accordingly. One man watches the compass, another attends the
voice-tube, listening intently for orders that may come in that way
from the officer responsible for the handling of the ship. Two men
also watch in the tiller-room for possible complications arising
there. Total, twenty-one men for the purpose of steering the ship
alone, or a crew equal to that of a sailing-ship of 2000 tons, or
the deck hands of a steamship of 6000 tons. Yet this steering crew
is only for one watch. Of course, this steering by hand is a last
resource. The engines which move the rudder are in duplicate, and
there are seven other stations from which they can be worked--viz.,
one on the upper bridge, one in each of the conning-towers, one
at each steering-engine, and two others on different decks in the
lower fore-part of the ship. It is certainly true that some of these
wheels actuate the same connection, so that one break may disable
two, or even three, wheels; but even granting that, there still
remains a considerable margin of chances against the possibility
of ever being compelled to use the hand steering-gear. Those awful
weapons of war, the barbette guns, may also be handled by manual
labour, but it is instructive to compare the swift ease with which
they, their containing barbettes (each weighing complete 250 tons),
their huge cartridges of cordite and 850 lb. shells, are handled
by hydraulic power, and the same processes carried out by hand.
And so with all other serious operations, such as weighing anchor,
hoisting steamboats, &c. The masses of weight to be dealt with are
so great that the veriest novice may see at one glance that to be
compelled to use hand labour for their manipulation in actual warfare
would be equivalent to leaving the ship helpless, at the mercy of
another ship of any enemy’s not so situated. Yes, these ships are
good, so good that it is a pity they are not better. In the opinion
of those best qualified to know, they have still a great deal too
much useless top-hamper--nay, worse than useless, because in action
its destruction by shell-fire and consequent mass of débris would
not only mean the needless loss of many lives, but would pile up a
mountain of obstacles in the way of the ship’s efficient working.
Also, the amount of unnecessary woodwork with which these vessels
are cumbered is very great, constituting a danger so serious that
on going into action it would be imperative to put a tremendous
strain upon the crew in tearing it from its positions and flinging
it overboard. Upper works of course there must be, but they should
be reduced to their simplest and most easily removable expression,
and on no account should there be, as there now is, any battery
that in action would be unworkable, and consequently only so much
lumber in the way. Remembering the enormous cost of the flotilla of
boats carried by these ships, three of them being steamers of high
speed, it comes as somewhat of a shock to learn that upon going into
action one of the first things necessary would be to launch them
all overboard and let them go secured together so that they might
possibly be picked up again, although not easily by the ship to which
they belonged. It is only another lurid glimpse of the prospective
horror of modern naval warfare. There will be no means of escape
in case of defeat and sinking, for nothing will be left to float.
Finally, after all criticisms have been made it remains to be said
that it is much to be regretted that we have not double the number
of these splendid battleships furnished with boilers that can be
relied upon as the present boilers can. Other ships of their stamp
are being built, but with Belleville boilers, of which the best that
can be said is that our most dangerous prospective foe is using them
exclusively also. But she, again, is rushing blindly upon certain
disaster in the direction of accumulating enormous superstructures
which are certain to be destroyed early in any engagement, and being
destroyed will leave the ship a helpless wreck. We have shown our
wisdom by reducing these dreadfully disabling erections, and shall
yet reduce them more. Why not go a step farther, and refuse longer to
load our engineers with the horrible incubus of boilers that have not
a single workable virtue but that of raising steam quickly, and have
every vice that a vehicle for generating steam can possibly possess?
NAT’S MONKEY
When Nathaniel D. Troop (of Jersey City, U.S.A.), presently A.B. on
board the British ship _Belle_, solemnly announced his intention of
investing in a monkey the next time old Daddy the Bumboatman came
alongside, there was a breathless hush, something like consternation,
amongst his shipmates. It was in Bombay and eventide, and all we of
the foremast hands were quietly engaged upon our supper (tea is the
name for the corresponding meal ashore), with great content resting
upon us, for bananas, rooties, duck-eggs and similar bumboat-bought
luxuries abounded among us. So that the chunk of indurated buffalo
that had resisted all assaults upon it at dinner-time lay unmolested
at the bottom of the beef-kid, no one feeling sufficiently interested
to bestow a swear on it.
For some time after Nat’s pronouncement nobody spoke. The cool breeze
whispered under the fo’c’s’le awning, the Bramley-kites wheeled
around whistling hungrily and casting their envious watchful eyes
upon our plates, and somewhere in the distance a dinghy-wallah
intoned an interminable legend to his fellow-sufferers that sounded
like the high-pitched drone of bees on a sultry afternoon among the
flowers. Then up and spake John de Baptiss: “Waffor, Nat? Wah we ben
dween t’yo. Foh de Lawd sake, sah, ef yew gwain bring Macaque ’bord
dis sheep you’se stockin trubble’ nough ter fill er mighty long
hole.” “’Sides,” argued Cockney Jem, “’taint ’sif we ain’t got a
monkey. ’Few wornt any monkey tricks played on us wot price th’ kid
’ere,” and he pointed to _me_.
“Naow jess yew hole on half a minnit,” drawled Nat, “’relse yew’ll
lose your place. Djer ever know me ter make trubble sense I ben abord
thishyer limejuice dog-basket? Naw, I’ve a learnt manners, _I_ hev,
’n don’t never go stickin’ my gibbie in another man’s hash I don’t.
But in kase this kermunity sh’d feel anyways hurt at my perposal,
lemme ’splain. I s’pose I ain’t singler in bein’ ruther tired er
these blame hogs forrad here. Hogs is all right, ez hogs, but they
don’t make parler pets wuth a cent. N’wen I finds one biggern a
porpuss a wallerin’ round in my bunk ’n rootin’ ’mong the clean straw
my bed’s stuffed with, its kiender bore in erpon me that fresh pork
fer dinner’s wut I ben pinin’ fer a long time. Naow I know thet I kin
teach a monkey in about tew days ’nough ter make him scare the very
chidlins er them hogs inter sossidge meat if they kum investigatin’
where he’s on dooty. ’N so I calkerlate to be a sorter bennyfactor
ter my shipmates, though it seems ’sif yew ain’t overnabove grateful.”