that which has for its object that most prosaic of all sea-going
people, the Finns. Russian Finns, seamen always call them, although
there is far more of the Swede than the Russian about them, and their
tongue is Swedish also. They are perhaps the most perfect specimens
of the ideal seafarer in the world, although the Canadian runs them
closely. All things that appertain to a ship seem to come easily to
their doing, from the time of first laying the vessel’s keel until,
with every spar, sail, and item of running gear in its place, she
trips her “kellick” and leaves the harbour behind her for the other
side of the world. And even then the Finn will be found to yield
to none in his knowledge of navigation. Although his hands may be
gnarled and split with toil, and his square, expressionless face look
as if “unskilled labourer” were imprinted upon it, much difficulty
would be found in the search for a keener or more correct hand at
trigonometrical problems, or a better keeper of that most useful
document, a ship’s log-book.
Yet to these men, by common consent, a supernatural status has been
assigned. Whether among the Latins the same idea holds is somewhat
doubtful, but certainly in British, American, and Scandinavian
vessels Finns are always credited with characteristics which a
century ago would have involved them in many unpleasantnesses.
Chiefly harmless, no doubt, these weird powers, yet when your stolid
shipmate is firmly believed to control the winds so masterfully as to
supply his favoured friends with a quartering breeze while all the
rest of the surrounding vessels have a “dead muzzler,” any affection
you may have had for him is seriously liable to degenerate into fear.
It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that from whatever the original
idea of Finnish necromancy originally arose, a whole host of legends
have grown up, many of them too trivial for print, some delightfully
quaint, others not less original than lewd, but all evidently grafts
of fancy upon some parent stock. Thus, while there is a rat in the
ship no Finn was ever known to lose anything, because it is well
known that any rat in the full possession of his faculties would be
only too glad to wait upon the humblest Finn. And the reason why
Finns are always fat is because they have only to go and stick their
knives in the foremast to effect a total change in their meat to
whatever they fancy most keenly at the time. It is well that they are
mostly temperate men, since everybody knows that they can draw any
liquor they like from the water-breaker by turning their cap round,
and they never write letters home because the birds that hover round
the ship are proud to bear their messages whithersoever they list.
The catalogue of their privileges might be greatly extended were
it needful, but one thing always strikes an unbiassed observer--the
Finn is, almost without exception, one of the humblest, quietest of
seafarers, whose sole aim is to do what he is told as well as he
can, to give as little trouble as possible, and where any post of
responsibility is given him to show his appreciation of it by doing
two men’s work, filling up his leisure by devising schemes whereby he
can do more.
Of the minor superstitions there is little to be said. Few indeed
are the old sailors now afloat who would cuff a youngster’s ears for
whistling, fearing that his merry note would raise a storm. Whistling
for wind, however, still persists, as much a habit as the hissing of
a groom while rubbing down a horse, but a very sceptical laugh would
meet any one who inquired whether the whistler believed that his
_sifflement_ would make any difference to the force or direction of
the wind. Fewer still are those who would now raise any objections to
the presence of a clergyman on board. But the belief that a death,
whether of a man or an animal, _must_ be followed by a gale of wind
is perhaps more firmly held than any other, unless it be the notion
that sharks follow any ship wherein is an ailing man or woman, with
horrible anticipation.
OCEAN WINDS
Whatever of beauty the sea possesses it owes primarily to the
winds--to the free breath of heaven which sweeps joyously over those
vast lonely breadths, ruffling them with tiniest ripples by its
zephyrs, and hurling them in headlong fury for thousands of miles by
its hurricanes. It may be said that the term “ocean” cannot rightly
be applied to winds at all, since they are common to the whole globe,
and are not, like waves and currents, confined to the sea. But a
little consideration will surely convince that it is just and right
to speak of distinctive ocean winds which by contact with the great,
pure plains of the sea acquire a character which a land wind never
has or can have. In fact, it may be said with perfect truth that but
for the health-bearing winds from the sea, landward folk would soon
sicken and die, for our land winds are laden with disease germs, or,
as in the mistral, the puña, the sirocco, and the simoom, to mention
only a few of these terrible enemies to life, are still more deadly
in their blasting effect upon mankind. From all these evil qualities
ocean winds are free, and he who lives remote from the land, inhaling
only their pure breath, knows truly what health is, feels the blood
dance joyously through his arteries, aerated indeed.
As a factor in sea traffic ocean winds are popularly supposed to
have become negligible. Indeed, the remark is often heard (on shore)
that the steamship has made man independent of wind and tide. It
is just the kind of statement that would emanate from some of our
pseudo-authorities upon marine matters, and akin to the oft-quoted
opinion that the advent of the steamship has driven romance from
the sea. In the first place, seamen know how tremendously the wind
affects even the highest-powered steamship, and although some sailors
will talk about an ocean liner ploughing her way through the teeth
of an opposing gale at full speed, it is only from their love of the
marvellous and desire to make the landsman stare. They know that such
a statement is ridiculously untrue. Leaving the steamship out of the
question, however, there are still very large numbers of vessels at
sea which are entirely dependent upon the winds for their propulsion,
their transit between port and port. They grow fewer and fewer every
year, of course, as they are lost or broken up, because they are not
replaced, yet in certain trades they are so useful and economical
that it is difficult to see why they should be allowed to disappear.
Masters of such ships are considered to be smart or the reverse in
proportion to their knowledge of ocean winds, where to steer in
order to get the full benefit of their incidence, what latitudes to
avoid because there winds rarely blow, and how best to manœuvre
their huge-winged craft in the truly infernal whirl of an advancing
or receding cyclone. For such purposes ocean winds may roughly be
divided into two classes--the settled and the adventitious: those
winds that may fairly be depended upon for regularity both as to
force and direction, and those whose coming and going is so aptly
used in Scripture allegory. Taking as the former class the Trade
winds of the globe, it is found that they are also subject to much
mutability, especially those to the northward of the Equator known as
the “North-East Trades.” Old seamen speak of them as do farmers of
the weather ashore--complain that neither in steadiness of direction
nor in constancy of force are they to be depended upon as of old. Of
course they vary somewhat with the seasons, but that is not what is
complained of by the mariner; it is their capricious variation from
year to year, whereby you shall actually find a strong wind well to
the southward of east in what should be the heart of the North-East
Trades, or at another time fall upon a stark calm prevailing where
you had every right to expect a fresh favouring breeze.
Still, with all their failure to maintain the reputation of former
times in the estimation of sailors (as distinguished from steamship
crews), even the much maligned North-East Trade winds are fairly
dependable. The South-East Trades, again, are almost as sure in their
operation as is the recurrence of day and night. The homeward-bound
sailing ship, once having been swept round the Cape of Good Hope in
spite of adverse winds by the irresistible Agulhas current, usually
finds awaiting her a southerly wind. Sailors refuse to call it the
first of the Trades, considering that any wind blowing without the
Tropics has no claim to be called a “Trade.” This fancy matters
little. The great thing is that these helpful breezes await the
homeward-bounder close down to the southern limit of his passage,
await him with arms outspread in welcome, and coincidently with the
pleasant turning of his ship’s head homeward, permit the yards to be
squared, and the course to be set as desired. And the ship--like a
docile horse who, after a long day’s journey, finds his head pointing
stablewards and settles steadily down to a clinking pace--gathers way
in stately fashion and glides northward at a uniform rate without
any further need of interference from her crew. Throughout the long
bright days, with the sea wearing one vast many-dimpled smile, and
the stainless blue above quivering in light uninterrupted by the
passage of a single cloud, the white-winged ship sweeps serenely on.
All around in the paling blue of the sky near the horizon float the
sleepy, fleecy cumuli peculiar to the “Trades,” without perceptible
motion or change of form. When day steps abruptly into night, and
the myriad glories of the sunless hours reveal themselves shyly to
an unheeding ocean, the silent ship still passes ghost-like upon her
placid way, the steadfast wind rounding her canvas into the softest
of curves, without a wrinkle or a shake. Before her stealthy approach
the glittering waters part, making no sound save a cool rippling
as of a fern-shadowed brooklet hurrying through some rocky dell in
Devon. The sweet night’s cool splendours reign supreme. The watch,
with the exception of the officer, the helmsman, and the look-out
man, coil themselves in corners and sleep, for they are not needed,
and during the day much work is adoing in making their ship smart for
home. And thus they will go without a break of any kind for over two
thousand miles.
Next to the Trades in dependability, and fairly entitled to be
called sub-permanent, are the west winds of the regions north and
south of the Tropics, or about the parallels of 40° north or south.
Without the steadiness of these winds in the great Southern Sea,
the passage of sailing ships to Australasia or India would indeed
be a tedious business. But they can be reckoned upon so certainly
that in many cases the duration of passages of ships outward and
homeward can be predicted within a week, which speaks volumes for the
wonderful average steadiness of the great wind-currents. Although
these winds bear no resemblance to the beautiful Trades. Turbulent,
boisterous, and cruel, they try human endurance to its utmost limits,
and on board of a weak ship, fleeing for many days before their
furious onslaught, anxiety rises to a most painful pitch with the
never-ceasing strain upon the mind. They have also a way of winding
themselves up anew, as it were, at intervals. They grow stronger
and fiercer by successive blasts until the culminating blow compels
even the strongest ships to reduce canvas greatly unless they would
have it carried away like autumn leaves. Then the wind will begin to
shift round by the south gradually and with decreasing force until,
as if impatient, it will jump a couple of points at a time. Then, in
the “old” sea, the baffled, tormented ship staggers blindly, making
misery for her crew and testing severely her sturdy frame. Farther
and farther round swings the wind, necessitating much labour aloft
for the shipmen, until in the space of, say, twenty-four hours from
its first giving way, it has described a complete circle and is back
again in its old quarter, blowing fiercely as ever. Not that this
peculiar evolution is always made. There are times when to sailors’
chagrin the brave west wind fails them in its proper latitudes,
being succeeded by baffling easterlies, dirty weather of all kinds,
and a general feeling of instability, since to expect fine weather
in the sense of light wind and blue sky for any length of time in
those stern regions is to reveal ignorance of their character. Yet
it is only in such occasional lapses from force and course of the
west wind of the south that the hapless seaman seeking to double Cape
Horn from the east can hope to slip round. So that while his fellows
farther east are fleeing to their goal at highest speed, he is being
remorselessly battered by the same gale, driven farther and farther
south, and ill-used generally, and only by taking advantage of the
brief respite can he effect his purpose.
The monsoon winds of the Indian seas are most important and unique
in their seasonal changing. For six months of the year the wind in
the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea will be north-easterly and the
weather fine. Over the land, however, this fine wind is bearing no
moisture, and its longer persistence than usual means famine with
all its attendant horrors. “Fine weather” grows to be a term of
awful dread, and men’s eyes turn ever imploringly to the south-west,
hoping, with an intensity of eagerness that is only felt where life
is at stake, for the darkening of those skies of steely blue, until
one day a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand arises from the sharply
defined horizon. Swiftly it expands into ominous-looking masses, but
the omens are of blessing, of relief from drought and death. The
howling wind hurls before it those leaden water-bearers until, one
by one, they burst over the iron-bound earth, and from station to
station throughout the length and breadth of Hindostan is flashed
the glad message, “The monsoon has burst.” Out at sea the great
steamships emerging from the Gulf of Aden are met by the turbulent
south-wester, and have need of all their power to stem its force,
force which is quite equal to that of a severe Atlantic gale at
times. And all sailors dread the season, bringing as it does to their
sorely tried bodies the maximum of physical discomfort possible at
sea in warm climates.
Of the varying forces of winds, from the zephyr to the hurricane, it
would be easy to write another page, but this subject is not strictly
within the scope of the present article, and must therefore be left
untouched.
THE SEA IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
Remembering gratefully, as all students should do, the immense
literary value of the Bible, it is not without a pang of regret that
we are obliged to confess that its pages are so meagre of allusions
to the grandest of all the Almighty’s works--the encircling sea. Of
course we cannot be surprised at this, seeing how scanty was the
acquaintance with the sea enjoyed by ancient civilised peoples, to
whom that exaggerated lake, the Mediterranean, was the “Great Sea,”
and for whom the River Oceanus was the margin of a boundless outer
darkness. Yet in spite of this drawback, Old Testament allusions
to the sea then known, few as they are, remain unsurpassable in
literature, needing not to withdraw their claims to pre-eminence
before such gems as “Ocean’s many-dimpled smile” or the “Wine-dark
main” of the pagan poets. In number, too, though sparsely sprinkled,
they far surpass those of the New Testament, which, were it not for
one splendid exception, might almost be neglected as non-existent.
Our Lord’s connection with the sea and its toilers was confined to
those petty Syrian lakes which to-day excite the traveller’s wonder
as he recalls the historical accounts of hundreds of Roman galleys
floating thereupon; and all his childish dreams of the great sea
upon which the Lord was sailing and sleeping when that memorable
storm arose which He stilled with a word suffer much by being brought
face to face with the realities of little lake and tiny boat. St.
John and St. James show by their almost terror-stricken words about
the sea what they felt, and from want of a due consideration of
proportion their allusions have been much misunderstood. No man who
knew the sea could have written as one of the blissful conditions of
the renewed heaven and earth that there should “be no more sea,” any
more than he could have spoken of the limpid ocean wave as casting up
“mire and dirt.”
But by one incomparable piece of writing Paul, the Apostle born out
of due time, has rescued the New Testament from this reproach of
neglect, and at the same time has placed himself easily in the front
rank of those who have essayed to depict the awful majesty of wind
and wave as well as the feebleness, allied to almost presumptuous
daring, of those who do business in great waters. Wonder and
admiration must also be greatly heightened if we do but remember the
circumstances under which this description was written. The writer
had, by the sheer force of his eloquence, by his daring to await
the precise moment in which to assert his citizenship, escaped what
might at any moment have become martyrdom. Weary with a terrible
journey, faint from many privations, he was hurried on board a ship
of Adramyttium bound to the coast of Asia (places not specified).
What sort of accommodation and treatment awaited him there under
even the most favourable circumstances we know very well. For on the
East African coast even to this day we find precisely the same kind
of vessels, the same primitive ideas of navigation, the same absence
of even the most elementary notions of comfort, the same touching
faith in its being always fine weather as evinced by the absence of
any precautions against a storm.
Such a vessel as this carried one huge sail bent to a yard resembling
a gigantic fishing-rod whose butt when the sail was set came nearly
down to the deck, while the tapering end soared many feet above
the masthead. As it was the work of all hands to hoist it, and the
operation took a long time, when once it was hoisted it was kept so
if possible, and the nimble sailors with their almost prehensile toes
climbed up the scanty rigging, and clinging to the yard gave the
sail a bungling furl. The hull was just that of an exaggerated boat,
sometimes undecked altogether, and sometimes covered in with loose
planks, excepting a hut-like erection aft which was of a little more
permanent character. Large oars were used in weather that admitted of
this mode of propulsion, and the anchors were usually made of heavy
forked pieces of wood, whereto big stones were lashed. There was a
rudder, but no compass, so that the crossing of even so narrow a
piece of water as separated Syria from Cyprus was quite a hazardous
voyage. Tacking was unknown or almost so, and once the mariners got
hold of the land they were so reluctant to lose sight of it that
they heeded not how much time the voyage took or what distances they
travelled.
The nameless ship of Adramyttium then at last ventured from Sidon and
fetched Cyprus, sailing under its lee. How salt that word tastes,
and what visions it opens up of these infant navigators creeping
cautiously from point to point along that rugged coast, heeding not
at all the unnecessary distance so long as they were sheltered from
the stormy autumn weather. Another perilous voyage across “the sea
which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia” (another purely maritime term)
and the harbour of Myra was gained. Great were the rejoicings of
the voyagers, but premature, for every day that passed brought them
nearer to the time of tempest, and consequently of utmost danger. In
fact the memorable voyage of St. Paul may be said to begin here. The
crossing of the Great Sea had been accomplished without incident,
although doubtless occupying so many days that the landsmen were by
this time somewhat accustomed to the misery of life at sea in those
days, when in coarse weather sea-sickness was one of the least of
their woes.
The shipment by the centurion of his prisoners on board of the
Alexandrian wheat-ship marked the commencement of a series of
troubles. In the first place, for such a ship and such a voyage the
number of people on board was far too great, even if we accept the
lower estimate--seventy-six--which is placed on her complement by
some ancient authorities. If she carried two hundred and seventy-six
she must have been like an Arab dhow running a full cargo of slaves,
and it is difficult to see how, even taking into consideration the
way in which both mariners and passengers were inured to hardship,
she could have carried them all through the wild weather and weary
days following without some deaths. “And when we had sailed slowly
many days” (what a world of suffering can be read into those few
pathetic words), they fetched under the lee of Crete with all
the thankfulness that might be expected from men who had been so
pitilessly exposed to the fury of the open sea. With difficulty
they crept along the coast until they got into the Fair Havens and
refreshed their weary hearts.
No wonder they were reluctant to put again to sea, even though they
knew that every day brought wilder weather, and their chance of
wintering in their present harbour safely was poor, from its exposed
position. And now we find St. Paul taking the risky step of advising
seafarers as to the proper conduct of their own business--risky
because while no man likes to be interfered with at his work by
one whom he considers an outsider, sailors are perhaps more touchy
upon this matter than most people. True, the science of navigation
and seamanship was in its infancy, and no such gulf of knowledge
separated landsmen from seamen in those days as existed afterwards,
but one can easily picture the indignation of the commander of the
ship (curiously enough here called the owner, the very same slang
title given to the Captain of a man-of-war by his officers and crew
to-day) when he heard this presumptuous passenger-prisoner thus
daring to give his unasked advice. Besides, Paul’s motive for
wishing to remain in port was one easily misconstrued.
Therefore the centurion’s refusal to listen to Paul’s suggestion was
quite natural; nay, it was inevitable. Still, there was evidently no
intention of persevering with the voyage upon getting under way, only
of entering the nearest harbour that might afford sufficient shelter
against the fury of the winter gales. With a gentle southerly breeze
they left Fair Havens, and moved along the shore. But presently
down from the Cretan mountains Euraquilo came rushing, the furious
Levanter, which is not surpassed in the world for ferocity, hurling
their helpless cockle-shell off shore. Their fear of the storm was
far greater than their fear of the land, for unlike the sailors of
to-day, to whom the vicinity of land in a gale is far more dreaded
than the gale itself, they hugged the small island, Clauda, and
succeeded in their favourite manœuvre, that of getting under the lee
of the land once more. It was high time. The buffeting of the ship
had weakened her to such an extent that she must have threatened to
fall asunder, since they were driven actually to “frap” her together,
that is, bind their cable round and round her and heave it taut--a
parlous state of things, but one to which sailors have often been
brought with a crazy ship in a heavy gale.
In this dangerous state they feared the proximity of hungry rocks,
but instead of reducing sail and endeavouring to get along in
some definite direction, they lowered down the big yard and let
the ship drive whithersoever she would. The storm continued, the
poor, bandaged hull was leaking at every seam, a portion of the
cargo, called by St. Paul by its true nautical name “freight,” was
jettisoned. But that did not satisfy them, and they proceeded to the
desperate extremity of casting overboard the “tackling,” the great
sail and yard, and all movable gear from the upper works except the
anchors.
Then in misery, with death yawning before them, already half drowned,
foodless, and hopeless, they drifted for many days into the unknown
void under that heavy-laden sky before the insatiable gale. In the
midst of all this horror of great darkness, the dauntless prisoner
comforted them, even while unable to forbear reminding them that had
they listened to him, this misery would have been spared them. His
personality never shone brighter than on this occasion; the little
ascetic figure must have appeared Godlike to those poor, ignorant
sufferers.