IT will be recollected that the late Dr. Scoresby--who made himself so
great a name in the history of Arctic discovery--went round the world
in the 'Royal Charter' in order to study the deviation of compasses
in iron ships. The fine old sailor in his posthumous work[D] thus
speaks of the ship and her performances:--
[D] 'Journal of a Voyage to Australia and Round the World, for
Magnetical Research.'
'Now, as to the action and performance of the "Royal Charter" under
this hard gale and mighty disturbance of the waters, the experience
we again derived was truly astonishing, and, compared with all my
previous experience, what I should have deemed impossible; for by
far the greatest portion of the time, I should say four minutes out
of five, we had no observable motion, the ship being steady, quiet,
and often apparently absolutely still. A minute or two would often
pass whilst these heavy waves were rolling harmlessly forward, and
but just raising in a slight degree the stem and alternately
depressing it, when we might have seemed to be sailing in a sea of
extreme calmness in the finest weather. In these intervals of dead
quiet, no woodwork, joint, or junction of iron and timber, emitted
an audible sound--no creaking was heard,--and at night there was
sometimes a quiet most striking in its stillness. Of cases of this
perfect quiet in time of heavy sea, squalls, and storm, I frequently
noted intervals of seven and eight seconds, of ten to twelve,
sometimes twenty up to twenty-four seconds, where there was not
motion sufficient to break a silence of repose like that of dock or
harbour. Hence, notwithstanding the lurches on rolling, extending
sometimes to 16° or 20° on one side, and perhaps once in several
hours to 30°--the maximum never exceeded up to this time,--a rolling
inseparable from a progress directly before the wind, in difficult
steering and with squared yards,--yet most occupations below, while
ladies as well as others, went on as usual; and, when the state of
the decks as to dryness would admit, exercise on the deck likewise.
Thus when the waves were at the highest--when elevations of forty
feet and upwards were rolling around and beneath the ship--Mrs.
Scoresby accompanied me on deck for exercise, and to view, in an
instant of bright sunshine, the sublime scenes around, and found no
difficulty in walking the poop deck, which was unencumbered and dry.
She accompanied me, too, along the gangways extending from the poop
to the deck-house, and from thence to the broad and spacious
forecastle up to the very bitts, within a few feet of the stem,--and
even to this extent, and along a range of three hundred and twenty
feet of deck and platform, the progress was perfectly easy, and at
the time the whole extent was clean (unusually so, almost to
whiteness), and dry from end to end.
'Again, I may remark, that our meals were always served up to the
minute, in the handsome services, covers, and appendages before
noticed. Everything cooked with the same effectiveness and
completeness in storm as in calm: fresh provisions, roasted and
boiled, in fowls, mutton, pork, etc., unfailing and
abundant,--pastry, puddings, and the variety of niceties, for each
particular course, always ample and good of their kind; so that in
speaking of the servants and cooks as part of the ship, and of the
ship as a thing or creature of life, I may say that the "Royal
Charter" had no consciousness of bad weather, and made no signs of
complaining in storms or heavy seas. During a heavy squall, for
instance, at dinner-time on this day--a fierce snow-storm for a
period, the wind blowing tremendously--no effect whatever was
produced on the comfort of those who sat at table; and a wine-glass
I had emptied stood for many minutes entirely unsupported betwixt
the protecting bars of the table, and it was only liable to be
disturbed by some particular lurch which might happen to occur.
Again, in regard to pitching and "sending," the action of the ship
was equally remarkable, both for the easiness of the motion and the
smallness of the inclination of the keel from the horizontal level.
A forty-feet wave, on its entrance below the stern or counter of the
ship, whilst the bow was exactly in the lowest or most depressed
portion betwixt crest and crest, should raise the stern, as from the
simplest view of the case it might seem, to at least its own
elevation, or give an angle of inclination to the keel of about 7°;
but no such measure of pitching or "sending" motion was ever
observed--probably not above half as much. For, in no instance in
scudding, did I ever observe the bow of the ship plunge nor the
stern rise to anything like the position apparently due to the
elevation of the passing waves. The action, indeed, was obviously of
this nature; from the admirable adjustment of the ship's _lines_ of
construction, forward and aft, the loftiest wave, on its reaching
the stern-post below, exerts its lifting tendency, not abruptly or
suddenly, as where the _quarters_ are heavy and the _run_ thick, but
very gradually, so that the disturbing force, passing beyond the
place of greatest influence before its due action is realized,
becomes modified and reduced.
'These principles are no doubt in operation in every tolerable mode
of marine architecture, but not to the degree of perfection in which
the tendency to assume horizontality of position, and to receive the
least possible disturbing effects from the most formidable
disturbing causes in the action of rough, irregular, or heavy seas,
has been attained in the modelling and building of the "Royal
Charter;" and whilst similar results in kind will be found to have
been obtained in very many or most of the scientifically constructed
and splendid clipper and other first-class ships of this important
age, I should much doubt whether in any single instance the approach
to perfectness of the model of the "Royal Charter" has been
exceeded, or even--in all the elements of the perfect "sea-boat," as
adapted for these southern regions, proverbial for turbulent seas
and boisterous weather--been equalled. The view from the poop and
forecastle which my wife and some others of our ladies witnessed for
considerable periods together, even in the height of the gale, was
one, especially during the favourable occasions of bright sunshine,
of sublime magnificence; whilst the general view of the tumultuous
waters as we looked astern, as the ship was scudding before the
storm, and as we marked the waves rolling perpetually onward, and
overtaking in succession the swift-sailing ship, presented a picture
of striking grandeur. The more threatening storm seas, as every now
and then they rose high above our position, and intercepted (astern
and on the quarters of the ship) every other portion of the mighty
waters, could hardly be contemplated,--I ought to say, could not
_rationally_ be contemplated, without awe! Nor was the action of the
ship under the mighty disturbance the least impressive or least
striking feature in the general picture.'
I remember that passage being quoted in the _Athenæum_, with this
pleasant remark: 'Only to think of all this jollity at sea--in a
voyage round the world--dainty ladies for companions instead of
howling savages; fresh fish, flesh, and fowl, champagne, old port, and
silver dishes, in place of remainder biscuit, salt pork, and hot
grog.' Ah! _only_ to think of all the jollity! Little did Dr. Scoresby
imagine, when he penned that passage--little did the reviewer think
when he affixed that genial comment to it--that the ship, with its
jollity, its dainty ladies, and its silver trappings, would so soon
lie 'sunk in the waves!'
But the life on board the vessel has been elsewhere described. In a
tiny tome of sketches lately published[E] is the following attempt at
a picture:--
[E] 'Dottings of a Lounger.' By Frank Fowler.
'Our Ship looks best, I think, at night. She's by no means unworthy
of being sketched in the morning when a few albatrosses are sailing
round her, and a whale blowing his foamy fountain just a length or
two behind. She's pretty at sunset again, when her sails flush
purple, and the passengers form themselves into so many little
knots, and, as the twilight thickens, watch the roseate touches
dying in the west. She's brave in a storm at any time.... She shakes
off a sea as a restive horse throws its rider. But she's best of all
o' nights, when the dancing is going on aft, the sailors are singing
"Chiliman" round the galley, and any number of proposals are being
made among the "intermediates" behind the long-boat. How
beautifully, at the stilly hour of eight bells, she moves through
the water, and flings the phosphorescent foam about her like an
Eastern queen beneath a rain of pearls. What was Cleopatra's barge
in comparison, or any "Nicean barque" that ever sailed upon a
"perfumed sea?"
'But the best part of Our Ship, either by day or night, isn't on
deck at all. There is a snug little cockpit forward, before the
jollity of which mere cuddy luxuries count as nothing. The second
and third mates, one or two young middies, a guitar, plenty of grog
and smoke, a good old cheese, and some biscuits, will make as jolly
an evening among them as any Christian need wish to spend. On Our
Ship these parties are nightly occurrences. There is a young
midshipman on board with lots of money. He is always inviting his
friends to meet him. He is a pleasant youth, with large, bland eyes,
and a superfluous number of oaths. I never knew a lad, though, who
imprecated more innocently. He evidently thinks that good swearing
and good seamanship go together. He swears at a little child on
board all the time he is filling its lap with candy and comfits. He
is, withal, a good-tempered youth, but constantly getting into
scrapes with the officers. After the breaking up of these
festivities--which doesn't generally happen until an advanced hour,
when not even the ghost of a _deadlight_ remains--it sometimes
happens that you find it difficult to discover your right "home"
amongst the long line of cabins down the side of the dimly-lighted
saloon. This kind of thing, though, is by no means confined to
festivities at sea.
'There is pleasant work on the R---- C---- in the evening. A select
whist party takes one table, chess, draughts, and backgammon occupy
another, and a jovial circle of "speculators" a third. At nine
o'clock the hot water is served, when each brews his glass of
toddy--baling out a wine-glass of the smoking liquor for his lady
neighbour--and jollity holds sway for the remainder of the evening.
Those who don't understand Hoyle--who are dummies at whist, dull at
dominoes, and regularly thrown on their backs with regard to
all-fours--who think draughts dry, and see no point in
backgammon--generally retire to the poop after tea, to get up their
little music and dancing parties, and warble and waltz gaily enough
'neath the light of the glistening stars.
'In dirty weather Our Ship is not to be altogether slighted. She
rolls a good deal, I admit, but show me the vessel that doesn't.
There is a polarity, too, as Mr. Emerson would say, about this
rolling. See how it churns the preserved milk (there is a cow
attached to Our Ship, but I think she is only a kind of stage
property, for, certes, her _via lactea_ is as dry as leather), and
makes a rich syllabub of the port wine. What an excuse it affords,
too, for bad carving at dinner, and for becoming a sort of "shore"
to the pretty young lady who sits next to you. If the lurches do
empty the soup-plates occasionally in your lap, and chip the edges
of the crockery until the dishes look like circular saws--if they do
throw you out of your bunk at night, and land your head in the
water-jug--what of that? Of course, no harm can ever come to the
R---- C----, and, comforted by this conviction, all you have to do
is to put up with the little annoyances for the sake of the
"amenities" which, as I have shown, lurk beneath them.
'For there are some very nice girls--and with this I must
conclude--journeying upon Our Ship. I like to see them in the cold
morning furred up to their pretty little noses, peeping up the
companion-ladders to see if the weather will admit of a walk before
breakfast. I like to see them at "church" on Sundays, gathered round
a pork barrel "rigged" as a pulpit, with an old Union Jack rolled up
for the cushion, and hear them lifting up their voices in solemn
praise across the solemn sea. It is a grand sight this last. Full
service in a cathedral is nothing to it. Jack in his clean shirt,
and with that same Bible in his hand which his mother gave him years
ago, when his face, now hardened with brine and scarred with sleet,
was the pride of the old woman's heart, is as impressive a figure to
me as the finest-clad young neophyte who ever swung a censer. I know
Jack sings out of tune, and ultimately swamps the Old Hundredth in
the Bay of Biscay. But what matters that? Despite defects in
harmony, the song of praise goes aloft in all its purity.'
Truly, a very ghastly humour plays about these descriptions as we read
them now. The mirth seems like that in Holbein's 'Dance of Death.'