autocrat; his word is law; to refuse to obey him is mutiny. The sole
command of the navigation and working of the ship rests with him, and
the weather-side of the poop is his private property when he chooses
to come on deck. In the ordinary daily work he seldom interferes
personally, but transmits all his orders through the chief mate, who
is a very important officer, and who superintends everything. When
the cargo is stowed, he must give an acknowledgment for it and for
all goods in the hold, and must make up any deficiencies. He must
also keep the log-book, which is a very important trust. The officer
of each watch marks upon the log-slate the courses, the distance run,
the winds, and any subject of interest; and these at the end of every
twenty-four hours are copied into the official log-book by the chief
mate. The duties of the second and third mate are less onerous; but
they must always be addressed by the prefix of 'Mr' and answered with
'Sir.' The third mate has to dispense the stores--a very unpopular
office, and one which does not fail to call down a shower of anything
but blessings upon his devoted head. A boatswain is in general only
carried by large ships, and his sole duty is to look after the rigging
and all that concerns it. The carpenter is both an important and
independent personage on board ship; the captain alone gives him his
orders, and he has nothing to do with any of the three mates; his usual
sobriquet is 'Chips.' The steward is in point of fact the captain's
servant, and although he is well paid, he is generally looked down upon
by the crew, who call him 'Flunkey.'
Pursuing the narrative presented to us by the _Sea Queen's_ apprentice,
we find that the cook, if he is a good one, is a very important
personage on board ship; he answers generally to the name of 'Slushy'
or 'the Doctor,' and requires to be, and indeed almost always is,
an individual of some resource, for he practises his calling amid
difficulties such as would utterly dismay a _chef de cuisine_ on
land. His kitchen, to begin with, is such a mite of a place that the
wonder is that he can fry, roast, or boil anything in it; then it is
provokingly subject to sudden inundations, partial deluges which come
tumbling in as if in sport, playfully extinguishing his stove, and
sending his provisions, cooking utensils, and seasonings sliding and
spinning all around him; while if he is worth his salt he will still,
in spite of all these difficulties, turn out such a meal for the cabin
table as Soyer under the circumstances need not have blushed to own.
As is befitting in the case of such a superior being, he has certain
social advantages; he can smoke in his galley whenever he chooses; and
he slumbers peacefully all night in the best bunk of the forecastle,
blissfully unconscious of the existence or claims of port or starboard
watches. The apprentices are not so well off, although a premium of
from thirty to sixty guineas is sometimes paid for their term of four
years; the only advantage they have is living apart from the crew.
Their duties are the same as those of a forecastle boy, and they share
the same food, which is sufficient in quantity, but often very bad as
to quality.
On the 9th March the first Australian sea-birds were sighted; and on
the morning of the 16th they cast anchor in Sydney Harbour, which,
with its wooded hills sloping gently down to the sea, seemed to our
apprentice a perfect paradise of beauty. At Sydney they remained a
fortnight, enjoying the luxury of very good and very cheap dinners, for
meat only cost from twopence to fourpence per pound. After discharging
their cargo, they sailed to Newcastle, sixty miles distant, to take in
a cargo of coal, with which they sailed on the 23d April for Hong-kong,
where they arrived on the 15th of June.
While at Hong-kong they had abundance of buffalo-meat, eggs, fruit,
and soft bread, and plenty of hard work too, in washing out the hold
of the ship, which had been much begrimed by the coals, to fit it for
a cargo of tea. This the captain was unable to obtain, and was in
consequence obliged to sail to Foo-chow, on the river Min, where, on
the 13th of July, they arrived at Pagoda anchorage, so called from an
old pagoda built on an island in the river, which widens out here to
the dimensions of a small lake. Here also they waited in vain for a
freight of tea, and the captain at last resolved to take a native cargo
of poles to Shanghae, and try for better luck there.
On the 14th September they entered the Yangtze-kiang, where they found
the scenery flat and uninteresting, but yet home-like, for the river
reminded them of the Thames below London.
In the course of a week they unloaded their timber, but still no
freight of tea could be procured; and the captain, after some delay,
resolved to return to Foo-chow, taking as ballast native goods and
medicines, two dozen sheep, and two dozen passengers. On the voyage
back to Foo-chow, the cook having abandoned his post in disgust at
the sharpness of a new Chinese steward, our apprentice was induced to
volunteer his services, and was formally installed in his new office
at four o'clock one fine morning. He began his arduous task by trying
to kindle a fire, which for more than an hour obstinately resisted all
his efforts to make it burn. At last he succeeded in evoking a tiny
blaze, and thankful at heart even for that small mercy, he placed upon
his fire the copper with water for the breakfast coffee, and marched
off elate to get the rations for the day. It chanced to be a pork
and pea-soup day; and having got his supplies of pork and pease, he
returned to his galley, and was horror-struck to find that the sea was
washing into it every few minutes, sometimes sportively rising almost
as high as the precious fire which had cost him so much trouble. In his
anxiety to preserve this cherished flame, the little tub of pork, which
he had put out of his hands for a moment, capsized, and its contents
were washed swiftly round and round the galley, to the surprise and
disgust of the unfortunate amateur. At last, giving chase, he succeeded
in capturing them with a considerable admixture of cinders; and having
placed the tub and its heterogeneous contents out of harm's way, he
concentrated his energies upon the question of the moment, which was
coffee.
Tired of waiting for the water to boil, he threw in the coffee, and
then, to while away the time, he began to pare some potatoes, which, by
some unaccountable fatality, as fast as they were pared rolled out of
the basin in which he placed them, upon the floor. Whish! away went the
ship, lurching heavily, and away went the tub of pork again; and pork,
tub, and potatoes began chasing each other round the galley in gallant
style, being kept in countenance by a couple of buckets, which went
frantically clanging and clanking against each other and everything
else that came in their way. Despair shews itself in many ways: at this
crisis our apprentice laughed; and he was still grinning over his own
mishaps, when the watch arrived, sharp set for their coffee.
They were by no means in a laughing humour when they learned how the
land lay, and neither was he, for that matter, when they left him.
Convinced that at all risks he must make the water boil, he frantically
heaped upon the fire odd bits of rope and canvas; but the water had a
will of its own, and boil it would not. Eight o'clock struck, and again
they came, each holding out an empty hook-pot, which he filled with by
no means the best grace in the world, trying, as he ladled out the vile
mixture, to sink the coffee, which floated like dust upon the surface.
It would not do. First one man came growling back, and then another,
and then the steward arrived to ask after the captain's potatoes. The
captain's potatoes! He had forgotten all about them, and they had
meanwhile been having a rare lark of it on deck, rattling first into
one hole and then into another, until at last the greater number of
them had scuttled overboard. What had he done? Had he been guilty of
mutiny, insubordination, or gross carelessness as bad as either, on the
high seas? In his panic he stepped back into the galley, which, for a
wonder, happened to be free from water, and a hot coal falling out of
the stove, burned his foot; and so ingloriously ended his career as
cook.
At Pagoda Island the captain became seriously ill; and notwithstanding
the most careful nursing on the part of his wife and our sailor
apprentice, he passed away without ever having recovered consciousness,
and was interred in the English cemetery at Foo-chow.
On the 6th November, the _Sea Queen_ having loaded up, and being ready
to start, a new captain came on board, the crew standing by the break
of the forecastle and keenly eyeing him as he stepped on deck. There
was not much to look at in him. He was a middle-sized man, with a
moustache and whiskers of a sandy red hue; and that he did not despise
his creature-comforts was evident from the quantity of provisions that
came on board next day. He was, however, not illiberal with his good
things, but from time to time presented the apprentices' mess with some
little delicacies. As for the question of questions always asked by a
crew with regard to a new captain: 'Does he carry on?' that is, does he
risk a large press of sail in a stiff wind, it had to be answered in
the negative. He was, in fact, as timid as his predecessor had been,
but from a different cause--he had always formerly commanded a steamer,
and his new duties were strange to him.
They had now been at sea for several weeks, when one lovely evening our
apprentice was with his watch on deck, and had just lain down for an
hour's nap, when the after-bell was struck hurriedly three times. As it
was his duty to keep the time, and as the three strokes had, moreover,
nothing to do with the proper hour, he suspected that something was
wrong with the helmsman, a Swede, Edghren Andrews, and was just about
to verify his suspicion, when the man rushed up to him and said: 'Will
you take the wheel for a minute? I feel very sick; perhaps a swig of
cold tea will set me up.' He went to get it; and in a few minutes
returned to his post, where he had scarcely been a quarter of an hour,
when the bell was again struck twice. A second time he went to the
helmsman's assistance, and on the poop met Andrews, who said he was
worse than ever; whereupon our apprentice offered to finish up his time
for him.
Next morning the Swede took him into the forecastle and related the
following curious story. The evening before, while at the wheel, he
had suddenly seen the late captain on the weather-side of the poop,
anxiously looking up at the sails and sky; and while he stared at him
in mute surprise, he turned round angrily, and looked at him with such
a horrible expression of face, that he dropped the wheel in a panic
and rang the bell. In Sweden, he said, ghosts were supposed to have
a special dislike to a knife and to the Bible; so he rushed below to
procure them, by way of charm; but although he could have got a whole
bucketful of knives, he could not lay his hands upon a single Bible;
and so he took instead a Swedish novel, thinking that as the late
captain had not understood Swedish, it could not make much difference.
He soon found, however, that he had reckoned without his host. He
was no sooner set down to the wheel than the ghost reappeared, and
approaching the binnacle, looked at the compass, and made angry signs
to him to alter the vessel's course. So much for sea superstitions.
On boxing-day the ordinary routine of ship-life was broken by a
terrible accident. The port watch had just finished tea, and had turned
into their bunks for a smoke and a read, when a frightful clamour and
trampling of feet got up overhead. In a moment every one was on deck,
where all was in the wildest hurry and confusion. 'A man overboard!'
was the cry. 'Who is it? Who is gone?' asked half-a-dozen voices.
'Johnson!' answered the second mate, excitedly hauling at a rope. 'Haul
up the mainsail!' shouted the mate, in tones that rung clear and high
above the uproar. 'Slack away the sheet, lads! Bear down on the clew
garnets.' All was in vain: the sea was so high that the ship could
not be brought round to the wind, and the captain would not hear of a
boat being launched. 'It would only,' he very justly said, 'put more
lives in jeopardy.' With breathless excitement the look-outs at each
mast-head strained their eyes into the darkness of the wild night. The
black waves were tumbling mountain high, and there, like a cork upon
the billows, was their drowning messmate, slowly drifting astern to his
doom. A cold shudder ran through the veins of the breathless watchers.
Could nothing be done to help him? Nothing! The helmsman threw him a
life-buoy as he passed; perhaps he seized it, perhaps he did not: he
was never seen again.
On the 26th February they reached New York; and after unloading their
tea, took in a cargo of grain and resin, and sailed for London on
the 15th of March. It was a bad season of the year, and the ship was
overladen with grain, which makes a peculiarly heavy and unelastic
cargo. The weather, stormy from the first, grew gradually worse
until the 23d of March, when the gale freshened into a tempest, and
that again into the wildest conceivable hurricane. Some frightful
hours followed; the waves rolled along the bulwarks like mountains
of blackish green water; the roar of wind and sea was inconceivably
fearful, and suggested to the shivering crew the idea of something
demoniac. At last it became evident to all, that unless the sails
could be got rid of, the ship would founder. Who was to risk his life
in the attempt? What hero would be found to do this deed of courage?
As usual the hour brought the man in the person of Jack Andersen, a
Swedish sailor. With his open knife between his teeth, this brave
fellow sprang along the encumbered deck undaunted by a heavy sea which
broke over him; and soon a loud explosion told of his success; the last
sail was gone, and the _Sea Queen_ lay like a helpless log upon the
waters. At three in the morning a lull occurred, and the wind and sea
gradually went down; but the vessel continuing to sink deeper in the
water, it was necessary to lighten her, and fifty tons of cargo were
thrown overboard. The sacrifice saved her; and on the 1st of April they
sighted the welcome Lizard light. As for the suffering and discomfort
on board subsequent to the storm, it was simply inconceivable. Our
apprentice's chest floated bottom up for days; and his log-book, which
was locked up in it, got a thorough soaking, which fortunately did not
render it illegible, else we should have missed a very graphic and
interesting narrative of life at sea.
'ONLY TRIFLES.'
When tempted to scorn the little duties of our calling, let us think of
such sayings as the following. One day a visitor at Michael Angelo's
studio remarked to that great artist, who had been describing certain
little finishing 'touches' lately given to a statue--'But these are
only trifles.' 'It may be so,' replied the sculptor; 'but recollect
that trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.' In the
same spirit the great painter Poussin accounted for his reputation
in these words--'Because I have neglected nothing.' It is related
of a Manchester manufacturer, that, on retiring from business, he
purchased an estate from a certain nobleman. The arrangement was that
he should have the house with all its furniture just as it stood. On
taking possession, however, he found that a cabinet which was in the
inventory had been removed; and on applying to the former owner about
it, the latter said: 'Well, I certainly did order it to be removed;
but I hardly thought you would have cared for so trifling a matter
in so large a purchase.' 'My lord,' was the reply, 'if I had not all
my life attended to trifles, I should not have been able to purchase
this estate; and excuse me for saying so, perhaps if your lordship had
cared more about trifles, you might not have had occasion to sell it.'
'Oh, what's the good of doing this and that?' we say in reference to
departments of our business where quick returns are not forthcoming,
or where success does not at once stare us in the face. When Franklin
made his discovery of the identity of lightning and electricity,
people of this baser sort asked with a sneer 'Of what use is it?' The
philosopher's retort was: 'What is the use of a child? It may become
a man!' Apropos of this remark, grown-up people should remember while
doing improper things in the presence of him who is 'only a child,'
that he will one day become a man just like themselves.
Mr Careless Nevermind and Miss Notparticular think that great men
only deal with great things. The most brilliant discoverers were of
a different opinion. They made their discoveries by observing and
interpreting simple facts. When fools were walking in darkness, the
eyes of these wise men were in their heads. Galileo's discovery of the
pendulum was suggested to his observant eye by a lamp swinging from the
ceiling of Pisa Cathedral. A spider's net suspended across the path
of Sir Samuel Brown, as he walked one dewy morning in his garden, was
the prompter that gave to him the idea of his suspension bridge across
the Tweed. So trifling a matter as the sight of seaweed floating past
his ship, enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny which arose amongst his
sailors at not discovering land, and to assure them that the eagerly
sought New World was not far off. Galvani observed that a frog's leg
twitched when placed in contact with different metals, and it was
this apparently insignificant fact that led to the invention of the
electric telegraph. While a bad observer may 'go through a forest and
see no firewood,' a true _seer_ learns from the smallest things and
apparently the most insignificant people. 'Sir,' said Dr Johnson to a
fine gentleman just returned from Italy, 'some men will learn more in
the Hampstead stage than others in the tour of Europe.' Certainly the
power of little things can never be denied by Englishmen who reflect
that the chalk cliffs of their island have been built up by little
animals--detected only by the help of the microscope--of the same order
of creatures that have formed the coral reefs.
Perhaps it is not too much to say that England owes her reputation of
being the best workshop in Europe not so much to the fact that she is
rich in coal and iron, as because her workmen put or used to put a
good finish on their work. A country must become and continue great
when its labourers work honestly, paying attention to detail, putting
_conscience_ into every stone they place and into every nail they
drive. There is no fear of England declining so long as it can be said
of her workers what was said of the Old Masters in statuary, painting,
and cathedral-building:
In the elder days of art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part,
For the gods are everywhere.
How much of this honest workmanship, that careth for little things and
not merely for the large and showy, is to be seen on the roof of Milan
Cathedral! Here the smallest and least visible statue of the statue
forest that tops the building, is carved with quite as great care as
the largest and most conspicuous.
It has been remarked that we cannot change even a particle of sand
on the sea-shore to a different place without changing at the same
time the balance of the globe. The earth's centre of gravity will be
altered by the action, in an infinitely small degree no doubt, but
still altered; and upon this will ensue climatic change which may
influence people's temperaments and actions. Of course this is an
absurd refinement; but it illustrates the undoubted fact that the
most trivial thought and act in our lives carries with it a train of
consequences, the end of which we may never guess. The veriest trifles
become of importance in influencing our own or other people's lives and
characters. One look may marry us. Our profession may be settled for us
by the most trivial circumstance. 'A kiss from my mother,' said West,
'made me a painter.' Going into an inn for refreshment, Dr Guthrie
saw a picture of John Pounds the cobbler of Portsmouth teaching poor
ragged children that had been left by ministers, ladies, and gentlemen
to go to ruin on the streets. The sight of this picture hanging over
the chimney-piece on that day, made Dr Guthrie the founder of ragged
schools.
On a clock in one of the Oxford colleges is inscribed this solemn
warning to those who fancy that killing time is not murder: _Periunt et
imputantur_ (the hours perish and are laid to our charge). But is not
this equally true of those 'odd moments' during which we say it is not
worth while commencing or finishing anything? Mr Smiles tells us that
Dr Mason Good translated Lucretius while driving from patient's house
to patient's house; that Dr Darwin composed nearly all his works in
the same way; that Hale wrote his _Contemplations_ while travelling on
circuit; that Elihu Burritt while earning his living as a blacksmith
mastered eighteen ancient languages and twenty-two European dialects in
'odd moments;' that Madame de Genlis composed several of her volumes
while waiting for the princess to whom she gave daily lessons. Kirke
White learned Greek and J. S. Mill composed _Logic_ as they walked to
their offices. Many of us get into a fuss if the dinner be not to the
moment. Not so did D'Aguesseau, one of the greatest Chancellors of
France, act. He _used_ this _mauvais quart d'heure_, for he is said to
have written a large and able volume in the intervals of waiting for
dinner. Wellington's achievements were mainly owing to the fact that he
personally attended to such minutiæ as soldiers' shoes, camp-kettles,
biscuits, horse-fodder; and it was because Nelson attended to detail in
respect of time that he was so victorious. 'I owe,' he said, 'all my
success in life to having been always a quarter of an hour before my
time.' 'Every moment lost,' said Napoleon, 'gives an opportunity for
misfortune.' Well would it have been for himself--as his bitter end
proved--had this European bully known another fact--that every moment
selfishly employed is worse than lost, and 'gives an opportunity for
misfortune!' However, he attributed the defeat of the Austrians to his
own greater appreciation of the value of time. While they dawdled he
overthrew them.
It may be said that 'it is the pace that kills--that people nowadays
are more prone to wear themselves out by overworking than to rust
unused.' But is it not over-anxiety and want of method, rather than
overwork, that kills us? Methodical arrangement of time is like packing
things in a box; a good packer will get in half as much again as a bad
one.
Little words and acts far more than great ones reveal the manner of a
man. No one--in Great Britain at least--could be such a Goth as to rest
his heels on the mantel-piece or to spit when sitting in the company
of ladies round a fire. It is not, however, given to all to continue
sinless as regards those many little things that mark the naturally
refined man. Women are said to be better readers of character than
men, and perhaps the reason is this: character is shewn by minutiæ,
and the fine intuition or mental sharp-sightedness by which these are
discerned, belongs to women in a greater degree than to men.
Without caring in the smallest degree for goodness, we may avoid crime
and gross sin because of the police, or because we desire to get on in
the world, or because we are afraid of ridicule. The test, therefore,
of a fine character is attention to the minutiæ of conduct. Nor does
the performance of those large duties which are almost forced upon
us prove our love to God or to man nearly so convincingly as do the
little commonplace services of love--the cheerful word, the cup of
cold water--when rendered not grudgingly or of necessity. By little
foxes tender grapes are destroyed, according to Solomon. Little foxes
are very cunning and most difficult to catch; and so are those little
temptations by which our moral natures are gradually eaten away. The
tender grapes of many a Christian branch are destroyed by such little
foxes as temper, discontent, avarice, vanity. Many who could resist
much greater sins yield to these. There is an excitement in the very
greatness of a trial or temptation which enables us to resist it; while
the chase after little foxes is dull and uninteresting. No wonder that
when we analyse the lives of those who have ruined themselves morally,
we generally discover that
It was the little rift within the lute
That, ever widening, slowly silenced all;
Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit,
That, rotting inward, slowly mouldered all.