MONDAY--a rolling tumbling sea, soft grey and white, and misty-wet decks
with shimmering reflections--a day when even a great liner such as this
feels a little shut off from the outside world, for the mist comes down
on the edge of the horizon and hedges us in. If I ever paint Orpheus or
the Sirens, I will use such a grey wet effect. I think of these old
navigators in their small vessels, getting the thick and the thin, just
as we do to-day in our own sailing craft; getting well dusted at times,
with the salt thick on their cheeks and decks. Taking it all round, the
sea is rather a minor chord; so that these Burlington House pictures of
the Argo and The Heroes, in orange and rose on a wine-red sea are not
convincing. When my patron comes home I will humbly suggest Orpheus
singing at the stem, a following wind, a great bellying sail behind, and
all around wet air and splashing grey sea, the stem ploughing it up
silver and white and green, and away aft under the bend of the sail
there would be Jason and the steersman, possibly Medea, with the curl
out of her hair, and perhaps just a touch of the golden fleece, just a
fleck of pale yellow to enliven the minor tints! Round the bows there
would be men listening to the song, watching the stem pound into the
green hollows--now, I remember! I have seen this--I'd forgotten. But the
Orpheus was in faded blue dungarees, and played a fiddle, and leaned
against a rusty, red capstan--saw it from the jib-boom of the
Mjolna[2]--fishing bonita--looked back, and there they all were, the
same to-day as they were in olden days, I expect, men and boys, salt
and sun-bitten sea-farers, lolling on the cat-heads and anchors. A joy
of the World, that is--from your perch out on the jib-boom to watch a
ship with its cloud of white sails surging after you.
[2] Norse for Thors hammer.
[Illustration]
The Sirens too would paint in this weather; they look quite dry in
pictures, they would look better wet--I'd have them glittering wet and
joyous, and a fit carvel built boat and crew, and brown sloping sails,
three reefs down, making a fine passage clear on to them, just as the
steersman might wish with no bindings or wax in ears at all, but all at
the Sirens' service.
St. Vincent light is now in sight--the swell from the south-west, and
our course, as far as a passenger may guess, will soon be south by east;
so we ought to have a fair roll on soon, and I feel glad our sea-sick
friends are mostly asleep. To-morrow we hope to be in early at
Gibraltar, then they will have a rest--it will be all smooth sailing.
"They say so--and they hope so," as the "Old Horse" Chantie puts it. Is
there not a wind, however, called the Mistral, in the Gulf of Lyons,
and a Euroclydon further east, mentioned by St Paul?
We passed some rather interesting land scenery this afternoon, before we
came to the mouth of the Tagus; you could see houses, comfortably
nestled up the sides of the hills. At the foot of the red cliffs there
is a line of green water and white bursts of foam--made a pochade of a
bit of this coast--a castle perched on blue peaks, a rolling sky and
rugged mountains, and nearer, a rolling, leaden-coloured swell.
[Illustration]
From the well or waist where I paint, I noticed a rather black,
white-man stood and watched me out of the engine room. He looked
interested, and I spoke to him later. He said he "did a bit" himself in
unmistakeable West Country accent, and he took me to his cabin to show
me his art work. Though not very high up in the working part of this
show--boiler maker or artificer, I think, he had a very nice cabin. His
art work was decorative. He applied various cigar and tobacco labels
with gum to Eastern wine jars of unmistakeably Greek design, also
Masonic, and P. & O. symbols, with crosses, and rising suns in red and
gold; the interspaces of these geometric designs he filled up with blue
and gold enamel paint; and the general effect was very bright. It was
odd though to see a vase of historic shape done over with such brand new
labels. He had done this work for some years in spare time, so he had
acquired considerable proficiency.
I would fain be able to describe some of the human interest, on such a
vessel as this; there is enough for many novelists to study for many a
day. Of each class at home we know individuals, soldiers and civilians,
and their women folk, and they are interesting as others or more so; but
when you see them like this on board their ship in their numbers, going
East to their various duties, the interest becomes quite a big thing.
There is the girl going to her future husband in a native regiment, not
to return for years, and there is a couple sitting beside us to-night in
the smoking-room--a white-haired Colonel and his young protege, a
budding soldier--they talk of mother at home, and cousins and aunts.
Then there's The-most-beautiful-girl-in-the-ship, but she is not
typical, and I think she goes farther East than India: she has chummed
already with the best set-up man on board, so that's as it should
be--and what an occasion it is for chumming! I'd like to know what is
the average number of engagements made and broken on these P. & O.'s per
voyage. R. tells me of one made in his last trip home; I forget on what
line. The passengers were eleven young men and one lady, and she
favoured one of them, so there were ten disappointed suitors. They found
He and She could sing a little, so one of the ten played accompaniments,
and the others encouraged the devoted pair to sing tender ditties, which
they did and for all they were worth. He sang, "I want you, my Honey,"
and put his back into it, as R. says, very slangily I think, and the
suitors thought they had great subject for much mirth when they retired
to the smoking-room--I think it was almost profane.... But it is time
for one pipe on deck and a last look at the somewhat uncongenial sea,
then to a bed, three or four inches too narrow.
[Illustration]
These two ladies here depicted are the sole survivors of their sex this
morning at breakfast, for it blows hard outside; but it's an ill wind
that blows nobody good, so these two young things, fresh as roses, made
each other's acquaintance at the empty table. They have been an hour on
deck, and like the movement, and the breakfast; and possibly their
irrepressible joyous sense of superiority is flavoured with pity for
their sisters lying low and pale. You see, the fiddles are on the table,
and even with these you have to hang on to your cup occasionally. The
fiddle makes such a comfortable rest for my elbows, so I scribble this
on the back of the breakfast menu (no one wants it) without being seen.
I remember that neither the position nor the occupation were allowed in
the nursery, and I hear of people to-day in quite good society so dead
to art that they will not allow you to draw on the table cloth! I
sometimes think how many lovely ideas must have been lost by this! It
was the Correggio brothers, was it not? who used to draw during
meal-time; they were very enthusiastic, but they died--possibly of
indigestion!
We are getting into the Straits of Gibraltar--a nice blustery day, the
black tramps coming out of the Mediterranean bury their noses deep in
foam, and roll up and show all the beauty of steamers' lines! To
starboard we get a glimpse of the serrated African mountains above
Tangiers and the Atlas Mountains beyond. They are green in spring, but
now they are brown. I used to think the African Coast was flat and
sandy; I wonder if school boys do so still. It is a pleasant surprise at
first sight to find it so like our own mountainous country. Both the
African hills and the Spanish hills are veiled at times with passing
rain columns that sweep in from the Atlantic.
Here is a little finger-nail jotting of Gibraltar; you see the parts
where the masts are--that is the harbour. The Rock or Mountain, 1,200
feet high, is to the south and right; all its side is bristling with
guns; to the left of the ships a long spit of land joins the rock to
Spain proper. If the cumulous clouds to the north and east, in the
direction of Granada, would lift a little we would see the white tops of
the Sierra Nevada.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Illustration]
This has been a most splendid day! We have been on Spanish soil--I
suppose I may call it Spanish soil though it is held by Britain--have
seen fair Spanish women, had sun, wind, rain, wet decks, and dry decks,
and the bustle and interest of dropping anchor in Port, with all the
movement of tugs and boats and people going and coming to and from
shore--the roadstead blustery and fluttering with flags, and everything
afloat bobbing and moving, excepting the great grey men-of-war.
We got away in the first shore boat. How it rained--G.'s hat ruined--but
anything to be in Spain once more. The launch rolls and umbrellas drip,
and we have hundreds of yards along splashing wet pier, G. balancing on
timbers and wire cables to keep a little out of the mud--one umbrella
for the two. Then a jog up the town in a funny little victoria with
yellow oiled canvas curtains, past little gardens with great red flowers
on one tree, and trumpet-shaped white flowers hanging on the next, past
soldiers in khaki, and turbaned Moors huddled in their draperies. The
Moors look so out of place in Europe; they seem to have aimed at being
picturesque and have failed, and know it and stick to it. The Spaniards
you pass are pure joy to the artist; the women have such nice ivory
colouring with the faintest tint of pink, and such eyes, brown and dark,
and kind, and such eye-lashes--it's easy colour to paint too in Henner's
way, Prussian blue, bitumen and ochre and a breath of rose! Look at the
bloom on their hair, blue as the light on raven's wing, and the flour on
their faces, hanging thick on their black eyebrows. I think they must
have a little of the Indian in them. There's a far-away kinship in the
expression of the Ayahs on board and the Spaniards on shore, a queer
penetrating look, and kindly. The mens' expressions are also pleasant
enough, I think--very quiet--but they have your eye and your measure
before you realise, with a glance quick as the glint that a pointer
gives you from the corner of his eye as he ranges past.... Here is a
jotting of one of the natives, perhaps a little heavy in expression, but
fairly typical Spanish face. She is my cousin's cook; he is an R. E. and
lives in quite a big house for Gibraltar; you can stand upright in any
room and stretch yourself in the drawing-room, which has a balcony; I
painted her as she stood in it. My cousin's wife had discharged her, but
there was no ill-feeling, so she came to pay a complimentary call, in
black lace mantilla and pink blouse. She was called Barbara, and loved a
baker over the way, and when she should have been regarding the soup,
she was throwing glances to the baker in his shop, so she had to go!
"Poor Barbara"--and lucky baker, to receive such cordite glances!
A dainty lady of Saxon type, with face like china, hair fine gold, and
eyes of Neapolitan violet, looked over my shoulder whilst I sketched.
She is just out, and is enjoying Gibraltar hugely. But I should not have
said violet eyes, for one was black as a thunder-cloud; she hunted
yesterday and got dragged poor thing, and was bruised all over, but she
was going about and hunts again in two or three days.
[Illustration: A Spanish Woman.]