For the space of six weeks I lived in clover at Haslar, and at the end
of that time my appointment to a sea-going ship came. It was the
pleasure of their Lordships the Commissioners, that I should take my
passage to the Cape of Good Hope in a frigate, which had lately been put
in commission and was soon about to sail. Arrived there, I was to be
handed over to the flag-ship on that station for disposal, like so many
stones of salt pork. On first entering the service every medical
officer is sent for one commission (three to five years) to a foreign
station; and it is certainly very proper too that the youngest and
strongest men, rather than the oldest, should do the rough work of the
service, and go to the most unhealthy stations.
The frigate in which I was ordered passage was to sail from Plymouth.
To that town I was accordingly sent by train, and found the good ship in
such a state of internal chaos--painters, carpenters, sail-makers, and
sailors; armourers, blacksmiths, gunners, and tailors; every one engaged
at his own trade, with such an utter disregard of order or regularity,
while the decks were in such confusion, littered with tools, nails,
shavings, ropes, and spars, among which I scrambled, and over which I
tumbled, getting into everybody's way, and finding so little rest for
the sole of my foot, that I was fain to beg a week's leave, and glad
when I obtained it. On going on board again at the end of that time, a
very different appearance presented itself; everything was in its proper
place, order and regularity were everywhere. The decks were white and
clean, the binnacles, the brass and mahogany work polished, the gear all
taut, the ropes coiled, and the vessel herself sitting on the water
saucy as the queen of ducks, with her pennant flying and her beautiful
ensign floating gracefully astern. The gallant ship was ready for sea,
had been unmoored, had made her trial trips, and was now anchored in the
Sound. From early morning to busy noon, and from noon till night, boats
glided backwards and forwards between the ship and the shore, filled
with the friends of those on board, or laden with wardroom and gunroom
stores. Among these might have been seen a shore-boat, rowed by two
sturdy watermen, and having on board a large sea-chest, with a naval
officer on top of it, grasping firmly a Cremona in one hand and holding
a hat-box in the other. The boat was filled with any number of smaller
packages, among which were two black portmanteaus, warranted to be the
best of leather, and containing the gentleman's dress and undress
uniforms; these, however, turned out to be mere painted pasteboard, and
in a very few months the cockroaches--careless, merry-hearted
creatures--after eating up every morsel of them, turned their attention
to the contents, on which they dined and supped for many days, till the
officer's dress-coat was like a meal-sieve, and his pantaloons might
have been conveniently need for a landing-net. This, however, was a
matter of small consequence, for, contrary to the reiterated assurance
of his feline friend, no one portion of this officer's uniform held out
for a longer period than six months, the introduction of any part of his
person into the corresponding portion of his raiment having become a
matter of matutinal anxiety and distress, lest a solution of continuity
in the garment might be the unfortunate result.
About six o'clock on a beautiful Wednesday evening, early in the month
of May, our gallant and saucy frigate turned her bows seaward and slowly
steamed away from amidst the fleet of little boats that--crowded with
the unhappy wives and sweethearts of the sailors--had hung around us all
the afternoon. Puffing and blowing a great deal, and apparently panting
to be out and away at sea, the good ship nevertheless left her anchorage
but slowly, and withal reluctantly, her tears falling thick and fast on
the quarter-deck as she went.
The band was playing a slow and mournful air, by way of keeping up our
spirits.
_I_ had no friends to say farewell to, there was no tear-bedimmed eye to
gaze after me until I faded in distance; so I stood on the poop, leaning
over the bulwarks, after the fashion of Vanderdecken, captain of the
Flying Dutchman, and equally sad and sorrowful-looking. And what did I
see from my elevated situation? A moving picture, a living panorama; a
bright sky sprinkled with a few fleecy cloudlets, over a blue sea all in
motion before a fresh breeze of wind; a fleet of little boats astern,
filled with picturesquely dressed seamen and women waving handkerchiefs;
the long breakwater lined with a dense crowd of sorrowing friends, each
anxious to gain one last look of the dear face he may never see more.
Yonder is the grey-haired father, yonder the widowed mother, the
affectionate brother, the loving sister, the fond wife, the beloved
sweetheart,--all are there; and not a sigh that is sighed, not a tear
that is shed, not a prayer that is breathed, but finds a response in the
bosom of some loved one on board. To the right are green hills,
people-clad likewise, while away in the distance the steeple of many a
church "points the way to happier spheres," and on the flagstaff at the
port-admiral's house is floating the signal "Fare thee well."
The band has ceased to play, the sailors have given their last ringing
cheer, even the echoes of which have died away, and faintly down the
wind comes the sound of the evening bells. The men are gathered in
little groups on deck, and there is a tenderness in their landward gaze,
and a pathos in their rough voices, that one would hardly expect to
find.
"Yonder's my Poll, Jack," says one. "Look, see! the poor lass is
crying; blowed if I think I'll ever see her more."
"There," says another, "is _my_ old girl on the breakwater, beside the
old cove in the red nightcap."
"That's my father, Bill," answers a third. "God bless the dear old
chap?"
"Good-bye, Jean; good-bye, lass. Ah! she won't hear me. Blessed if I
don't feel as if I could make a big baby of myself and cry outright."
"Oh! Dick, Dick," exclaims an honest-looking tar; "I see'd my poor wife
tumble down; she had wee Johnnie in her arms, and--and what will I do?"
"Keep up your heart, to be sure," answers a tall, rough son of a gun.
"There, she has righted again, only a bit of a swoon ye see. I've got
neither sister, wife, nor mother, so surely it's _me_ that ought to be
making a noodle of myself; but where's the use?"
An hour or two later we were steaming across channel, with nothing
visible but the blue sea all before us, and the chalky cliffs of
Cornwall far behind, with the rosy blush of the setting sun lingering on
their summits.
Then the light faded from the sky, the gloaming star shone out in the
east, big waves began to tumble in, and the night breeze blew cold and
chill from off the broad Atlantic Ocean.
Tired and dull, weary and sad, I went below to the wardroom and seated
myself on a rocking chair. It was now that I began to feel the
discomfort of not having a cabin. Being merely a supernumerary or
passenger, such a luxury was of course out of the question, even had I
been an admiral. I was to have a screen berth, or what a landsman would
call a canvas tent, on the main or fighting deck, but as yet it was not
rigged. Had I never been to sea before, I would have now felt very
wretched indeed; but having roughed it in Greenland and Davis Straits in
small whaling brigs, I had got over the weakness of sea-sickness; yet
notwithstanding I felt all the thorough prostration both of mind and
body, which the first twenty-four hours at sea often produces in the
oldest and best of sailors, so that I was only too happy when I at last
found myself within canvas.
By next morning the wind had freshened, and when I turned out I found
that the steam had been turned off, and that we were bowling along
before a ten-knot breeze. All that day the wind blew strongly from the
N.N.E., and increased as night came on to a regular gale of wind. I had
seen some wild weather in the Greenland Ocean, but never anything
before, nor since, to equal the violence of the storm on that dreadful
night, in the Bay of Biscay. We were running dead before the wind at
twelve o'clock, when the gale was at its worst, and when the order to
light fires and get up steam had been given. Just then we were making
fourteen knots, with only a foresail, a fore-topsail, and main-topsail,
the latter two close-reefed. I was awakened by a terrific noise on
deck, and I shall not soon forget that awakening. The ship was leaking
badly both at the ports and scupper-holes; so that the maindeck all
around was flooded with water, which lifted my big chest every time the
roll of the vessel allowed it to flow towards it. To say the ship was
rolling would express but poorly the indescribably disagreeable
wallowing motion of the frigate, while men were staggering with anxious
faces from gun to gun, seeing that the lashings were all secure; so
great was the strain on the cable-like ropes that kept them in their
places. The shot had got loose from the racks, and were having a small
cannonade on their own account, to the no small consternation of the men
whose duty it was to re-secure them. It was literally sea without and
sea within, for the green waves were pouring down the main hatchway,
adding to the amount of water already _below_, where the chairs and
other articles of domestic utility were all afloat and making voyages of
discovery from one officer's cabin to another.
On the upper deck all was darkness, confusion, and danger, for both the
fore and main-topsails had been carried away at the same time, reducing
us to one sail--the foresail. The noise and crackling of the riven
canvas, mingling with the continuous roar of the storm, were at times
increased by the rattle of thunder and the rush of rain-drops, while the
lightning played continually around the slippery masts and cordage.
About one o'clock, a large ship, apparently unmanageable, was dimly seen
for one moment close aboard of us--had we come into collision the
consequences must have been dreadful;--and thus for two long hours,
_till steam was got up_, did we fly before the gale, after which the
danger was comparatively small.
Having spent its fury, having in fact blown itself out of breath, the
wind next day retired to its cave, and the waves got smaller and
beautifully less, till peace and quietness once more reigned around us.
Going on deck one morning I found we were anchored under the very shadow
of a steep rock, and not far from a pretty little town at the foot of a
high mountain, which was itself covered to the top with trees and
verdure, with the white walls of many a quaint-looking edifice peeping
through the green--boats, laden with fruit and fish and turtle,
surrounded the ship. The island of Madeira and town, of Funchal. As
there was no pier, we had to land among the stones. The principal
amusement of English residents here seems to be lounging about, cheroot
in mouth, beneath the rows of trees that droop over the pavements,
getting carried about in portable hammocks, and walking or riding (I
rode, and, not being able to get my horse to move at a suitable pace, I
looked behind, and found the boy from whom I had hired him sticking like
a leech to my animal's tail, nor would he be shaken off--nor could the
horse be induced to kick him off; this is the custom of the Funchalites,
and a funny one it is) to the top of the mountain, for the pleasure of
coming down in a sleigh, a distance of two miles, in twice as many
minutes, while the least deviation from the path would result in a
terrible smash against the wall of either side, but I never heard of any
such accident occurring.
Three days at Madeira, and up anchor again; our next place of call being
Saint Helena. Every one has heard of the gentleman who wanted to
conquer the world but couldn't, who tried to beat the British but
didn't, who staked his last crown at a game of _loo_, and losing fled,
and fleeing was chased, and being chased was caught and chained by the
leg, like an obstreperous game-cock, to a rock somewhere in the middle
of the sea, on which he stood night and day for years, with his arms
folded across his chest, and his cocked hat wrong on, a warning to the
unco-ambitious. The rock was Saint Helena, and a very beautiful rock it
is too, hill and dell and thriving town, its mountain-sides tilled and
its straths and glens containing many a fertile little farm. It is the
duty of every one who touches the shores of this far-famed island to
make a pilgrimage to Longwood, the burial-place of the "great man." I
have no intention of describing this pilgrimage, for this has been done
by dozens before my time, or, if not, it ought to have been: I shall
merely add a very noticeable fact, which others may not perchance have
observed--_both sides_ of the road all the way to the tomb are strewn
with _Bass's beer-bottles_, empty of course, and at the grave itself
there are hogsheads of them; and the same is the case at every place
which John Bull has visited, or where English foot has ever trodden.
The rule holds good all over the world; and in the Indian Ocean,
whenever I found an uninhabited island, or even reef which at some
future day would be an island, if I did not likewise find an empty
beer-bottle, I at once took possession in the name of Queen Victoria,
giving three hips! and one hurrah! thrice, and singing "For he's a jolly
good fellow," without any very distinct notion as to who _was_ the jolly
fellow; also adding more decidedly "which nobody can deny"--there being
no one on the island to deny it.
England has in this way acquired much additional territory at my hands,
without my having as yet received any very substantial recompense for my
services.