_SHIPS: ANCIENT AND MODERN_
[Illustration: I]T may be that I am prejudiced by love in favour of the
sea and the burden which it bears upon its bosom, but to my mind, man
has only been able once to compete successfully with the designs of
nature, and that was in his ship-building. When he completed those
masterpieces which helped to make Nelson and England famous, he reached
the apex of his attempts to rival nature--indeed, artistically speaking,
he eclipsed nature's most picturesque effects when he put out such
beautiful and perfect creations as those which sailed into Trafalgar,
after which he proved his mortality by becoming commonplace; while
nature, the calm and unimpassioned, continued her work of beauty and
devastation unconcerned, permitting him to blot her plains with his
mastless ironclad monstrosities, until her hour of retaliation arrived.
Look at his cities, houses, churches, palaces, and castles in their
newness, and you behold objects on the landscape without which it would
be more complete; nor until Time has laid his artistic touch upon
them--painting them over with delicious grey tones and rusty stains;
dismantling doorways and windows, causing a rent here and a crumbling
there, like arabesque work of an old-world character; putting the same
vividly fantastic faces and figures upon the once smoothly masoned block
that he cuts out on the cliff-face, and so harmonising the uncouth
evenness with the grandly mosaicked boulder; festooning bare and gaunt
spaces with wreaths of ivy, clustering ferns, and gnarled branches, and
generally qualifying the russet shades with fresh patches of moss or
silver glistenings of lichens--do the crumbling castle and deserted
cottage begin to take their places as items in the unity and harmony of
general creation.
But the ships of Nelson's and Collingwood's period Time cannot add to or
improve; their newness and freshness only help the perfection of their
grace and loveliness; from the moment they glided between the greased
slips of the building-yard to the solemn hour when they settled down to
their last repose, they were objects of interest and beauty.
See them riding on the smooth waters and repeating themselves from the
tapering top-masts with the fairy mesh-work of cordage, like a forest of
graceful trees in the winter-time, to their massive hulls, all
gilt-work, colour and ornament, animate with latent strength and active
grace; see them parting the curling billows with the snow-white sails
bellied out, as they rush jocundly on their journey to triumph or to
death, looking like winged angels in the sun-filled air: it was this
appearance of life and joy which raised man at that period from the
imitator to the original creator, and so for the moment lifted him out
of himself, and beyond still nature; there is nothing else resembling a
full-rigged line-of-battle frigate on the surface of the earth.
[Illustration: Ship.of.the.line.1815.]
See them sweeping into battle so stately and confident; the sentiment
of fear or indecision cannot find a lodgment on one of their orderly
yards as they swing round so defiantly; when they advance it is with
calm pride in their conscious power, when they retreat it appears only
as if to test their speed against the sailing powers of their chasers;
in the hour of action how imposingly they gather up the clouds of white
smoke, like the goddess Juno; and when wounded, how grandly they droop
with their broken wings, enduring the buffets of the tempest with
majestic protest, or settling down on the quicksand with the calmness of
martyrs. There is something mean-looking about even St. Paul's or
Westminster Abbey if we compare them with the Alps, but the ship cannot
look contemptible in any position when upon her own element, the ocean.
The earliest vessel on record is the Ark, which was about eighty-eight
feet less in length than our 'Great Eastern,' thirteen feet less in
breadth of deck, and about the same height from keel to deck. History
does not enlighten us as to its exact shape, excepting that it had three
decks, and we are accustomed to depict it with sloping roof and
mastless. Yet at the time it was built the inhabitants of the earth had
advanced to a high state of civilisation and wicked inventions of
violence and luxury, so that we must suppose they went down to the sea
and to war with each other in great ships for Noah to have worked out
this monster on scientific principles, otherwise he could not have
balanced it from theory only. When it first began to float, he would
require a rudder in order to keep it clear of the promontories which
were as yet uncovered; therefore, although it is not mentioned, we
naturally suppose that it was provided with steering gear. That he built
it on the edge of a gopher-wood forest is also a reasonable conjecture,
and on a flat, because of the unnecessary labour which it would have
entailed to drag so much wood up to a mountain-top; therefore, although
the builder and owner had no definite destination, he would require
sails to carry him along past the obstructions, otherwise his steering
gear would have been practically useless, and he would have been wrecked
at the onset of his voyage. Taking all these matters into consideration,
I have come to the conclusion that the ancient Ark was not the clumsy
floating shed generally depicted, but that it sailed away from the land
of the wicked giants to its lonely destination, Mount Ararat, something
after the fashion that I have pictured it, leaving the highly ornamented
but deckless galleys of the doomed races to fill up and scuttle.
Like the building of the tower of Babel, that damp voyage must have had
a demoralising effect upon Noah and his sons, because after landing we
hear no more about ship-building until such times as the merchants of
Tyre and Sidon began to navigate the world. The Egyptians had boats with
masts and sails for river traffic, as we sometimes see depicted on their
monuments and carvings, straight-built, decked boats with slanting prows
and sterns, flat-bottomed, and with square cabins raised up in the
centre of the decks; these were row-boats generally, and used mostly to
carry mummies and mourners to the city of the dead from the living
quarters, and for the transporting of cargo up the Nile. They had no
war-vessels in ancient Egypt, yet some of their pleasure and state
barges, although exceedingly stiff and formal in outline, were richly
decorated and gaily bedizened, as were also their solid square houses
and walls. Cleopatra's barge was a blending of the Greek galley and the
orthodox Nile boat.
Indeed, it is very difficult at the present time to realise the banks of
the Nile in the days of the Pharaohs, when on the one side of the river
lay the palaces of the princes and nobility, and on the other lay the
city of the departed, those vast buildings and high walls, emblazoned
with painted figures of heroic actions, so that we may comprehend why
the artists preferred flat surfaces to ornate walls; the broad steps
leading to the reedy and lily-lined waters, and those gondola-like boats
and gilded barges lying anchored beside every wharf, with the dazzling
sun laving over the flatness of the land, and grateful shadows cast
along every side street or covered mart.
Egypt suited this style of architecture and that description of shipping
exactly; afterwards, when the Greeks came with their rounded hulls,
crowned prows, and general lightness, traders of silks and purple
cloths, the character of the country changed, and incongruities occurred
which required the hardy Romans to correct. When the ornate galleys of
Alexander covered Father Nile, Egypt lost her air of everlasting repose;
but when the shield-lined galleys of Rome swept in, all became right
again--the rightness of the castle which has been dismantled; the paint
on the walls became dingy, the slime encrusted the granite wharf-posts,
and Egypt settled down to her mystical decline.
At the great battle of Salamis, men had learnt to build war-vessels of
great utility. The wily Greeks knew the value of small compact ships
with strong sharp prows and swift-sailing qualities, because they had
become a race of hardy pirates, whereas the voluptuous Persians,
studying pomp and show, as did the Spanish later on, sent out an armada
of mighty ships, great floating castles, which towered over the waves
and were difficult to manage; so the agile Greeks darted in amongst the
ponderous giants, and cut them up as our own sea-hero Drake did with the
Dons. It must have been a fine sight from the hill-top where Xerxes
watched the defeat of his armada, with the combat clear to the view and
unobscured by smoke, those mighty hulls lying helpless on the waves with
their purple sails, and the dauntless Greeks rushing down upon them,
while the blood-red sun went down upon the hapless scene of destruction.
[Illustration: A Viking Boat]
The Romans took their cue from the Greeks, and built small ships,
vessels that walked the waters like centipedes; an ugly but ominous
sight they must have appeared in their snake-like approach upon the
enemy, dangerous in their steady utility when drawing over quiet waters,
but almost useless in a storm.
After this time ships returned greatly to their primitive condition,
and, like the Vikings, sea-rovers went in for small craft, deckless
boats about the size of fishing craft, with easily managed sails; boats
which could be worked quickly in rough or calm weather by a few men.
These were the ships which devastated Europe and taught the
shore-dwellers a lesson in naval warfare.
From the Bayeux Tapestry we are able to form a fair idea of the kind of
craft which William of Normandy used to invade England--small one-masted
boats, holding on an average a dozen men easily, although, I dare say,
on this occasion they would be crammed like herrings in a barrel. An
uncommonly uncomfortable voyage that must have been to the mail-clad
warriors, with their war-steeds to look after in those cramped quarters;
it must have made them doubly resolved to stay in England once they had
reached it.
We see another example in Froissart of vessels of the fourteenth
century, in which they had increased the size of the ships somewhat,
without altering their shape much, but having three masts, instead of
one, with single lateen sails on each. The anchor as we use it now comes
into prominence in these pictures; but, if the men are drawn in
proportion to the size of the ships, exercise was not one of the
benefits of a sea-voyage in the fourteenth century, and one is apt to
sympathise with the Crusaders on their journey to Palestine. To us, who
have gazed ruefully on the stormy waters of Biscay Bay, even from the
lofty deck of a P. and O. packet, the experience has been a sad one; but
such a voyage must have been simply pandemonium to those brave knights
of the Cross in their cockle-shells, trying to look dignified before
their esquires, with the weight of chain-armour added to sea-sickness,
and no space to turn about.
During the time of the Lancasters and Plantagenets times improved a
little with seafarers. We have the long awning-covered oar-galleys,
capable of seating fifty or eighty slaves below, with accommodation for
the passengers above; also properly decked vessels, with forecastles and
stern cabins and deck houses; and shrouds for the use of the seamen when
raising or lowering sails. They still used the single sails on the
masts, and required a number of sailors to work them properly; here also
we find the first appearance of tops where men could be placed for
fighting purposes. At this period the ship as a picturesque object was
beginning to take shape, but it was far from being a 'thing of beauty.'
In the fifteenth century we come upon the 'Henri Grâce à Dieu,' built
for Henry VII., which is the nearest approach to a ship as we understand
it. It is a four-master, with bowsprit, and three yards on each mast,
with main and fore tops, and shrouds reaching up to the caps; a vessel
fairly bristling with guns, and having seven decks to the cabin and
eleven to the top deck of the forecastle. At this time Columbus had
discovered the New World, and men were paying attention to navigation as
a science.
The next advance is the 'Sovereign of the Seas,' built in 1637 for
Charles I.: a three-master, and very nearly perfect in the matter of
symmetry. Between the building of the 'Sovereign' and the 'Grâce à
Dieu' England had made her first bold bid for the supremacy of the seas,
and distinguished herself as a great maritime nation by giving birth to
such heroes as Drake and Frobisher; after this she steadily advanced in
her sea craft. The Armada was won by splendid sailors and very sorry
ships, as far as appearance went; but after this date they improved
until they reached perfection, as we can see in such ships as the 'Royal
William,' 1670, on to the splendid wooden frigates and man-of-war ships
carrying from seventy-four to one hundred and twenty guns, such as the
'Victory,' immortalised by the death of Nelson.
Those grand old days, when the ship and the men she carried were one and
indivisible, are a dream of the past. When we began to sheathe our ships
with iron and reduce our masts and rigging until they became shapeless
monsters, the pride and security of the sailor vanished. The ship is no
longer a portion of himself, it has become a dangerous machine, and he
is only a passenger on board. In olden times, when the ball tore up the
ship's side, the heart of the British seaman bled with her, and while
she waited like a wounded lioness on his aid, and he rushed with his
plugs and oakum to stop the rent or fix up the broken yard or mast, they
were as man and wife; now, like a treacherous monster, the ship goes to
the bottom when hit, and destroys all on board.
[Illustration: Fishing Boats.]
There was give and take in the olden days, like a bout at fists, and
Englishmen appreciated the manly sport; now it is treacherous massacre
and destruction to friend and enemy alike. The ironclad is as much the
enemy of her inhabitants as she is of the rival against whom she wages
war. What pride could the true British tar take in that pitiful siege of
Alexandria, when all he had to do was to batter down a defenceless city
from a safe distance, compared with the sailing into action at
Trafalgar, where it was give and take? While, as for the next great
naval engagement, when ironclad faces ironclad, what chance will they
have for their lives? One sure discharge from the latest invention, and
the doomed vessel will go to the bottom of the sea, like shot-laden and
sewn-up corpses of messmates already 'gone aloft.' It is cowardly
murder, not daring warfare, that we have arrived at in this nineteenth
century of science. It was in the olden days of sailing vessels, when
the seaman controlled every portion and worked lovingly upon every
object of his ship, that the sympathetic affection for each plank grew
upon him, until it became dearer than a landsman's house to him--indeed,
it not infrequently usurped all other ties, and became to him wife and
relations as well as house. As I come myself from a sailor breed, I know
the engrossment well, and can understand the feelings of the captain who
would rather sink with his beloved vessel than abandon her in the dark
hour of danger.
[Illustration: Homeward Bound]
But when ships became propelling machines, they no longer belonged
exclusively to the sailor: he is only husband of the upper decks and now
almost useless yards. The engineer is really the master of the position,
while the sailor has become merely a scullery-maid.
The same may be said about iron ships. What sailor of the grand old
school can take a pride in cold iron or cast steel? Dibdin's songs are a
dead letter here. Indeed, I don't know any modern poet who could wake up
enthusiasm over wrought or cast metal when it is used as a floating
machine. 'Hearts of oak' we can all understand as Englishmen, for the
oak is ours by birthright. But who can grow affectionate over 'plates of
iron'? It is cold and deadly in its passive state, and when damaged it
is beyond repair; it has to be taken back to the smelting factory.
Therefore, thinking upon this subject in an artistic sense, and
regarding the future of great guns, torpedoes, and metal plates from a
humanitarian point of view, while admitting that we have floating
mantraps and murder machines nowadays, I place the limit on
ship-progress as objects of gallantry and perfection at the date when we
introduced steam machinery into them. They then sacrificed their poetic
and artistic characteristics for commercial utility; while, as for their
use as war-machines, that is a doubtful point upon which they have yet
to be tried. One thing we do know, however, and that is--war no longer
depends upon personal bravery; it is entirely a question of scientific
accuracy and mathematical knowledge.
As a painter, I prefer to go back to the wooden walls of England for my
inspirations; to the engagements between the giants and the plucky
pigmies in the glorious fight of 1588, when the pigmies, like the Greeks
at Salamis, knocked the giants into cocked hats; to the battles of the
Nile, St. Vincent, Trafalgar, where each man had to do his duty without
the dread of being blown up to the sky by some underhand torpedoes, or
sent, without a moment for prayers, to the bottom of the sea by some
superior and longer-ranged guns. I like best to think upon the days when
men got heated up by glory, and fought hand-to-hand with their cutlasses
and pikes, swarming over the sides of the grappled enemy with true
British shouts, rather than to picture them standing in silent and grim
order five or ten miles away from the enemy, waiting upon their doom. It
does not seem sailor-like to see them watching like automata on the
effect of each shot; to my mind, as an artist and a warm-blooded
Englishman, it is too cold-blooded for Jack Tar.
We all know, from the original or from reproductions, Turner's picture
of the Last Voyage of the 'Téméraire,' with its stately yet helpless
dignity, compared with the fussy impudence of the long-chimneyed little
tug-steamer which is towing her to her last home; the hoary veteran is
doubly pathetic to me in view of all the _improvements_ which have taken
place in war-ships since that splendid sunset which the great painter
thus depicted: compare the 'Téméraire,' symbol of its kind and age,
with, say, the 'Royal Sovereign' of 1891.
The 'Royal Sovereign,' with her solid smooth sides and back-sloping bows
denuded of bowsprit and jib, with her stunted masts and mean-looking
cordage, is a poor thing by the side of a first-rate man-of-war of any
date up to 1855, with its filmy intricacies of rope-work, yards, and
uppers. Do the waves and the winds claim a unity with the ship now as
they did then? Compare a fleet lying in the roads now with one a
hundred years ago, as depicted on some of the canvases of Loutherbourg,
Stanfield, or Turner, for the best reply to my melancholy question. Even
the Bay of Biscay has been shorn of its grandeur by the introduction of
those great hulks, which cut over its gigantic waves with hardly a
shake. Twenty-five years ago I could appreciate its might from the deck
of an Aberdonian clipper; last time I passed through it and saw its
raging from the saloon deck of a P. and O. steam liner, it would have
looked ridiculous in its mimic wrath only for a passing glimpse I had of
a little brig which it was playing high jinks with, as it tossed it up
and down like a toy boat on a cauldron of boiling water.
I am sorry that we have had, so far, the best of the ocean, because we
have lost a great pleasure when we go to sea--the thrilling excitement
of being in a proper gale. I find it very hard when I now go upon the
ocean to recall the fury of the storms which I have been in during past
years;--that time I rounded Cape Horn, when the ice-charged waves
appeared like mountains and valleys as we looked at them from the deck
of our almost doomed vessel; that time when we were driven from the
shores of Africa almost to within sight of America in one furious
tempest; when the tropical typhoon broke upon us, and our three-master
appeared like a dingey in the trough of those curded waves, while the
lightning blazed and the fire-balls dropped from heaven and went past
our creaking sides like red-hot shot into the seething turmoil. Ah! we
cannot half appreciate the marvels and majesty of the ocean nowadays; it
has become a sycophant to us, and only expends a little bombast for our
benefit, as a relaxation after those superb ocean dinners, while we
smoke our pipes or cigars on deck.
And yet not quite a passive slave is this mighty ocean to us modern
epicures; there still remain the Goodwin Sands, the iron cliffs and the
sunken rocks, to prove that man, in spite of his advancement in
mechanics, is not yet complete master of the situation.
[Illustration: The Storm]
Biscay Bay may look played out as it vainly tries to curl its yeasty
fury over the comfortable decks of the two-wave-long liner, which passes
serenely over the crests with hardly a vibration more than the
propellers give us; but if the screw chances to snap, as I have known
it do in other waters, then what is she?--a huge log battered to death
by the savage fury she has so long defied. Sunken reefs start up at
times when least expected, and then, with one rasp, the ironclad hotel
becomes a death-trap, whereas a wooden ship might have floated.
As for those mysterious, treasure-crammed sands, the Goodwins, like the
poor, they are always with us, and always ready to drown their victims.
Every year they claim their due of sacrifice, from the skittish smack to
the ponderous East Indiaman, from the coast steamer to the heavy
ironclad. Once the ship touches fairly with this siren, there is no
parting; it is a gentle but tenacious embrace, and then come the rending
of hair and the throwing up of arms as the sins of our past rush back
upon us and prepare us for the choking of the remorseless slime.
[Illustration: At Rest.]
And those iron cliffs, that, in the honesty of their rugged rage, break
the masterpieces of man to fragments, they are better than the
treacherous sands, for they do their work quickly, and with the aid of
the angry waves.
There she is, the full-rigged piece of perfection, driving gallantly to
her doom, with her curved bows, glistening sides, and ornamented stern,
and aloft the forest of light wood and lichen-like tracery of cordage,
her sails all furled, like a beautiful woman who has gathered up her
skirts and means recklessly to run on in spite of wind or weather; so
she rises over the crest of the shore-hurrying billow, and looks her
best in that last supreme second of time.
A lurid instant the lightning plays about her perfect symmetry as she
steadfastly gathers herself for the plunge; there is no fear or timidity
about her as she rises for the last time, only the defiance of
desperation; then the clash of doom comes, and she has dissolved like a
spirit in the midst of the dazzling white mist.
[Illustration: FROM BREYDENBACH'S TRAVELS]