A BURNING SHIP
ON the 20th August we sighted the island of Tristan d’Acunha: when
about seven miles off, our yards were backed to see if any of the
natives would put off to us to barter. This, of course, was all new to
Jones and me, and we were talking to each other about it, and wondering
what new experience we should have, when Mr. Weeler, the second mate,
came along, and I asked him if he would tell me a bit about the island.
“Yes, boys,” he said in his usual kind way of speaking to us, “I will
willingly tell you what I know:
“Tristan d’Acunha is the largest of a group of three islands in the
South Atlantic Ocean. It is about 1,500 miles from the nearest land,
and has a circuit of 15 miles. It is both mountainous and volcanic,
and one peak attains the great height or elevation of 8,000 feet above
the level of the sea. Its position, which, of course, you do not yet
understand, is in latitude 37° south, 15°w. 40′ west, and is believed
to have been uninhabited until 1811, when three Americans took up
their residence upon it for the purpose of cultivating vegetables and
selling the produce, particularly potatoes, to vessels which might
touch there on their way to India, the Cape, or other parts of the
southern ocean. These Americans remained its only inhabitants until
1816, when, on Napoleon Bonaparte being sent to St. Helena, the British
Government deemed it expedient to garrison the island, and sent the
Falmouth man-of-war with a colony of forty persons to the island; they
arrived in the month of August and found that the chief of the American
settlers had died, and only two were left--what became of these two
is very uncertain. But the British garrison was soon given up, the
colony abandoned, and all returned to the Cape of Good Hope, except a
Scotchman, named Glass, who had been a corporal of artillery, and his
wife, who was a Cape Creole. As time went on other families joined
them, and thus a nation on a small scale was formed, Mr. Glass, the
founder, being the chief law-giver for all. The little colony increased
as the years passed away, a considerable number of children having been
born since the settlement. The different families built cottages and
thatched them with the long grass of the island, and they had every
appearance of English cleanliness and comfort. The north side of the
island was well-cultivated by them, they are a quiet, industrious,
social lot of people. The last time I came this route there were 107
people living on the island, 61 men and 46 women, they possessed 114
head of cattle, 37 sheep, 70 pigs, and about 300 fowls. They also have
a Commonwealth Government, with a vigilance committee to keep order.
The produce of the island, you will see for yourselves, as four whale
boats are being put off from it now.”
As Mr. Weeler finished speaking we thanked him, and turned out
attention to the boats now rapidly approaching us, and it was not very
long before they came alongside the ship and we saw that they were
loaded with potatoes, cabbages, lettuce, water-cress, eggs, fowls,
young pigs, birdskins, and a few large albatross eggs, weighing about
two pounds each. For this stock they wanted in exchange tea, sugar,
peas, molasses, and rice, and, of course, wanted twice the value of
their own stock, needless to say they did not get this. They also gave
us another interesting item of news, which, to Jones and me, who had
been listening to Mr. Weeler’s graphic description of the island and
its history, made it doubly interesting, a clergyman had arrived on
the island a few weeks before to take up his residence amongst them,
and during his first week on the island had the pleasure of uniting
thirty-three couples in marriage. They seemed very pleased to impart
this news, and after a great deal of hand-shaking and many “hurrahs,”
they got into their boats again, well pleased with their bargains, and
pulled for the shore. Our yards were trimmed to the wind, and with a
brisk breeze we continued our voyage.
A few days after leaving these islands the weather became very rough
and boisterous, with mountainous seas running after the ship and
threatening to swamp her every moment. But she rose nobly to her
duty and remained staunch and tight. Our sails were reduced to lower
top-gallant-sail and the dear old ship was staggering under the
pressure of her canvas. I was in my element, as happy as a bird, and in
the best of health. How I loved the sea in all its moods, whether wild
and restless or calm and still, and the life on board with its ups and
downs seemed to entwine itself more and more around my heart every day.
The more I saw of the work of the ship the more I loved it, and put my
heart into all I did, and I was making good progress, and was a fair
helmsman in moderate weather, fairly proficient in making all sorts of
knots, splices, etc. Both officers and sailors were doing their best
for me, and were quite as willing to teach me as I was to learn, and I
felt that there was nothing to complain of and much to be thankful for.
On the fourth of September we sighted the desolate islands of St.
Paul and Amsterdam, passing close to them to see if there were any
shipwrecked seamen on them, so many vessels and their crews were lost
on that track, that the English Government have built a hut and erected
a flagstaff on the island. A man-of-war visits the island and leaves
provisions at intervals, with written instructions that anyone who has
the misfortune to be shipwrecked, may use the provisions but not waste
them, and they are requested to hoist the flag on the flagstaff, as all
vessels going that route are expected to be on the look-out for the
flag and take off anyone who may be stranded there. These islands are
volcanic and have nothing on them to support life. As the flag was not
hoisted when we passed, we concluded that there was no one there.
From thence we had a succession of westerly gales right up to Snares
Rocks off the South Island of New Zealand. The crew were merely
standing by to attend sails if required, the wind and sea being too
rough to do any work about the decks, and many an hour did I spend
under the forecastle head listening to their yarns of other lands and
of other ships they had been in, of hairbreadth escapes and shipwrecks.
How eagerly I listened and how it stirred my heart, until I almost
fancied I had been through such adventures myself.
On the night watches the second mate kept me aft on the poop to pass
the word along if the men were required. One night when about a hundred
miles off the South Island of New Zealand, the gale suddenly died
away, and it fell dead calm, with a high sea, such as I had not seen,
running. The ship wallowed and rolled unmercifully until every bone in
our bodies ached with tumbling about. The officers were afraid of the
masts coming down with a crash. All night the water fell on her decks
in huge green seas, sometimes it seemed as if she had settled down,
then she rolled and rose gradually, the water washing from side to side
like cataracts, until about a foot remained on her decks, then another
sea would sweep aboard, and under its sudden weight the ship would
quiver and stagger like a frightened steed. Sometimes she literally
seemed to buckle fore and aft, at others she laboured like a frightened
animal, the tumult of seas literally leaping aboard the ship, until
she seemed a mere plaything of the elements. And so the night passed
and the day slowly followed, now and then the sea would rise above the
rail so high that it looked as though nothing could save us from being
engulfed, but by a merciful Providence the vessel lived through it.
Then, towards evening, the gale moderated a bit, the night came on with
a densely eerie darkness--pitch-dark the sailors called it--with the
sea still like a boiling pot, still tumbling on board and filling the
decks.
About midnight we heard a loud report to the south, and immediately
out of the blackness great flames shot up, and we saw huge columns of
smoke with flames darting here and there. As the fire increased we
could see the outline of a large sailing ship. It was on fire and we
were powerless to render her any assistance. There was not a breath
of wind, the night was pitch dark, and no boat could have lived five
minutes in the sea that was running. We could only look on and pray to
God to help them. All hands were kept on deck ready to work the sails
should a breeze spring up or the sea go down sufficiently to allow of
the launching of a boat.
It was a terrible night, one never to be forgotten. “Oh, for a breeze!”
was the cry of all on board our ship, but no breeze came and for four
hours we had to watch a terrible struggle with death, and feel we were
helpless. We could see the flames like angry demons leaping from shroud
to shroud, and from yard to yard, then only great dense volumes of
smoke lit up by the flames behind. Then again the awful flames would
belch forth and light up the whole heavens above them. We were too far
off to distinguish any human beings. God alone knew their sufferings
and heard their prayers, He alone saw that fight with death, and while
we looked, our hearts wrung with a sense of our helplessness, without a
moment’s warning, the ill-fated vessel disappeared, and the night was
black as before.
Our captain ordered several lights to be hung about the rigging, in
case there were any boats, rafts, etc., afloat, but none were seen, and
when towards daylight, a breeze springing up, our ship cruised about
to pick up anyone who might have escaped by any means, not a vestige
of the ship or boats could be seen to tell what ship she was, and what
port she was bound for, nothing but a quantity of loose wreckage, so we
continued our journey with sad hearts thinking of the unfortunate ship
and her ill-fated crew.
Towards noon the following day the sea fell dead calm, and became as
smooth as a millpond. A light breeze sprang up from the north-east, and
presently we ran into a large shoal of bottle-nosed whales and grampus.
The sea became thick with them, all leisurely lolling and tumbling
about on the surface, and many apparently standing upright like great
posts, or milestones in the sea. There must have been hundreds of them.
The sailors, on seeing them, said we were in for a dressing down, the
presence of the grampus on the surface being a sure sign of dirty
weather, and their instinct or superstition, whichever it is called,
was correct again, and presently I noticed that Mr. McLean, our chief
mate was looking with earnest eyes at the horizon astern. I looked too
and saw a large black cloud sailing up the sky exactly on a line with
the course we were making. I have never before or since seen a body of
vapour wear such an ugly look. Its hinder parts wore the true aspect of
thunder; its brow of pale sulphur, darkened into a swollen livid curve,
its dreadful shape made one think of some leviathan, a flying beast, a
mighty dragon, such as one reads about, or some huge horrible creature
descending from another world, casting its strange shadow over its prey
ere it descended to its work of destruction.
Little by little the cloud overtook us and then it overhung the vessel
like an immense black canopy plunging us and the sea around into gloom
and then passed on, but before midnight we were in the midst of a
fierce north-east gale or hurricane. Fortunately for us we were partly
sheltered by Stewart’s Island and did not get the high sea that we
should have got had we been further to the westward.
On it came with awful speed and fury. At first there was a stifling
heat in the atmosphere, then the clouds spread over the sky, shutting
out the stars, mysterious changes seemed to be taking place in nature
around, noiselessly for a time, then the war of the elements began with
a burst of heaven’s own artillery. At first it was distant, muttering,
prolonged and fitful, like the rattling musketry of advancing
skirmishers, soon a roar of deafening thunder rent the sky, another and
another followed with blinding flashes of lightning between, corposant
lights were seen on the yard arms, and the tips of the masts, then the
rain came down in torrents. For twenty-four hours the hurricane lasted
and the ship kept dodging under the lee of the south end of Stewart’s
Island, then gradually the storm abated and the wind veered into the
north-west, the ship was put on her course for Wellington, where we
arrived safely in a few days.