CHAPTER IV.

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SIGNALLING AT SEA.

The wonderful improvements which have been effected in modes of

communication during the latter part of the present century have

resulted in bridging over space, and bringing the dwellers on this

planet into closer and more constant intercommunion. Submarine cables,

telegraphs, and telephones have each contributed their aid towards the

realisation of Puck’s idea of putting ‘a girdle round the earth;’ and,

as might have been expected, the inventive faculty has been directed,

in some measure at least, towards enabling those ‘who go down to the

sea in ships’ to communicate with each other on the ocean highways with

such facility as might be found practicable under the ever-varying

conditions which obtain at sea.

At no very remote date, the appliances at the command of a shipmaster

who might desire to convey a request to a passing vessel consisted

mainly of a pair of strong lungs and a speaking-trumpet. A variation

was occasionally attempted by the introduction of a plank and a lump of

chalk. The writer remembers having seen an English brig in the South

Atlantic, during a strong gale, attempting to convey to a stately

frigate an intimation that the brig’s chronometer was broken, and that,

in consequence, her worthy captain was at sea, in more senses than one.

The brig, which had been running before the wind, braced up on the

port tack, and ran as close under the frigate’s stern as was deemed

prudent under the circumstances. The captain, clinging to the weather

main rigging with one hand, and using the other as a speaking-trumpet,

yelled forth a sentence or two which met the fate of most utterances

under similar conditions. ‘I’—‘of’—and ‘the’ were faithfully re-echoed

from the hollow of the frigate’s mainsail, but the vital words of the

message were borne away on the wings of the gale. A similar attempt

failed; and finally it occurred to the skipper to write with chalk

upon a tarpaulin hatch-cover the words, ‘Chronometer smashed, bound

Table Bay.’ The tarpaulin with the foregoing legend was exhibited

over the side for a few brief seconds, till a fiercer blast than usual

whirled it high in air, and then bore it away to leeward. Fortunately,

the purport of the writing had been understood on board the frigate,

and no time was lost in displaying a black board with the latitude,

longitude, and magnetic course for Table Bay inscribed thereon. Now, if

the brig had been provided with the International Code of Signals, the

trouble and delay involved in the attempts to communicate by hailing

or by written signs, would have been obviated; and whilst holding on

her course, the hoisting of a few flags would have completed the entire

business in less than five minutes. The Code was certainly in existence

at the date referred to, but its use was neither general nor compulsory.

The peculiar requirements of the service upon which ships of war are

engaged, and the practice of cruising together in fleets or squadrons,

necessitate the establishment of a system of signalling which shall

be both rapid and effective. Such a system has been in operation in

the Royal Navy for many years. Numerous modifications have been made

latterly in the Admiralty signal books; those changes being rendered

necessary by the altered conditions of naval warfare and the scientific

precision which is desirable in the movements of a fleet of warships.

An admiral in command of a fleet has now at his disposal such an

effective equipment and complete organisation as would enable him to

manœuvre his ships in presence of the enemy with almost mathematical

exactitude. The ‘signal staff’ on board the ship which carries the

flag of the commander-in-chief consists of about twenty persons,

officers and men, whose duty it is to convey the admiral’s orders to

the captains under his command by the varied systems of signalling

prescribed for use in Her Majesty’s ships. The ‘staff’ is divided

into ‘three watches;’ and by day and night, in harbour and at sea, a

vigilant ‘lookout’ is kept, not only on board the flagship, but on

every vessel in the fleet. Each ship on being commissioned is provided

with a General Signal Book, Vocabulary Signal Book, and a semaphore.

For use at night, a flashing lamp, and recently, an electrical

apparatus, are supplied. By an ingenious arrangement, any of the

signals contained in the books may be made during thick weather by the

steam whistle or the fog-horn.

Before putting to sea, a ‘fleet number’ is assigned to each ship, the

admiral’s ship being No. 1, the remaining numbers being distributed

according to the seniority of the respective captains. If the

commander-in-chief wishes his squadron to sail in one line, he

makes the signal, ‘Single column in line ahead,’ by means of three

‘numeral’ flags. This signal, like every other evolutionary signal,

is kept flying at the mast-head until the signal officer reports,

‘All answered, sir.’ The fact that the admiral’s signal is seen and

understood is signified, in the case of tactical orders, by each ship

repeating the flags. When the proper moment arrives for executing the

movement, the flagship’s signal is swiftly hauled down, the helms are

put ‘hard over,’ the ships swing round in the admiral’s wake, and the

evolution is complete.

Communication between the vessels of the fleet is effected at night

by means of the flashing light worked on the short and long flash

principle, invented by Captain Colomb, R.N. There are few sights more

suggestive of the advance in modes of communication and the development

of the inventive faculty than that of the admiral ‘talking’ to his

captains by means of the flashing lamp in the darkness of the night and

far out on the trackless ocean. It may be necessary during the night

to alter the course of the squadron. If the course indicated at sunset

be due north, and it be required to alter the direction to west, all

lights on board the flagship, except the flashing light, are carefully

obscured, and the brilliant rays of a solitary lamp leap through the

darkness conveying the order, ‘Alter course to west.’

The instructions contained in the General Signal Book are varied and

comprehensive. Upwards of a thousand separate signals, adapted to every

probable change of condition and circumstance in times of peace and in

the exigences of battle, are concisely set forth, every tactical order

being elucidated by diagrams showing the direction to be taken and

the position to be assumed by each ship. The Vocabulary Signal Book,

as its name indicates, is a sort of dictionary, but possessing also

the character of a lexicon, as not only words in alphabetical order,

but phrases under their proper heading, are methodically arranged in

its pages. For example, under the heading of ‘Admiral,’ which word

is represented in ‘flag language’ by A.H.V., will be found, ‘Admiral

desires,’ ‘Admiral intends,’ and the cheerful announcement, ‘Admiral

requests the pleasure of your company to dinner.’

It will be seen from the foregoing observations that the signal system

adopted in the Royal Navy approaches as near to perfection as is

possible under the circumstances; and therefore, when the occasion

arose for a revision of the mercantile signal code, the Committee

appointed by the Board of Trade for that purpose had recourse to the

Admiralty Codes as a basis for the International Code of Signals,

which is now used by most of the maritime countries of the world.

This Code is the universal means of communication between the ships

and signal stations of all nations. Translations of it have been

made by France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Holland, Spain,

Portugal, Sweden, and Norway. The captain of a British vessel being

desirous of conveying a message to an Italian ship, for example,

may do so by simply hoisting the flags indicating the letters which

are found opposite the words that express his meaning in the Code;

and, similarly, vessels of any nationality may communicate with

the utmost facility, although the parties so signalling may be

totally unacquainted with any language but their own. For signalling

purposes, eighteen flags and a copy of the Code are required. The

combinations which are possible with that number of flags amount to

the extraordinary number of seventy-eight thousand six hundred and

forty-two, using two, three, and four flags at one hoist. The Code is

divided into four parts: (1) Brief signals; (2) vocabulary; (3) distant

and boat signals; (4) an appendix containing the distinguishing letters

of every vessel to which a Code signal has been allotted. ‘Urgent

signals’ are made by means of two flags only, and in the following

manner: J.D., You are standing into danger; N.S., I have sprung a leak;

H.M., Man overboard; P.C., Want assistance; mutiny. The square shape of

the uppermost flag, and the number of flags used, indicate the urgent

character of the message, and its specific meaning is ascertained by

reference to the book. Latitude and longitude, geographical and time

signals, are made by three flags. A vocabulary message is transmitted

by using four flags, thus: D.R.Q.L., If you do not carry sail, we shall

part company.

The vocabulary section of the Code is frequently used for messages

which do not strictly refer to matters maritime. The valedictory

‘Farewell’ or the cheerful ‘Welcome’ may be transmitted with quite

as much ease as the purely nautical ‘Square your mainyard.’ Even in

departments of human activity so far removed from marine affairs

as art or politics, the Signal Code may find some application.

During the summer cruise of the British fleet in the Mediterranean

in 1869, and whilst the ships were steaming through the Straits of

Messina, a steamer flying the Turkish flag was sighted steering

towards the harbour. The Code ‘pennant’ hoisted under her ensign

indicated a desire to communicate; and on the signal being answered

from the flagship of the commander-in-chief, the Turkish vessel made

the following communication: D.G.N.H. = Irish; C.P.B.R. = Church;

C.S.L.P. = dislocated; D.J.K.P. = Her Majesty’s government; D.M.G.T.

= surplus. This being rendered into the vernacular, was understood to

mean that the Irish Church Disestablishment Act had been passed by

a large majority. The captain of the steamer, who was an Englishman

in all probability, was laudably anxious to communicate a piece of

information which could not fail to be full of interest to the people

of the English squadron. His use of the verb ‘dislocated’ was forced

upon him by the absence of the word ‘disestablished’ from the Code;

and a similar reason necessitated the substitution of ‘surplus’ for

‘majority.’ Having regard to the circumstances, it will probably be

admitted that the courteous captain’s arrangement, if not strictly

syntactical, was certainly apposite.

Strenuous efforts have been made by the Lords Commissioners of the

Admiralty, the Board of Trade, and the Committee of Lloyd’s Registry

to instruct the officers of the mercantile marine in the use of the

International Code. The Admiralty has ordered that all men belonging

to the Royal Naval Reserve shall receive instruction in its use; and

all candidates for officers’ certificates of competency are required by

the Board of Trade to pass a satisfactory examination in signalling.

Notwithstanding these regulations, there is good reason for believing

that many officers in the merchant service are not so well acquainted

with the working of the Code as they ought to be. Blunders are

frequently committed, either in selecting the wrong signal or confusing

the flags, which lead to serious inconvenience, not to say danger. A

very superficial acquaintance with the Signal Book led the captain

of an English steamer to neglect the ‘vocabulary’ part of the Code,

and have recourse to the singular expedient of using the flags as a

medium for spelling his communication. As read on board the New York

liner to which the signal was directed, it took the cabalistic form

of ‘MCHDRGDWNTW.’ As no flags denoting the vowels are contained in

the Code, the difficulties of spelling were obviously increased; and

it was only by the ingenuity of a passenger on board the liner that a

translation was effected in the shape of, ‘Machinery deranged; want

tow.’ On another occasion, the master of a timber-laden ship bound

from Quebec to Liverpool had been prevented by foggy weather from

taking solar observations for the purpose of verifying his position,

and having sighted a steamer bound to the westward, he hoisted the

prescribed signal, asking the steamer to indicate the latitude and

longitude at the time of meeting. Either through carelessness in

manipulating the flags or from an imperfect acquaintance with the

Code, a position was signalled which located the ship in the immediate

vicinity of Mont Blanc!

Upwards of thirty signal stations have been established at various

points on the coasts of the British Isles, where messages may be

transmitted from passing vessels by means of the International Code;

and there are twenty stations in various parts of the world, as widely

apart as Aden, Ascension, Malta, St Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, and

Skagen in Denmark, where communication may be effected by the same

means. Many of these stations have direct telegraphic connection with

London, so that shipowners may be kept acquainted with the movements

of their vessels, and may also transmit instructions for the guidance

of their captains. It is matter for wonder and regret, notwithstanding

the existence of a carefully elaborated system of signals and a

world-wide network of shore stations, that the use of the Signal Code

is not in any sense compulsory on the part of shipowners. Considering

the innumerable advantages which a speedy means of communication

must afford to all concerned, it is with surprise that one learns,

from a note prefixed to the official Maritime Directory for the past

year, that ‘cases have been reported in which officers at the signal

stations have hoisted the International Code Signals warning ships of

danger, and the ships have been afterwards lost, from the inability

of the masters to read the signals.’ This is a state of affairs which

ought not to be permitted to continue in the interests of the men whose

lives are at stake. Another and still more serious defect in a system

which is admirable in many respects, is the total absence from the Code

of any method of signalling at night. As we have seen, Her Majesty’s

ships are provided with appliances for this purpose which are skilfully

adapted to the end in view; but merchant vessels are absolutely without

the power of communicating after darkness sets in. It is true that by

private arrangement with the shore stations on several parts of the

coast, the steamers belonging to the great Companies may by the use

of certain lights indicate their names and the Company to which they

belong; but this cannot, save in the most elementary sense, be regarded

as a satisfactory method of communication. It is probable that the

night signals in use in the Royal Navy are too complicated in character

to permit of their being learned and worked efficiently without much

more study and practice than can reasonably be expected from the master

of a merchant vessel. Still, it ought to be within the power of science

to suggest some plan for enabling a vessel to signal to ship or shore

during the hours when the perils of the sea are rendered more terrible

by darkness.

In these days, when our ocean highways and harbours are crowded with

shipping, a collision between two of our large iron or steel vessels,

which might happen at any time, would send one of them to the bottom in

a few minutes. Two vessels, each going at a speed of twenty miles an

hour, and sighting one another at two miles off, with this joint speed

of forty miles an hour, would meet in about three minutes. Hence the

importance of a ready and efficient method of signalling.

By the present system, red and green lights are placed on each side of

the vessel, a green light on the starboard side, and a red light on

the port side, with a board shutting off each light from the opposite

side. An officer seeing a coloured light at a distance of two miles has

no indication what course the vessel is steering. Hence the importance

of the apparatus invented by The Right Hon. J. H. A. Macdonald, Q.C.,

M.P., Edinburgh, an Associate of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and

Electricians, which he calls the Electric Holophote Course-indicator,

for the prevention of collisions at sea.

By means of a powerful electric light, the approach of another vessel

is indicated, and information is given at the same time as to what

course she is on and what course she intends to hold to. The light is

also useful for illuminating the water immediately before the ship,

and is also valuable when passing down a river, through shoals, or

close to a lee shore. The instrument consists of a strong reflector,

with an arc light placed in the middle of it, which is affected by

every movement of the helm. As long as the helm is amidships, the

handle cannot be moved at all, but is held firm by two pegs. But if

the helm is moved from amidships, an electric circuit is formed, which

actuates an electro-magnet, and thereby removes one of the pegs. When

the helm is ported, the reflector is set free by the removal of one of

the pegs, so that by working the handle, the light can be swept from

amidships over the starboard bow, and brought back again. If the helm

be starboarded, the reflector is freed from the other peg, so that the

light can be swept from amidships over the port bow and back again. But

as this is a mere side-to-side movement, means are provided for giving

more intelligible information, such as a driver gives when waving his

hand to indicate his course, by a shutter connected with the reflector

in such a way that when the beam has completed its side-movement, the

shutter rises up and obscures the light, and does not drop again until

the reflector has been turned back to its middle position. The shutter

then falls down; and the light being again exposed, the process of

sweeping round to starboard, screening, and bringing back to amidships,

can be repeated as long as the helm remains at port. When the helm is

starboarded, the light can be swept round to port in the same way. The

light is immovable when the helm is amidships, and can be swept only

over the starboard bow when the helm is ported, and only over the port

bow when the helm is starboarded. In order to guard against the risk

of the reflector being carelessly worked by not completing its sweep

either way, the instrument is provided with two tell-tale bells, which

will enable the officer on the bridge to check the working of the

reflector.

In foggy weather, when the light would be ineffective, two steam

whistles can be shunted into action by the reflector handle, one giving

off a succession of short shrill notes, the other a succession of

deep long notes, according as the helm is to starboard or port. This

invention has been awarded a medal at three Exhibitions, including the

Inventories; while Admiral Bedford Pim, one of the nautical jurors, has

styled it an ‘excellent course indicator.’

IN ALL SHADES.

CHAPTER IV.

It was a brilliant, cloudless, tropical day at Agualta Estate,

Trinidad; and the cocoa-nut palms in front of the pretty, picturesque,

low-roofed bungalow were waving gracefully in the light sea-breeze that

blew fresh across the open cane-pieces from the distant horizon of the

broad Atlantic. Most days, indeed, except during the rainy season,

were brilliant enough in all conscience at beautiful Agualta: the sun

blazed all day long in a uniform hazy-white sky, not blue, to be sure,

as in a northern climate, but bluish and cloudless; and the sea shone

below hazy-white, in the dim background, beyond the waving palm-trees,

and the broad-leaved bananas, and the long stretch of bright-green

cane-pieces that sloped down in endless succession towards the beach

and the breakers. Agualta House itself was perched, West India fashion,

on the topmost summit of a tall and lonely rocky peak, a projecting

spur or shoulder from the main mass of the Trinidad mountains. They

chose the very highest and most beautiful situations they could find

for their houses, those old matter-of-fact West Indian planters, not so

much out of a taste for scenery—for their mental horizon was for the

most part bounded by rum and sugar—but because a hilltop was coolest

and breeziest, and coolness is the one great practical desideratum in

a West Indian residence. Still, the houses that they built on these

airy heights incidentally enjoyed the most exquisite prospects; and

Agualta itself was no exception to the general rule in this matter.

From the front piazza you looked down upon a green ravine, crowded

with tree-ferns and other graceful tropical vegetation; on either

side, rocky peaks broke the middle distance with their jagged tors

and precipitous needles; while far away beyond the cane-grown plain

that nestled snugly in the hollow below, the sky-line of the Atlantic

bounded the view, with a dozen sun-smit rocky islets basking like great

floating whales upon the gray horizon. No lovelier view in the whole of

luxuriant beautiful Trinidad than that from the creeper-covered front

piazza of the white bungalow of old Agualta.

Through the midst of the ravine, the little river from which the

estate took its Spanish name—curiously corrupted upon negro lips into

the form of Wagwater—tumbled in white sheets of dashing foam between

the green foliage ‘in cataract after cataract to the sea.’ Here and

there, the overarching clumps of feathery bamboo hid its course for

a hundred yards or so, as seen from the piazza; but every now and

again it gleamed forth, white and conspicuous once more, as it tumbled

headlong down its steep course over some rocky barrier. You could trace

it throughout like a long line of light among all the tangled, glossy,

dark-green foliage of that wild and overgrown tropical gully.

The Honourable James Hawthorn, owner of Agualta, was sitting out in

a cane armchair, under the broad shadow of the great mango-tree on

the grassy terrace in front of the piazza. A venerable gray-haired,

gray-bearded man, with a calm, clear-cut, resolute face, the very

counterpart of his son Edward’s, only grown some thirty years older,

and sterner too, and more unbending.

‘Mr Dupuy’s coming round this morning, Mary,’ Mr Hawthorn said to the

placid, gentle, old lady in the companion-chair beside him. ‘He wants

to look at some oxen I’m going to get rid of, and he thinks, perhaps,

he’d like to buy them.’

‘Mr Dupuy!’ Mrs Hawthorn answered, with a slight shudder of displeasure

as she spoke. ‘I really wish he wasn’t coming. I can’t bear that man,

somehow. He always seems to me the worst embodiment of the bad old days

that are dead and gone, Jamie.’

The old gentleman hummed an air to himself reflectively. ‘We mustn’t be

too hard upon him, my dear,’ he said after a moment’s pause, in a tone

of perfect resignation. ‘They were brought up in a terrible school,

those old-time slavery Trinidad folk, and they can’t help bearing the

impress of a bad system upon them to the very last moment of their

existence. I think so meanly of them for their pride and intolerance,

that I take care not to imitate it. You remember what Shelley says:

“Let scorn be not repaid with scorn.” That’s how I always feel, Mary,

towards Mr Dupuy and all his fellows.’

Mrs Hawthorn bit her lip as she answered slowly: ‘All the same, Jamie,

I wish he wasn’t coming here this morning; and this the English

mail-day too! We shall get our letter from Edward by-and-by, you know,

dear. I hate to have these people coming breaking in upon us the very

day we want to be at home by ourselves, to have a quiet hour alone with

our dear boy over in England.’

‘Here they come, at anyrate, Mary,’ the old gentleman said, pointing

with his hand down the steep ravine to where a couple of men on

mountain ponies were slowly toiling up the long zigzag path that

climbed the shoulder. ‘Here they come, Theodore Dupuy himself, and that

young Tom Dupuy as well, behind him. There’s one comfort, at anyrate,

in the position of Agualta—you can never possibly be taken by surprise;

you can always see your visitors coming half an hour before they get

here.—Run in, dear, and see about having enough for lunch, will you,

for Tom Dupuy’s sure to stop until he’s had a glass of our old Madeira.’

‘I dislike Tom Dupuy, I think, even worse than his old uncle, Jamie,’

the bland old lady answered softly in her pleasant voice, exactly as if

she was saying that she loved him dearly. ‘He’s a horrid young man, so

selfish and narrow-minded; and I hope you won’t ever ask him again to

come to Agualta. I can hardly even manage to be decently polite to him.’

The two strangers slowly wound their way up the interminable zigzags

that led along the steep shoulders of the Agualta peak, and emerged at

last from under the shadow of the green mango grove close beside the

grassy terrace in front of the piazza. The elder of the two, Nora’s

father, was a jovial, round-faced, close-shaven man, with a copious

growth of flowing white hair, that fell in long patriarchal locks

around his heavy neck and shoulders; a full-blooded, easy-going, proud

face to look at, yet not without a certain touch of gentlemanly culture

and old-fashioned courtesy. The younger man, Tom Dupuy, his nephew,

looked exactly what he was—a born boor, awkward in gait and lubberly

in feature, with a heavy hanging lower jaw, and a pair of sleepy

boiled fish eyes, that stared vacantly out in sheepish wonder upon a

hopelessly dull and blank creation.

Mr Hawthorn moved courteously to the gate to meet them. ‘It’s a long

pull and a steep pull up the hill, Mr Dupuy,’ he said as he shook hands

with him. ‘Let me take your pony round to the stables.—Here, Jo!’ to a

negro boy who stood showing his white teeth beside the gateway; ‘put up

Mr Dupuy’s horse, do you hear, my lad, and Mr Tom’s too, will you?—How

are you, Mr Tom? So you’ve come over with your uncle as well, to see

this stock I want to sell, have you?’

The elder Dupuy bowed politely as Mr Hawthorn held out his hand, and

took it with something of the dignified old West Indian courtesy; he

had been to school at Winchester forty years before, and the remote

result of that half-forgotten old English training was still plainly

visible even now in a certain outer urbanity and suavity of demeanour.

But young Tom held out his hand awkwardly like a born boor, and dropped

it again snappishly as soon as Mr Hawthorn had taken it, merely

answering, in a slow drawling West Indian voice, partly caught from his

own negro servants: ‘Yes, I’ve come over to see the stock; we want some

oxen. Cane’s good this season; we shall have a capital cutting.’

‘Is the English mail in?’ Mr Hawthorn asked anxiously, as they took

their seats in the piazza to rest themselves for a while after

their ride, before proceeding to active business. That one solitary

fortnightly channel of communication with the outer world assumes an

importance in the eyes of remote colonists which can hardly even be

comprehended by our bustling, stay-at-home English people.

‘It is,’ Mr Dupuy replied, taking the proffered glass of Madeira from

his host as he answered. Old-fashioned wine-drinking hospitality still

prevails largely in the West Indies. ‘I got my letters just as I was

starting. Yours will be here before long, I don’t doubt, Mr Hawthorn. I

had news, important news in my budget this morning. My daughter, sir,

my daughter Nora, who has been completing her education in England, is

coming out to Trinidad by the next steamer.’

‘You must be delighted at the prospect of seeing her,’ Mr Hawthorn

answered with a slight sigh. ‘I only wish I were going as soon to see

my dear boy Edward.’

Mr Dupuy’s lip curled faintly as he replied in a careless manner: ‘Ah,

yes, to be sure. Your boy’s in England, Mr Hawthorn, isn’t he? If I

recollect right, you sent him to Cambridge.—Ah, yes, I thought so, to

Cambridge. A very excellent thing for you to do with him. If you take

my advice, my dear sir, you’ll let him stop in the old country—a much

better place for him in every way, than this island.’

‘I mean to,’ Mr Hawthorn answered in a low voice. ‘God forbid that I

should ever be a party to bringing him out here to Trinidad.’

‘Oh, certainly not—certainly not. I quite agree with you. Far better

for him to stop where he is, and take his chance of making a living

for himself in England. Not that he can be at any loss in that matter

either. You must be in a position to make him very comfortable too, Mr

Hawthorn! Fine estate, Agualta, and turns out a capital brand of rum

and sugar.’

‘Best vacuum-pan and centrifugal in the whole island,’ Tom Dupuy put in

parenthetically. ‘Turned out four hundred and thirty-four hogsheads of

sugar and three hundred and ninety puncheons of rum last season—largest

yield of any estate in the Windward Islands except Mount Arlington. You

don’t catch me out of it in any matter where sugar’s in question, I can

tell you.’

‘But my daughter, Mr Hawthorn,’ the elder Dupuy went on, smiling,

and sipping his Madeira in a leisurely fashion—‘my daughter means to

come out to join me by the next steamer; and my nephew Tom and I are

naturally looking forward to her approaching arrival with the greatest

anxiety. A young lady in Miss Dupuy’s position, I need hardly say to

you, who has been finishing her education at a good school in England,

comes out to Trinidad under exceptionally favourable circumstances. She

will have much here to interest her in society, and we hope she will

enjoy herself and make herself happy.’

‘For my part,’ Tom Dupuy put in brusquely, ‘I don’t hold at all with

this sending young women from Trinidad across the water to get educated

in England—not a bit of it. What’s the good of it?—that’s what I always

want to know—what’s the good of it? What do they pick up there, I

should like to hear, except a lot of trumpery fal-lal, that turns their

heads, and fills them brimful of all sorts of romantic topsy-turvy

notions? I’ve never been to England myself, thank goodness, and what’s

more, I don’t ever want to go, that’s certain. But I’ve known lots of

fellows that have been, and have spent no end of a heap of money over

their education too, at one place or another—I don’t even know the

names of ’em—and when they’ve come back, so far as I could see, they’ve

never known a bit more about rum or sugar than other fellows that had

never set foot for a single minute outside the island—no, nor for that

matter, not so much either. Of course, it’s all very well for a person

in your son’s position, Mr Hawthorn; that’s quite another matter. He’s

gone to England, and he’s going to stay there. If I were he, I should

do as he does. But what on earth can be the use of sending a girl in my

cousin Nora’s station in life over to England, just on purpose to set

her against her own flesh and blood and her own people? Why, it really

passes my comprehension.’

Mr Dupuy’s forehead puckered slightly as Tom spoke, and the corners of

his mouth twitched ominously; but he answered in a tone of affected

nonchalance: ‘It’s a pity, Mr Hawthorn, that my nephew Tom should take

this unfavourable view of an English education, because, you see, it’s

our intention, as soon as my daughter Miss Dupuy arrives from England,

to arrange a marriage at a very early date between himself and his

cousin Nora. Pimento Valley, as you know, is entailed in the male line

to my nephew Tom; and Orange Grove is in my own disposal, to leave, of

course, to my only daughter. But Mr Tom Dupuy and I both think it would

be a great pity that the family estates should be divided, and should

in part pass out of the family; so we’ve arranged between us that Mr

Tom is to marry my daughter Nora, and that Orange Grove and Pimento

Valley are to pass together to them and to their children’s children.’

‘An excellent arrangement,’ Mr Hawthorn put in, with a slight smile.

‘But suppose—just for argument’s sake—that Miss Dupuy were not to fall

in with it?’

Mr Dupuy’s brow clouded over still more evidently. ‘Not to fall in with

it!’ he cried excitedly, tossing off the remainder of his Madeira—‘not

to fall in with it!—Why, Mr Hawthorn, what do you mean, sir? Of course,

if her father bids her, she’ll fall in with it immediately. If she

doesn’t—why, then, sir, I’ll just simply have to make her. She shall

marry Tom Dupuy the minute I order her to. She should marry a one-eyed

man with a wooden leg if her father commanded it. She shall do whatever

I tell her. I’ll stand no refusing and shilly-shallying. Let me tell

you, sir, if there’s a vice that I hate and detest, it’s the vice of

obstinacy. But I’ll stand no obstinacy.’

‘No obstinacy in those about you,’ Mr Hawthorn put in suggestively.

‘No, sir, no—not in those about me. Other people, of course, I can’t be

answerable for, though I’d like to flog every obstinate fellow I come

across, just to cure him of his confounded temper. O no, sir; I can’t

endure obstinacy—in man or beast, I can’t endure it.’

‘So it would seem,’ Mr Hawthorn replied drily. ‘I hope sincerely,

Miss Dupuy will find the choice you have made for her a suitable and

satisfactory one.’

‘Suitable, sir! Why, of course it’s suitable; and as to satisfactory,

well, if I say she’s got to take him, she’ll have to be satisfied with

him, willy-nilly.’

‘But she won’t!’ Tom Dupuy interrupted sullenly, flicking his boot with

his short riding-whip in a vicious fashion. ‘She won’t, you may take my

word for it, Uncle Theodore. I can’t imagine why it is; but these young

women who’ve been educated in England, they’ll never be satisfied with

a planter for a husband. They think a gentleman and a son of gentlemen

for fifty generations isn’t a good enough match for such fine ladies

as themselves; and they go running off after some of these red-coated

military fellows down in the garrison over yonder, many of whom, to

my certain knowledge, Mr Hawthorn, are nothing more than the sons of

tradesmen across there in England. I’ll bet you a sovereign, Uncle

Theodore, that Nora’ll refuse to so much as look at the heir of Pimento

Valley, the minute she sees him.’

‘But why do you think so, Mr Tom,’ their host put in, ‘before the young

lady has even landed on the island?’

‘Ah, I know well enough,’ Tom Dupuy answered, with a curious leer

of unintelligent cunning. ‘I know the ways and the habits of the

women. They go away over there to England; they get themselves

crammed with French and German, and music and drawing, and all kinds

of unnecessary accomplishments. They pick up a lot of nonsensical

new-fangled notions about Am I not a Man and a Brother? and all that

kind of humbug. They think an awful lot of themselves because they can

play and sing and gabble Italian. And they despise us West Indians,

gentlemen and planters, because we can’t parley-voo all their precious

foreign lingoes, and don’t know as much as they do about who composed

_Yankee Doodle_. I know them—I know them; I know their ways and their

manners. Culture they call it. I call it a precious lot of trumpery

nonsense. Why, Mr Hawthorn, I assure you I’ve known some of these fine

new-fangled English-taught young women who’d sooner talk to a coloured

doctor, as black as a common nigger almost, just because he’d been

educated at Oxford, or Edinburgh, or somewhere, than to me myself, the

tenth Dupuy in lineal succession at Pimento Valley.’

‘Indeed,’ Mr Hawthorn answered innocently—no other alternative phrase

committing him, as he thought, to so small an opinion on the merits of

the question.—‘But do you know, Mr Tom, I don’t believe any person of

the Dupuy blood is very likely to take up with these strange modern

English heresies that so much surprise you.’

‘Quite true, sir,’ Mr Dupuy the elder answered with prompt

self-satisfaction, mistaking his host’s delicate tone of covert satire

for the voice of hearty concurrence and full approval. ‘You’re quite

right there, Mr Hawthorn, I’m certain. No born Dupuy of Orange Grove

would ever be taken in by any of that silly clap-trap humanitarian

rubbish. No foolish Exeter Hall nonsense pertains to the fighting

Dupuys, sir, I can assure you—root and branch, not a single ounce of

it. It isn’t in them, Mr Hawthorn—it isn’t in them.’

‘So I think,’ Mr Hawthorn answered quietly. ‘I quite agree with you—it

isn’t in them.’

As he spoke, a negro servant, neatly dressed in a cool white linen

livery, entered the piazza with a small budget of letters on an

old-fashioned Spanish silver salver. Mr Hawthorn took them up eagerly.

‘The English mail!’ he said with an apologetic look towards his two

guests. ‘You’ll excuse my just glancing through them, Mr Dupuy, won’t

you? I can never rest, the moment the mail’s in, until I know that my

dear boy in England is still really well and happy.’

Mr Dupuy nodded assent with a condescending smile; and the master

of Agualta broke open his son’s envelope with a little eager hasty

flutter. He ran his eye hurriedly down the first page; and then, with

a sudden cry, he laid down the letter rapidly on the table, and called

out aloud: ‘Mary, Mary!’

Mrs Hawthorn came out at once from the little boudoir behind the

piazza, whose cool Venetian blinds gave directly upon the part where

they were sitting.

‘Mary, Mary!’ Mr Hawthorn cried, utterly regardless of his two

visitors’ presence, ‘what on earth do you think has happened? Edward’s

coming out to us—coming out immediately. Oh, my poor boy, my poor boy,

this is too unexpected! He’s coming out to us at once, at once, without

a single moment’s warning!’

Mrs Hawthorn took up the letter and read it through hastily with a

woman’s quickness; then she laid it down again, and looked blankly at

her trembling husband in evident distress; but neither of them said a

single word to one another.

The elder Dupuy was the first to break the ominous silence. ‘Not by the

next steamer, I suppose?’ he inquired curiously.

Mr Hawthorn nodded in reply. ‘Yes, yes; by the next steamer.’

As he spoke, Tom Dupuy glanced at his uncle with a meaning glance, and

then went on stolidly as ever: ‘How about these cattle, though, Mr

Hawthorn?’

The old man looked back at him half angrily, half contemptuously.

‘Go and look at the cattle yourself, if you like, Mr Tom,’ he said

haughtily.—‘Here, Jo, you take young Mr Dupuy round to see those Cuban

bullocks in the grass-piece, will you? I shall meet your uncle at the

Legislative Council on Thursday, and then, if he likes, he can talk

over prices with me. I have something else to do at present beside

haggling and debating over the sale of bullocks; I must go down to

Port-of-Spain immediately, immediately—this very minute.—You must

please excuse me, Mr Dupuy, for my business is most important.—Dick,

Isaac, Thomas!—some one of you there, get Pride of Barbadoes saddled

at once, very fast, will you, and bring her round here to me at the

front-door the moment she’s ready.’

‘And Tom,’ the elder Dupuy whispered to his nephew confidentially, as

soon as their host had gone back into the house to prepare for his

journey, ‘I have business, too, in Port-of-Spain, immediately. You go

and look at the bullocks if you like—that’s your department. I shall

ride down the hills at once, and into town with old Hawthorn.’

Tom looked at him with a vacant stare of boorish unintelligence.

‘Why, what do you want to go running off like that for,’ he asked,

open-mouthed, ‘without even waiting to see the cattle? What does it

matter to you, I should like to know, whether old Hawthorn’s precious

son is coming to Trinidad or not, Uncle Theodore?’

The uncle looked back at him with undisguised contempt. ‘Why, you fool,

Tom,’ he answered quietly, ‘you don’t suppose I want to let Nora come

out alone all the way from England to Trinidad in the very same steamer

with that man Hawthorn’s son Edward? Impossible, impossible!—Here,

you nigger fellow you, grinning over there like a chattering monkey,

bring my mare out of the stable at once, sir, will you—do you hear me,

image?—for I’m going to ride down direct to Port-of-Spain this very

minute along with your master. Hurry up, there, jackanapes!’

THE LAND OF FURS.

In 1867, the United States government, for a payment to Russia of

about a million and a half pounds sterling, received in exchange the

strange isolated country in the far north known as Alaska, separated by

one thousand miles of British colonial territory from the republican

frontier. For some years there were constant conflicts with the

Indians, and altogether the early history of the American occupation

of Alaska is not a bright one. The San Franciscan speculators who had

been attracted by hopes of gold and of untold wealth in forests and

fisheries were wofully disappointed, and the majority of them gradually

cleared out again.

A mere glance at the map hardly gives one an idea of the enormous

superficial extent of this outlying possession of our American

cousins. According to the special Report of the United States Census

Commissioners—to which we are mainly indebted for the facts given in

this article—the total area of Alaska is five hundred and thirty-one

thousand four hundred and nine square miles, or about one-sixth of

the entire area of the United States. But one hundred and twenty-five

thousand two hundred and forty-five square miles are wholly within the

arctic circle, an area which has rarely been traversed by the white

man, and upon the coast-borders of which are a few Eskimo villages.

The natives of these, it is sad to learn, are becoming rapidly

deteriorated by commerce with the crews of the whalers which resort

in summer to the neighbourhood, and seek only to barter what natural

produce, in the shape of furs, or oil, or ivory, they can collect for

the means of intoxication. The immense area of the northern division

of Alaska is left to the bear, the fox, the reindeer, and other polar

animals, and to somewhere about three thousand degraded Eskimos.

The largest geographical division of Alaska is that which the United

States officials have named the Yukon section. It is so called because

it comprises the valley of the river Yukon, said to be the largest

river in America, if not in the world, and which discharges into

Behring’s Sea a volume of water estimated at about one-third more

than that of the Mississippi. The Yukon division contains one hundred

and seventy-six thousand seven hundred and fifteen square miles, and

is peopled by four thousand two hundred and seventy-six Eskimos, two

thousand five hundred and fifty-seven Athabaskan Indians, eighteen

whites, and nineteen creoles—total, six thousand eight hundred

and seventy. The occupation of the natives is entirely in hunting

fur-skinned animals, which they barter with the whites for sugar,

flour, tea, cloth, hardware, &c. The money value of the skins bartered

is said to be about fifteen thousand pounds annually. Foxes are the

chief wealth-yielders of this district, and they are found of all

shades, from silver-gray and black to red and snow-white. Next to these

in importance are the skins of the martens (or sables) and land-otters;

and then, but in a much smaller degree, those of the black and brown

bears. The moose-skins and deerskins are all retained by the natives

for their own purposes, for clothing, bedding, &c.

The principal trading-post is called Saint Michael, and here are kept

stocks of coal for the use of the whaling-steamers which force their

way into the arctic seas every year.

The third largest geographical division is called the Kuskokvim

division, from the river which intersects it. The Kuskokvim division

lies to the south of the Yukon division, is bounded on the east by a

range of mountains, on the west by Behring’s Sea, and it comprises the

valleys of three large rivers and an intervening system of lakes. There

is a trading-station called Kalmakovsky, from which are brought down

from the unknown interior, by the natives, skins of beaver, marten,

and fox, which all appear to be very plentiful. This trade is carried

on by a race which appears to be a mixture of the Eskimos and Indians;

but below Kalmakovsky, down to the sea, and along the coast, the

Eskimos alone appear. These Eskimos support themselves mainly by seal

and salmon fishing. The salmon are caught in traps, and are dried upon

poles, which line both banks of the lower river from June to August.

The estuary is very wide, and the tide rushes in with tremendous

force, the rise and fall being very great, sometimes over fifty feet

when the wind is from the south-west.

The houses of the natives are much the same in all the divisions of

Alaska. These dwellings are thus described: ‘A circular mound of earth,

grass-grown and littered with all sorts of household utensils, a small

spiral coil of smoke rising from the apex, dogs crouching, children

climbing up or rolling down, stray morsels of food left from one meal

to the other, and a soft mixture of mud and offal surrounding it all.

The entrance to this house is a low irregular square aperture, through

which the inmate stoops, and passes down a foot or two through a short

low passage on to the earthen floor within. The interior generally

consists of an irregularly shaped square or circle, twelve or fifteen

feet in diameter, receiving its only light from without, through the

small smoke-opening at the apex of the roof, which rises, tent-like,

from the floor. The fireplace is directly under this opening. Rude beds

or couches of skin and grass mats are laid, slightly raised above the

floor, upon clumsy frames made of sticks and saplings or rough-hewn

planks, and sometimes on little elevations built up of peat or sod.

Sometimes a small hall-way with bulging sides is erected over the

entrance, where, by this expansion, room is afforded for the keeping

of utensils and water-vessels and as a shelter for dogs. Immediately

adjoining most of these houses will be found a small summer kitchen,

a rude wooden frame, walled in and covered over with sods, with an

opening at the top to give vent to the smoke. These are entirely above

ground, rarely over five or six feet in diameter, and are littered with

filth and offal of all kinds; serving also as a refuge for the dogs

from the inclement weather. In the interior regions, where both fuel

and building material are more abundant, the houses change somewhat

in appearance and construction; the excavation of the coast-houses,

made for the purpose of saving both, disappears, and gives way to

log-structures above the ground, but still covered with sods. Living

within convenient distance of timber, the people (inland) do not depend

so much upon the natural warmth of mother-earth.’

All the islands in Alaskan waters are mountainous, some of the

elevations rising from four thousand to eight thousand feet; but the

entire division is devoid of trees. The soil is a mixture of loam,

clay, and volcanic detritus; and grasses of all kinds grow in great

abundance. Coal has been discovered in the island of Ounga; but this is

the only mineral riches yet disclosed, although ‘prospecting’ has been

carried on for years. The coal is of very poor quality. The climate

of this division is more temperate than that of the other districts,

and at one time it was thought that the rich grasses might allow of

cattle-breeding on a considerable scale. The long winters, however,

have shown this to be impracticable; and it has been found that hay,

even, can be imported from San Francisco cheaper than it can be grown

and cured on the spot. The only part where cattle are kept by the

priests and white traders is at Oonalashka, and the fact is interesting

as indicating the danger of trusting to poetic descriptions of places.

Thomas Campbell, it may be remembered, speaks of ‘the pilot’ guiding

his bark where

Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow

From wastes that slumber in eternal snow;

And waft across the wave’s tumultuous roar,

The wolf’s long howl from Oonalashka’s shore.

As a matter of fact, the country here is neither ‘wastes,’ nor does

it ‘slumber in eternal snow.’ The summer is warm; the vegetation,

as we have said, is rich; and it may be doubted if the ‘wolf’s long

howl’ has ever been heard by the oldest inhabitant. At anyrate, we

can find no mention of wolves there now, although foxes are abundant

enough. The Aleutian islands are well peopled; and the people are

semi-civilised, the Russians having had relations with them and

settlements and missions among them for more than a century. There

are now schools at which both English and Russian are taught, and

‘stores’ at which the natives can provide themselves with the clothing

of civilisation. The Aleutian ladies, indeed, whose lords have grown

rich with their seal-fishing, can even sport silks on great occasions,

and at all times display a fondness for ribbons and ‘trade’ jewellery.

Only the exceptionally rich, however, can afford bonnets or hats; and

the Russian-peasant fashion of tying a handkerchief over the head is

the prevailing one. The men are especially fond of the broad-crowned,

red-banded caps of the Russian uniforms, which were the first examples

of civilised clothing ever seen on their shores. While the men devote

themselves to the fishing, the women make mats, baskets, cigar-cases,

and other articles of grass-cloth; and they turn out some very delicate

and beautiful work. The waters are rich in fish of all kinds; but the

most important industry is the seal-fishing that is now conducted under

leases from the United States government, which retains the monopoly.

The south coast of the eastern half of the Alaska peninsula, with

the adjacent islands and a portion of the mainland, forms another

geographical division called the Kadiak section. It comprises

altogether some seventy thousand eight hundred and eighty-four

square miles, and has a population of four thousand three hundred

and fifty-two, of which thirty-four are whites, and nine hundred

and seventeen creoles. This district is mountainous, well watered,

abounds in fur-clad animals, and the men, when not hunters, are

fishers. Several settlements and missions were founded by the Russians

in various parts of this district; and at one time there was even a

ship-building establishment in Resurrection Bay. The forests are dense,

and some of the timber is of immense size, especially the spruce.

A narrow strip of coast running from Mount St Elias to the

boundary-line of British Columbia, forms the last or south-eastern

division of Alaska. It covers twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and

eighty square miles, and it forms a wedge of some five hundred miles in

length between Canada and the western sea. In character, this section

of Alaska differs from all the rest, and is essentially similar to

that of the British possessions. It is mountainous and densely wooded;

the forests come quite down to the sea-line, and are very valuable;

the coast is indented by countless bays and fiords, and is sheltered

the greater portion of its length by a chain of islands, forming the

Alexander Archipelago. The spruce and the yellow cedar are the most

valuable of the forest-trees, and the timber of these is annually

exported in considerable quantity. Coal exists on several of the

islands, and at some places on the mainland, but has not been worked

yet to any great extent. Both copper and gold are known to exist,

and have been and are to some extent being mined. Other minerals are

supposed to exist, and the Americans expect that this division of

Alaska will in time become a great mining field. Already the mining

industry has thrown the fur-trade into the second place, and yet

the yield of fox, marten, otter, bear, and beaver skins is annually

very considerable. The hunting is carried on by the natives, who are

of the Thlinket Indian race; the rest of the population of seven

thousand seven hundred and forty-eight being made up of two hundred

and ninety-three whites and two hundred and thirty creoles. Salmon,

halibut, and herring fishing are carried on along the coast; and there

are two or three salting and canning establishments. There are also

factories for the production of oil from the herring, the dog-fish, and

the shark; and on the islands there is some seal-fishing.

The climate of this division is not very cold, the average mean

temperature being forty-three degrees twenty-eight minutes; but the

rainfall is heavy, ranging from eighty to one hundred inches per annum.

The principal settlement of this district is Sitka. Here are the

headquarters of the United States naval station for Alaska, and here

also resides the collector of customs, who is the civil representative

of the government of Washington in the territory. In the time of the

Russians, there were several schools and churches at Sitka, but now

there is only one church, and the teaching is left practically to the

missionaries of the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic bodies.

The total population of the whole of the enormous country called Alaska

is computed at only 33,426, and of this number, only four hundred and

thirty are whites; creoles number 1756; Eskimos, 17,617; Aleuts, 2145;

Athabaskans, 3927; Thlinkets, 6763; and Hydas, 788. Of the habits,

customs, and beliefs of these curious peoples, we may tell something on

another occasion.

To sum up, it may be said that the acquisition of Alaska by the

Americans has been a good deal of a disappointment to them. They

thought it would be an excellent district for extensive settlement

for agricultural purposes, and the country, as we have seen, is quite

unsuited almost everywhere for such purposes. Then they had glowing

dreams of rich mineral deposits; but although gold and silver and coal

have been found, and are being partially worked, the mining industry

is a secondary feature in Alaskan wealth. The extent of the forests,

however, has been found greater than was expected. On this point,

the United States Commissioner thus enlarges: ‘The timber of Alaska

... clothes the steep hills and mountain sides, and chokes up the

valleys of the Alexander Archipelago and the contiguous mainland: it

stretches, less dense, but still abundant, along the inhospitable reach

of territory which extends from the head of Cross Sound to the Kenai

peninsula, where, reaching down to the westward and south-westward as

far as the eastern half of Kadiak Island, and thence across Shelikhof

Strait, it is found on the mainland and on the peninsula bordering on

the same latitude; but it is confined to the interior opposite Kadiak,

not coming down to the coast as far eastward as Cape Douglas. From

the interior of the peninsula, the timber-line over the whole of the

great area of Alaska will be found to follow the coast-line at varying

distances of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles from

the seaboard, until the section of Alaska north of the Yukon mouth

is reached, where a portion of the coast of Norton Sound is directly

bordered by timber as far north as Cape Denbigh. From this point to

the eastward and north-eastward, a line may be drawn just above the

Yukon and its immediate tributaries as the northern limits of timber

to any considerable extent. There are a number of small watercourses

rising here, that find their way into the Arctic, bordered by hills and

lowland ridges, on which some wind-stunted timber is found, even to the

shores of the Arctic Sea.

But although the tree-clothed area is thus enormous, the market value

of the timber is not so great as one might imagine. The most valuable

is the yellow cedar; but this is not nearly so abundant as the spruce

or fir, and even that is not of the very best quality.

More important than the timber is the produce of the waters, for it

is said that in the seas which wash the shores of Alaska there are no

fewer than seventy-five species of food-fishes. Many of these, however,

are only considered as suitable for bait wherewith to catch the richer

kinds. The chief of these is the cod, which abounds off the whole of

the southern coasts, and the catching and curing of which promises to

become an important industry. The quality is said to be quite equal to

the cod of the North Atlantic. We have already spoken of the salmon,

the herring, and halibut, all of which swarm in the waters in shoals of

countless myriads; and there are also many valuable white-fishes, which

at present are caught for native consumption only. Fish, indeed, is the

chief diet in Alaska, and the consumption is enormous.

But the real wealth at present of Alaska rests in the abundance of

its fur-skinned animals. It was for the fur-trade that the Russians

occupied the country after it had been discovered by Behring, and

it was mainly for the fur-trade that the Americans acquired it from

Russia. The extent of the trade has proved greater even than was

expected at the time of the transfer. The shipments of sea-otter and

fur-seal skins alone have more than doubled since 1867, and now average

annually about three hundred thousand pounds in value. Of land-furs, as

they are called, the list is a long one, and in the order of wideness

of distribution may be thus given: land-otter, beaver, brown bear,

black bear, red fox, silver fox, blue and white fox, mink, marten,

polar bear, lynx, and musk-rat. Rabbits, marmots, and wolverines are

also common, but the skins are retained by the natives. The annual

value of the furs, sea and land, now obtained from Alaska is estimated

to average about half a million sterling, and there is no sign of

decrease in the yield. On the contrary, the competition of the traders

for skins has stimulated the natives to greater industry in hunting;

while the prices now paid to the hunters are from four to ten times

more than were current during the Russian rule.

A GOLDEN ARGOSY.

_A NOVELETTE._