It was November, and the morrow of our arrival at Sulina dawned a
dreary, sunless day, rather cold. We spent it waiting for the boat,
which was due from Constantinople. Our pilot, however, surmised
that there had been bad weather for many days in the Black Sea, and
that no captain in the service of the Austrian Lloyd’s would have
ventured to pass the Bosphorus while it lasted. The pilot was a dark,
sharp-featured, timorous Greek, of about forty years of age. His name
was Birbantaki, a name of high account in every port of the Euxine.
So the long and the short Austrian officer--part of our company from
Galatz[1]--very sensibly went out snipe-shooting. They were joined by
the Greek consul; who, having no house here, is living on board one
of the Danube Company’s vessels, called the Metternich. That consul
is driving a very brisk business; for, from the masts of six hundred
of the thousand ships detained here by stress of weather, fluttered
the gay colours of King Otho. Also, with the shooting-party, goes the
agent of the Lloyd Company; a pleasant and influential gentleman, very
popular about here. It is said he had five thousand pounds’ worth of
property--the hard savings of many thrifty years--destroyed by us. If
this be true I shall be surprised to learn it is considered by the
authorities as one of the inevitable private wrongs which are wrought
by all wars. I cannot quite admit such reasoning, however; for surely,
this person is as much entitled to a fair indemnity for the loss of his
property, as were the owners of the British merchantman destroyed by
the Russians at Sinope. By the way, also, what with Count Zamoïski and
Colonel Turr, as well as such little episodes as the agent’s affair,
have we not been playing a very strange little game with Austria? Not
to put too fine a point upon it, may I be bold enough to hint that
we have been soliciting her alliance while slyly tweaking her nose?
I wish, sometimes, that our good folks in authority had taken riper
counsel in these matters; for we have made many needless and many
very bitter enmities. When the shooting party return, therefore, I
am not at all surprised to see a Russian officer with them. He is
a common-looking-man; awkward, dirty, and, seemingly, of no social
importance; but, as he comes on board, two Levantines seize eagerly on
an opportunity of offering a loud insult to an Englishman, and then
strut, blustering and bowing to the Muscovite, after the manner of
their kind.
[Footnote 1: See “The Show Officer,” page 23, of the present volume.]
Mechanically marking these things, and hearing that there was no chance
of our departure that day, I determined to go on shore, and visit all
that avenging fires have left of Sulina. In truth, our prospect from
the steamer was not very cheering. A large timber raft lay alongside
us, with a log hut upon it; where its mouldy, amphibious guardians
lived. They appeared to be always drying the same pair of calico
drawers, on the same stick. Round and round this raft constantly
paddled a froggy-looking fellow, seated in a small canoe roughly hewn
out of the trunk of a tree. His business was to see that none of the
timber drifted away, or was stolen. He was also employed as a sort
of messenger, going to and fro among the ships. He used his single
paddle--shaped something like a spade--with great skill. Our chief
occupation was drowsily watching him. We saw also flocks of wild fowl
in great numbers, flying almost out of sight in the air, and a few
gulls, which perched, from time to time, about our rigging in the most
friendly manner. The only objects of interest were a few Russian boats,
fluttering about the harbour. In them sat Cossacks with hessian boots,
red breeches, and small red turban-shaped peak-less caps. They were the
rude troops of the frontier; clumsy, leaden-faced fellows, who seem to
have grown bloated and unhealthy in the air of the marshes. I was glad
to land, if only for a change.
Sulina is a wretched place. Russia has ruined it, to build up the trade
of Odessa; although it is naturally, perhaps, one of the happiest
commercial sites in the world--the natural outlet of Germany and the
rich corn-lands of the Principalities. So, the shore, which should be
splendid with merchant palaces and populous with busy men from every
nation, has been purposely rendered the very abomination of desolation.
I say purposely, giving ear to a report current among all sailors in
these seas. When the Russian government was reproached with a direct
breach of faith in virtually blockading the mouth of the Danube during
nine months of the year, they took their own way of clearing themselves
from the imputation. It was eminently Russian. A great fuss was made:
men and machines were furiously employed to remove the obstructions;
but everything that was cleared out on one day, was scrupulously
replaced on the next.
The state of the Sulina mouth of the Danube therefore, remains a most
notable scandal. Vessels can only get over the bar when lightened of
their cargoes, and are subject to all manner of official hindrance and
fiscal extortion. They are sometimes detained a whole winter, to the
serious loss of owners, to the stoppage of trade, to the increase of
the price of food; also to the grave injury of the Moldo-Wallachian
ports of Galatz and Ibraila, and the comparative ruin of the navigation
of the whole Danube. Wrecks are awfully numerous; the loss of life,
appalling, as I had after opportunities of observing.
Sulina is, at this time, a miserable collection of huts hastily
run up to meet the pressing exigencies of the moment, being mere
temporary erections of dried reeds. Their interiors--of which I visited
several--presented no incorrect idea of the very extreme of discomfort
in this raw damp climate. In some huts were haggard grisly men asleep,
after an ague fit; and withered women, like the dried figs of a bad
season with respect to personal appearance, cowering over their smoky
fires, and grumbling as they cooked their unsavoury meals, or tore damp
sticks for fuel. They had seldom any furniture besides an earthenware
pan, or a black pot to stew their food. They had also generally a mat
of rushes, dried or undried as the case might be, to sleep on; and
they made fires on the bare earth outside their hovels. The central
streets--mere muddy lanes--were choked up with sailors; among them,
plenty of bad truculent Greeks from the Pirate Islands, seated before
the doors of dram booths, gambling with filthy cards, and swearing
canting oaths in the pauses of their sneaking debauch. On the face
of each skulking rake the stamp of scoundrel was branded, so plainly
that a child might read it. It is a pity that we know these rascals
too well, to connect one pleasant thought with their fine features and
pretty dresses.
These, perhaps, were some of the selfsame revellers who lurked about
the seas as buccaneers at the beginning of the war, armed to the teeth,
and who bore down one night upon a British merchant ship becalmed; who
stabbed the watch; then cut the throats of the sleeping crew; then
played ghastly tricks to their mangled remains; then plundered the
vessel, and then departed. The ship drifted with her dreadful burden
over the beautiful waters of the Ægean, where she was found, some hours
afterwards by a man-of-war’s boat, which put off, irate at having
hoisted signals to the death-laden bark in vain!
From the open doors of other booths and hovels I heard nasal droning
songs, the uncouth sounds of rude instruments, and the shrill tones of
wrangling women of no good repute. Here, also, were a crowd of Maltese
and Ionians, who bring our name into discredit wherever they are known.
Lounging groups of superstitious mariners of the Adriatic added their
lazy figures to the heterogeneous mass--a wild company; amongst whom it
is never prudent to venture; for their knives gleam on small pretence;
and their victims are never heard of more. Human life is held of a
strange cheapness by these miscreants, and the law is powerless.
Towards sundown, I returned to the ship; and, after dinner, as the
evening closed quite in, a wandering Italian boy came on board. He was
one of those itinerant musicians who roam over every country in the
world; gathering up a little hoard with many a stern, unchronicled act
of self-denial, and passing bitter days enough, poor lads, Heaven help
them! This specimen had a hurdygurdy, an ivory whistle, and a rich
impudent voice, with which he trolled forth a number of those ballads
popular in the Austrian and Neapolitan sea-ports. They were mostly in
the form of a dialogue between a young sailor sweetheart, a girl, and
her mother, on the old subject of love and ruse, of which the salt
is savoured among the people of every land, and the fresh, lively
charm is felt from pole to pole. At the end of each verse the singer
always lingered on the last note with an arch relish; and, carrying
it on through his whistle, trilled out a sparkling impromptu chorus,
which had a world of droll life and inuendo in it. Some of the airs he
whistled had a dashing, seafaring pathos, quite captivating; and we
fairly lay back and had a laugh at his roguish jests, as pleasant and
refreshing as is awakened by the airy couplets of a French vaudeville.
Yet those ballads seemed to speak aside to me, with a touching and
eloquent plea for a race whose children have been taught to solace
their captivity with songs, till they have mercifully learned a
wondrous cunning in them; and who (knowing that their hopes are a coin
with which they can buy but shadows) have courted oblivion so long,
that they have found all beauty, freedom, heart-food, their brightest,
quickest life, within a dream.
It was very pretty and affecting to see our captain and his wife--a
lady from Ragusa--exchange bashful smiles and tell-tale glances, as
they both listened to some song which, perhaps revealed their own
story, and invested it with the fascination of a romance. Once, the
volatile sailor was so moved, by an uncontrollable impulse, that he
seized his wife round the waist, and whirled her off in a waltz. It was
a fine tribute to the untaught craft of the singer, whose eyes lighted
up with a minstrel fire, and his feet beat time as he watched them.
When the captain stopped for want of breath, it was but polite to make
a bow, and offer to take the lady round and round again; for there she
stood, offering irresistible invitation, with foot advanced. Then the
other women began to stand up; while the dark-eyed gypsies from Galicia
grouped naturally round the dancers in picturesque attitudes, and
looked on. So we had quite a little ball.
At nine o’clock the trumpets sounded from an Austrian man-of-war on
the station, and the report of a solitary cannon boomed over the sulky
waters. After this, the officers went away, and our little festival
terminated.
So ended the first day we lay in the port of Sulina; and I noticed, as
night came on, that the moon looked veiled and misty; also that light
feathery clouds were flitting about in an unsettled way, as if the
sky were troubled. About eleven o’clock we heard the wind rising. At
first a few sobbing gusts reached us, at intervals, as if they came
from afar off, but making our spars rattle, and our cordage whip the
masts. I could see also, before I turned in, that the sailing-vessels
in the offing had made all taut and trim, and had lowered their yards
for rough weather; but the steamers got their steam up and went out to
sea. From time to time during the night we heard the mournful sound of
distress guns to windward, and now and then a majestic hulk drifted
labouring towards us. The winds and the sea-gulls seemed to whoop in
derision around her, and the waves reared their heads triumphant and
rejoicing.
It was an awful storm. The sea was everywhere convulsed with a pitiless
wrath, and the white foam flashed proud and high, as wave rushed upon
wave in passionate strife. Of the fifteen sail riding yesterday at
anchor yonder, nine broke from their cables, and three lay wrecked in
sight of us. Though we were within the bar, our captain was roused
thrice during the night, and the voices of our crew sounded in alarm
through the darkness; for we were wedged in by shipping, and ever and
again some vessel was driven furiously against us by the might of the
elements; our vessel danced and rolled like a child’s toy, even in its
sheltered place. Our gaunt lean sailors ran to and fro, yelping fears
at every fresh collision, and muttering hasty prayers to the Virgin;
Jews gasped and gabbled to themselves, clutching the handles of their
sea-chests, and keeping always a wary eye upon them; but some Turks who
were with us, sat calmly smoking through it all, uttering no sound but
“God is great.”
Below, in the cabin were the Christian ladies pale and terrified,
and huddled altogether on the sofa by the fire-place. Near them
boozed a gang of sharpers, whom no dread or danger could drag from
the gambling-table. Their blasphemy and hot disputes mingled with the
storm. Perhaps, however, they were impressed equally with us according
to their differing natures, by the grand horror of the scene. Let no
man judge the depth of another’s feeling by the mode of its expression.
The sky above us was the true old leaden grey Crimean colour, which
canopied our sickening armies before Sebastopol last winter. There
was a partial fog over the land. On such a sky looked the helpless
crew of the fated Prince, when her machinery refused to work, and
they were dashed against the iron heights of Balaclava. It was such a
fog which closed round gallant Giffard when the Tiger stranded, and
he could only flash back a hopeless defiance to the Russian guns. On
this low gloomy shore, too--over which the sea-birds swoop and scream
so ominously--dwelt the last dying glance of the young and chivalrous
Parker.
The gale lasted for three days, raging every hour more rudely. The
third day, towards evening, a rain, fine as dust, mingled with the
wind. At night the rain changed to snow, and the cold increased. Then
we had a fall of mingled rain and snow. The wind abated a little
towards morning: but, before noon, there came a perfect hurricane with
rain and snow very fierce. The small snow-flakes were whisked about by
the wind with incredible violence.
Again we counted the work of the night, and numbered five wrecks. A
crowd of Cossacks, assembled round the devoted vessels, were trying to
seize two swollen corpses with grappling hooks. As the drowned bodies,
however, obviously did not belong to any of the wrecks we saw, they had
probably floated to us from some scene of disaster elsewhere. It was a
ghastly thing to see the breakers twirling and tossing about them so
scornfully. God’s images, who, a few days, or perhaps hours, before,
had been like unto ourselves.
Of the wrecked ships the crew of one perished: all hands on board
the rest were saved. At night we saw another fated vessel going to
inevitable destruction; then the darkness hid her. When morning broke
she was among the breakers; but, out of the reach of help, and they
swept disdainfully over her shrieking decks. The miserable crew clung
wildly on to spar and mast, no boat venturing out to save them. We saw
the hungry waves sweep on towards them with a hoarse cry; the keen ice
wind palsying their strength. They were, poor fellows, carried away one
by one. Their contortions were horrible. They writhed, and twisted,
and grappled on to anything they could seize, with despairing energy.
For a little while their shrill screams rose even over the cry of the
elements,--then all was still. Six only of the crew were saved. These,
springing into a boat, dropped over before she struck, and had been
carried as witnesses of Almighty mercy, miraculously to land.
Late in the afternoon of the fifth day, the sun peeped coyly and
ashamed at us, once or twice. Then came the windgusts again, like the
tumultuous sobs of a grief not yet subsided, and the sun was veiled
again, and the storm howled on as before.
Something deserving of notice was that, all the time the hurricane
lasted, a broad streak of sky was distinctly visible towards the east.
It never grew larger or smaller, and its promise of fine weather was
altogether illusory.
We lay fifteen days at the Port of Sulina. At length our wine was
exhausted, and even our provisions ran short; for the bakers lazily
refused to bake us any bread, though the captain himself went to parley
with them. We got a little stringy fresh meat now and then, with
sometimes a fresh fish; but we lived chiefly on raw ham and ship’s
biscuits. The steward--a plump, tight, rich-complexioned Sancho Panza,
with sleek black hair and small roguish eyes--having the distribution
of these delicacies, became a man of importance, and found it a very
good business. Our fore-cabin passengers suffered severely. They
watched us of the after cabin with famished and hateful looks as we
went down to dinner; for their own meals were infinitely more scanty
than ours. The small supply of orthodox food which the Jews also
had brought with them being nearly exhausted, the Greeks, who have
a traditional hatred of the chosen people, taunted them with offers
of pork. It was at once ludicrous and pathetic to see the feverish
trembling indignation, and hear the odd anathemas with which the
children of Israel garrulously replied.
Upon the whole, our position was not so cheerful and exhilarating as
might have been desired by persons fond of comfort and gaiety. To make
it the less inviting, cholera gadded about the neighbourhood with great
activity, and did not contribute materially to raise our spirits, nor
increase our current fund of pleasing anecdote. A guest of our captain,
in sound health and with a noticeable appetite, came and sat with us
at dinner one day. On the next day we asked whether he was coming to
dinner again, and we were told he was buried. One of our passengers
died at breakfast in the midst of us. Moreover, it was an awful sort
of thing to wake in the small hours of the night and hear a man in
the next cabin bemoaning his crimes in a strange tongue; calling on
the saints for mercy, under an impression (likely enough to be true)
that he was attacked by the swift destroyer, and was hastening with
panic-stricken steps on his journey to another world.
Therefore I was truly thankful when the wind at last abated. It was
sometime, however, even then, before our troubles were over; for there
was such a heavy swell that no boat, with sail or oar, dared venture to
convey us from one steamer to the other. A steam-tug would have done
our business in half an hour; but there was no steam-tug.
It was not until the seventeenth day after our arrival that we were at
length delivered from durance. The sea having then grown calmer (though
still running very high) we fired a gun and hoisted signals for the
packet that was to convey us to Constantinople, and which had returned
to her anchorage. So she stood nearer in towards us about mid-day; then
one half of the passengers who had left Galatz with us, nearly three
weeks before, on urgent business, returned whence they came, having
missed their opportunities. The others--I among the number--went over
the bar.
It was a hazardous trip. Our boatmen charged us eighteen ducats, or
about nine pounds; every man in it fairly staking his life against
our money. It was a large boat and well manned; but it shook and
trembled on the waters at the mouth of the river, as if it had been a
cockleshell. Once we were carried quite round, and I made up my mind
to swim for it, if I should lose my grasp on the boat when she turned
over. She righted again, however, and went rearing and pitching forward
for some hundred yards till the danger was over. Not a week before, a
boat with fifteen souls in it had gone down in the very spot where we
met and escaped that peril.
No one knows how long the present infamous condition of the Sulina
mouth of the Danube may last; for few, I am sorry to say, seem
seriously to interest themselves in such questions. I have written
this paper, therefore; not to amuse an idle hour, but with a solemn
and earnest hope that it may be the means of calling general attention
to a matter of European importance. I have rather understated the case
than overstated it; having omitted many things which might have added
to the interest of the description, lest any word should creep in that
might appear fanciful or exaggerated; for I know that a public writer,
who would render any real service to mankind, must simply abide by
indisputable facts.
Let me add, then, that, although it is but a very few weeks ago I was
on the scene I have endeavoured to describe, I learn by the French
papers that no less than sixty vessels have been wrecked since then,
and that three hundred human lives have been lost off the Sulina Mouth.
I have not dared to trifle with the sympathies of the public in this
matter. I have honestly made a plain statement, and venture, with
respectful importunity, to press it on their attention. We have taken
upon ourselves a grave responsibility in these countries, and whenever
Peace is discussed, it behoves us to be mindful of it, so that not in
vain and as to a heedless people may have been confided in trust to our
generation that immense inheritance--the Empire of the Seas.