SOME SUPERIOR OLD “LONDON DOCK” FROM THE WINE-COOLERS OF NEPTUNE.
We had just slid into pleasant weather, drawing near to the Tropics,
when all hands were thrown into a wonderful excitement by an event that
eloquently appealed to many palates.
A man at the fore-top-sail-yard sung out that there were eight or ten
dark objects floating on the sea, some three points off our lee-bow.
“Keep her off three points!” cried Captain Claret, to the
quarter-master at the _cun_.
And thus, with all our batteries, store-rooms, and five hundred men,
with their baggage, and beds, and provisions, at one move of a round
bit of mahogany, our great-embattled ark edged away for the strangers,
as easily as a boy turns to the right or left in pursuit of insects in
the field.
Directly the man on the top-sail-yard reported the dark objects to be
hogsheads. Instantly all the top-men were straining their eyes, in
delirious expectation of having their long _grog fast_ broken at last,
and that, too, by what seemed an almost miraculous intervention. It was
a curious circumstance that, without knowing the contents of the
hogsheads, they yet seemed certain that the staves encompassed the
thing they longed for.
Sail was now shortened, our headway was stopped, and a cutter was
lowered, with orders to tow the fleet of strangers alongside. The men
sprang to their oars with a will, and soon five goodly puncheons lay
wallowing in the sea, just under the main-chains. We got overboard the
slings, and hoisted them out of the water.
It was a sight that Bacchus and his bacchanals would have gloated over.
Each puncheon was of a deep-green color, so covered with minute
barnacles and shell-fish, and streaming with sea-weed, that it needed
long searching to find out their bung-holes; they looked like venerable
old _loggerhead-turtles._ How long they had been tossing about, and
making voyages for the benefit of the flavour of their contents, no one
could tell. In trying to raft them ashore, or on board of some
merchant-ship, they must have drifted off to sea. This we inferred from
the ropes that length-wise united them, and which, from one point of
view, made them resemble a long sea-serpent. They were _struck_ into
the gun-deck, where, the eager crowd being kept off by sentries, the
cooper was called with his tools.
“Bung up, and bilge free!” he cried, in an ecstasy, flourishing his
driver and hammer.
Upon clearing away the barnacles and moss, a flat sort of shell-fish
was found, closely adhering, like a California-shell, right over one of
the bungs. Doubtless this shell-fish had there taken up his quarters,
and thrown his own body into the breach, in order the better to
preserve the precious contents of the cask. The by-standers were
breathless, when at last this puncheon was canted over and a tin-pot
held to the orifice. What was to come forth? salt-water or wine? But a
rich purple tide soon settled the question, and the lieutenant assigned
to taste it, with a loud and satisfactory smack of his lips, pronounced
it Port!
“Oporto!” cried Mad Jack, “and no mistake!”
But, to the surprise, grief, and consternation of the sailors, an order
now came from the quarter-deck to strike the “strangers down into the
main-hold!” This proceeding occasioned all sorts of censorious
observations upon the Captain, who, of course, had authorised it.
It must be related here that, on the passage out from home, the
Neversink had touched at Madeira; and there, as is often the case with
men-of-war, the Commodore and Captain had laid in a goodly stock of
wines for their own private tables, and the benefit of their foreign
visitors. And although the Commodore was a small, spare man, who
evidently emptied but few glasses, yet Captain Claret was a portly
gentleman, with a crimson face, whose father had fought at the battle
of the Brandywine, and whose brother had commanded the well-known
frigate named in honour of that engagement. And his whole appearance
evinced that Captain Claret himself had fought many Brandywine battles
ashore in honour of his sire’s memory, and commanded in many bloodless
Brandywine actions at sea.
It was therefore with some savour of provocation that the sailors held
forth on the ungenerous conduct of Captain Claret, in stepping in
between them and Providence, as it were, which by this lucky windfall,
they held, seemed bent upon relieving their necessities; while Captain
Claret himself, with an inexhaustible cellar, emptied his Madeira
decanters at his leisure.
But next day all hands were electrified by the old familiar sound—so
long hushed—of the drum rolling to grog.
After that the port was served out twice a day, till all was expended.