On Wednesday night the weather was very bad, my balance was strangely
variable, and I was obliged to lean with my knees and elbows against the
sideboard, to prevent myself from falling. Portmanteaus and bags came in
and out of my cabin; an unusual hubbub reigned in the adjoining saloon,
in which two or three hundred packages were making expeditions from one
end to the other, knocking the tables and chairs with loud crashes;
doors slammed, the boards creaked, the partitions made that groaning
noise peculiar to pine wood; bottles and glasses jingled together in
their racks, and a cataract of plates and dishes rolled about on the
pantry floors. I heard the irregular roaring of the screw, and the
wheels beating the water, sometimes entirely immersed, and at others
striking the empty air; by all these signs I concluded that the wind had
freshened, and the steam-ship was no longer indifferent to the billows.
At six o’clock next morning, after passing a sleepless night, I got up
and dressed myself, as well as I could with one hand, while with the
other I clutched at the sides of my cabin, for without support it was
impossible to keep one’s feet, and I had quite a serious struggle to get
on my overcoat. I left my cabin, and helping myself with hands and feet
through the billows of luggage, I crossed the saloon, scrambling up the
stairs on my knees, like a Roman peasant devoutly climbing the steps of
the “Scala santa” of Pontius Pilate; and at last, reaching the deck, I
hung on firmly to the nearest kevel.
No land in sight; we had doubled Cape Clear in the night, and around us
was that vast circumference bounded by the line, where water and sky
appear to meet. The slate-coloured sea broke in great foamless billows.
The “Great Eastern” struck amidships, and, supported by no sail, rolled
frightfully, her bare masts describing immense circles in the air. There
was no heaving to speak of, but the rolling was dreadful, it was
impossible to stand upright. The officer on watch, clinging to the
bridge, looked as if he was in a swing.
From kevel to kevel, I managed to reach the paddles on the starboard
side, the deck was damp and slippery from the spray and mist: I was just
going to fasten myself to a stanchion of the bridge when a body rolled
at my feet.
[Illustration: WHEN A BODY ROLLED AT MY FEET.]
It was Dr. Pitferge, my quaint friend: he scrambled on to his knees, and
looking at me, said,—
“That’s all right, the amplitude of the arc, described by the sides of
the ‘Great Eastern,’ is forty degrees; that is, twenty degrees below the
horizontal, and twenty above it.”
“Indeed!” cried I, laughing, not at the observation, but at the
circumstances under which it was made.
“Yes!” replied the Doctor. “During the oscillation the speed of the
sides is fifty-nine inches per second, a transatlantic boat half the
size takes but the same time to recover her equilibrium.”
“Then,” replied I, “since that is the case, there is an excess of
stability in the ‘Great Eastern.’”
“For her, yes, but not for her passengers,” answered Dean Pitferge
gaily, “for you see they come back to the horizontal quicker than they
care for.”
The Doctor, delighted with his repartee, raised himself, and holding
each other up, we managed to reach a seat on the poop. Dean Pitferge had
come off very well, with only a few bruises, and I congratulated him on
his lucky escape, as he might have broken his neck.
“Oh, it is not over yet,” said he; “there is more trouble coming.”
“To us?”
“To the steamer, and consequently to me, to us, and to all the
passengers.”
“If you are speaking seriously, why did you come on board?”
“To see what is going to happen, for I should not be at all ill-pleased
to witness a shipwreck!” replied the Doctor, looking at me knowingly.
“Is this the first time you have been on board the ‘Great Eastern’?”
“No, I have already made several voyages in her, to satisfy my
curiosity.”
“You must not complain, then.”
“I do not complain; I merely state facts, and patiently await the hour
of the catastrophe.”
Was the Doctor making fun of me? I did not know what to think, his small
twinkling eyes looked very roguish; but I thought I would try him
further.
“Doctor,” I said, “I do not know on what facts your painful prognostics
are founded, but allow me to remind you that the ‘Great Eastern’ has
crossed the Atlantic twenty times, and most of her passages have been
satisfactory.”
“That’s of no consequence; this ship is bewitched, to use a common
expression, she cannot escape her fate; I know it, and therefore have no
confidence in her. Remember what difficulties the engineers had to
launch her; I believe even that Brunel, who built her, died from the
‘effects of the operation,’ as we doctors say.”
“Ah, Doctor,” said I, “are you inclined to be a materialist?”
“Why ask me that question?”
“Because I have noticed that many who do not believe in God believe in
everything else, even in the evil eye.”
“Make fun if you like, sir,” replied the Doctor, “but allow me to
continue my argument. The ‘Great Eastern’ has already ruined several
companies. Built for the purpose of carrying emigrants to Australia, she
has never once been there; intended to surpass the ocean steamers in
speed, she even remains inferior to them.”
“From this,” said I, “it is to be concluded that—”
“Listen a minute,” interrupted the Doctor. “Already one of her captains
has been drowned, and he one of the most skilful, for he knew how to
prevent this rolling by keeping the ship a little ahead of the waves.”
“Ah, well!” said I, “the death of that able man is to be regretted.”
“Then,” continued Dean Pitferge, without noticing my incredulity,
“strange stories are told about this ship; they say that a passenger who
lost his way in the hold of the ship, like a pioneer in the forests of
America, has never yet been found.”
“Ah!” exclaimed I ironically, “there’s a fact!”
“They say, also, that during the construction of the boilers an engineer
was melted by mistake in the steam-box.”
“Bravo!” cried I; “the melted engineer! ‘È ben trovato.’ Do you believe
it, Doctor?”
“I believe,” replied Pitferge, “I believe quite seriously that our
voyage began badly, and that it will end in the same manner.”
“But the ‘Great Eastern’ is a solid structure,” I said, “and built so
firmly that she is able to resist the most furious seas like a solid
block.”
“Solid she is, undoubtedly,” resumed the doctor; “but let her fall into
the hollow of the waves, and see if she will rise again. Maybe she is a
giant, but a giant whose strength is not in proportion to her size; her
engines are too feeble for her. Have you ever heard speak of her
nineteenth passage from Liverpool to New York?”
“No, Doctor.”
“Well, I was on board. We left Liverpool on a Tuesday, the 10th of
December; there were numerous passengers, and all full of confidence.
Everything went well so long as we were protected by the Irish coast
from the billows of the open sea; no rolling, no sea-sickness; the next
day, even, the same stability; the passengers were delighted. On the
12th, however, the wind freshened towards morning; the ‘Great Eastern,’
heading the waves, rolled considerably; the passengers, men and women,
disappeared into the cabins. At four o’clock the wind blew a hurricane;
the furniture began to dance; a mirror in the saloon was broken by a
blow from the head of your humble servant; all the crockery was smashed
to atoms; there was a frightful uproar; eight shore-boats were torn from
the davits in one swoop. At this moment our situation was serious; the
paddle-wheel-engine had to be stopped; an enormous piece of lead,
displaced by a lurch of the vessel, threatened to fall into its
machinery; however, the screw continued to send us on. Soon the wheels
began turning again, but very slowly; one of them had been damaged
during the stoppage, and its spokes and paddles scraped the hull of the
ship. The engine had to be stopped again, and we had to content
ourselves with the screw. The night was fearful; the fury of the tempest
was redoubled; the ‘Great Eastern’ had fallen into the trough of the sea
and could not right herself; at break of day there was not a piece of
ironwork remaining on the wheels. They hoisted a few sails in order to
right the ship, but no sooner were they hoisted than they were carried
away; confusion reigned everywhere; the cable-chains, torn from their
beds, rolled from one side of the ship to the other; a cattle-pen was
knocked in, and a cow fell into the ladies’ saloon through the hatchway;
another misfortune was the breaking of the rudder-chock, so that
steering was no longer possible. Frightful crashes were heard; an oil
tank, weighing over three tons, had broken from its fixings, and,
rolling across the tween-decks, struck the sides alternately like a
battering-ram. Saturday passed in the midst of a general terror, the
ship in the trough of the sea all the time. Not until Sunday did the
wind begin to abate, an American engineer on board then succeeded in
fastening the chains on the rudder; we turned little by little, and the
‘Great Eastern’ righted herself. A week after we left Liverpool we
reached Queenstown. Now, who knows, sir, where we shall be in a week?”