PROGRESS OF THE VOYAGE.
Let people say what they please of the fine bracing weather of a cold
climate, I have never seen any truth-speaking persons who, on coming
fairly to the trial, did not complain of a cold frosty morning as a
very great nuisance, or who did not cling eagerly to the fire to
unbrace themselves again. For my own part, I have always delighted in
the relaxation caused by hot weather; and, accordingly, I have very
seldom, if ever, felt the weather disagreeably warm, even in India,
especially when sailing on the open sea, or enjoying the free range of
a wide country, under awnings and bungaloes, or stretched in a
palanquin, or shaded by an umbrella on the back of an elephant.
Soldiers and sailors, whose duty exposes them at all hours, either on
a march or in boats, are often struck down by the heat, and sigh with
all their hearts for the bracing frosts of higher latitudes. But those
who have the means of bringing to bear on their comforts the
innumerable contrivances which the ingenuity of wealth has devised in
the East, indeed, make its climate not only bearable, but one of the
most enjoyable in the world.
As we sailed along on our voyage to India, gradually slipping down
from the high to the low latitudes, the sun crept up higher and higher
every day towards the zenith, while the thermometer, of course, rose
likewise. What was most agreeable in this change from cold to warmth
was the little difference between the temperature of the day and that
of the night. As we approached the equator, the thermometer fell only
from 82° in the day-time to 79° or 80° at night, which, on deck, was
delightful. We did not, of course, come to this high temperature all
at once; for on the 6th of May, the day after we passed directly under
the sun, the average of the twenty-four hours was 73°, and at night
69° and 70°.
It is not to be imagined that everyone was pleased with these changes;
for on board ship, as on shore, there exist discontented spirits,
whose acquired habit it is to find fault with the existing state of
things, be these what they may. To such cantankerous folks a growl of
misery would really seem to be the great paradoxical happiness of
their lives, and, in the absence of real hardship, it is part of your
thorough-bred growler to prophesy. I have seen a middy of this stamp
glad to find, on coming below, that some insignificant portion of his
dinner really had been devoured by his hungry messmates, while he
himself was keeping his watch on deck.
"I am used worse than a dog!" he would cry, secretly delighted to have
gained the luxury of a grievance, "I can't even get a basin of
pease-soup put by for me; it's an infernal shame, I'll cut the
service!"
The diversity of climate on an Indian voyage furnishes capital nuts
for these perturbed spirits. It is first too cold, then too hot; then
there is not wind enough; then it blows too fresh in the squalls:
by-and-bye the nights are discovered to be abominably close and
sultry, and in the day the fierce flaming downright heat of the sun is
still worse; then the calms are never to be over; or the lying trades,
as they call them, have got capsized, and blow from the west instead
of the east! After the line has been crossed, and the south-east wind
is met with, the weather soon becomes what these ingenious fellows
call too temperate, then it grows too cold again; and next off the
Cape the latitude is too stormy. In this alone they have some reason;
and I have often regretted that, by a royal ordinance of the King of
Portugal, the name of this mighty promontory was changed from Cabo de
Tormentos, the headland of storms, to its present spoony title. In
short, this grand voyage is merely a peristrephic panorama of
miseries, which if they survive, say they, it will be happy for
them.--Happy! Not a whit. It is out of their nature to be happy. To
find fault, to fling away the good the gods provide them, and to
aggravate the pain of every real wound by the impatience of idle
complaints, is their diseased joy. "Evil, be thou my good!" they might
well exclaim; for, instead of heightening the pleasures of life by
full participation, or subduing its inevitable evils, or, at all
events, softening their asperity by enduring with fortitude and
cheerfulness what cannot be helped, these self-tormentors reject what
is substantially pleasing, and cling with habitual but morbid relish
to whatever is disagreeable.
As we glided along, through the Trade-winds, towards the neck of sea
which divides Africa from South America, the symptoms of a change in
climate became daily more manifest. Every skylight and stern window
was thrown wide open, and every cabin scuttle driven out, that a free
draught of air might sweep through the ship all night long. In the
day-time, the pitch in the seams of the upper-deck began to melt, and,
by sticking to the soles of our shoes, plastered the planks, to the
great discomfiture of the captain of the after-guard. The tar, oozing
from the cordage aloft, dropped on our heads, speckled the snow white
boat covers, and obliged us to spread the hammock-cloths, to prevent
the bedding being ruined by the spots. On the larboard or eastern side
of the ship, which, of course, is always presented to the sun when
crossing the Trades on the outward-bound voyage, the pitch and rosin
with which the seams had been payed ran down in little streams across
the lines of paint. To prevent, as far as we could, some of these
annoyances, we spread the awnings over the decks, and triced up the
curtains, fore and aft, while every art was used to introduce air to
all parts of the ship. The half-ports were removed from the main-deck
guns, the gratings put on one side, and as many windsails sent down
the hatchways as could be made to catch a puff of air. Blue trousers
and beaver scrapers soon gave way before the elements, and were
succeeded by nankeens, straw hats, and canvas caps. In the captain's
cabin, where the presence of the governor, our passenger, still kept
up the strait-laced etiquette of the service, coats and epaulettes
appeared at dinner; but in the gun-room, the officers, the instant
they came below, slipped on their light white jackets, and, disdaining
waistcoat, seized their flutes and books, and drew their chairs as
near as possible to the mouth of the windsail. In the midshipmen's
berth, outside in the steerage, the shirt without neckcloth or stock,
and sometimes with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, was the most
fashionable rig. The seamen and marines, of course, dined on the
main-deck, not only that they might enjoy the fresh air breathing
gently in upon them through the ports on the weather side, and
sweeping out again by those to leeward, but that the lower deck might
be kept as cool and airy as possible against the sultry feverish night
season.
On such occasions the men leave their tables and stools below, and
either seat themselves tailor-fashion, or recline Roman-fashion. Nor
is this in the least degree unpleasant; for the deck of a man-of-war
is made as clean every morning as any table, and is kept so during the
day by being swept at least once an hour. Of all the tunes played by
the boatswain's pipe, that which calls the sweepers is the most
frequently heard. When the order is given for dining on deck, the
different messes into which the crew are divided occupy the spots
immediately above their usual mess-places below, as far as the guns
allow of their doing so. It has always struck me as very pleasing, to
see the main-deck covered, from the after hatchway to the cook's
coppers, with the people's messes, enjoying their noon-day repast;
while the celestial grog, with which their hard, dry, salt junk is
washed down, out-matches twenty-fold in Jack's estimation all the thin
potations of those who, in no very courteous language, are called
their betters.
Until we had crossed the North-east Trade, and reached the Calms, the
ship's way through the water was too great to allow of bathing
alongside; but we easily contrived a shower-bath, which answered very
well. This consisted of a packing-box, the bottom of which was
perforated with holes, triced up between two of the skids, near the
gangway, and under the quarter of one of the boats on the booms. A
couple of the top-men with draw-buckets supplied the water from above,
while the bather stood on the main-deck, enjoying the shower. The time
selected for this delightful bath was usually about four o'clock in
the morning, after the middle watch was out, and before the exhausted
officer tumbled into bed. A four hours' walk, indeed, in a sultry
night, be it managed ever so gently, has a tendency to produce a
degree of heat approaching to feverishness; and I have no words to
describe the luxury of standing under a cool shower when the long task
is ended. We were generally just enough fatigued to be sure of a
sound, light, happy sleep, and just enough heated to revel in the
coolest water that was to be had. In fact, we found that of the sea
much too warm, being only two or three degrees below the temperature
of the air. To remedy this, our plan was, to expose a dozen
buckets-full on the gangway at eight or nine o'clock in the evening;
and these, being allowed to stand till morning, became so much cooler
by the evaporation in the night, that the shock was unspeakably
grateful.
Perhaps there is not any more characteristic evidence of our being
within the tropical regions than the company of those picturesque
little animals, the flying-fish. It is true, that a stray one or two
may sometimes be met with far north, making a few short skips out of
the water, and I even remember seeing several close to the edge of the
banks of Newfoundland, in latitude 45°; but it is not until the
voyager has fairly reached the heart of the torrid zone that he sees
the flying-fish in perfection. I have hardly ever observed a person so
dull or unimaginative that his eye did not glisten as he watched a
shoal of flying-fish rise from the sea, and skim along for several
hundred yards. There is something in it so totally dissimilar to
everything else in other parts of the world, that our wonder goes on
increasing every time we see even a single one take its flight. The
incredulity of the old Scotch woman on this head is sufficiently
excusable. "You may hae seen rivers o' milk, and mountains o' sugar,"
said she to her son, returned from a voyage; "but you'll ne'er gar me
believe you have seen a fish that could flee!"
The pleasant Trade, which had wafted us with different degrees of
velocity, over a distance of more than a thousand miles, at last
gradually failed. The sails began to flap gently against the masts, so
gently, indeed, that we half hoped it was caused, not so much by the
diminished force of the breeze, with which we wore very unwilling to
part, as by that long and peculiar swell which,
"In the torrid clime
Dark heaving,"
is productive of oscillating motion on the ship; but the faint
zephyrs, which had coquetted with our languid sails for an hour or
two, at length took their leave, first of the courses, then of the
topsails, and lastly of the royals and the smaller flying kites
aloft. In vain we looked round and round the horizon for some traces
of a return of our old friend the Trade, but could distinguish nothing
save one polished, dark-heaving sheet of glass, reflecting the
unbroken disc of the sun, and the bright clear sky in the moving
mirror beneath. From the heat, which soon became intense, there was no
escape, either on deck or below, aloft in the tops, or still higher on
the cross-trees; neither could we find relief down in the hold; for it
was all the same, except that in the exposed situations we were
scorched or roasted, in the others suffocated. The useless helm was
lashed amidships, the yards were lowered on the cap, and the boats
were dropped into the water, to fill up the cracks and rents caused by
the fierce heat. The occasion was taken advantage of to shift some of
the sails, and to mend others; most of the running-ropes also were
turned end for end. A listless feeling stole over us all, and we lay
about the decks gasping for breath, seeking in vain some alleviation
to our thirst by drink! drink! drink! Alas, the transient indulgence
only made the matter worse!
Meanwhile, our convoy of huge China ships, rolling very slowly on the
top of the long, smooth, and scarcely perceptible ridges, or sinking
as gently between their summits, were scattered in all directions,
with their heads in different ways, some looking homeward again, and
some, as if by instinct, keeping still for the south. How it happens I
do not know, but on occasions of perfect calm, or such as appear to be
perfectly calm, the ships of a fleet generally drift away from one
another; so that, at the end of a few hours, the whole circle bounded
by the horizon is speckled over with these unmanageable hulks, as they
may for the time be considered. It will occasionally happen, indeed,
that two ships draw so near in a calm as to incur some risk of falling
on board one another. I need scarcely mention, that, even in the
smoothest water ever found in the open sea, two large ships coming
into actual contact must prove a formidable encounter. As long as they
are apart their gentle and rather graceful movements are fit subjects
of admiration; and I have often seen people gazing, for an hour at a
time, at the ships of a becalmed fleet, slowly twisting round,
changing their position, and rolling from side to side, as silently as
if they had been in harbour, or accompanied only by the faint,
rippling sound tripping along the water-line, as the copper below the
bends alternately sunk into the sea, or rose out of it, dripping wet,
and shining as bright and clean as a new coin, from the constant
friction of the ocean during the previous rapid passage across the
Trade-winds.
But all this picturesque admiration changes to alarm when ships come
so close as to risk a contact; for these motions, which appear so slow
and gentle to the eye, are irresistible in their force; and as the
chances are against the two vessels moving exactly in the same
direction at the same moment, they must speedily grind or tear one
another to pieces. Supposing them to come in contact side by side, the
first roll would probably tear away the fore and main channels of both
ships; the next roll, by interlacing the lower yards, and entangling
the spars of one ship with the shrouds and backstays of the other,
would in all likelihood bring down all three masts of both ships, not
piecemeal, as the poet hath it, but in one furious crash. Beneath the
ruins of the spars, the coils of rigging, and the enormous folds of
canvas, might lie crushed many of the best hands, who, from being
always the foremost to spring forward in such seasons of danger, are
surest to be sacrificed. After this first catastrophe, the ships would
probably drift away from one another for a little while, only to
tumble together again and again, till they had ground one another to
the water's edge, and one or both of them would fill and go down. In
such encounters it is impossible to stop the mischief, and oak and
iron break, and crumble in pieces, like sealing-wax and pie-crust.
Many instances of such accidents are on record, but I never witnessed
one.
To prevent these frightful _rencontres_ care is always taken to hoist
out the boats in good time, if need be, to tow the ships apart, or,
what is generally sufficient, to tow the ships' heads in opposite
directions. I scarcely know why this should have the effect, but
certainly it appears that, be the calm ever so complete, or dead, as
the term is, a vessel generally forges ahead, or steals along
imperceptibly in the direction she is looking to; possibly from the
conformation of the hull.
Shortly after the Trade-wind left us, a cloud rose in the south, which
soon filled the whole air, and discharged upon us the most furious
shower I ever beheld. The rain fell down in perpendicular lines of
drops, or spouts, without a breath of wind, unaccompanied by thunder
or any other noise, and in one great gush or splash, as if some
prodigious reservoir had been upset over the fleet from the edge of
the cloud.
Our noble commander, delighted with the opportunity of replenishing
his stock of water, called out, "Put shot on each side, and slack all
the stops down, so that the awnings may slope inwards. Get buckets and
empty casks to hand instantly!"
In a few minutes the awnings were half full of water, and a hole
connected with a hose having been prepared beforehand near the lowest
point, where the canvas was weighed down by the shot, a stream
descended as if a cock had been turned. Not a drop of this was lost;
but being carried off, it was poured into a starting-tub at the
hatchway, and so conveyed by a pipe to the casks in the hold. By the
time the squall was over we had filled six or eight butts; and
although not good to drink, from being contaminated by the tar from
the ropes and sails, the water answered admirably for washing, which
was our object in catching it.
Ever since the days of Captain Cook it has been the practice to allow
the crew two washing days per week, on the details of which proceeding
we all know the misery of putting on wet clothes, or sleeping in damp
sheets. Now, a shirt washed in salt water is really a great deal worse
than either; putting on linen washed in salt water, you first dry your
unhappy shirt by exposing it to the sun or the fire till it seems as
free from moisture as any bone; you then put it on, in hopes of
enjoying the benefit of clean linen. Alas, not a whit of enjoyment
follows! For if the air be in a humid state, or you are exposed to
exercise, the treacherous salt, which, when crystallised, has hidden
itself in the fibres of the cloth, speedily melts, and you have all
the tortures of being once more wrapped in moist drapery. In your
agony, you pull it off, run to the galley-range, and toast it over
again; or you hang it up in the fiery heat of the southern sun, and
when not a particle of wet seems to remain, you draw it on a second
time, fancying your job at last complete. But, miserable man that you
are! the insidious enemy still lurks there, and no art we yet know of
will expel him, save and except that of a good sound rinsing in fresh
water.
I need scarcely add, then, that there are few favours of the minor
kind which a considerate captain may bestow on his crew more
appreciated than giving them as much fresh water as will serve to
carry off the abominable salt from their clothes, after they have
first been well scoured in the water of the ocean; it is a great
comfort, and an officer of any activity, by a judicious management of
the ship's regular stock, and, above all, by losing no opportunity of
catching rain water, need seldom be without the means of giving to
each man of his crew a gallon twice a-week during the longest voyage.
It was from an old and excellent officer I first learned, that, by
proper and constant care, this indulgence might almost always be
granted. It is not easy, I freely admit, at all times, and in all
climates, to keep a supply Of washing-water on board. But a captain
ought to do what is right and kind, simply because it is right and
kind, regardless of trouble; and his conduct in this respect should
not be uninfluenced by the manner in which it is received; at all
events, he may be certain that if his favours be not well received,
the fault lies in his manner of giving them. Sailors have the most
acute penetration possible on these occasions; and if the captain be
actuated by any wish except that of doing his duty uniformly and
kindly, the Johnnies will see through it all, and either laugh at him
or hate him.