On the 16th day of June, 1874, the ship _Mary Jane_ sailed from Malta,
heavily laden with cat. This cargo gave us a good deal of trouble. It
was not in bales, but had been dumped into the hold loose. Captain
Doble, who had once commanded a ship that carried coals, said he had
found that plan the best. When the hold was full of cat the hatch was
battened down and we felt good. Unfortunately the mate, thinking the
cats would be thirsty, introduced a hose into one of the hatches and
pumped in a considerable quantity of water, and the cats of the lower
levels were all drowned.
You have seen a dead cat in a pond: you remember its circumference at
the waist. Water multiplies the magnitude of a dead cat by ten. On the
first day out, it was observed that the ship was much strained. She was
three feet wider than usual and as much as ten feet shorter. The
convexity of her deck was visibly augmented fore and aft, but she turned
up at both ends. Her rudder was clean out of water and she would answer
the helm only when running directly against a strong breeze: the rudder,
when perverted to one side, would rub against the wind and slew her
around; and then she wouldn't steer any more. Owing to the curvature of
the keel, the masts came together at the top, and a sailor who had gone
up the foremast got bewildered, came down the mizzenmast, looked out
over the stern at the receding shores of Malta and shouted: "Land, ho!"
The ship's fastenings were all giving way; the water on each side was
lashed into foam by the tempest of flying bolts that she shed at every
pulsation of the cargo. She was quietly wrecking herself without
assistance from wind or wave, by the sheer internal energy of feline
expansion.
I went to the skipper about it. He was in his favorite position, sitting
on the deck, supporting his back against the binnacle, making a V of his
legs, and smoking.
"Captain Doble," I said, respectfully touching my hat, which was really
not worthy of respect, "this floating palace is afflicted with curvature
of the spine and is likewise greatly swollen."
Without raising his eyes he courteously acknowledged my presence by
knocking the ashes from his pipe.
"Permit me, Captain," I said, with simple dignity, "to repeat that this
ship is much swollen."
"If that is true," said the gallant mariner, reaching for his tobacco
pouch, "I think it would be as well to swab her down with liniment.
There's a bottle of it in my cabin. Better suggest it to the mate."
"But, Captain, there is no time for empirical treatment; some of the
planks at the water line have started."
The skipper rose and looked out over the stern, toward the land; he
fixed his eyes on the foaming wake; he gazed into the water to starboard
and to port. Then he said:
"My friend, the whole darned thing has started."
Sadly and silently I turned from that obdurate man and walked forward.
Suddenly "there was a burst of thunder sound!" The hatch that had held
down the cargo was flung whirling into space and sailed in the air like
a blown leaf. Pushing upward through the hatchway was a smooth, square
column of cat. Grandly and impressively it grew--slowly, serenely,
majestically it rose toward the welkin, the relaxing keel parting the
mastheads to give it a fair chance. I have stood at Naples and seen
Vesuvius painting the town red--from Catania have marked afar, upon the
flanks of Ætna, the lava's awful pursuit of the astonished rooster and
the despairing pig. The fiery flow from Kilauea's crater, thrusting
itself into the forests and licking the entire country clean, is as
familiar to me as my mother-tongue. I have seen glaciers, a thousand
years old and quite bald, heading for a valley full of tourists at the
rate of an inch a month. I have seen a saturated solution of mining camp
going down a mountain river, to make a sociable call on the valley
farmers. I have stood behind a tree on the battle-field and seen a
compact square mile of armed men moving with irresistible momentum to
the rear. Whenever anything grand in magnitude or motion is billed to
appear I commonly manage to beat my way into the show, and in reporting
it I am a man of unscrupulous veracity; but I have seldom observed
anything like that solid gray column of Maltese cat!
It is unnecessary to explain, I suppose, that each individual grimalkin
in the outfit, with that readiness of resource which distinguishes the
species, had grappled with tooth and nail as many others as it could
hook on to. This preserved the formation. It made the column so stiff
that when the ship rolled (and the _Mary Jane_ was a devil to roll) it
swayed from side to side like a mast, and the Mate said if it grew much
taller he would have to order it cut away or it would capsize us.
Some of the sailors went to work at the pumps, but these discharged
nothing but fur. Captain Doble raised his eyes from his toes and
shouted: "Let go the anchor!" but being assured that nobody was touching
it, apologized and resumed his revery. The chaplain said if there were
no objections he would like to offer up a prayer, and a gambler from
Chicago, producing a pack of cards, proposed to throw round for the
first jack. The parson's plan was adopted, and as he uttered the final
"amen," the cats struck up a hymn.
All the living ones were now above deck, and every mother's son of them
sang. Each had a pretty fair voice, but no ear. Nearly all their notes
in the upper register were more or less cracked and disobedient. The
remarkable thing about the voices was their range. In that crowd were
cats of seventeen octaves, and the average could not have been less than
twelve.
Number of cats, as per invoice..... 127,000
Estimated number dead swellers..... 6,000
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Total songsters................ 121,000
Average number octaves per cat..... 12
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Total octaves................ 1,452,000
It was a great concert. It lasted three days and nights, or, counting
each night as seven days, twenty-four days altogether, and we could not
go below for provisions. At the end of that time the cook came for'd
shaking up some beans in a hat, and holding a large knife.
"Shipmates," said he, "we have done all that mortals can do. Let us now
draw lots."
We were blindfolded in turn, and drew, but just as the cook was forcing
the fatal black bean upon the fattest man, the concert closed with a
suddenness that waked the man on the lookout. A moment later every
grimalkin relaxed his hold on his neighbors, the column lost its
cohesion and, with 121,000 dull, sickening thuds that beat as one, the
whole business fell to the deck. Then with a wild farewell wail that
feline host sprang spitting into the sea and struck out southward for
the African shore!
The southern extension of Italy, as every schoolboy knows, resembles in
shape an enormous boot. We had drifted within sight of it. The cats in
the fabric had spied it, and their alert imaginations were instantly
affected with a lively sense of the size, weight and probable momentum
of its flung bootjack.
"ON WITH THE DANCE!" A REVIEW
I