Chapter Six.Afloat. A Storm in Biscay Bay. A Word on Bass’s Beer.For the space of six weeks I lived in clover at Haslar, and at the end of that time my appointment to a sea-going ship came. It was the pleasure of their Lordships the Commissioners, that I should take my passage to the Cape of Good Hope in a frigate, which had lately been put in commission and was soon about to sail. Arrived there, I was to be handed over to the flag-ship on that station for disposal, like so many stones of salt pork. On first entering the service every medical officer is sent for one commission (three to five years) to a foreign station; and it is certainly very proper too that the youngest and strongest men, rather than the oldest, should do the rough work of the service, and go to the most unhealthy stations.The frigate in which I was ordered passage was to sail from Plymouth. To that town I was accordingly sent by train, and found the good ship in such a state of internal chaos—painters, carpenters, sail-makers, and sailors; armourers, blacksmiths, gunners, and tailors; every one engaged at his own trade, with such an utter disregard of order or regularity, while the decks were in such confusion, littered with tools, nails, shavings, ropes, and spars, among which I scrambled, and over which I tumbled, getting into everybody’s way, and finding so little rest for the sole of my foot, that I was fain to beg a week’s leave, and glad when I obtained it. On going on board again at the end of that time, a very different appearance presented itself; everything was in its proper place, order and regularity were everywhere. The decks were white and clean, the binnacles, the brass and mahogany work polished, the gear all taut, the ropes coiled, and the vessel herself sitting on the water saucy as the queen of ducks, with her pennant flying and her beautiful ensign floating gracefully astern. The gallant ship was ready for sea, had been unmoored, had made her trial trips, and was now anchored in the Sound. From early morning to busy noon, and from noon till night, boats glided backwards and forwards between the ship and the shore, filled with the friends of those on board, or laden with wardroom and gunroom stores. Among these might have been seen a shore-boat, rowed by two sturdy watermen, and having on board a large sea-chest, with a naval officer on top of it, grasping firmly a Cremona in one hand and holding a hat-box in the other. The boat was filled with any number of smaller packages, among which were two black portmanteaus, warranted to be the best of leather, and containing the gentleman’s dress and undress uniforms; these, however, turned out to be mere painted pasteboard, and in a very few months the cockroaches—careless, merry-hearted creatures—after eating up every morsel of them, turned their attention to the contents, on which they dined and supped for many days, till the officer’s dress-coat was like a meal-sieve, and his pantaloons might have been conveniently need for a landing-net. This, however, was a matter of small consequence, for, contrary to the reiterated assurance of his feline friend, no one portion of this officer’s uniform held out for a longer period than six months, the introduction of any part of his person into the corresponding portion of his raiment having become a matter of matutinal anxiety and distress, lest a solution of continuity in the garment might be the unfortunate result.About six o’clock on a beautiful Wednesday evening, early in the month of May, our gallant and saucy frigate turned her bows seaward and slowly steamed away from amidst the fleet of little boats that—crowded with the unhappy wives and sweethearts of the sailors—had hung around us all the afternoon. Puffing and blowing a great deal, and apparently panting to be out and away at sea, the good ship nevertheless left her anchorage but slowly, and withal reluctantly, her tears falling thick and fast on the quarter-deck as she went.The band was playing a slow and mournful air, by way of keeping up our spirits.Ihad no friends to say farewell to, there was no tear-bedimmed eye to gaze after me until I faded in distance; so I stood on the poop, leaning over the bulwarks, after the fashion of Vanderdecken, captain of the Flying Dutchman, and equally sad and sorrowful-looking. And what did I see from my elevated situation? A moving picture, a living panorama; a bright sky sprinkled with a few fleecy cloudlets, over a blue sea all in motion before a fresh breeze of wind; a fleet of little boats astern, filled with picturesquely dressed seamen and women waving handkerchiefs; the long breakwater lined with a dense crowd of sorrowing friends, each anxious to gain one last look of the dear face he may never see more. Yonder is the grey-haired father, yonder the widowed mother, the affectionate brother, the loving sister, the fond wife, the beloved sweetheart,—all are there; and not a sigh that is sighed, not a tear that is shed, not a prayer that is breathed, but finds a response in the bosom of some loved one on board. To the right are green hills, people-clad likewise, while away in the distance the steeple of many a church “points the way to happier spheres,” and on the flagstaff at the port-admiral’s house is floating the signal “Fare thee well.”The band has ceased to play, the sailors have given their last ringing cheer, even the echoes of which have died away, and faintly down the wind comes the sound of the evening bells. The men are gathered in little groups on deck, and there is a tenderness in their landward gaze, and a pathos in their rough voices, that one would hardly expect to find.“Yonder’s my Poll, Jack,” says one. “Look, see! the poor lass is crying; blowed if I think I’ll ever see her more.”“There,” says another, “ismyold girl on the breakwater, beside the old cove in the red nightcap.”“That’s my father, Bill,” answers a third. “God bless the dear old chap?”“Good-bye, Jean; good-bye, lass. Ah! she won’t hear me. Blessed if I don’t feel as if I could make a big baby of myself and cry outright.”“Oh! Dick, Dick,” exclaims an honest-looking tar; “I see’d my poor wife tumble down; she had wee Johnnie in her arms, and—and what will I do?”“Keep up your heart, to be sure,” answers a tall, rough son of a gun. “There, she has righted again, only a bit of a swoon ye see. I’ve got neither sister, wife, nor mother, so surely it’smethat ought to be making a noodle of myself; but where’s the use?”An hour or two later we were steaming across channel, with nothing visible but the blue sea all before us, and the chalky cliffs of Cornwall far behind, with the rosy blush of the setting sun lingering on their summits.Then the light faded from the sky, the gloaming star shone out in the east, big waves began to tumble in, and the night breeze blew cold and chill from off the broad Atlantic Ocean.Tired and dull, weary and sad, I went below to the wardroom and seated myself on a rocking chair. It was now that I began to feel the discomfort of not having a cabin. Being merely a supernumerary or passenger, such a luxury was of course out of the question, even had I been an admiral. I was to have a screen berth, or what a landsman would call a canvas tent, on the main or fighting deck, but as yet it was not rigged. Had I never been to sea before, I would have now felt very wretched indeed; but having roughed it in Greenland and Davis Straits in small whaling brigs, I had got over the weakness of sea-sickness; yet notwithstanding I felt all the thorough prostration both of mind and body, which the first twenty-four hours at sea often produces in the oldest and best of sailors, so that I was only too happy when I at last found myself within canvas.By next morning the wind had freshened, and when I turned out I found that the steam had been turned off, and that we were bowling along before a ten-knot breeze. All that day the wind blew strongly from the N.N.E., and increased as night came on to a regular gale of wind. I had seen some wild weather in the Greenland Ocean, but never anything before, nor since, to equal the violence of the storm on that dreadful night, in the Bay of Biscay. We were running dead before the wind at twelve o’clock, when the gale was at its worst, and when the order to light fires and get up steam had been given. Just then we were making fourteen knots, with only a foresail, a fore-topsail, and main-topsail, the latter two close-reefed. I was awakened by a terrific noise on deck, and I shall not soon forget that awakening. The ship was leaking badly both at the ports and scupper-holes; so that the maindeck all around was flooded with water, which lifted my big chest every time the roll of the vessel allowed it to flow towards it. To say the ship was rolling would express but poorly the indescribably disagreeable wallowing motion of the frigate, while men were staggering with anxious faces from gun to gun, seeing that the lashings were all secure; so great was the strain on the cable-like ropes that kept them in their places. The shot had got loose from the racks, and were having a small cannonade on their own account, to the no small consternation of the men whose duty it was to re-secure them. It was literally sea without and sea within, for the green waves were pouring down the main hatchway, adding to the amount of water alreadybelow, where the chairs and other articles of domestic utility were all afloat and making voyages of discovery from one officer’s cabin to another.On the upper deck all was darkness, confusion, and danger, for both the fore and main-topsails had been carried away at the same time, reducing us to one sail—the foresail. The noise and crackling of the riven canvas, mingling with the continuous roar of the storm, were at times increased by the rattle of thunder and the rush of rain-drops, while the lightning played continually around the slippery masts and cordage. About one o’clock, a large ship, apparently unmanageable, was dimly seen for one moment close aboard of us—had we come into collision the consequences must have been dreadful;—and thus for two long hours,till steam was got up, did we fly before the gale, after which the danger was comparatively small.Having spent its fury, having in fact blown itself out of breath, the wind next day retired to its cave, and the waves got smaller and beautifully less, till peace and quietness once more reigned around us.Going on deck one morning I found we were anchored under the very shadow of a steep rock, and not far from a pretty little town at the foot of a high mountain, which was itself covered to the top with trees and verdure, with the white walls of many a quaint-looking edifice peeping through the green—boats, laden with fruit and fish and turtle, surrounded the ship. The island of Madeira and town, of Funchal. As there was no pier, we had to land among the stones. The principal amusement of English residents here seems to be lounging about, cheroot in mouth, beneath the rows of trees that droop over the pavements, getting carried about in portable hammocks, and walking or riding (I rode, and, not being able to get my horse to move at a suitable pace, I looked behind, and found the boy from whom I had hired him sticking like a leech to my animal’s tail, nor would he be shaken off—nor could the horse be induced to kick him off; this is the custom of the Funchalites, and a funny one it is) to the top of the mountain, for the pleasure of coming down in a sleigh, a distance of two miles, in twice as many minutes, while the least deviation from the path would result in a terrible smash against the wall of either side, but I never heard of any such accident occurring.Three days at Madeira, and up anchor again; our next place of call being Saint Helena. Every one has heard of the gentleman who wanted to conquer the world but couldn’t, who tried to beat the British but didn’t, who staked his last crown at a game ofloo, and losing fled, and fleeing was chased, and being chased was caught and chained by the leg, like an obstreperous game-cock, to a rock somewhere in the middle of the sea, on which he stood night and day for years, with his arms folded across his chest, and his cocked hat wrong on, a warning to the unco-ambitious. The rock was Saint Helena, and a very beautiful rock it is too, hill and dell and thriving town, its mountain-sides tilled and its straths and glens containing many a fertile little farm. It is the duty of every one who touches the shores of this far-famed island to make a pilgrimage to Longwood, the burial-place of the “great man.” I have no intention of describing this pilgrimage, for this has been done by dozens before my time, or, if not, it ought to have been: I shall merely add a very noticeable fact, which others may not perchance have observed—both sidesof the road all the way to the tomb are strewn withBass’s beer-bottles, empty of course, and at the grave itself there are hogsheads of them; and the same is the case at every place which John Bull has visited, or where English foot has ever trodden. The rule holds good all over the world; and in the Indian Ocean, whenever I found an uninhabited island, or even reef which at some future day would be an island, if I did not likewise find an empty beer-bottle, I at once took possession in the name of Queen Victoria, giving three hips! and one hurrah! thrice, and singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” without any very distinct notion as to whowasthe jolly fellow; also adding more decidedly “which nobody can deny”—there being no one on the island to deny it.England has in this way acquired much additional territory at my hands, without my having as yet received any very substantial recompense for my services.
For the space of six weeks I lived in clover at Haslar, and at the end of that time my appointment to a sea-going ship came. It was the pleasure of their Lordships the Commissioners, that I should take my passage to the Cape of Good Hope in a frigate, which had lately been put in commission and was soon about to sail. Arrived there, I was to be handed over to the flag-ship on that station for disposal, like so many stones of salt pork. On first entering the service every medical officer is sent for one commission (three to five years) to a foreign station; and it is certainly very proper too that the youngest and strongest men, rather than the oldest, should do the rough work of the service, and go to the most unhealthy stations.
The frigate in which I was ordered passage was to sail from Plymouth. To that town I was accordingly sent by train, and found the good ship in such a state of internal chaos—painters, carpenters, sail-makers, and sailors; armourers, blacksmiths, gunners, and tailors; every one engaged at his own trade, with such an utter disregard of order or regularity, while the decks were in such confusion, littered with tools, nails, shavings, ropes, and spars, among which I scrambled, and over which I tumbled, getting into everybody’s way, and finding so little rest for the sole of my foot, that I was fain to beg a week’s leave, and glad when I obtained it. On going on board again at the end of that time, a very different appearance presented itself; everything was in its proper place, order and regularity were everywhere. The decks were white and clean, the binnacles, the brass and mahogany work polished, the gear all taut, the ropes coiled, and the vessel herself sitting on the water saucy as the queen of ducks, with her pennant flying and her beautiful ensign floating gracefully astern. The gallant ship was ready for sea, had been unmoored, had made her trial trips, and was now anchored in the Sound. From early morning to busy noon, and from noon till night, boats glided backwards and forwards between the ship and the shore, filled with the friends of those on board, or laden with wardroom and gunroom stores. Among these might have been seen a shore-boat, rowed by two sturdy watermen, and having on board a large sea-chest, with a naval officer on top of it, grasping firmly a Cremona in one hand and holding a hat-box in the other. The boat was filled with any number of smaller packages, among which were two black portmanteaus, warranted to be the best of leather, and containing the gentleman’s dress and undress uniforms; these, however, turned out to be mere painted pasteboard, and in a very few months the cockroaches—careless, merry-hearted creatures—after eating up every morsel of them, turned their attention to the contents, on which they dined and supped for many days, till the officer’s dress-coat was like a meal-sieve, and his pantaloons might have been conveniently need for a landing-net. This, however, was a matter of small consequence, for, contrary to the reiterated assurance of his feline friend, no one portion of this officer’s uniform held out for a longer period than six months, the introduction of any part of his person into the corresponding portion of his raiment having become a matter of matutinal anxiety and distress, lest a solution of continuity in the garment might be the unfortunate result.
About six o’clock on a beautiful Wednesday evening, early in the month of May, our gallant and saucy frigate turned her bows seaward and slowly steamed away from amidst the fleet of little boats that—crowded with the unhappy wives and sweethearts of the sailors—had hung around us all the afternoon. Puffing and blowing a great deal, and apparently panting to be out and away at sea, the good ship nevertheless left her anchorage but slowly, and withal reluctantly, her tears falling thick and fast on the quarter-deck as she went.
The band was playing a slow and mournful air, by way of keeping up our spirits.
Ihad no friends to say farewell to, there was no tear-bedimmed eye to gaze after me until I faded in distance; so I stood on the poop, leaning over the bulwarks, after the fashion of Vanderdecken, captain of the Flying Dutchman, and equally sad and sorrowful-looking. And what did I see from my elevated situation? A moving picture, a living panorama; a bright sky sprinkled with a few fleecy cloudlets, over a blue sea all in motion before a fresh breeze of wind; a fleet of little boats astern, filled with picturesquely dressed seamen and women waving handkerchiefs; the long breakwater lined with a dense crowd of sorrowing friends, each anxious to gain one last look of the dear face he may never see more. Yonder is the grey-haired father, yonder the widowed mother, the affectionate brother, the loving sister, the fond wife, the beloved sweetheart,—all are there; and not a sigh that is sighed, not a tear that is shed, not a prayer that is breathed, but finds a response in the bosom of some loved one on board. To the right are green hills, people-clad likewise, while away in the distance the steeple of many a church “points the way to happier spheres,” and on the flagstaff at the port-admiral’s house is floating the signal “Fare thee well.”
The band has ceased to play, the sailors have given their last ringing cheer, even the echoes of which have died away, and faintly down the wind comes the sound of the evening bells. The men are gathered in little groups on deck, and there is a tenderness in their landward gaze, and a pathos in their rough voices, that one would hardly expect to find.
“Yonder’s my Poll, Jack,” says one. “Look, see! the poor lass is crying; blowed if I think I’ll ever see her more.”
“There,” says another, “ismyold girl on the breakwater, beside the old cove in the red nightcap.”
“That’s my father, Bill,” answers a third. “God bless the dear old chap?”
“Good-bye, Jean; good-bye, lass. Ah! she won’t hear me. Blessed if I don’t feel as if I could make a big baby of myself and cry outright.”
“Oh! Dick, Dick,” exclaims an honest-looking tar; “I see’d my poor wife tumble down; she had wee Johnnie in her arms, and—and what will I do?”
“Keep up your heart, to be sure,” answers a tall, rough son of a gun. “There, she has righted again, only a bit of a swoon ye see. I’ve got neither sister, wife, nor mother, so surely it’smethat ought to be making a noodle of myself; but where’s the use?”
An hour or two later we were steaming across channel, with nothing visible but the blue sea all before us, and the chalky cliffs of Cornwall far behind, with the rosy blush of the setting sun lingering on their summits.
Then the light faded from the sky, the gloaming star shone out in the east, big waves began to tumble in, and the night breeze blew cold and chill from off the broad Atlantic Ocean.
Tired and dull, weary and sad, I went below to the wardroom and seated myself on a rocking chair. It was now that I began to feel the discomfort of not having a cabin. Being merely a supernumerary or passenger, such a luxury was of course out of the question, even had I been an admiral. I was to have a screen berth, or what a landsman would call a canvas tent, on the main or fighting deck, but as yet it was not rigged. Had I never been to sea before, I would have now felt very wretched indeed; but having roughed it in Greenland and Davis Straits in small whaling brigs, I had got over the weakness of sea-sickness; yet notwithstanding I felt all the thorough prostration both of mind and body, which the first twenty-four hours at sea often produces in the oldest and best of sailors, so that I was only too happy when I at last found myself within canvas.
By next morning the wind had freshened, and when I turned out I found that the steam had been turned off, and that we were bowling along before a ten-knot breeze. All that day the wind blew strongly from the N.N.E., and increased as night came on to a regular gale of wind. I had seen some wild weather in the Greenland Ocean, but never anything before, nor since, to equal the violence of the storm on that dreadful night, in the Bay of Biscay. We were running dead before the wind at twelve o’clock, when the gale was at its worst, and when the order to light fires and get up steam had been given. Just then we were making fourteen knots, with only a foresail, a fore-topsail, and main-topsail, the latter two close-reefed. I was awakened by a terrific noise on deck, and I shall not soon forget that awakening. The ship was leaking badly both at the ports and scupper-holes; so that the maindeck all around was flooded with water, which lifted my big chest every time the roll of the vessel allowed it to flow towards it. To say the ship was rolling would express but poorly the indescribably disagreeable wallowing motion of the frigate, while men were staggering with anxious faces from gun to gun, seeing that the lashings were all secure; so great was the strain on the cable-like ropes that kept them in their places. The shot had got loose from the racks, and were having a small cannonade on their own account, to the no small consternation of the men whose duty it was to re-secure them. It was literally sea without and sea within, for the green waves were pouring down the main hatchway, adding to the amount of water alreadybelow, where the chairs and other articles of domestic utility were all afloat and making voyages of discovery from one officer’s cabin to another.
On the upper deck all was darkness, confusion, and danger, for both the fore and main-topsails had been carried away at the same time, reducing us to one sail—the foresail. The noise and crackling of the riven canvas, mingling with the continuous roar of the storm, were at times increased by the rattle of thunder and the rush of rain-drops, while the lightning played continually around the slippery masts and cordage. About one o’clock, a large ship, apparently unmanageable, was dimly seen for one moment close aboard of us—had we come into collision the consequences must have been dreadful;—and thus for two long hours,till steam was got up, did we fly before the gale, after which the danger was comparatively small.
Having spent its fury, having in fact blown itself out of breath, the wind next day retired to its cave, and the waves got smaller and beautifully less, till peace and quietness once more reigned around us.
Going on deck one morning I found we were anchored under the very shadow of a steep rock, and not far from a pretty little town at the foot of a high mountain, which was itself covered to the top with trees and verdure, with the white walls of many a quaint-looking edifice peeping through the green—boats, laden with fruit and fish and turtle, surrounded the ship. The island of Madeira and town, of Funchal. As there was no pier, we had to land among the stones. The principal amusement of English residents here seems to be lounging about, cheroot in mouth, beneath the rows of trees that droop over the pavements, getting carried about in portable hammocks, and walking or riding (I rode, and, not being able to get my horse to move at a suitable pace, I looked behind, and found the boy from whom I had hired him sticking like a leech to my animal’s tail, nor would he be shaken off—nor could the horse be induced to kick him off; this is the custom of the Funchalites, and a funny one it is) to the top of the mountain, for the pleasure of coming down in a sleigh, a distance of two miles, in twice as many minutes, while the least deviation from the path would result in a terrible smash against the wall of either side, but I never heard of any such accident occurring.
Three days at Madeira, and up anchor again; our next place of call being Saint Helena. Every one has heard of the gentleman who wanted to conquer the world but couldn’t, who tried to beat the British but didn’t, who staked his last crown at a game ofloo, and losing fled, and fleeing was chased, and being chased was caught and chained by the leg, like an obstreperous game-cock, to a rock somewhere in the middle of the sea, on which he stood night and day for years, with his arms folded across his chest, and his cocked hat wrong on, a warning to the unco-ambitious. The rock was Saint Helena, and a very beautiful rock it is too, hill and dell and thriving town, its mountain-sides tilled and its straths and glens containing many a fertile little farm. It is the duty of every one who touches the shores of this far-famed island to make a pilgrimage to Longwood, the burial-place of the “great man.” I have no intention of describing this pilgrimage, for this has been done by dozens before my time, or, if not, it ought to have been: I shall merely add a very noticeable fact, which others may not perchance have observed—both sidesof the road all the way to the tomb are strewn withBass’s beer-bottles, empty of course, and at the grave itself there are hogsheads of them; and the same is the case at every place which John Bull has visited, or where English foot has ever trodden. The rule holds good all over the world; and in the Indian Ocean, whenever I found an uninhabited island, or even reef which at some future day would be an island, if I did not likewise find an empty beer-bottle, I at once took possession in the name of Queen Victoria, giving three hips! and one hurrah! thrice, and singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” without any very distinct notion as to whowasthe jolly fellow; also adding more decidedly “which nobody can deny”—there being no one on the island to deny it.
England has in this way acquired much additional territory at my hands, without my having as yet received any very substantial recompense for my services.
Chapter Seven.The Modern Roderick Random. Half a Servant. A Pretty Picture.The duties of the assistant-surgeon—the modern Roderick Random—on board a line-of-battle ship are seldom very onerous in time of peace, and often not worth mentioning. Suppose, for example, the reader is that officer. At five bells—half-past six—in the morning, if you happen to be a light sleeper, you will be sensible of some one gliding silently into your cabin, rifling your pockets, and extracting your watch, your money, and other your trinkets; but do not jump out of bed, pray, with the intention of collaring him; it is no thief—only your servant. Formerly this official used to be a marine, with whom on joining your ship you bargained in the following manner.The marine walked up to you and touched his front hair, saying at the same time,—“Idon’t mind looking arter you, sir,” or “I’ll do for you, sir.” On which you would reply,—“All right! what’s your name?” and he would answer “Cheeks,” or whatever his name might be. (Cheeks, that is the real Cheeks, being a sort of visionary soldier—a phantom marine—and very useful at times, answering in fact to the Nobody of higher quarters, who is to blame for so many things,—“Nobody is to blame,” and “Cheeks is to blame,” being synonymous sentences.)Now-a-days Government kindly allows each commissioned officer one half of a servant, or one whole one between two officers, which, at times, is found to be rather an awkward arrangement; as, for instance, you and, say, the lieutenant of marines, have each the half of the same servant, and you wish your half to go on shore with a message, and the lieutenant requires his half to remain on board: the question then comes to be one which only the wisdom of Solomon could solve, in the same way that Alexander the Great loosed the Gordian knot.Your servant, then, on entering your cabin in the morning, carefully and quietly deposits the contents of your pockets on your table, and, taking all your clothes and your boots in his arms, silently flits from view, and shortly after re-enters, having in the interval neatly folded and brushed them. You are just turning round to go to sleep again, when—“Six bells, sir, please,” remarks your man, laying his hand on your elbow, and giving you a gentle shake to insure your resuscitation, and which will generally have the effect of causing you to spring at once from your cot, perhaps in your hurry nearly upsetting the cup of delicious ship’s cocoa which he has kindly saved to you from his own breakfast—a no small sacrifice either, if you bear in mind that his own allowance is by no means very large, and that his breakfast consists of cocoa and biscuits alone—these last too often containing more weevils than flour. As you hurry into your bath, your servant coolly informs you—“Plenty of time, sir. Doctor himself hain’t turned out yet.”“Then,” you inquire, “it isn’t six bells?”“Not a bit on it, sir,” he replies; “wants the quarter.”The rogue has lied to get you up.At seven o’clock exactly you make your way forward to the sick-bay, on the lower deck at the ship’s bows. Now, this making your way forward isn’t by any means such an easy task as one might imagine; for at that hour the deck is swarming with the men at their toilet, stripped to the waist, every man at his tub, lathering, splashing, scrubbing and rubbing, talking, laughing, joking, singing, sweating, and swearing. Finding your way obstructed, you venture to touch one mildly on the bare back, as a hint to move aside and let you pass; the man immediately damns your eyes, then begs pardon, and says he thought it was Bill “at his lark again.” Another who is bending down over his tub you touch more firmly on theos innominatum, and ask him in a free and easy sort of tone to “slue round there.” He “slues round,” very quickly too, but unfortunately in the wrong direction, and ten to one capsizes you in a tub of dirty soapsuds. Having picked yourself up, you pursue your journey, and sing out as a general sort of warning—For the benefit of those happy individuals who never saw, or had to eat, weevils, I may here state that they are small beetles of the exact size and shape of the common woodlouse, and that the taste is rather insipid, with a slight flavour of boiled beans. Never have tasted the woodlouse, but should think the flavour would be quite similar.“Gangway there, lads,” which causes at least a dozen of these worthies to pass such ironical remarks to their companions as—“Out of the doctor’s way there, Tom.”“Let the gentleman pass, can’t you, Jack?”“Port your helm, Mat; the doctor wants you to.”“Round with your stern, Bill; the surgeon’smateis a passing.”“Kick that donkey Jones out of the doctor’s road,”—while at the same time it is always the speaker himself who is in the way.At last, however, you reach the sick-bay in safety, and retire within the screen. Here, if a strict service man, you will find the surgeon already seated; and presently the other assistant enters, and the work is begun. There is a sick-bay man, or dispenser, and a sick-bay cook, attached to the medical department. The surgeon generally does the brain-work, and the assistants the finger-work; and, to their shame be it spoken, there are some surgeons too proud to consult their younger brethren, whom they treat as assistant-drudges, not assistant-surgeons.At eight o’clock—before or after,—the work is over, and you are off to breakfast.At nine o’clock the drum beats, when every one, not otherwise engaged, is required to muster on the quarter-deck, every officer as he comes up lifting his cap, not to the captain, but to the Queen. After inspection the parson reads prayers; you are then free to write, or read, or anything else in reason you choose; and, if in harbour, you may go on shore—boats leaving the ship at regular hours for the convenience of the officers—always premising that one medical man be left on board, in case of accident. In most foreign ports where a ship may be lying, there is no want of both pleasure and excitement on shore. Take for example the little town of Simon’s, about twenty miles from Cape Town, with a population of not less than four thousand of Englishmen, Dutch, Malays, Caffres, and Hottentots. The bay is large, and almost landlocked. The little white town is built along the foot of a lofty mountain. Beautiful walks can be had in every direction, along the hard sandy sea-beach, over the mountains and on to extensive table-lands, or away up into dark rocky dingles and heath-clad glens. Nothing can surpass the beauty of the scenery, or the gorgeous loveliness of the wild heaths and geraniums everywhere abounding. There is a good hotel and billiard-room; and you can shoot where, when, and what you please—monkeys, pigeons, rock rabbits, wild ducks, or cobra-di-capellas. If you long for more society, or want to see life, get a day or two days’ leave. Rise at five o’clock; the morning will be lovely and clear, with the mist rising from its flowery bed on the mountain’s brow, and the sun, large and red, entering on a sky to which nor pen nor pencil could do justice. The cart is waiting for you at the hotel, with an awning spread above. Jump in: crack goes the long Caffre whip; away with a plunge and a jerk go the three pairs of Caffre horses, and along the sea-shore you dash, with the cool sea-breeze in your face, and the water, green and clear, rippling up over the horses’ feet; then, amid such scenery, with such exhilarating weather, in such a life-giving climate, if you don’t feel a glow of pleasure that will send the blood tingling through your veins, from the points of your ten toes to the extreme end of your eyelashes, there must be something radically and constitutionally wrong with you, and the sooner you go on board and dose yourself with calomel and jalap the better.Arrived at Cape Town, a few introductions will simply throw the whole city at your command, and all it contains.I do not intend this as a complete sketch of your trip, or I would have mentioned some of the many beautiful spots and places of interest you pass on the road—Rathfeldas for example, a hotel halfway, a house buried in sweetness; and the country round about, with its dark waving forests, its fruitful fields and wide-spreading vineyards, where the grape seems to grow almost without cultivation; its comfortable farm-houses; and above all its people, kind, generous, and hospitable as the country is prolific.So you see, dear reader, a navy surgeon’s life hath its pleasures. Ah, indeed, it hath! and sorry I am to add, its sufferings too; for a few pages farther on the picture must change: if we get the lights we must needs take the shadows also.
The duties of the assistant-surgeon—the modern Roderick Random—on board a line-of-battle ship are seldom very onerous in time of peace, and often not worth mentioning. Suppose, for example, the reader is that officer. At five bells—half-past six—in the morning, if you happen to be a light sleeper, you will be sensible of some one gliding silently into your cabin, rifling your pockets, and extracting your watch, your money, and other your trinkets; but do not jump out of bed, pray, with the intention of collaring him; it is no thief—only your servant. Formerly this official used to be a marine, with whom on joining your ship you bargained in the following manner.
The marine walked up to you and touched his front hair, saying at the same time,—
“Idon’t mind looking arter you, sir,” or “I’ll do for you, sir.” On which you would reply,—
“All right! what’s your name?” and he would answer “Cheeks,” or whatever his name might be. (Cheeks, that is the real Cheeks, being a sort of visionary soldier—a phantom marine—and very useful at times, answering in fact to the Nobody of higher quarters, who is to blame for so many things,—“Nobody is to blame,” and “Cheeks is to blame,” being synonymous sentences.)
Now-a-days Government kindly allows each commissioned officer one half of a servant, or one whole one between two officers, which, at times, is found to be rather an awkward arrangement; as, for instance, you and, say, the lieutenant of marines, have each the half of the same servant, and you wish your half to go on shore with a message, and the lieutenant requires his half to remain on board: the question then comes to be one which only the wisdom of Solomon could solve, in the same way that Alexander the Great loosed the Gordian knot.
Your servant, then, on entering your cabin in the morning, carefully and quietly deposits the contents of your pockets on your table, and, taking all your clothes and your boots in his arms, silently flits from view, and shortly after re-enters, having in the interval neatly folded and brushed them. You are just turning round to go to sleep again, when—
“Six bells, sir, please,” remarks your man, laying his hand on your elbow, and giving you a gentle shake to insure your resuscitation, and which will generally have the effect of causing you to spring at once from your cot, perhaps in your hurry nearly upsetting the cup of delicious ship’s cocoa which he has kindly saved to you from his own breakfast—a no small sacrifice either, if you bear in mind that his own allowance is by no means very large, and that his breakfast consists of cocoa and biscuits alone—these last too often containing more weevils than flour. As you hurry into your bath, your servant coolly informs you—
“Plenty of time, sir. Doctor himself hain’t turned out yet.”
“Then,” you inquire, “it isn’t six bells?”
“Not a bit on it, sir,” he replies; “wants the quarter.”
The rogue has lied to get you up.
At seven o’clock exactly you make your way forward to the sick-bay, on the lower deck at the ship’s bows. Now, this making your way forward isn’t by any means such an easy task as one might imagine; for at that hour the deck is swarming with the men at their toilet, stripped to the waist, every man at his tub, lathering, splashing, scrubbing and rubbing, talking, laughing, joking, singing, sweating, and swearing. Finding your way obstructed, you venture to touch one mildly on the bare back, as a hint to move aside and let you pass; the man immediately damns your eyes, then begs pardon, and says he thought it was Bill “at his lark again.” Another who is bending down over his tub you touch more firmly on theos innominatum, and ask him in a free and easy sort of tone to “slue round there.” He “slues round,” very quickly too, but unfortunately in the wrong direction, and ten to one capsizes you in a tub of dirty soapsuds. Having picked yourself up, you pursue your journey, and sing out as a general sort of warning—
For the benefit of those happy individuals who never saw, or had to eat, weevils, I may here state that they are small beetles of the exact size and shape of the common woodlouse, and that the taste is rather insipid, with a slight flavour of boiled beans. Never have tasted the woodlouse, but should think the flavour would be quite similar.
“Gangway there, lads,” which causes at least a dozen of these worthies to pass such ironical remarks to their companions as—
“Out of the doctor’s way there, Tom.”
“Let the gentleman pass, can’t you, Jack?”
“Port your helm, Mat; the doctor wants you to.”
“Round with your stern, Bill; the surgeon’smateis a passing.”
“Kick that donkey Jones out of the doctor’s road,”—while at the same time it is always the speaker himself who is in the way.
At last, however, you reach the sick-bay in safety, and retire within the screen. Here, if a strict service man, you will find the surgeon already seated; and presently the other assistant enters, and the work is begun. There is a sick-bay man, or dispenser, and a sick-bay cook, attached to the medical department. The surgeon generally does the brain-work, and the assistants the finger-work; and, to their shame be it spoken, there are some surgeons too proud to consult their younger brethren, whom they treat as assistant-drudges, not assistant-surgeons.
At eight o’clock—before or after,—the work is over, and you are off to breakfast.
At nine o’clock the drum beats, when every one, not otherwise engaged, is required to muster on the quarter-deck, every officer as he comes up lifting his cap, not to the captain, but to the Queen. After inspection the parson reads prayers; you are then free to write, or read, or anything else in reason you choose; and, if in harbour, you may go on shore—boats leaving the ship at regular hours for the convenience of the officers—always premising that one medical man be left on board, in case of accident. In most foreign ports where a ship may be lying, there is no want of both pleasure and excitement on shore. Take for example the little town of Simon’s, about twenty miles from Cape Town, with a population of not less than four thousand of Englishmen, Dutch, Malays, Caffres, and Hottentots. The bay is large, and almost landlocked. The little white town is built along the foot of a lofty mountain. Beautiful walks can be had in every direction, along the hard sandy sea-beach, over the mountains and on to extensive table-lands, or away up into dark rocky dingles and heath-clad glens. Nothing can surpass the beauty of the scenery, or the gorgeous loveliness of the wild heaths and geraniums everywhere abounding. There is a good hotel and billiard-room; and you can shoot where, when, and what you please—monkeys, pigeons, rock rabbits, wild ducks, or cobra-di-capellas. If you long for more society, or want to see life, get a day or two days’ leave. Rise at five o’clock; the morning will be lovely and clear, with the mist rising from its flowery bed on the mountain’s brow, and the sun, large and red, entering on a sky to which nor pen nor pencil could do justice. The cart is waiting for you at the hotel, with an awning spread above. Jump in: crack goes the long Caffre whip; away with a plunge and a jerk go the three pairs of Caffre horses, and along the sea-shore you dash, with the cool sea-breeze in your face, and the water, green and clear, rippling up over the horses’ feet; then, amid such scenery, with such exhilarating weather, in such a life-giving climate, if you don’t feel a glow of pleasure that will send the blood tingling through your veins, from the points of your ten toes to the extreme end of your eyelashes, there must be something radically and constitutionally wrong with you, and the sooner you go on board and dose yourself with calomel and jalap the better.
Arrived at Cape Town, a few introductions will simply throw the whole city at your command, and all it contains.
I do not intend this as a complete sketch of your trip, or I would have mentioned some of the many beautiful spots and places of interest you pass on the road—Rathfeldas for example, a hotel halfway, a house buried in sweetness; and the country round about, with its dark waving forests, its fruitful fields and wide-spreading vineyards, where the grape seems to grow almost without cultivation; its comfortable farm-houses; and above all its people, kind, generous, and hospitable as the country is prolific.
So you see, dear reader, a navy surgeon’s life hath its pleasures. Ah, indeed, it hath! and sorry I am to add, its sufferings too; for a few pages farther on the picture must change: if we get the lights we must needs take the shadows also.
Chapter Eight.A Good Dinner. Enemy on the Port Bow. Man the Life-Boat.We will suppose that the reader still occupies the position of assistant-surgeon in a crack frigate or saucy line-of-battle ship. If you go on shore for a walk in the forenoon you may return to lunch at twelve; or if you have extended your ramble far into the country, or gone to visit a friend or lady-love—though for the latter the gloaming hour is to be preferred—you will in all probability have succeeded in establishing an appetite by half-past five, when the officers’ dinner-boat leaves the pier.Now, I believe there are few people in the world to whom a good dinner does not prove an attraction, and this is what in a large ship one is always pretty sure of, more especially on guest-nights, which are evenings set apart—one every week—for the entertainment of the officers’ friends, one or more of whom any officer may invite, by previously letting the mess-caterer know of his intention. The mess-caterer is the officer who has been elected to superintend the victualling, as the wine-caterer does the liquor department, and a by-no-means-enviable position it is, and consequently it is for ever changing hands. Sailors are proverbial growlers, and, indeed, a certain amount of growling is, and ought to be, permitted in every mess; but it is scarcely fair for an officer, because his breakfast does not please him, or if he can’t get butter to his cheese after dinner, to launch forth his indignation at the poor mess-caterer, who most likely is doing all he can to please. These growlers too never speak right out or directly to the point. It is all under-the-table stabbing.“Such and such a ship that I was in,” says growler first, “and such and such a mess—”“Oh, by George!” says growler second, “Iknew that ship; that was a mess, and no mistake?”“Why, yes,” replies number one, “the lunch we got there was better than the dinner we have in this old clothes-basket.”On guest-nights your friend sits beside yourself, of course, and you attend to his corporeal wants. One of the nicest things about the service, in my opinion, is the having the band every day at dinner; then too everything is so orderly; with our president and vice-president, it is quite like a pleasure party every evening; so that altogether the dinner, while in harbour, comes to be the great event of the day. And after the cloth has been removed, and the president, with a preliminary rap on the table to draw attention, has given the only toast of the evening, the Queen, and due honour has been paid thereto, and the bandmaster, who has been keeking in at the door every minute for the last ten, that he might not make a mistake in the time, has played “God save the Queen,” and returned again to waltzes, quadrilles, or selections from operas,—then it is very pleasant and delightful to loll over our walnuts and wine, and half-dream away the half-hour till coffee is served. Then, to be sure, that little cigar in our canvas smoking-room outside the wardroom door, though the last, is by no means the least pleasant part of thedéjeuner. For my own part, I enjoy the succeeding hour or so as much as any: when, reclining in an easy chair, in a quiet corner, I can sip my tea, and enjoy my favourite author to my heart’s content. You must spare half an hour, however, to pay your last visit to the sick; but this will only tend to make you appreciate your ease all the more when you have done. So the evening wears away, and by ten o’clock you will probably just be sufficiently tired to enjoy thoroughly your little swing-cot and your cool white sheets.At sea, luncheon, or tiffin, is dispensed with, and you dine at half-past two. Not much difference in the quality of viands after all, for now-a-days everything worth eating can be procured, in hermetically sealed tins, capable of remaining fresh for any length of time.There is one little bit of the routine of the service, which at first one may consider a hardship.You are probably enjoying your deepest, sweetest sleep, rocked in the cradle of the deep, and gently swaying to and fro in your little cot; you had turned in with the delicious consciousness of safety, for well you knew that the ship was far away at sea, far from rock or reef or deadly shoal, and that the night was clear and collision very improbable, so you are slumbering like a babe on its mother’s breast—as you are for that matter—for the second night-watch is half spent; when, mingling confusedly with your dreams, comes the roll of the drum; you start and listen. There is a moment’s pause, when birr-r-r-r it goes again, and as you spring from your couch you hear it the third time. And now you can distinguish the shouts of officers and petty officers, high over the din of the trampling of many feet, of the battening down of hatches, of the unmooring of great guns, and of heavy ropes and bars falling on the deck: then succeeds a dead silence, soon broken by the voice of the commander thundering, “Enemy on the port bow;” and then, and not till then, do you know it is no real engagement, but the monthly night-quarters. And you can’t help feeling sorry there isn’t a real enemy on the port bow, or either bow, as you hurry away to the cockpit, with the guns rattling all the while overhead, as if a real live thunderstorm were being taken on board, and was objecting to be stowed away. So you lay out your instruments, your sponges, your bottles of wine, and your buckets of water, and, seating yourself in the midst, begin to read ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ ready at a moment’s notice to amputate the leg of any man on board, whether captain, cook, or cabin-boy.Another nice little amusement the officer of the watch may give himself on fine clear nights is to set fire to and let go the lifebuoy, at the same time singing out at the top of his voice, “Man overboard.”A boatswain’s mate at once repeats the call, and vociferates down the main hatchway, “Life-boat’s crew a-ho-oy!”In our navy a few short but expressive moments of silence ever precede the battle, that both officers and men may hold communion with their God.The men belonging to this boat, who have been lying here and there asleep but dressed, quickly tumble up the ladder pell-mell; there is a rattling of oars heard, and the creaking of pulleys, then a splash in the water alongside, the boat darts away from the ship like an arrow from a bow, and the crew, rowing towards the blazing buoy, save the life of the unhappy man, Cheeks the marine.And thus do British sailors rule the waves and keep old Neptune in his own place.
We will suppose that the reader still occupies the position of assistant-surgeon in a crack frigate or saucy line-of-battle ship. If you go on shore for a walk in the forenoon you may return to lunch at twelve; or if you have extended your ramble far into the country, or gone to visit a friend or lady-love—though for the latter the gloaming hour is to be preferred—you will in all probability have succeeded in establishing an appetite by half-past five, when the officers’ dinner-boat leaves the pier.
Now, I believe there are few people in the world to whom a good dinner does not prove an attraction, and this is what in a large ship one is always pretty sure of, more especially on guest-nights, which are evenings set apart—one every week—for the entertainment of the officers’ friends, one or more of whom any officer may invite, by previously letting the mess-caterer know of his intention. The mess-caterer is the officer who has been elected to superintend the victualling, as the wine-caterer does the liquor department, and a by-no-means-enviable position it is, and consequently it is for ever changing hands. Sailors are proverbial growlers, and, indeed, a certain amount of growling is, and ought to be, permitted in every mess; but it is scarcely fair for an officer, because his breakfast does not please him, or if he can’t get butter to his cheese after dinner, to launch forth his indignation at the poor mess-caterer, who most likely is doing all he can to please. These growlers too never speak right out or directly to the point. It is all under-the-table stabbing.
“Such and such a ship that I was in,” says growler first, “and such and such a mess—”
“Oh, by George!” says growler second, “Iknew that ship; that was a mess, and no mistake?”
“Why, yes,” replies number one, “the lunch we got there was better than the dinner we have in this old clothes-basket.”
On guest-nights your friend sits beside yourself, of course, and you attend to his corporeal wants. One of the nicest things about the service, in my opinion, is the having the band every day at dinner; then too everything is so orderly; with our president and vice-president, it is quite like a pleasure party every evening; so that altogether the dinner, while in harbour, comes to be the great event of the day. And after the cloth has been removed, and the president, with a preliminary rap on the table to draw attention, has given the only toast of the evening, the Queen, and due honour has been paid thereto, and the bandmaster, who has been keeking in at the door every minute for the last ten, that he might not make a mistake in the time, has played “God save the Queen,” and returned again to waltzes, quadrilles, or selections from operas,—then it is very pleasant and delightful to loll over our walnuts and wine, and half-dream away the half-hour till coffee is served. Then, to be sure, that little cigar in our canvas smoking-room outside the wardroom door, though the last, is by no means the least pleasant part of thedéjeuner. For my own part, I enjoy the succeeding hour or so as much as any: when, reclining in an easy chair, in a quiet corner, I can sip my tea, and enjoy my favourite author to my heart’s content. You must spare half an hour, however, to pay your last visit to the sick; but this will only tend to make you appreciate your ease all the more when you have done. So the evening wears away, and by ten o’clock you will probably just be sufficiently tired to enjoy thoroughly your little swing-cot and your cool white sheets.
At sea, luncheon, or tiffin, is dispensed with, and you dine at half-past two. Not much difference in the quality of viands after all, for now-a-days everything worth eating can be procured, in hermetically sealed tins, capable of remaining fresh for any length of time.
There is one little bit of the routine of the service, which at first one may consider a hardship.
You are probably enjoying your deepest, sweetest sleep, rocked in the cradle of the deep, and gently swaying to and fro in your little cot; you had turned in with the delicious consciousness of safety, for well you knew that the ship was far away at sea, far from rock or reef or deadly shoal, and that the night was clear and collision very improbable, so you are slumbering like a babe on its mother’s breast—as you are for that matter—for the second night-watch is half spent; when, mingling confusedly with your dreams, comes the roll of the drum; you start and listen. There is a moment’s pause, when birr-r-r-r it goes again, and as you spring from your couch you hear it the third time. And now you can distinguish the shouts of officers and petty officers, high over the din of the trampling of many feet, of the battening down of hatches, of the unmooring of great guns, and of heavy ropes and bars falling on the deck: then succeeds a dead silence, soon broken by the voice of the commander thundering, “Enemy on the port bow;” and then, and not till then, do you know it is no real engagement, but the monthly night-quarters. And you can’t help feeling sorry there isn’t a real enemy on the port bow, or either bow, as you hurry away to the cockpit, with the guns rattling all the while overhead, as if a real live thunderstorm were being taken on board, and was objecting to be stowed away. So you lay out your instruments, your sponges, your bottles of wine, and your buckets of water, and, seating yourself in the midst, begin to read ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ ready at a moment’s notice to amputate the leg of any man on board, whether captain, cook, or cabin-boy.
Another nice little amusement the officer of the watch may give himself on fine clear nights is to set fire to and let go the lifebuoy, at the same time singing out at the top of his voice, “Man overboard.”
A boatswain’s mate at once repeats the call, and vociferates down the main hatchway, “Life-boat’s crew a-ho-oy!”
In our navy a few short but expressive moments of silence ever precede the battle, that both officers and men may hold communion with their God.
The men belonging to this boat, who have been lying here and there asleep but dressed, quickly tumble up the ladder pell-mell; there is a rattling of oars heard, and the creaking of pulleys, then a splash in the water alongside, the boat darts away from the ship like an arrow from a bow, and the crew, rowing towards the blazing buoy, save the life of the unhappy man, Cheeks the marine.
And thus do British sailors rule the waves and keep old Neptune in his own place.
Chapter Nine.Containing—If not the Whole—Nothing but the Truth.If the disposing, in the service, of even a ship-load of assistant-surgeons, is considered a matter of small moment, my disposal, after reaching the Cape of Good Hope, needs but small comment. I was very soon appointed to take charge of a gunboat, in lieu of a gentleman who was sent to the Naval Hospital of Simon’s Town, to fill a death vacancy—for the navy as well as nature abhors a vacuum. I had seen the bright side of the service, I was now to have my turn of the dark; I had enjoyed life on board a crack frigate, I was now to rough it in a gunboat.The east coast of Africa was to be our cruising ground, and our ship a pigmy steamer, with plenty fore-and-aft about her, but nothing else; in fact, she was Euclid’s definition of a line to a t, length without breadth, and small enough to have done “excellently well” as a Gravesend tug-boat. Her teeth were five: namely, one gigantic cannon, a 65-pounder, as front tooth; on each side a brass howitzer; and flanking these, two canine tusks in shape of a couple of 12-pounder Armstrongs. With this armament we were to lord it with a high hand over the Indian Ocean; carry fire and sword, or, failing sword, the cutlass, into the very heart of slavery’s dominions; the Arabs should tremble at the roar of our guns and the thunder of our bursting shells, while the slaves should clank their chains in joyful anticipation of our coming; and best of all, we—the officers—should fill our pockets with prize-money to spend when we again reached the shores of merry England. Unfortunately, this last premeditation was the only one which sustained disappointment, for, our little craft being tender to the flag-ship of the station, all our hard-earned prize-money had to be equally shared with her officers and crew, which reduced the shares to fewer pence each than they otherwise would have been pounds, and which was a burning shame.It was the Cape winter when I joined the gunboat. The hills were covered with purple and green, the air was deliciously cool, and the far-away mountain-tops were clad in virgin snow. It was twelve o’clock noon when I took my traps on board, and found my new messmates seated around the table at tiffin. The gunroom, called the wardroom by courtesy—for the after cabin was occupied by the lieutenant commanding—was a little morsel of an apartment, which the table and five cane-bottomed chairs entirely filled. The officers were five—namely, a little round-faced, dimple-cheeked, good-natured fellow, who was our second-master; a tall and rather awkward-looking young gentleman, our midshipman; a lean, pert, and withal diminutive youth, brimful of his own importance, our assistant-paymaster; a fair-haired, bright-eyed, laughing boy from Cornwall, our sub-lieutenant; and a “wee wee man,” dapper, clean, and tidy, our engineer, admitted to this mess because he was so thorough an exception to his class, which is celebrated more for the unctuosity of its outer than for the smoothness of its inner man.“Come along, old fellow,” said our navigator, addressing me as I entered the messroom, bobbing and bowing to evade fracture of the cranium by coming into collision with the transverse beams of the deck above—“come along and join us, we don’t dine till four.”“And precious little to dine upon,” said the officer on his right.“Steward, let us have the rum,” (Note 1) cried the first speaker.And thus addressed, the steward shuffled in, bearing in his hand a black bottle, and apparently in imminent danger of choking himself on a large mouthful of bread and butter. This functionary’s dress was remarkable rather for its simplicity than its purity, consisting merely of a pair of dirty canvas pants, a pair of purser’s shoes—innocent as yet of blacking—and a greasy flannel shirt. But, indeed, uniform seemed to be the exception, and not the rule, of the mess, for, while one wore a blue serge jacket, another was arrayed in white linen, and the rest had neither jacket nor vest.The table was guiltless of a cloth, and littered with beer-bottles, biscuits, onions, sardines, and pats of butter.“Look out there, Waddles!” exclaimed the sub-lieutenant; “that beggar Dawson is having his own whack o’ grog and everybody else’s.”“Dang it! I’ll havemytot to-day, I know,” said the assistant-paymaster, snatching the bottle from Dawson, and helping himself to a very liberal allowance of the ruby fluid.“What a cheek the fellow’s got!” cried the midshipman, snatching the glass from the table and bolting the contents at a gulp, adding, with a gasp of satisfaction as he put down the empty tumbler, “The chap thinks nobody’s got a soul to be saved but himself.”“Soul or no soul,” replied the youthful man of money as he gazed disconsolately at the empty glass, “myspirit’sgone.”“Blessed,” said the engineer, shaking the black bottle, “if you devils have left me a drain! see if I don’t look out for A1 to-morrow.”“Where’s the doctor’s grog?” cried the sub-lieutenant.“Ay, where’s the doctor’s?” said another.“Where is the doctor’s?” said a third.And they all said “Where is the doctor’s?” and echo answered “Where?”“Steward!” said the middy.“Ay, ay, sir.”“See if that beggarly bumboat-man is alongside, and get me another pat of butter and some soft tack; get the grub first, then tell him I’ll pay to-morrow.”These and such like scraps of conversation began to give me a little insight into the kind of mess I had joined and the character of my future messmates. “Steward,” said I, “show me my cabin.” He did so; indeed, he hadn’t far to go. It was the aftermost, and consequently the smallest, although Ioughtto have had my choice. It was the most miserable little box I ever reposed in. Had I owned such a place on shore, Imighthave been induced to keep rabbits in it, or guinea-pigs, but certainly not pigeons. Its length was barely six feet, its width four above my cot and two below, and it was minus sufficient standing-room for any ordinary-sized sailor; it was, indeed, a cabin for a commodore—I mean Commodore Nutt—and was ventilated by a scuttle seven inches in diameter, which could only be removed in harbour, and below which, when we first went to sea, I was fain to hang a leather hat-box to catch the water; unfortunately the bottom rotted out, and I was then at the mercy of the waves.My cabin, or rather—to stick to the plain unvarnished truth—my burrow, was alive with scorpions, cockroaches, ants, and other “crawlin’ ferlies.”“That e’en to name would be unlawfu’.”My dispensary was off the steerage, and sister-cabin to the pantry. To it I gained access by a species of crab-walking, squeezing myself past a large brass pump, and edging my body in sideways. The sick came one by one to the dispensary door, and there I saw and treated each case as it arrived, dressed the wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, and bandaged the bad legs. There was no sick-berth attendant; to be sure the lieutenant-in-command, at my request, told off “a little cabin-boy” for my especial use. I had no cause for delectation on such an acquisition, by no means; he was not a model cabin-boy like what you see in theatres, and I believe will never become an admiral. He managed at times to wash out the dispensary, or gather cockroaches, and make the poultices—only in doing the first he broke the bottles, and in performing the last duty he either let the poultice burn or put salt in it; and, finally, he smashed my pot, and I kicked him forward, and demanded another.Hewas slightly better, only he was seldom visible; and when I set him to do anything, he at once went off into a sweet slumber; so I kicked him forward too, and had in despair to become my own menial. In both dispensary and burrow it was quite a difficult business to prevent everything going to speedy destruction. The best portions of my uniform got eaten by cockroaches or moulded by damp, while my instruments required cleaning every morning, and even that did not keep rust at bay.Imagine yourself dear reader, in any of the following interesting positions:—Very thirsty, and nothing but boiling hot newly distilled water to drink; or wishing a cool bath of a morning, and finding the water in your can only a little short of 212 degrees Fahrenheit.To find, when you awake, a couple of cockroaches, two inches in length, busy picking your teeth.To find one in a state of decay in the mustard-pot.To have to arrange all the droppings and eggs of these interesting creatures on the edge of your plate, previous to eating your soup.To have to beat out the dust and weevils from every square inch of biscuit before putting it in your mouth.To be looking for a book and put your hand on a full-grown scaly scorpion. Nice sensation—the animal twining round your finger, or running up your sleeve.Dénouement—cracking him under foot—full-flavoured bouquet—joy at escaping a sting.You are enjoying your dinner, but have been for some time sensible of a strange titillating feeling about the region of your ankle; you look down at last to find a centipede on your sock, with his fifty hind-legs—you thank God not his fore fifty—abutting on to your shin.Tableau—green and red light from the eyes of the many-legged; horror of yourself as you wait till he thinks proper to “move on.”To awake in the morning, and find a large and healthy-looking tarantula squatting on your pillow within ten inches of your nose, with his basilisk eyes fixed on yours, and apparently saying, “You’re only just awake, are you? I’ve been sitting here all the morning watching you.”You know if you move he’ll bite you, somewhere; and if hedoesbite you, you’ll go mad and dancead libitum; so you twist your mouth in the opposite direction and ejaculate—“Steward!” but the steward does not come—in fact he is forward, seeing after the breakfast. Meanwhile the gentleman on the pillow is moving his horizontal mandibles in a most threatening manner, and just as he makes a rush for your nose you tumble out of bed with a shriek; and, if a very nervous person, probably run on deck in your shirt.Or, to fall asleep under the following circumstances: The bulkheads, all around, black with cock-and-hen-roaches, a few of which are engaged cropping your toe-nails, or running off with little bits of the skin of your calves; bugs in the crevices of your cot, a flea tickling the sole of your foot, a troop of ants carrying a dead cockroach over your pillow, lively mosquitoes attacking you everywhere, hammer-legged flies occasionally settling on your nose, rats running in and rats running out, your lamp just going out, and the delicious certainty that an indefinite number of earwigs and scorpions, besides two centipedes and a tarantula, are hiding themselves somewhere in your cabin.Note 1. Officers, as well as men, are allowed one half-gill of rum daily, with this difference,—the former pay for theirs, while the latter do not.
If the disposing, in the service, of even a ship-load of assistant-surgeons, is considered a matter of small moment, my disposal, after reaching the Cape of Good Hope, needs but small comment. I was very soon appointed to take charge of a gunboat, in lieu of a gentleman who was sent to the Naval Hospital of Simon’s Town, to fill a death vacancy—for the navy as well as nature abhors a vacuum. I had seen the bright side of the service, I was now to have my turn of the dark; I had enjoyed life on board a crack frigate, I was now to rough it in a gunboat.
The east coast of Africa was to be our cruising ground, and our ship a pigmy steamer, with plenty fore-and-aft about her, but nothing else; in fact, she was Euclid’s definition of a line to a t, length without breadth, and small enough to have done “excellently well” as a Gravesend tug-boat. Her teeth were five: namely, one gigantic cannon, a 65-pounder, as front tooth; on each side a brass howitzer; and flanking these, two canine tusks in shape of a couple of 12-pounder Armstrongs. With this armament we were to lord it with a high hand over the Indian Ocean; carry fire and sword, or, failing sword, the cutlass, into the very heart of slavery’s dominions; the Arabs should tremble at the roar of our guns and the thunder of our bursting shells, while the slaves should clank their chains in joyful anticipation of our coming; and best of all, we—the officers—should fill our pockets with prize-money to spend when we again reached the shores of merry England. Unfortunately, this last premeditation was the only one which sustained disappointment, for, our little craft being tender to the flag-ship of the station, all our hard-earned prize-money had to be equally shared with her officers and crew, which reduced the shares to fewer pence each than they otherwise would have been pounds, and which was a burning shame.
It was the Cape winter when I joined the gunboat. The hills were covered with purple and green, the air was deliciously cool, and the far-away mountain-tops were clad in virgin snow. It was twelve o’clock noon when I took my traps on board, and found my new messmates seated around the table at tiffin. The gunroom, called the wardroom by courtesy—for the after cabin was occupied by the lieutenant commanding—was a little morsel of an apartment, which the table and five cane-bottomed chairs entirely filled. The officers were five—namely, a little round-faced, dimple-cheeked, good-natured fellow, who was our second-master; a tall and rather awkward-looking young gentleman, our midshipman; a lean, pert, and withal diminutive youth, brimful of his own importance, our assistant-paymaster; a fair-haired, bright-eyed, laughing boy from Cornwall, our sub-lieutenant; and a “wee wee man,” dapper, clean, and tidy, our engineer, admitted to this mess because he was so thorough an exception to his class, which is celebrated more for the unctuosity of its outer than for the smoothness of its inner man.
“Come along, old fellow,” said our navigator, addressing me as I entered the messroom, bobbing and bowing to evade fracture of the cranium by coming into collision with the transverse beams of the deck above—“come along and join us, we don’t dine till four.”
“And precious little to dine upon,” said the officer on his right.
“Steward, let us have the rum,” (Note 1) cried the first speaker.
And thus addressed, the steward shuffled in, bearing in his hand a black bottle, and apparently in imminent danger of choking himself on a large mouthful of bread and butter. This functionary’s dress was remarkable rather for its simplicity than its purity, consisting merely of a pair of dirty canvas pants, a pair of purser’s shoes—innocent as yet of blacking—and a greasy flannel shirt. But, indeed, uniform seemed to be the exception, and not the rule, of the mess, for, while one wore a blue serge jacket, another was arrayed in white linen, and the rest had neither jacket nor vest.
The table was guiltless of a cloth, and littered with beer-bottles, biscuits, onions, sardines, and pats of butter.
“Look out there, Waddles!” exclaimed the sub-lieutenant; “that beggar Dawson is having his own whack o’ grog and everybody else’s.”
“Dang it! I’ll havemytot to-day, I know,” said the assistant-paymaster, snatching the bottle from Dawson, and helping himself to a very liberal allowance of the ruby fluid.
“What a cheek the fellow’s got!” cried the midshipman, snatching the glass from the table and bolting the contents at a gulp, adding, with a gasp of satisfaction as he put down the empty tumbler, “The chap thinks nobody’s got a soul to be saved but himself.”
“Soul or no soul,” replied the youthful man of money as he gazed disconsolately at the empty glass, “myspirit’sgone.”
“Blessed,” said the engineer, shaking the black bottle, “if you devils have left me a drain! see if I don’t look out for A1 to-morrow.”
“Where’s the doctor’s grog?” cried the sub-lieutenant.
“Ay, where’s the doctor’s?” said another.
“Where is the doctor’s?” said a third.
And they all said “Where is the doctor’s?” and echo answered “Where?”
“Steward!” said the middy.
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“See if that beggarly bumboat-man is alongside, and get me another pat of butter and some soft tack; get the grub first, then tell him I’ll pay to-morrow.”
These and such like scraps of conversation began to give me a little insight into the kind of mess I had joined and the character of my future messmates. “Steward,” said I, “show me my cabin.” He did so; indeed, he hadn’t far to go. It was the aftermost, and consequently the smallest, although Ioughtto have had my choice. It was the most miserable little box I ever reposed in. Had I owned such a place on shore, Imighthave been induced to keep rabbits in it, or guinea-pigs, but certainly not pigeons. Its length was barely six feet, its width four above my cot and two below, and it was minus sufficient standing-room for any ordinary-sized sailor; it was, indeed, a cabin for a commodore—I mean Commodore Nutt—and was ventilated by a scuttle seven inches in diameter, which could only be removed in harbour, and below which, when we first went to sea, I was fain to hang a leather hat-box to catch the water; unfortunately the bottom rotted out, and I was then at the mercy of the waves.
My cabin, or rather—to stick to the plain unvarnished truth—my burrow, was alive with scorpions, cockroaches, ants, and other “crawlin’ ferlies.”
“That e’en to name would be unlawfu’.”
“That e’en to name would be unlawfu’.”
My dispensary was off the steerage, and sister-cabin to the pantry. To it I gained access by a species of crab-walking, squeezing myself past a large brass pump, and edging my body in sideways. The sick came one by one to the dispensary door, and there I saw and treated each case as it arrived, dressed the wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, and bandaged the bad legs. There was no sick-berth attendant; to be sure the lieutenant-in-command, at my request, told off “a little cabin-boy” for my especial use. I had no cause for delectation on such an acquisition, by no means; he was not a model cabin-boy like what you see in theatres, and I believe will never become an admiral. He managed at times to wash out the dispensary, or gather cockroaches, and make the poultices—only in doing the first he broke the bottles, and in performing the last duty he either let the poultice burn or put salt in it; and, finally, he smashed my pot, and I kicked him forward, and demanded another.Hewas slightly better, only he was seldom visible; and when I set him to do anything, he at once went off into a sweet slumber; so I kicked him forward too, and had in despair to become my own menial. In both dispensary and burrow it was quite a difficult business to prevent everything going to speedy destruction. The best portions of my uniform got eaten by cockroaches or moulded by damp, while my instruments required cleaning every morning, and even that did not keep rust at bay.
Imagine yourself dear reader, in any of the following interesting positions:—
Very thirsty, and nothing but boiling hot newly distilled water to drink; or wishing a cool bath of a morning, and finding the water in your can only a little short of 212 degrees Fahrenheit.
To find, when you awake, a couple of cockroaches, two inches in length, busy picking your teeth.
To find one in a state of decay in the mustard-pot.
To have to arrange all the droppings and eggs of these interesting creatures on the edge of your plate, previous to eating your soup.
To have to beat out the dust and weevils from every square inch of biscuit before putting it in your mouth.
To be looking for a book and put your hand on a full-grown scaly scorpion. Nice sensation—the animal twining round your finger, or running up your sleeve.Dénouement—cracking him under foot—full-flavoured bouquet—joy at escaping a sting.
You are enjoying your dinner, but have been for some time sensible of a strange titillating feeling about the region of your ankle; you look down at last to find a centipede on your sock, with his fifty hind-legs—you thank God not his fore fifty—abutting on to your shin.Tableau—green and red light from the eyes of the many-legged; horror of yourself as you wait till he thinks proper to “move on.”
To awake in the morning, and find a large and healthy-looking tarantula squatting on your pillow within ten inches of your nose, with his basilisk eyes fixed on yours, and apparently saying, “You’re only just awake, are you? I’ve been sitting here all the morning watching you.”
You know if you move he’ll bite you, somewhere; and if hedoesbite you, you’ll go mad and dancead libitum; so you twist your mouth in the opposite direction and ejaculate—
“Steward!” but the steward does not come—in fact he is forward, seeing after the breakfast. Meanwhile the gentleman on the pillow is moving his horizontal mandibles in a most threatening manner, and just as he makes a rush for your nose you tumble out of bed with a shriek; and, if a very nervous person, probably run on deck in your shirt.
Or, to fall asleep under the following circumstances: The bulkheads, all around, black with cock-and-hen-roaches, a few of which are engaged cropping your toe-nails, or running off with little bits of the skin of your calves; bugs in the crevices of your cot, a flea tickling the sole of your foot, a troop of ants carrying a dead cockroach over your pillow, lively mosquitoes attacking you everywhere, hammer-legged flies occasionally settling on your nose, rats running in and rats running out, your lamp just going out, and the delicious certainty that an indefinite number of earwigs and scorpions, besides two centipedes and a tarantula, are hiding themselves somewhere in your cabin.
Note 1. Officers, as well as men, are allowed one half-gill of rum daily, with this difference,—the former pay for theirs, while the latter do not.
Chapter Ten.Round the Cape and up the ’Bique. Slaver-Hunting.It was a dark-grey cloudy forenoon when we “up anchor” and sailed from Simon’s Bay. Frequent squalls whitened the water, and there was every indication of our being about to have dirty weather; and the tokens told no lies. To our little craft, however, the foul weather that followed seemed to be a matter of very little moment; for, when the wind or waves were in any way high, she kept snugly below water, evidently thinking more of her own convenience than our comfort, for such a procedure on her part necessitated our leading a sort of amphibious existence, better suited to the tastes of frogs than human beings. Our beds too, or matresses, became converted into gigantic poultices, in which we nightly steamed, like as many porkers newly shaven. Judging from the amount of salt which got encrusted on our skins, there was little need to fear danger, we were well preserved—so much so indeed, that, but for the constant use of the matutinal freshwater bath, we would doubtless have shared the fate of Lot’s wife and been turned into pillars of salt.After being a few days at sea the wind began to moderate, and finally died away; and instead thereof we had thunderstorms and waves, which, if not so big as mountains, would certainly have made pretty large hills.Many a night did we linger on deck till well nigh morning, entranced by the sublime beauty and terrible grandeur of those thunderstorms. The roar and rattle of heaven’s artillery; the incessantfloodsof lightning—crimson, blue, or white; our little craft hanging by the bows to the crest of each huge inky billow, or next moment buried in the valley of the waves, with a wall of black waters on every side; the wet deck, the slippery shrouds, and the faces of the men holding on to the ropes and appearing so strangely pale in the electric light; I see the whole picture even now as I write—a picture, indeed, that can never, never fade from my memory.Our cruising “ground” lay between the island and town of Mozambique in the south, to about Magadoxa, some seven or eight degrees north of the Equator.Nearly the whole of the slave-trade is carried on by the Arabs, one or two Spaniards sometimes engaging in it likewise. The slaves are brought from the far interior of South Africa, where they can be purchased for a small bag of rice each. They are taken down in chained gangs to the coast, and there in some secluded bay the dhows lie, waiting to take them on board and convey them to the slave-mart at Zanzibar, to which place Arab merchants come from the most distant parts of Arabia and Persia to buy them. Dhows are vessels with one or two masts, and a corresponding number of large sails, and of a very peculiar construction, being shaped somewhat like a short or Blucher boot, the high part of the boot representing the poop. They have a thatched roof over the deck, the projecting eaves of which render boarding exceedingly difficult to an enemy.Sometimes, on rounding the corner of a lagoon island, we would quietly and unexpectedly steam into the midst of a fleet of thirty to forty of these queer-looking vessels, very much to our own satisfaction, and their intense consternation. Imagine a cat popping down among as many mice, and you will be able to form some idea of the scramble that followed. However, by dint of steaming here and there, and expending a great deal of shot and shell, we generally managed to keep them together as a dog would a flock of sheep, until we examined all their papers with the aid of our interpreter, and probably picked out a prize.I wish I could say the prizes were anything like numerous; for perhaps one-half of all the vessels we board are illicit slaveholders, and yet we cannot lay a finger on them. One may well ask why? It has been said, and it is generally believed in England, that our cruisers are sweeping the Indian Ocean of slavers, and stamping out the curse. But the truth is very different, and all that we are doing, or able at present to do, is but to pull an occasional hair from the hoary locks of the fiend Slavery. This can be proved from the return-sheets, which every cruiser sends home, of the number of vessels boarded, generally averaging one thousand yearly to each man-o’-war, of which the half at least have slaves or slave-irons on board; but only two, or at most three, of these will become prizes. The reason of this will easily be understood, when the reader is informed, that the Sultan of Zanzibar has liberty to take any number of slaves from any one portion of his dominions to another: these are called household slaves; and, as his dominions stretch nearly all along the eastern shores of Africa, it is only necessary for the slave-dealer to get his sanction and seal to his papers in order to steer clear of British law. This, in almost every case, can be accomplished by means of a bribe. So slavery flourishes, the Sultan draws a good fat revenue from it, and the Portuguese—no great friends to us at any time—laugh and wink to see John Bull paying his thousands yearly for next to nothing. Supposing we liberate even two thousand slaves a year, which I am not sure we do however, there are on the lowest estimate six hundred slaves bought and sold daily in Zanzibar mart; two hundred and nineteen thousand in a twelvemonth; and, of our two thousand that are set free in Zanzibar, most, if not all, by-and-bye, become bondsmen again.I am not an advocate for slavery, and would like to see a wholesale raid made against it, but I do not believe in the retail system; selling freedom in pennyworths, and spending millions in doing it, is very like burning a penny candle in seeking for a cent. Yet I sincerely believe, that there is more good done to the spread of civilisation and religion in one year, by the slave-traffic, than all our missionaries can do in a hundred. Don’t open your eyes and smile incredulously, intelligent reader; we live in an age when every question is looked at on both sides, and why should not this? What becomes of the hundreds of thousands of slaves that are taken from Africa? They are sold to the Arabs—that wonderful race, who have been second only to Christians in the good they have done to civilisation; they are taken from a state of degradation, bestiality, and wretchedness, worse by far than that of the wild beasts, and from a part of the country too that is almost unfit to live in, and carried to more favoured lands, spread over the sunny shores of fertile Persia and Arabia, fed and clothed and cared for; after a few years of faithful service they are even called sons and feed at their master’s table—taught all the trades and useful arts, besides the Mahommedan religion, which is certainly better than none—and, above all, have a better chance given them of one day hearing and learning the beautiful tenets of Christianity, the religion of love.I have met with few slaves who after a few years did not say, “Praised be Allah for the good day I was take from me coontry!” and whose only wish to return was, that they might bring away some aged parent, or beloved sister, from the dark cheerless home of their infancy.Means and measures much more energetic must be brought into action if the stronghold of slavedom is to be stormed, and, if not, it were better to leave it alone. “If the work be of God ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found to fight even against God.”
It was a dark-grey cloudy forenoon when we “up anchor” and sailed from Simon’s Bay. Frequent squalls whitened the water, and there was every indication of our being about to have dirty weather; and the tokens told no lies. To our little craft, however, the foul weather that followed seemed to be a matter of very little moment; for, when the wind or waves were in any way high, she kept snugly below water, evidently thinking more of her own convenience than our comfort, for such a procedure on her part necessitated our leading a sort of amphibious existence, better suited to the tastes of frogs than human beings. Our beds too, or matresses, became converted into gigantic poultices, in which we nightly steamed, like as many porkers newly shaven. Judging from the amount of salt which got encrusted on our skins, there was little need to fear danger, we were well preserved—so much so indeed, that, but for the constant use of the matutinal freshwater bath, we would doubtless have shared the fate of Lot’s wife and been turned into pillars of salt.
After being a few days at sea the wind began to moderate, and finally died away; and instead thereof we had thunderstorms and waves, which, if not so big as mountains, would certainly have made pretty large hills.
Many a night did we linger on deck till well nigh morning, entranced by the sublime beauty and terrible grandeur of those thunderstorms. The roar and rattle of heaven’s artillery; the incessantfloodsof lightning—crimson, blue, or white; our little craft hanging by the bows to the crest of each huge inky billow, or next moment buried in the valley of the waves, with a wall of black waters on every side; the wet deck, the slippery shrouds, and the faces of the men holding on to the ropes and appearing so strangely pale in the electric light; I see the whole picture even now as I write—a picture, indeed, that can never, never fade from my memory.
Our cruising “ground” lay between the island and town of Mozambique in the south, to about Magadoxa, some seven or eight degrees north of the Equator.
Nearly the whole of the slave-trade is carried on by the Arabs, one or two Spaniards sometimes engaging in it likewise. The slaves are brought from the far interior of South Africa, where they can be purchased for a small bag of rice each. They are taken down in chained gangs to the coast, and there in some secluded bay the dhows lie, waiting to take them on board and convey them to the slave-mart at Zanzibar, to which place Arab merchants come from the most distant parts of Arabia and Persia to buy them. Dhows are vessels with one or two masts, and a corresponding number of large sails, and of a very peculiar construction, being shaped somewhat like a short or Blucher boot, the high part of the boot representing the poop. They have a thatched roof over the deck, the projecting eaves of which render boarding exceedingly difficult to an enemy.
Sometimes, on rounding the corner of a lagoon island, we would quietly and unexpectedly steam into the midst of a fleet of thirty to forty of these queer-looking vessels, very much to our own satisfaction, and their intense consternation. Imagine a cat popping down among as many mice, and you will be able to form some idea of the scramble that followed. However, by dint of steaming here and there, and expending a great deal of shot and shell, we generally managed to keep them together as a dog would a flock of sheep, until we examined all their papers with the aid of our interpreter, and probably picked out a prize.
I wish I could say the prizes were anything like numerous; for perhaps one-half of all the vessels we board are illicit slaveholders, and yet we cannot lay a finger on them. One may well ask why? It has been said, and it is generally believed in England, that our cruisers are sweeping the Indian Ocean of slavers, and stamping out the curse. But the truth is very different, and all that we are doing, or able at present to do, is but to pull an occasional hair from the hoary locks of the fiend Slavery. This can be proved from the return-sheets, which every cruiser sends home, of the number of vessels boarded, generally averaging one thousand yearly to each man-o’-war, of which the half at least have slaves or slave-irons on board; but only two, or at most three, of these will become prizes. The reason of this will easily be understood, when the reader is informed, that the Sultan of Zanzibar has liberty to take any number of slaves from any one portion of his dominions to another: these are called household slaves; and, as his dominions stretch nearly all along the eastern shores of Africa, it is only necessary for the slave-dealer to get his sanction and seal to his papers in order to steer clear of British law. This, in almost every case, can be accomplished by means of a bribe. So slavery flourishes, the Sultan draws a good fat revenue from it, and the Portuguese—no great friends to us at any time—laugh and wink to see John Bull paying his thousands yearly for next to nothing. Supposing we liberate even two thousand slaves a year, which I am not sure we do however, there are on the lowest estimate six hundred slaves bought and sold daily in Zanzibar mart; two hundred and nineteen thousand in a twelvemonth; and, of our two thousand that are set free in Zanzibar, most, if not all, by-and-bye, become bondsmen again.
I am not an advocate for slavery, and would like to see a wholesale raid made against it, but I do not believe in the retail system; selling freedom in pennyworths, and spending millions in doing it, is very like burning a penny candle in seeking for a cent. Yet I sincerely believe, that there is more good done to the spread of civilisation and religion in one year, by the slave-traffic, than all our missionaries can do in a hundred. Don’t open your eyes and smile incredulously, intelligent reader; we live in an age when every question is looked at on both sides, and why should not this? What becomes of the hundreds of thousands of slaves that are taken from Africa? They are sold to the Arabs—that wonderful race, who have been second only to Christians in the good they have done to civilisation; they are taken from a state of degradation, bestiality, and wretchedness, worse by far than that of the wild beasts, and from a part of the country too that is almost unfit to live in, and carried to more favoured lands, spread over the sunny shores of fertile Persia and Arabia, fed and clothed and cared for; after a few years of faithful service they are even called sons and feed at their master’s table—taught all the trades and useful arts, besides the Mahommedan religion, which is certainly better than none—and, above all, have a better chance given them of one day hearing and learning the beautiful tenets of Christianity, the religion of love.
I have met with few slaves who after a few years did not say, “Praised be Allah for the good day I was take from me coontry!” and whose only wish to return was, that they might bring away some aged parent, or beloved sister, from the dark cheerless home of their infancy.
Means and measures much more energetic must be brought into action if the stronghold of slavedom is to be stormed, and, if not, it were better to leave it alone. “If the work be of God ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found to fight even against God.”