SAFETY ON THE ATLANTIC.By WILLIAM H. RIDEING.

The Skipper.

The captain takes his place upon the bridge, the engines are eased until, to the worried landsman’s ears, their labored throbbing seems a devil’s tattoo answering the grumbling and rumbling of the fog-whistle. Below, brawny, silent men stand at the levers, ready at an instant to stop and back, or go ahead, just as the emergency may direct. Outside the pilot-house the quarter-master strains his ears and peers nervously into the gloom, yet alert to pass any command given to the junior officer and to his messmate at the wheel. Signals from fog-whistles drift into them from other groping ships, and, at times, spectral hulls and ghostly sails loom close aboard, creeping out of the curtained night or slipping landward or seaward in search of hidden port or roadway. At regular intervals the lead is cast and the depth of water read from the scale by the unhooded glare of a lantern, and on the chart the positions given by the soundings are pricked, to guard against the tricks of treacherous currents.

And so the cheerless night drifts sadly into a wan morning, andthe ship creeps warily down Channel, the weary vigil taxing the brains and bodies of those who must seek no rest because of the lives entrusted to their care.

After the pilot has been discharged and the mails received at Queenstown, and the ship has taken her departure from the Roche Point Light-ship everybody settles into the routine of life at sea. From the beginning watches have been kept rigorously, and the interior discipline and rules are so well-jointed that the ship seems to run herself. You hear no jarring of the cogs, feel on rough edges in the mosaic, though the government is, as it must always be, the hand of steel in the glove of velvet. The care of the ship is unremitting, even in details which if set down here would seem trivial and finicky, and every hour of the day has duties which are performed heartily and thoroughly to the foot of the letter by the officers. The number of these may vary on each line, even in different ships of the same employ, but in the largest steamers there are, besides the captain, three seniors and two juniors. The three seniors keep the watches, and each during his tour of duty has, as the captain’s representative, the direct charge of the ship. The two juniors stand watch and watch, that is, four hours on duty and four hours off, with a swing at the dog-watches, and carry on, under the direction of the senior officers, the routine of the ship. Normally the officer of the watch takes his station on the forward bridge, and the junior officer sticks by the wheel-house, where, after collecting the data he writes the log-slate hourly, and sees that the quartermaster steers the given course to a nicety. The first night at sea the starboard watch (the captain’s in marine law) has the eight hours out, that is, from 8P.M.to midnight and from 4 to 8A.M.; and on the home voyage the mate’s watch (the port) enjoys the same sweet privilege, thus sanctifying the ancient saw, which insists, under penalties dire, that the captain must take her out and the mate must take her home again.

The officers vary in their methods of keeping watch, new shipshaving new rules, as Simple Simon is supposed to have said when he was hustled aft to stow the jib. But to my mind, those favored in the larger steamers of the White Star Company are the best. Here the chief officer stands the watches from six to eight and from twelve to two o’clock, night and day respectively; the second officer keeps the watches from eight to ten and two to four o’clock; and the third officer those from ten to twelve and from four to six o’clock. This watch-keeping seems easy enough, even interesting and exciting, at least so I have heard not only from the casual gentleman who worries about critically in fine weather, but from that uneasy-minded shuttler who skips across the Western Ocean half a dozen times a year for no reason any sane man has yet discovered. But, dearly beloved idlers, do not deceive yourselves, getting out of bed and walking on a roof is anything but gay, even in fine weather. In stormy seasons it is such wretched work that then be mine rather to woo my bucolics, my farms and gardens, my forest glades.

The Deck Lookout—“Danger Ahead.”

On the Bridge in a Gale.

Leaving out of question the responsibility, try and measure thephysical misery when gales are howling, and spray is flying, and icy seas are shooting over the weather bulwarks, and the ship is slamming along, wallowing in the hollows or wriggling on zenith-seeking billows. It may be at night, when you cannot see a ship’s length ahead, and around you, threatening disaster and death, are a dozen vessels; it may be when the ice is moving and the towering bergs lie in your pathway. Then those dreadful middle watches, when, after a hard tour of duty, you are roused out of a comfortable bed, and jumped, half awakened, into the chill and misery of the gale-blown night with every nerve and muscle strained to the breaking-point. No, it is, believe me, the hardest kind of hard work, and it so saps the body, and warps the temper, and makes the best old before their day, that no self-respecting mother will let her daughter marry a man who knows an oar from a fence-rail, if he has learned their differences—watch-keeping.

The fourth and fifth officers, being young and hardy, and presumably with much to learn and suffer—for suffering somehow is considered an essential in sea-training—are not supposed to need adequate rest or sleep, and if that is not wearing on shipboard, go find me a ballad-monger to weave a rhyme for their comfort. The crew stand watch and watch; but as they can always steal a comforting nap, and have no responsibility, they know little of the mental wear and tear. The bo’s’n and his mate look out for the pulling and hauling, and for the dreary singing which the “chanty” man weds to them. Their tempers are always on edge, and it is their part to buffet and bluster. These are the gentlemen you usually hear, in season and out, bellowing about decks a highly garnished seaargotwhich no one attempts to translate or deems of serious meaning. Occasionally, too, you may detect them to leeward of the houses, skylarking gloomily, in moments of forced gayety, with skulkers and sea-lawyers, “fetching them,” as they describe the pastime, “a belt under the jaw,” or airily promising to “knock” their “blooming ’eds off.” These, of course, are the vagaries of delegated authority, and should not lessen your regard for them, as they are generallygood sailor-men after the heavy insular fashion. You must remember, also, they enjoy a prescriptive privilege of being most noisy, of wearing tremendous boots and very shabby clothes, and of trilling, like sea-larks, upon little silvery whistles, which are known indiscriminately as “pipes” or “calls.”

The Boatswain’s Whistle.

In each watch there are three quartermasters, generally fine specimens of the British tar, a joy to the eye and a comfort to the soul, notably in bad weather, when they cheer you with a smile that soothes as the words they may not utter; for by a maritime fiction they are always supposed to be at the wheel, and you must not, under fear of keelhauling, talk to them. How patronizing and sympathetic they look, what a lot they seem to know, what beautiful guernseys they wear, and with what ease they guide the mighty vessel! Before the introduction of steam steering-gear two men were always required at the wheel, and in bad weather there were four, and sometimes six, with frequent reliefs; and yet, with all this beef, many a poor fellow has been maimed for life by being tossed over the wheel-barrel or jammed by the spokes when the ship swung off with sudden lurch or broached to before the fury of the gale. To-day it requires hardly the strength of a boy to “restrain the rudder’s ardent thrill,” even in the heaviest blows, for the wheel in evidence is merely the purchasing end of a mechanical system that opens and shuts the valve governing the steam admitted to the steering cylinders. But be it lever or not, the sailor grasps it still with the old familiar pose, swaying it, “for the good ship’s woe and the good ship’s weal,” with curved arm and gripping fingersas he pores over his compass and keeps its lubber’s point, in fair weather or in foul, plumb on a course marked to a degree of the circle. He stands a two-hours’ trick and then changes places with his relief, whose station has been outside the wheel-house door. The third quartermaster keeps his watch under the after-whaleback, ready to throw into action the hand steering-wheel when the signal is given, and as this happens seldom, his watch is apt to be a dreary one. The pump-wells are sounded regularly by a carpenter, so that possible leaks are sure of rapid detection; and hourly every light and every corner of the ship is inspected by one of the two masters-at-arms, who constitute the police force of the ship. They have under their special care the steerages, and a part of their duty is—as their phrase goes—“to chase” the steerage female passengers off the upper deck at dusk, and to see that they remain in their own apartments until sunrise.

The Cook.

First-class ships muster from twelve to fifteen men in each watch, and all of these are shipped as seamen. Of course the majority are such only in name, though there is always a definite number of sailors among them. Indeed, to fly the blue flag at least ten of the crew, in addition to the captain, must be enrolled in the Naval Reserve, and to be an A B there, one must hand, reef, and steer deftly. These are the people who in port stand by the ship; that is,those who take, as required by law, their discharges in Liverpool on the return voyage and continue to work on board at fixed wages per day while the ship refits and loads. All hands, from the skipper to the scullion’s mate, must ship at the beginning of each run—must “sign articles” as it is called—before a Board of Trade shipping-master. As the law has always regarded Jack as “particularly in need of its protection, because he is particularly exposed to the wiles of sharpers,” great stress is laid in these articles upon his treatment, and therefore they exhibit in detail the character of the voyage, the wages, the quantity and quality of the food, and a dozen other particulars which evidence the safeguards thrown about these “wards of the Admiralty” by a quasi-paternal government. Jack knows all this, and be sure he stands up most boldly and assertively, at times with a great deal of unnecessary swagger and bounce, for all the articles—“his articles”—allow him.

The boatswain selects the ship’s company, and the sea-birds flutter on board usually a few hours before the vessel hauls into the stream. They fly light, these Western Ocean sailors, and their kits are such as beggars would laugh at even in Ratcliffe Highway. Generally they are in debt to the Sailor’s Home—they pay seventeen bob a week for their grub and lodging—and many of them just touch their advance money, as a guarantee of receipt, and then see most of it disappear, for goods fairly furnished, into the superintendent’s monk-bag. But they are philosophers in their sad way, and are apt, if they find themselves safely on board with a couple of shillings in their ’baccy pouches, with a pan, an extra shirt, a pannikin, a box of matches, and a bar of soap, to feel that the anchor cannot be tripped too soon, as they are equipped for an adventure anywhere, even to the “Hinjies, heast or west,” as their doleful ditty announces.

Under way or at anchor they do not have many idle moments. In the middle watches the decks are scrubbed with sand and brooms and brushes, for the old, heroic days of holy-stones are over, and a hundred pounds of effort are no longer expended for an ounce of result.

“Muster, all hands.”

Washing Down the Decks.

It might interest the passengers—especially those who look upon a sailor as so much unthinking brawn—to hear the archaic vocabulary and the emphatic dialects in which many of them are sworn at by these same mariners. Indeed, passengers are a careless, slovenly, and untidy lot, and there is scarcely a sin in the maritime decalogue of cleanliness they do not commit unthinkingly. The particularly offensive ones are soon singled out and labelled with briny, offensive names; and though they know it not, the forecastleis at times lurid with the blood-curdling anathemas launched upon them. In the morning watch the paint-work is scrubbed, and a deft cleaner is Jackie; and finally, when the weather permits, the brass work—bane of every true sailor—is polished till it blinks like the rising sun in the tropics. This scrubbing and burnishing and cleansing runs in appointed grooves through every department, and in no perfunctory way, for each day the ship is inspected thoroughly, and upon the result depend the reputation and the advancement of the subordinates.

Very formal indeed is the inspection, when, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, the captain, accompanied by the doctor, begins his royal progress. At the borders of each province he is received by its governor, who conducts him through its highways and its byways, through its lanes and shaded groves. The purser and the chief steward are answerable for all concerning the passengers, and scrupulous and minute is the examination given to the saloons, store-rooms, pantries, kitchens, bakeries, closets, bath-rooms, and to such cabins and state-rooms as may be visited. Then follow the steerages and the “glory hole”—this last a den sacred to the discomfort of the perennially nimble, of the tip-extracting, uncannily cheerful, and sorely tried stewards. The chief officer is responsible for the boatswain’s locker, the forecastles, the upper decks, the boats, the whalebacks; in short, above and below, wherever dirt might breed disease, no nook nor corner is omitted, not even that seething cauldron where the lungs of the ship breathe steam and her ponderous muscles drive the mighty screws.

The engine-rooms and stoke-holes of a great steamer are forbidden ground, are landstaboo, save to those specially asked to visit them. Here no interruptions may enter, for speed is the price of ceaseless vigilance, and horse-power spells fame and dividends. When you come to measure the region fairly, it broadens into a wonder-land; it shapes itself into a twilight island of mysteries, into a laboratory where grimy alchemists practise black magic and white.At first all seems confusion, but when the brain has co-ordinated certain factors, harmony is wooed from discord and order emerges from chaos. It is in the beginning all noise and tangled motion, and shining steel and oily smells; then succeeds a vague sense of bars moving up and down, and down and up, with pitiless regularity; of jiggering levers, keeping time rhythmically to any stray patter you may fit to their chanting; and, at last, the interdependence of rod grasping rod, of shooting straight lines seizing curved arms, of links limping backward and wriggling forward upon queer pivots, dawns upon you; and in the end you marvel at the nicety with which lever, weight, and fulcrum work, opening and closing hidden mechanisms, and functioning with an exactness that dignifies the fraction of a second into an appreciable quantity. Cranks whirl and whirl and whirl incessantly, holding in moveless grip the long shafting turning the churning screws; pumps pulsate and throb with muffled beat; gauge-arms vibrate jerkingly about narrow arcs, setting their standards of performance; and everywhere, if your ear be trained to this mechanical music, to this symphony in steam and steel, you see the officers and greasers conducting harmoniously the smoothly moving parts, as soothed with oil and caressed with waste they work without jar or friction, and despite the gales tossing the ship like a jolly-boat, on the angry ocean. It is a magic domain, and one may well wonder at the genius which, piling precedent upon precedent, chains these forces and makes them labor, even on an unstable platform, as their masters will.

In the stoke-hole, however, one leaves behind the formal and mathematical, and sees the picturesque with all its dirt unvarnished, with all its din and clangor unsubdued. Under the splintering silver of the electric lamps cones of light illuminate great spaces garishly and leave others in unbroken masses of shadow. Through bulkhead doors the red and gold of the furnaces chequer the reeking floor, and the tremulous roar of the caged fires dominates the sibilant splutter of the stream. Figures nearly naked, gritty and black with coal, and pasty with ashes, and soaked with sweat, come and goin the blazing light and in the half gloom, and seem like nightmares from fantastic tales of demonology.

The Stoke Hole.

When the furnace-doors are opened, thirsty tongues of fire gush out, blue spirals of gas spin and reel over the bubbling mass of fuel, and great sheets of flame suck half-burnt carbon over the quivering fire-wall into the flues. With averted heads and smoking bodies the stokers shoot their slice-bars through the melting hillocks, and twist and turn them until they undulate like serpents. The iron tools blister their hands, the roaring furnaces sear their bodies; their chests heave like those of spent swimmers, their eyes tingle in parched sockets—but work they must, there is no escape, no holiday in this maddening limbo. Steam must be kept up, or perhaps acruel record must be lowered. Facing the furnaces, the hollow up-scooping of the stoker’s shovel echoes stridently on the iron floor, and these speed-makers pile coal on coal until the fire fairly riots, and, half blinded, they stagger backward for a cooling respite. But it is only a moment at the best, for their taskmasters watch and drive them, and the tale of furnaces must do its stint. The noise and uproar are deafening; coal-trimmers trundle their barrows unceasingly from bunker to stoke-hole, or, if the ship’s motion be too great for the wheels, carry it in baskets, and during the four long hours there is no rest for those who labor here.

In the largest ships the engineer force numbers one hundred and seventy men, and in vessels with double engines these are divided into two crews with a double allowance of officers for duty. One engineer keeps a watch in each fire-room, and two are stationed on each engine-room platform. Watches depend upon the weather, but, as a rule, the force, officers and men, serves four out of every twelve hours. Should, however, the weather be foggy or the navigation hazardous, the service may be more onerous; for then officers stand at the throttles with peremptory orders to do no other work. In relieving each other great care is taken; those going on the platforms feeling the warmth of the bearings, examining the condition of the pins and shafting, testing the valves, locating the position of the throttles, counting the revolutions, and by every technical trial satisfying themselves before assuming charge that all is right. In the stoke-hole the same precautions are taken, the sufficiency and saturation of the water, the temperature of the feed, injection, and discharge, and the steam-pressure being verified independently by both officers.

The pay of the chief engineer is said to be about £30 per month, in addition to a commission upon the saving made in a fixed allowance of coal for a given horse-power and an assumed speed. As some ships are economical, this reaches at times a handsome bonus. And it is well this pay should be large, for many of these officers have given their best days to one employ and deserve much of it in every way. It is said that some of the old chiefs are the greatesttravellers in the world, so far as miles covered may count. Here, for example, is one who has made in one line 132 round trips, or traversed 841,000 shore miles—a distance four times that between the earth and the moon; and still higher is the record of another, who completed before his retirement 154 round trips, or made in distance over one million of statute miles.

In the Fo’castle.

The messes of the crew are divided into three classes: First, that of the seamen, quartermaster, carpenter, etc.; secondly, that of lamp-trimmers and servants and miscellaneous people; and thirdly, that of the stokers, greasers, and trimmers. The seamen sleep and mess in the forecastle, the stewards in the glory hole, and the engineer force in the port forecastle, or, on board the new ships, in an apartment just forward of the stoke-hole. In all these quarters the mess-tables trice up to the under side of the upper deck, and the bunksare two or three tiers deep. As a rule the men provide their own bedding and table-gear, the company agreeing to give good food in plenty, but nothing more. This seems shabby, even if in these degenerate days we need not hope to find a ship’s husband like Sir Francis Drake, who not only “procured a complete set of silver for the table, and furnished the cook-room with many vessels of the same metal, but engaged several musicians to accompany them.” I am afraid the only music you will hear in these dreary quarters is the shout when the “snipes,” as my lieges the stokers call the coal-trimmers, rush in at eight in the evening with the high feast known asthe black pan. This olla podrida consists of the remains of the saloon dinner, and is always saved for the watch by the cooks and bakers in payment for the coal hoisted for the kitchens and galleys. It is a grewsome feast, as one may well imagine, but it is the supreme luxury in the sea life of the stoker and his pals, and is enjoyed point, blade, and hilt.

Thrown together as the people are for a run only, you find little of the messmate kinship which is so strong in longer voyages among seafaring men. Should any one of them become unfit for work through sickness (and very ill he must be when the doctor excuses him from duty), his mates, the one he should have relieved and the other who would have relieved him, each stand two hours of his watch. But as the attendant abuse is great, and the curses are loud and deep and bitterly personal, no one, save a very hard case, will leave his work as long as he can stand up to it. As for kindness and usefulness, or any other saving grace, they are unknown; are, in the grim pessimism of this iron trade, never expected. It is a hard, hard life, measured by decent standards, andmessieurs, when you stray below, and, as tradition demands, they “chalk you”—ring you about with the mystic circle which means drink-money—be sure the ransom is not niggard, be certain that with it you lend them from your brighter world the sunshine of a cheery greeting, the tonic of a friendly smile.

For, God help them, they need it always.

The inspection is finished a little after seven bells, and one by one the officers straggle on deck with their sextants. Should it be a fine day, with moderate weather, the noon observation for latitude is a simple one and is always sought; though, in the open, these people running in regular lanes can place great dependence on their engine revolutions, their well-tried compasses, and, if the speed is not excessive, upon their taffrail logs. When the sun crosses the meridian twelve o’clock is reported, and “eight bells are made” by the captain, for no lesser personage dare trifle with the astronomical proprieties hedging about this occult ceremony. The ship’s time, however, remains unaltered, until the clocks are corrected at midnight from calculations based upon the chronometer ticking stolidly in the chart-room. In the sweep of modern progress the sacred rite of heaving the log is no longer celebrated. The speed is now too great for that rough-and-ready hit-and-miss at distance run: and with its disuse, worse luck, a fund of old-time pleasant raillery has been eclipsed. “How fast are you going, my man?” was an invariable question of the inevitable, curious passenger to the Jackie walking away with the dripping log-line. “Fourteen and a Dutchman, sir,” would be his answer, or, if again pressed, “Thirteen and a marine,” he would reply, gravely, to the joy of his grinning shipmates and to the mystification of the questioner. But now no longer does the reel turn swift, no longer does the sand run dry, no more the chip dances on the waves or tugging line strain brawny muscles. To-day the speed is read off from a little cylinder which twists its dials on the weather rail.

Watching for the Sun on a Cloudy Day.

Night Signalling.

The observations are worked out independently by the chief andsecond officers, and the former submits his results to the captain. Of course these calculations cannot have the exactness of astronomical work ashore, and luckily on the high sea this is not needed. On the contrary, over-precision often multiplies the error, and it is good navigation if you can say with assurance that the ship is anywhere within an enclosing circle five miles in diameter. Of course it is widely different when a vessel is running in for the land or coasting, for then the soundings, the cross-bearings of well-known marks, and the contour lines, enable the position to be marked with very great accuracy.

The noon position of the ship is—next to dinner—the great event of the day, and many are the pools and bets made on the figures of the run; not only as to the distance, but as to the probable time of arrival. For if the voyage be now half over, the novelty of sea life is at low ebb, and the passengers, save a few irrepressible spirits, have lapsed into a gentle melancholy induced by the monotony of water, water, water everywhere. They are tired of the sea, of the ship, of the cooking, of each other, in short, of everything, and are anxious only to arrive. They have divided and subdivided, and differentiated into cliques, and have nursed dislikes, usually founded on feminine fancies, until these have become mortal antipathies. In a perfunctory way they follow a routine which finally drags a lengthening chain. They get up and pitchfork on their clothes, and eat, lounge about, doze, muffled to the eyes, in lashed steamer chairs, read languidly, gossip spitefully, and eat, and eat, and eat, and then, wearied to bitter boredom, go to bed again. The men drink more than is good for them, indeed some of them have an eager and a nipping air all day long; and as for smoking, why, those who can are blowing moist and soggy weeds and fondling explosive pipes from morn till dewy eve. The noisy ones—and what nuisances they are with their aggressively robust health and unfailing cheerfulness—play all manner of stupid sea-games, horse-billiards, quoits, and shuffle-board, and sometimes venture upon such silly practical joking that you wish a sea would wash them overboard.

No one sees much of the ship’s officers except perhaps the ubiquitous purser and the amiable doctor, and how these two, harried and beset as they are by a hundred cares, by the little miseries of other people, can present an unfailing front of courtesy, can go smilingly and cheerily about their duties, is one of the sea mysteries yet unsolved. Blow high or low, and in fair weather or foul, they are ever the same, bright, beaming, optimistic, encouraging—“fresh as a garden rose, soothing as an upland wind”—and knowing the strain put upon you by silly men and fretful women, gentlemen, I salute you,chapeau bas.

The Deck Steward.

In the beginning there was a struggle for seats at the captain’s table, and heartburnings are not unknown to those who sit a little lower at the feast. But these are not the wise or wary ones, not the tough and devilish sly travellers who know their bread will be best buttered by rallying around the purser or forming in hollow squares about the shrine where the doctor sits enthroned. The captain’sduties permit him to go below rarely save at dinner-time, and as for the other officers, they live and mess alone and are as cloistered, so far as the passengers count, as the preaching friars of Saint Dominic.

Captain’s Breakfast.

Once in every voyage boat drill is held, and sadly insufficient for the people on board is this same boat equipment. But the drill is usually a passably fair one, and, given time, adequate perhaps for any demands made upon the ship by outside distress. And let it be added that never yet, when the word has been given, have those gallant men who walk their watches so quietly and so uncomplainingly, been known to fail if succor were needed by helpless mariners. It may be that death stares them in the face, that their mission may be another tragedy, but they never question. Honor to them and to all the unrecorded heroes, the uncrowned martyrs of that western passage. Who may number them? who tell their gallant deeds? True descendants are they of those “who first went out across the unknown seas, fighting, discovering, colonizing, and graving out channels through which the commerce and enterprise of England have flowed out over all the world.”

You may count, as a rule, upon disagreeable weather in the Western Ocean, and this tries the temper of people who might be saints ashore; and, say what you will, even under the most promising environments, women are out of place on shipboard. However, if the days are reasonably pleasant as the voyage shortens, the monotony becomes so much a habit as to be no longer a burden. The little animosities which seemed eternal disappear, and friendships are made, and toward the end all but the hardened cases, the mental dyspeptics, or those to whom sea-sickness is a serious matter, really enjoy the voyage.

The tonic of the sea-air courses like an elixir in the blood: young women begin to take notice, and you hear rippling laughter, and see, in place of gloom, the sunshine of happy smiles. This is usually the season when the concert is given, and the uneasy spirits of the ship exploit the talent they have discovered. Usually there are a dozen mild rows over this performance, and invariably a great dispute as to the distribution of the money. This is apt to divide the ship temporarily into two warring camps, but in the end the ship’s officers have their way, and the American dollars jingle musically in English contribution boxes. More or less jollity is always afloat in the smoking-room, for here eddy the flotsam and jetsam of the ship. Here, too, the speculative gentlemen, their friends and lambs, usually play cards from early forenoon till the lights are turned out. There is not much growling among these industrious workmen, though at times when jack-pots go one way, and the kitty or widow is large enough to make the losers boisterously assertive, you may hear sharp words over the reckoning. As for those who enjoy a quiet rubber, they must find another retreat; the smoking-room is ruled by the gods of clamor.

The Night Signal of a Disabled Steamer.

And so the last days are apt to rush along pleasantly enough; the solitude cheered by passing vessels and the lazy routine of the ship enlivened by congenial companionships newly found. The edge of the Grand Banks is skirted happily without injury to the daring fishermen; the Georges are rounded, and then, oh, happy hour formany homesick hearts! the cry “Sail ho” rings out with newer meaning, and a graceful pilot-boat wings toward them like the fabled sea-bird. How they greet the bluff pilot, coming as he does to their seeming helplessness out of the known and the enduring. The speculative passengers find an especial interest in the incident, for no pools are more favored than those made on the number of the boat, no bets more frequent than whether the figures are odd or even. After theassurance that the “pilot is really on board” over-sanguine and inexperienced females madly rush below and pack their trunks and get ready for an immediate shore-flitting, afraid, perhaps, they will be late; but there is many and many a tossing mile yet to steam ere the services of the adventurous pilot will be needed.

Still, a new delight possesses everybody, and it grows as the hours fly, until at last, it may be at night, perhaps, some one bursts breathlessly into the crowded smoking-room or bar, and cries exultingly: “There she is, Fire Island Light, right over the starboard bow.” Joyous faces gather near the crowded bulwarks, and eager eyes hail with gladness the shining petals of that rose of flame which blossoms unfailingly above the shoaling waters; for the voyage is nearly over, and the morrow means to some the marvels of an unknown land, to others, luckiest and happiest of all, home and dear ones.

The Dangers of the Sea—Precautions in a Fog—Anxieties of the Captain—Creeping up the Channel—“Ashore at South Stack”—Narrow Escape of the Baltic—Some Notable Shipwrecks—Statistics since 1838—The Region of Icebergs—When They Are most Frequent—Calamities from Ice—Safety Promoted by Speed—Modern Protection from Incoming Seas—Bulkheads and Double Bottoms—Water tight Compartments—The Special Advantage of the Longitudinal Bulkhead—The Value of Twin Screws—Dangers from a Broken Shaft—Improvements in the Mariner’s Compass, the Patent Log, and Sounding Machine—Manganese Bronze for Propellers—Lights, Buoys, and Fog Signals—The Remarkable Record of 1890.

IT is not when the seas come pounding over the bows that the captain’s face lengthens. Even when it is necessary to keep the passengers below, and the spray is carried as high as the foretop, his confidence in his ship is unabated. His spirits do not fall with the barometer, and though the clouds hang low, and the air is filled with stinging moisture flying like sleet from the hissing sea—even when boats are torn out of the davits, and iron bitts and ventilators are snapped from their fastenings like pipe-stems, he has no misgiving as to the ability of the ship to weather the gale, or the fiercest hurricane that can blow.

Give him an open sea, without haze, or fog, or snow, and neither wind nor wave can alarm him. He knows very well, as all who are experienced in such matters do, that the modern steamers of the great Atlantic lines are so carefully constructed, and of such strength, that the foundering of one of them through stress of weather alone is well-nigh inconceivable.

But when a fog descends, then it is that his face and manner change, and he who has been the most sociable and gayest of men suddenly becomes the most anxious and taciturn. His seat at the head of the table is vacant; look for him and you will not find him, as in fair weather, diverting groups of girls tucked up in steamer-chairs on the promenade-deck, but pacing the bridge and puffing a cigar which apparently has not been allowed to go out since it was lighted as the big ship backed from her wharf into the North River.

Wherever and whenever it occurs, fog is a source of danger from which neither prudence nor skill can guarantee immunity: and whether the ship is slowed down or going at full speed, there is cause for fear while this gray blindness baffles the eyes. With plenty of sea-room the danger is least, and it increases near land, especially where the coast is wild and broken, like that of Ireland and Wales, and where there are many vessels as well as rocks to be passed.

Probably the captain dreads but one thing more than a fog which comes down when he is making land. When he can see the familiar lights and promontories, he can verify the position of the ship and check his daily observations of the sun. Then it is plain sailing into port. But when the strongest light is quenched and every well-known landmark is hidden, and he has to feel his way with only the compass and the sounding machine to guide him, the consciousness that a slight divergence from the proper course may lead to disaster, keeps him on the pins and needles of anxiety, and sears his brain to constant wakefulness, as with a branding-iron.

Out of Reckoning.—A Narrow Escape.

A startling experience may be recalled:

The ship had swept down from the “nor’ard” like an arrow following the curve of its own bow, and it was promised that we should see land early in the afternoon and reach Queenstown soon after sundown. The weather could not have been better; it was clear and mild, and the air, the water, and the sky were tinged with the silvery pinks and grays which often appear, like mother-of-pearl, in the atmospheric effects of that southern coast. Flocks of birds were restingon the surface of the calm sea and wheeling around the ship, the gulls swinging within arm’s length of the passengers leaning against the rail. We steamed in among a fleet of fishing-boats with red sails—close enough to hear the greetings of the men, and these voices made the assurance of land doubly sure.

Then it was whispered that land could be seen, and the searchers swept the eastern horizon with their glasses to find it. They made many mistakes about it, and explored the clouds, deluding themselves with the idea that forms of rosy vapor were the Kerry Mountains. They insisted upon it, but presently the coast defined itself to a certainty, coming out of the distance in bold masses of peak and precipice, fringed with a line of surf.

The captain was in his gayest mood. The baggage of the passengers for Queenstown was whipped out of the hold by the steam winch and piled up on the main deck, and they themselves were smartly dressed to go ashore. Already farewells were spoken and reunions planned. We could see the black-fanged pyramids of the Blaskets, and the mountain-bound sweep of Bantry Bay. Fastnet would soon be visible over the starboard bow—perhaps the men in the foretop could already see it—and a little to the northward of that lay Brow Head, whence in an hour or so our safe arrival would be flashed in an instant under the capricious sea which we had just crossed.

These were our anticipations, but they were not fulfilled. The strong, piercing light of Fastnet did not reach us that night, nor any glimpse of the splendid beacons which blaze, each in its own distinctive way, for the guidance of the mariner along that Channel. We were not seen from Brow Head, and the passengers for Queenstown did not go ashore.

The captain’s manner changed again from its wonted gayety to severe silence. Before it was noticed on deck, those on the bridge discovered, rolling down the Channel, a reddish-brown fog, like a cloud from a battle-field, which swallowed everything in its path—fishing-boats and all vessels in sight; mountains, cliffs, and surf:every light and every landmark. In half an hour it had enveloped us and washed out with its sepia all the pearly iridescence which had filmed the sea. Nothing definite remained; all became vague, spectral, curtailed. The heart of the ship seemed to cease beating, and then could be heard only in faint throbs as the engine was slowed down.

Landing Stages at Liverpool.

For the rest of the night everything was dubious. The passengers gathered in knots on the wet decks, talking in undertones. You could hear the swash of the becalmed sea along the sides of the ship in the intervals of the blasts of the fog-horn, which pierced the ear like a knife; it was only when that demon was raging that the other sounds which had become familiar on board the ship were not more acute—the hum of the forced draft, the asthma of escaping steam, the voices on the bridge, and the whirr of the bell in the engine-room. The bell had been silent since it rang out, “Turn ahead, full speed!” when the pilot was picked up by the station boat of Sandy Hook, but now the hand which recorded its messages was constantly going from side to side of the clock-faced dial. At every stroke a fresh apprehension thrilled along the deck and imaginary shapes loomed up in the fog, the rumors were wild and contradictory, no sooner spoken than discredited. See that blur of yellow ahead! That must be a light—Queenstown, perhaps, and the tender coming alongside. Yes, the bell has rung “Stop her!” Half of the passengers can see the blur of yellow, half are not quite certain—all are mistaken: the light burns only in their imaginations. Then they see the sails of a ship blotted on the fog; they hear bells and whistles; they listen for confirmation from the bridge. Little wonder that they are confused: the engine-room bell tells a different story every few minutes—now “Ahead!” then “Astern!” now “Full speed!” then “Dead slow!” Again the engine stops altogether; in a minute or two the churnings of the screw, sweeping toward the bow instead of in the wake, show that the ship is backing, and the fear of reefs, of collision, of running ashore, deepens the silence of the anxious groups along the rail.

The escaping steam roars out of the copper-pipes riveted to the funnel; louder and shriller the whistle drives its warning through the obscurity which surrounds us. Then we move “Ahead!” once more, and at midnight all hope of seeing Queenstown is abandoned. The passengers retreat to their cabins, and the decks are left to the sailors and the officers, who come in and out of the ghostly atmosphere—their oil-skins dripping with moisture and shining momentarily in the lamp-light. Never for an instant does the captain leave the bridge; his cigar feeds its bluish wreaths to the fog; he watches the glowing face of the compass, and listens to the cry of the men who are working the sounding machine.

So the great ship creeps up the Channel. Once in a while an answering blast is borne over the water, a bell is heard tolling afar, but never a thing is in sight. It is a weary night for the captain, but in the morning all is clear; we are off Holyhead; the pulse of the engine has recovered its regularity; the faces of the passengers are beaming, and Snowdon is visible over the starboard bow, piled up in white vapor.

The navigation of the Channel in foggy weather can never be free from danger, and more fine steamers of the great transatlantic lines have been lost between Fastnet and Liverpool through fogs than through any other cause. It was only last summer that the City of Rome ran in a dense fog against Fastnet itself—that perilous, shore-less, horn-shaped rock which stands in the direct pathway of all ingoing and outgoing ships—and barely escaped destruction. A few years earlier, when the Cunarder Aurania was approaching land in a fog, the passengers who were smoking their after-dinner cigars suddenly saw looming above them, and above the topmasts, the cliffs which were supposed to be many miles away. The captain was far out of his reckoning, but was going so slowly that he was able to back into the Channel with slight damage. A similar accident to this happened to the White Star steamer Baltic when she was proceeding up the Channel to Liverpool.

One of the most brilliant lights in the Channel is that of theSouth Stack, which lies under the flank of the mountainous precipice of Holyhead. The Stack is an egg of rock, much higher and much bolder than Fastnet, which has become detached from the main-land, and its apex is crowned with the white tower and crouching buildings of the lighthouse keepers. The sea is eating it away, and has already scooped out a vast cavern which they call the Parliament Hall. It is wider and loftier than any chamber at Westminster, and there is more justification for its name in the babble of the sea-birds flitting in and out of it than in its dimensions. From the foot of it to the low, white wall which encircles the light, it is a sheer precipice of dark, exfoliating rock, forbidding and hopeless, without a resting-place for any living thing less secure than the birds, which cluster like beads on a string upon the edges of the shale. The sea frets itself around it and gurgles in the cavern; ledges and reefs abut on it. All vessels aim to give it a wide berth, and usually keep at such a distance that a glass has to be used to discover its destructive points. To say “ashore at South Stack” is as good as to say a “total wreck.” There is hardly one chance in a hundred that the luckless ship which strikes here will live.

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