Our convoy was sluggish, and we were off the Norfolk coast on the fifth. We gave it some few parting sighs, remembering the relations and friends that were there; and who, perhaps, had they known the incident, would have brought down their telescopes, to have taken a last view. Was it affection or vanity that gave me this thought? Let it be permitted to hope the best.
He that makes a voyage and meets with no adventures, using the common phrase, must be greatly in or greatly out of luck; unless indeed we suppose him fast asleep, which, with the convenience of a close carriage, is the way that most travellers see the world. A watchman, shut up in his box at midnight, without the aid of his candle and lantern, sees it as well. We were willing to keep awake, and were not in want of stimulants. I had been to sea before more than once, yet had numberless things to remark: especially as I hadnever before sailed with a convoy. The Kennet was a good sailer; but if we ran before our guardian, we were liable to have a ten-pounder sent, with a possibility of hitting us, as a warning order tokeep astern. If we were too close, the peril was that ofrunning foulof the shipsunder the Commodore’s lee. If the weatherfellhazy, this danger increased. If it was a calm, we must no less carefully keep our distance. Should you have supposed that, being on the boundless ocean, you must always have sea room enough, the above hints may help to rectify your mistake.
On the sixth, we were off the Texel; on the seventh saw Lord Duncan’s fleet; and on the eighth were still upon the Dutch coast. I repeat what the mariners and their charts told me; for I could not see land. The sailing under the protection of cannon balls, thelook-outthat was kept for the approach of an enemy, and the hostile fleets of Britain proudly riding on a threatened shore, inspired thoughts which——I will take another time to tell you what these thoughts were. We caught gurnels, a pretty but cruel warfare. The wretched animal was generally an hour gasping for the medium in which, till then, he had breathed, and dying with difficulty.
A more animating incident occurred. Perhaps you are ignorant that smugglers, if pursued, will sink their cargoes of gin, and leave a buoy; by the aid of which they are sometimes recovered. From one of these, as it was supposed, a keg was seen to come swimming among the fleet. The sight awakened two passions at once—drunkenness and ambition. To what dangers do they expose the thirsty, the daring, and the rash! The fleet was under sail; and the keg swam in a contrary direction. We perceived a consultation was held on board a ship but little distant. In a moment, one of the sailors began to strip. We watched his proceedings with surprise and apprehension; we saw him plunge into the sea, and stem the waves with such eagerness that it seemed impossible for his strength not to be presently exhausted. How impatiently did the eye pursue him, his head now hidden, and now seen dancing among the waves, till we could no longer catch a glimpse. It was a fearful distance. There was something so daring in the attempt, and so vigorous in the execution, that he became a kind of hero; in whose dubious fate every heart was interested.
Meanwhile the sailors, who first discovered the prize in question,lay to; that is, turned the ship so that the sails did not catch the winds: and hoisted out their boat. In this they went in search of the swimmer and the keg. We could not discover their proceedings; but we learned, after their return, that the sailor had overtaken and seized the object of his wishes; and they brought him and hisprize once more on board of the ship to which he belonged in triumph.
A rash action, when successful, never fails to be admired. To people who live on shore, the remarks, language, and adventures of mariners are often amusing. The answers, however, which the latter return to passengers, are frequently surly, and expressive of contempt. Sailors, I assure you, are as pragmatic, and full of pedantry, in their way, as any Doctor the Universities can afford. Men are always surprised at, and diverted by each other’s ignorance; forgetting their own.
The seaman, however, has a feature common to us all; he is pleased with those who will listen to his complaints. One of our men told me how long he had served on board a man of war, the sufferings he there endured, and painted the despotism of naval officers, in the anecdotes he related. A Captain, who perhaps had read Culpepper, or some such erudite author, thought proper to physic his crew regularly once a month; and to take care the doses he prescribed were actually swallowed. This was not all; if the men were sick afterwards, they were put in the bilboes, to convince them they were well; and one poor fellow, who was extremely weak, was flogged for not running fast enough up the shrouds.
Another of these commanders having given a man three dozen lashes on the starboard of the vessel, ordered him two dozen more on the larboard; that, as he said, one side might not laugh at the other.
The man cited many more incidents of a like kind; adding, that when on board a king’s ship, he many a time wished himself dead. Observe, I can only be answerable for my own veracity; I faithfully repeat what I was told.
I shall be equally accurate in what I am going to relate; though it is on a subject which some naturalists have treated as absurd. The Captain and Mate of the Kennet, had both navigated the Coast of Norway, the Northern Ocean, and the Atlantic; and I questioned them concerning the Kraken. They neither of them pretended to have seen this supposed stupendous monster of the waters: but they immediately expressed their firm conviction of its existence. I asked their reasons; and they affirmed it had been twice seen within the last four years.
The first instance they cited was that of a Captain coming from Archangel, or Greenland, through the Atlantic; who was surprised at the appearance of rocks unknown to the chart of mariners, and immediately ordered out his boat, to have them examined; meanwhile the Kraken, that is, the imaginary rocks, disappeared, andhe sailed over the place; but forgot, during his astonishment, to sound.
Their second instance was more circumstantial. About two years and a half before the time at which they spoke, a Dane, sailing through the Firth of Forth, on the coast of Scotland, was so terrified, at the appearance of rocks in such a place, that helay to; being for some time persuaded that he had lost his reckoning, and had arrived he knew not where. After consideration, he took courage, and sailed past them; and when he arrived at Dundee, gave a relation of what he had seen. Finding himself at first disbelieved, he and his crew made oath of the fact; either at the Custom-house or before a Magistrate of Dundee. The narrators were both Scotchmen; and affirmed they spoke of the attestation being thus made from their own knowledge. Persons, who shall deem it worth their trouble, may easily make an inquiry whether any such attestation exists at Dundee.
My informants confirmed, unquestioned, the usual accounts, fabulous or not, that fishermen find plenty of fish on the back of the Kraken; as they do on sand banks, at a certain distance below the surface; and that these fishermen hasten away, as soon as they perceive the Kraken beginning to rise; because when it goes down, it occasions a dangerous whirlpool. These, you will recollect, are the old stories of Pontoppidan.
Finding this Leviathan so familiar to their belief, I next inquired if they had heard, or knew any thing of the sea-snake, by some called the sea-worm? To this question I received a still more direct answer. The Mate, Mr Baird, who certainly was not a liar by habit, whatever mistake or credulity might make him, assured me that, about the midway in a voyage to America, in the Atlantic, he had himself seen a fish, comparatively small in the body, of from forty to fifty fathoms in length; and that it had excited great terror in the Captain, who was well acquainted with those latitudes, lest it should sink the ship.
They both related other stories, concerning the appearance of this sea-worm: asserting that it will rise out of the water as high as a common main mast.
Should you ask, do you repeat these things because you think them credible? I answer, no. But who can affirm he can mark out the boundaries of possibility? Some mariners treat these tales as absolutely false and ridiculous: others seriously affirm them to be true; and I think it a duty to collect evidence, and to remain on this question as on many another, in a certain degree of scepticism.
They spoke of another fact; which, supposing them to speaktruth, deserves attention. The waves in the Western Ocean are sometimes so oily, from dead whales, as it is imagined, that they are not much disturbed by a brisk gale. The sailor’s brisk gale, observe, by you and me would be called a high wind.