I naturally had more difficulty in keeping my men in order than other officers experienced in that part of the colony. My men were a rougher lot, and had only enlisted for a war that they now considered finished: Lieut. H—— had resigned; Lieut. —— had been sent about his business; Lieut. P—— was often as riotous as the men; Lieut. C—— was too young and reckless to possess the tact and persistent energy necessary for the management of so unruly a set with security to himself or satisfaction to them.
RETURN OF GENERAL CATHCART FROM BASUTOLAND—END OF THE WAR—SPORTING ADVENTURES—LOVING TORTOISES—EVENING REVERIES—A SUDDEN ATTACK FROM AN UNKNOWN ENEMY—PLANS FOR HIS CAPTURE—UNSUCCESSFUL—ANOTHER ATTEMPT—NIGHT VIGILS—CLOSE QUARTERS—DEATH OF THE LEOPARD—WILD-BOAR HUNTING—BABOONS—MY PACK OF HOUNDS—THEY ARE ATTACKED BY BABOONS—POOR DASH’S FATE—SNAKES.
General Cathcart now returned from his Basutoland expedition, where British soldiers proved once more their many sterling qualities. I shall not, however, attempt to describe the work done, for I had no actual share in it. The war now, so far as active operations were concerned, had virtually come to an end; my own occupation was gone. “Grim-visaged war had smoothed his wrinkled front,” as humpbacked Richard said, and I began to seek for excitement in a quarter which had always possessed attractions for me.
Hitherto my experiences of sport at the Cape had been of a somewhat tame description, consisting of coursing and partridge-shooting, such as I had often enjoyed, though on a larger scale, in Old England. But at that time my thoughts were on larger subjects bent, and I gave myself up thoroughly to these. My battery consisted of a Lancaster double-barrelled, oval-bored rifle, of great precision and length of range, but small in calibre; a Rigby twelve-bored fowling-piece; and a double-barrelled Barnett Minie, also twelve-bored. With these I bowled over lots of fur and feather, mostly pea-fowl, stein and bush buck. Sometimes I went in for bigger game; but as there were no lion, elephant, or buffalo within several days’ journey, I was obliged to content myself with trying my ’prentice hand on some stray leopards, whose tracks I had noticed about, as well as those of wild-boar, or rather, as I believe, of farmers’ pigs run wild during the war, and which in very fair numbers ploughed up the wet kloofs and the abandoned gardens around the farms.
There were plenty of hyenas and jackals about, but I was tired of trying to get up anyexcitement about them. They were a set of sneaking marauders, who used to prowl about the camp by night for the sake of the offal and scraps to be found, and who would scamper off on the slightest appearance of danger. My English spaniel, “Dash,” would often bow-wow them almost any distance away.
Amongst other traces of game, I had observed the spoor of a leopard, or some other soft-footed member of the feline tribe, around a pool of water at the head of the kloof on which Blakeway’s Farm was situated. It was about two miles off, in a very dank, secluded spot, almost as dark under the big cliffs and heavy foliage as an underground cavern. It was a favourite resort for blue-buck and baboons, whose footprints had stamped and puddled the ground all around. I selected a spot under a boulder of rock that advanced almost to the margin of the pool, where I placed, day after day, as I had seen it done in Algeria, branch after branch of prickly cactus, until I had made quite a porcupine shield, big enough to shelter a man. In the centre of this I dug a small circular hole, for a seat, and ensconced thereon, I one night took myplace, awaiting the arrival of my supposed game.
The grandeur of the scenery, huge grey rocks, gigantic trees, and an awe-inspiring stillness which weighed upon one’s spirits, made me feel extremely small in my solitary hole. The only life moving amid these gloomy surroundings was a merry singing cloud of mosquitoes, circling round and round above my head. Had I not remembered the enormous bumps their whispering kisses used to raise on my poor face, I should have felt tempted to let some of them in under the muslin I had spread across the bushes overhead, in order to have something to occupy my attention and break the monotony, were it only these denizens of the insect world.
About three hundred yards lower down in the valley I had left the attendant who usually accompanied me on my shooting expeditions. His name was Napoleon—a name given to him by the men on account of his being a native of St Helena, and from the fact of his bearing a supposed likeness to his illustrious namesake. He held in leash two half-bred Scotch deer-hounds, that were to be slipped on the reportof my gun. They were fine, strong-limbed animals, capable of pulling down almost any big game. Napoleon himself was a bold, willing fellow, on whom I knew I could place entire reliance. He was as widely awake to a stray Kaffir as to game. I have seen him more than once, when bush-buck had been brought to bay, go in in the pluckiest manner, and, to save the dogs, often risk his own life. Bush-buck, I may mention, have fearfully pointed, spiral-shaped horns, and have been known to make fatal use of them when driven to desperation.
Thus, far from all the world, I mutely sat, communing with the great voice of Nature around, and to the faint promptings of my small nature within. I felt and remained like a log, or rather, like the sober Irishman who entreated somebody to tread on the tail of his coat, if only for the sake of getting up a mild excitement.
I was roused from this stupor by some visitors to the pool, in the shape of two little land-tortoises, that came wabbling down, one after the other, as fast as their small groggy legs would carry them. On arriving at the water’sedge, they launched forth, like boats from a slip, and floated about, side by side, as lovingly as the twin ship the Calais-Douvres on the Channel. They were, no doubt, a newly-married couple. It might even have been their marriage trip, as they seemed as much over head and ears in love as in water. There they were, turtling about at leap-frog, heads up and tails down, in rocking-horse fashion; and now and then, as though ashamed of such mad pranks, they would dive underneath the surface, and shyly begin playing bo-peep with one another among the sedges of the pond. But alas! all things must come to an end, and I have heard it said that even husbands and wives get tired of one another, though Hymen forbid that I should give credence to such a report! And now, at this moment, a huge bat came lazily flapping its wings, like a sea-gull, over the water, and warned, I presume, the innocent creatures that night was approaching, and that it was time for respectable couples to seek the security of their own homes. So they left their luxurious water-couch, and wabbled off, as demurely as Darby and Joan going to evening chapel.
Meanwhile evening was putting up its revolving shutters, leaving me more and more benighted, and my thoughts were turned into another direction by catching at intervals the distant barking of the bush-buck, as they replied to one another, and who, like most swaggering challengers, kept each other at a respectful distance. A distant hum arose from the direction of the camp, as confused as the medley of races it contained—Russian, Swede, French, German, English, and Dutch—men from all climes, held strangely together by the mere force of my frail will. This thought, and other equally dim ones, occupied my mind, when the loud lapping of water close at hand caught my attentive ear, and brought me, with a startling throb, to the realities of my then actual undertaking. Straining my eyes in the direction from whence the sound came, I fancied, in the dusk, I could trace the outline of a beast of some sort on the brink of the pond. Slowly raising my gun in that direction, I was on the point of pulling the trigger, when the sound of lapping ceased.
Grave doubts now arose in my mind as towhether that at which I was levelling my gun was a living object or not, for in the gathering darkness, rocks, reeds, and bushes had assumed the most fantastic shapes. I became confused as to which of them I should direct my aim. At length I resolved to creep from my hiding-place, and for this purpose placed the small leather cushion on which I was seated on my head, and endeavoured to lift the prickly bush above. I was thus engaged when I received a fearful whop upon my head, which knocked me over, bushes and all, while some heavy brute passed over my prostrate form, landing me a prickly cropper upon my own porcupine shield. Off went the gun haphazard, and I scrambled to my feet as best I could. I was just recovering my senses, when up came the dogs, sniffing and scenting the air. They, however, appeared as bewildered as myself, and at last slunk away between my legs. Napoleon followed, blundering as fast as the darkness would permit him through the deep ravine; and on his inquiry as to what I had fired at, I told him to go to the devil and see! He lit a match and looked into the prickly bush fromwhich I had been so ruthlessly turned out. We found, near the edge of the pool, the deeply indented footing where some heavy beast had landed on springing from the rocks overhead. There could be no doubt in our minds that they were made by the leopard I had been waiting for. On Napoleon expressing some doubts as to whether or not the same beast might not be now waiting for us, we left in a most hasty and undignified manner the scene of my late skirmish. The result of my first interview was not of an engaging nature; and I made up my mind that the next time I arranged for a meeting, it should be on terms which, at least, offered more elbow-room.
The great sportsman at the camp was a man called Watson. He had been a keeper in England. He was master of all sorts of dodges for trapping, shooting, and stuffing of game. He had observed, near an abandoned cattle-kraal at a neighbouring farm, a large pool of stagnant water, around which he had made out, amid the many marks of wild animals, the spoor of a leopard, which he pretended was the same brute that had given me such a boxing-lesson in thekloof. Dix, Watson, and Nap now set to work to sink a hole not far from the pond, around which they placed a circle of bushes. They made, however, such a dense turret, that it was impossible to obtain an entrance into it. I explained to them that the only way for me to gain admittance would be for one of them to be tied with a rope, and then, bodkin-fashion, to be pushed through the prickly bush to make an entrance. This plan, however, did not quite satisfy them.
The only other method of proceeding was to throw their leather jackets on the top of the turret, and to place myself thereon. This pin-cushion was not, however, stout enough, and let the thorns through; so, after several attempts, in which I got severely pricked somewhere for my pains, I gave the setting dodge up. It was finally decided that the turret was to be removed; that we were to station ourselves at various parts of the building, a couple of goats being attached in a prominent place to attract the leopard to the spot, and a volley from us all was to settle the question. In accordance with this suggestion, the next day the goatswere brought, and pegged down, as we had previously determined. Dix had also brought some fowls, which he pretended, by their crowing, would greatly enhance the chance of attracting the leopard’s attention. We persisted in this plan for several days, but with so little promise of success, that I thought the odds were more in favour of attracting stray Kaffirs towards us, and being made game of ourselves. This not answering my sporting programme, I returned to the original plan of placing myself in the hole, which was sufficiently deep to conceal me; and there, without covering of any sort, to await the advent of any four-footed beast that would kindly come to the rendezvous.
On the night of the fourth day of kneeling attention I really saw a leopard slowly approaching the pond. I had an undeniable proof of his nature by the scampering away of several heads of antelope that had been near the pond, and by the loud quacking of a flock of wild-duck then swimming thereon. The brute walked leisurely round the pond until he came to within about twenty yards of the spot where I was lying concealed, when he suddenly disappeared as if by magic.In vain I strove to discover any signs of his whereabouts. I then partly got out of my hole, and there, kneeling on the edge, I could dimly see his flattened form. Now, what was to be done? He offered no fair mark for my rifle. I was afraid, in that uncertain light, to go nearer him; and he, on his side, decided on not coming nearer me. I passed what seemed to me a very long andtrès mauvais quart d’heurein this anxious state; the night was closing in fast, the moon would not be up until very late, and I really knew not what to do. In this uncertainty I crept backwards towards the bushes, thrown on one side, that had been lately employed in the construction of the before-mentioned turret.
Once arrived there, the same habit of protecting myself, which no doubt I had acquired by imitation from French sportsmen in Algeria, led me to try and cover my rear as safely as possible. With this view I went to work most energetically, but found the task, from the nature of the obstacles I had to overcome, very disagreeable; for, as hard as I had pushed my way in, the prickly thorns seemed to combine as strongly tospur me out. This kicking against pricks once decided in my favour, by finding that I had succeeded, after all, in making room for concealment, my courage rose in the same proportion towards the foe to my front. I not only got so excited as to make all sorts of unearthly yells to challenge the brute to stand up, to come on, &c., but actually finished by throwing bits of stick and brushwood at him, in the hopes of bringing the sulky brute to the scratch. But he was not going to be made game of, so, in despair, I left off hallooing, and called out to Dix (who, I afterwards found out, was at that moment soundly snoozing with Napoleon at the farm) to come to the rescue. These heavy-headed sleepers were not even dreaming of my state offunk, and, of course, did not stir.
At length, thoroughly exhausted, I laid myself flat on the ground to get a lower-level view of the horizon, and there, with my gun pointed to the front, and a stout assegai at my side, I awaited what might happen.
How long I remained I never knew, but it must have been a long time, for I was getting intensely cold lying on the ground covered witha heavy dew,—when, more by sound than by sight, I felt the gradual creeping of something towards me. However unmoved I might have remained until now, the loud thumping of my heart against the ground at this juncture became intolerable; so, with a loud shout, I jumped up, and, with an ominous growl, the animal bounded into the bush a few yards on my right. I at once sent a shot in that direction, which caused a fearful uproar and scattering of bushes. Without stopping to consider, I at once sent another shot towards the same spot, and suddenly all was silent. This not being reassuring, and as I had now no positive sign to show where the brute was, I fell back, loading, towards the farm. Here I met the men coming towards me; and after hastily explaining to them the position of affairs, we proceeded, torches in hand, towards the spot, to make a fuller investigation of what had taken place.
Here we found a fine male leopard lying dead. The first bullet I fired had broken the spine, near his hind quarters; and the second shot, composed of slugs, had taken effect in the head, and proved a speedy quietus. I believe this tohave been the only leopard in the district, as neither the men nor I ever saw the spoor of one afterwards.
My experience of wild-boar shooting was more profitable in the shape of hams and chine than as to actual enjoyment of what is called real sport. I could never get them to charge home; and although I have shot little porkers that have raised an awful amount of squealing, yet even the sow-mother, and the rest of the herd, would start off in the opposite direction. Once or twice it happened that they came towards me within about twenty yards, but then they would invariably be off to the right or the left. If, however, they showed so little pluck when facing the gun, they had plenty of it when opposed to dogs alone.
I have often seen them chasing mine (and they were a stout pack) for a long distance. Upon one occasion a “souzer” of pigs chased my dogs almost into the camp, and the men had to turn out to drive them off.
I never took any pleasure in shooting baboons or monkeys; and, except to defend myself on two different occasions, never fired a shot atthem. On the first occasion, I had been gathering bulbs of those red-pennoned, lance-shaped flowers, which are much admired in some parts of South Africa. I had been so intent on my task that I had forgotten my dogs, that always accompanied me, now the war was virtually over, in my strolls through the country.
The dogs were a very scratched pack. They were in all about twenty, mostly of Kaffir origin, of various sizes, from a huge Danish mastiff, called Woden, to my little Sussex spaniel Dash. The ruling spirits were four Scotch deer-hounds, three of which I had purchased from Mr Andersen, my Norwegian friend at Cape Town. The other had been given to me by P——r of the Commissariat. Dhula, the biggest and bravest of Andersen’s Scotch leash, would not only pull down the largest bush-buck, but would also keep guard afterwards, and prevent my Kaffir dogs eating it. Many an antelope had he thus saved to grace our frugal board, and to afford a display of Dix’s culinary art. Poor Dhula! his life was embittered by his jealousy of Woden. The latter, although a heavy dog, ran well; and often, while chasing, when the chance offered,he would run at Dhula, and, striking him under the shoulder as he would a deer, bowl the astonished Scotch giant over and over, much to the latter’s disgust.
Woden evidently could never quite understand the humour of his Scotch congener. He generally gave in to Dhula, but often after several sharp bouts, in which he always carried off the worst of the biting in the heavy folds of his shaggy throat. My Kaffir greyhounds would run anything and eat anything they caught, from a startled quail to a porcupine. They were as crafty as they were cruel and fleet, and in the woods ran as much by scent as by sight. They were not, however, equal in speed to my English dogs. My plucky little friend Dash was (considering his small offensive powers) the bravest of the brave; for his winning way of bringing stones or anything else he could pick up to you, whenever he wanted a caress, or some little tit-bit to eat, had completely ground down his teeth to an unbrushable size. If it came to a regular go-in with some struggling beast brought to bay, Dash would lie down, and, twisting his knowing head about as the variousups and downs of the fight took place, looked like an old amateur boxer observing professional gluttons at work. Dash was buried on Blakeway’s kloof, which had so often echoed to his lively tongue. A blue-faced baboon, as I am now going to relate, was the malevolent spirit which loosened all his worldly ties between his much-attached master and his love for all sports—for Dash was as much alive to the pleasure of hunting rats at a farm-rick in Old England as in chasing jackals and hyenas round our camp at the Cape.
To resume my narrative, however. As above stated, in the ardour of digging bulbs, I had forgotten my dogs, when Napoleon called my attention to their baying far down in the recesses of the kloof. Hastily picking up my gun, lying close at hand, and he hurriedly cramming without mercy into a sack my green-grocery-looking bunches of roots, we started off in hot haste to the spot to which the dogs were calling our attention. On our way we met them coming back; they were, however, eagerly enough disposed to return, so that we knew by that sign the object of their laterencontrewas not supposed by them to be very far off.
And so it was, for we soon found ourselves amidst a grinning lot of large, brown, Cape baboons. They were clinging up aloft to the graceful creepers that festoon so beautifully the trees in South African woods, and looking like so many hideous, hairy-bellied spiders on a beautiful lace-work of Nature’s weaving. I felt inclined to give some of them, who looked particularly out of place in that sylvan retreat, a peppering of shot; but their wonderful performances on the tight-ropes around them soon smoothed the wrinkles of my indignation. These acrobats performed extraordinary feats. They shot from branch to branch, from wave to wave, like flying-fish, or as pantless Zazel shoots from the cannon’s mouth to her swinging rope.
This performance created intense excitement, and the barking of the dogs seemed to applaud this aerial description of St Vitus’s Dance. It was really affecting to see the solicitude of the parents as their little progeny hopped from tree to tree after them, now holding out their arms to receive them as they landed, now thrustingback a creeper to bring it nearer within their reach. It was a real exhibition of baboon agility, of which we see but a faint parody in the Westminster Aquarium, by the Darwinian selections among the human bipeds.
An accident befalling a clumsy little fellow as he stumbled on the branch of an iron-wood tree, he came to the ground with a thud. In one minute the poor chap was torn to pieces by the dogs. This was more than his parents could stand; down they came to the ground, followed closely by the rest of the tribe, and a real battle ensued between them and the dogs.
The baboons got the best of the fight,—poor Woden was ridden off the field by two jabbering jockeys on his back, who laboured his sides most unmercifully with tooth and nail. Dhula was too nimble and clever with his teeth to be caught, nevertheless he had to submit from his many persecutors with the loss of several inches of his tail. Fly, a remarkably fine red Kaffir bitch, which I afterwards took home and gave to the Zoological Gardens, was ripped up and her sides laid bare. But the worst of all occurred to poor Dash: he was carried of by a hugebaboon almost as big as a totty, and I arrived to his rescue too late. I saw that he was dead, and forthwith shot his destroyer upon him. Napoleon made good use of his assegai and my spade; and after a fight far more exciting than glorious, we remained masters of the field.
I am thoroughly convinced, had the baboons shown any unity of action, I should not have been relating this incident to-day.
These are about the only events in my sporting life at the Cape worthy of narration; many milder incidents occurred which I pass over, judging them insufficient to be of interest to the reader.
I know but little about snakes—they were of almost everyday acquaintance; but as neither my men nor I were ever bitten by one, I have nothing sensational to write about them. One short episode I may perhaps relate. In creeping over some rocks to have a shot at a stein-buck, I cautiously looked over a ledge of stone, and fancying there was a curious garlic smell about the place, I looked down, and there, lazily stretched out at full length, almost touching my throat, was a huge cobra di capello.I drew back much less hesitatingly than I had peeped, and, retiring a few feet, shot it as it was rearing its head in the act of preparing to strike. This little event gave the hitherto slight attention I had paid them a more repulsive form, and ever afterwards I destroyed all that came in my way. Up to that day I had handled them as I had seen others do—henceforth their touch became too loathsome. Kaffirs believe that after a puff-adder, whip-snake, or cobra has bitten, it must within a short space of time wash out its mouth with water (which these snakes invariably do, if it is at hand), else it would die from the poison that oozes afterwards from its fangs. They also think that white men, if bitten by snakes, invariably cause the death of the snake itself—for they say the white man’s blood is poisonous to all serpents.
KAFFIR KNOWLEDGE OF SURGERY—MANNERS MORE ARTIFICIAL THAN NATURAL—PEACE CONCLUDED WITH SANDILLI AND MACOMO—INDIFFERENT CHARACTER OF THE TREATY OF PEACE—THE CORPS DISBANDED—THANKS OF COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF—RETURN TOWARDS THE CAPE—ADDRESSES FROM THE INHABITANTS OF FORT BEAUFORT AND GRAHAM’S TOWN—ENGINEERING TASTES—SAM ROWE—THE MARY JANE—I EMBARK FOR CAPE TOWN.
Kaffir witchcraft assumes so many fantastic forms, that it is difficult to give a notion as to any guiding principle in it. Hatred of the European seems to play a large part in all their superstitions.
A piece of stick is supposed, after blessing and incantations, to become a talisman, having the power to save the wearer from all danger the white man can attempt to inflict against him; but it is thought to be powerless in warding off a danger coming from a neighbouring tribe.They believe that we are born of the foam of the sea, and we should all perish if driven back to our ships, which they suppose to be the cradles in which we are brought up. Like almost all magicians, they believe they can raise plagues of all sorts, and inflict sores and different forms of leprosy by merely casting an evil eye upon any one.
Their knowledge of medicine and surgery is greater than may be supposed. I have known them cure headaches and neuralgia, hitherto incurable, by putting a leather band round the head, and adding underneath small smooth pebbles at certain distances, then placing a weight upon the head, which is usually a bowl of supposed mesmerised water, weighing down the whole until the head becomes completely numbed, and all pain ceases.
Two or three applications of this nature I know to be, from actual observation, a positive cure. They also know the use of several medicines, such as emetics, &c.; and in surgery will stop the bleeding of an artery as well as any surgeon—applying wet bandages wrapped round smooth stones, which act as efficiently as atourniquet. They will also amputate the small joints with great skill.
The Kaffir customs are far more artificial than one would suppose from his ease of manner; every position of the body has been taught him from his childhood. Whenever Kaffir men or women present themselves before you, it is in the attitude they have been instructed as the most becoming for the furtherance of their wishes. A man who comes to ask for a favour which concerns the welfare of any member of his family, takes quite a different attitude than when offering to exchange something in barter. The young man who seeks to purchase the hand of his wife, has certain modes of well-defined expression in the attitude he assumes, whether hesitating or assured of success. The triumphal swagger of a suitor who has been successful in such a mission is something marvellous to behold—it really seems as if he thought the earth would soil his feet as he treads upon it. On the other hand, if he has been refused, and has no hopes of making a second more enticing offer, he will retire in such hang-dog fashion as to make his worst enemy inclined to pity him. The man whostands before you leaning gracefully upon his assegai, in a posture that even a sculptor might dream of as the embodiment of manhood and grace, is not what you might suppose in a position taught by nature’s school, but the summing up of what generations have thought to be the beau-ideal of a man.
Johnny Fingo once presented himself before me in so calm and dignified a manner that he quite surprised me; and upon my asking him the nature of the business he came upon, he replied that he was the bearer of a communication from Sandilli. No Roman presenting himself on the part of the senate, bringing an offer of peace or war to a foreign potentate, could have done so with more calm assurance of the mighty import of his mission.
The women are small in shape and frame compared with the men, and extremely beautiful, as far as the moulding of the limbs is concerned; but their features will not bear the same close inspection. Winsome, coy, and to a certain degree striking when young, they become snappish, coarse, and ungainly as they advance in years. Noziah, of whom mention has alreadybeen made, was far handsomer than the ordinary women of her tribe (Timbuctoo), and betrayed her birth by her stately carriage and the extreme delicacy of her hands and feet. Her mental capacity was equal to that of any untutored woman I ever came in contact with; she understood thoroughly the intricate policy then being carried out at the Cape, the position of the Dutch and English settlers, and the use the Kaffirs might make of these two antagonistic interests for their own profit. She also was well aware of the task the missionary was performing, the progress of English civilisation, and the good and evil that it was then bringing into the land. In short, she was a woman capable of undertaking any noble task which Providence in its wisdom might have thought necessary.
General Cathcart now returned from his Basutoland expedition. Macomo and Sandilli had made peace with the British authorities upon terms that neither they nor the colonists could then or afterwards exactly make out. All that seemed perfectly clear was, that when the English Government had made up its mind as to the delimitations of territory, &c., that decisionwould be duly signified to all interested; and let the terms be as onerous or as arbitrary, as stupid or as wise, as the authorities at home could devise, they had to be accepted.
My corps having no furtherraison d’êtrewas disbanded, and a most flattering general order issued, in which the Commander-in-chief stated the following:—
“Headquarters, Graham’s Town,22d March 1853.
“The Commander-in-chief, in disbanding this corps,—the Water-kloof Rangers,—wishes to convey to its gallant commander, officers, and men, the high estimation in which he holds their services, &c.
(Signed) “A. J. Cloëte,Quartermaster-General.”
On my return towards England I was most kindly greeted at Fort Beaufort with an address, presented to me by the principal inhabitants of the town.
At Graham’s Town a similar address was presented to me by Messrs Godlington and Cocks, members of the Legislative Council, and signed by the principal inhabitants of the town andthe district around. I afterwards went with these gentlemen to the sea-coast to find out whether or not a safe roadstead for shipping could be established somewhat nearer the town than Port Elizabeth. Being somewhat of a military engineer, this proved an agreeable task; and I was already actively engaged in drawing out plans when the news arrived of the death of a very near relative. This closed all prospect of banquets and receptions, or proposals for new harbours; and I must confess that it was some slight consolation to think that I should not have to present myself at the head of a dinner-table as the honoured guest, to reply to vapid compliments.
At Port Elizabeth another equally gratifying address was presented to me, and what rendered it more pleasing was the fact of its being offered by Mr Deare, Mr Wylde, and other gentlemen, who had so kindly foretold my success as I passed through their town on my way to the front. I stayed a few days at Port Elizabeth, and one morning I walked with some merchants and others on its surf-beaten shore to see how a jetty could be made to facilitatelanding (they had heard of my plans concerning another place), for I always had a mania for building that follows like my shadow wherever I go.
I seldom see a spot but I always, in imagination at least, commence building upon it,—not that I care a whit whether it is for myself or another; yet more than one giant is living in the House that Jack built.
Wherever I have passed, a road, a bridge, a chapel,—a something, has marked my passage. I once built a jetty in the Bay of Bourgas, betwixt Varna and Constantinople, 147 yards long, 8 yards wide, having 22 feet of water; and on it embarked 45,000 troops, 9400 horses, 140 field-guns, with ample stores, for the Crimea; and the jetty (which is still standing), and the embarkation above mentioned, all was completed in twelve weeks. It is true I was helped by a British officer, Commodore Eardley Wilmot, of her Majesty’s steamer Sphinx, but neither of us got (nor in fact wanted) anything for our pains. The pleasure of the work was sufficient payment. I merely mention these things that the reader may know that I am not a mereamateur soldier, but one who has had a practical knowledge of his work.
As I said above, I was walking on the sea-shore when I was accosted by a good-looking sailor with “Sir, I am a fellow-countryman of yours, and a west-countryman to boot. I should like to shake hands; my name is Sam Rowe, and I hail from Penzance.”
I expressed the pleasure, which I really felt, on making his acquaintance. After this he joined us as we proceeded in our examination of the beach. When this was over, while we were returning to the town, Mr Sam Rowe said he wanted a minute’s private talk with me. Stepping aside for that purpose, he informed me that he would be happy to take me to Cape Town if I would go in that nice little craft, pointing to a cutter in the bay. He had heard from the town-folks that I was going there, and he thought I should like to sail with him. The vessel was his, and his time too. It was impossible to reply to Mr Rowe’s eager offer by refusal, so with a shake of the hand it was arranged there and then. The conditions were that the vessel was to be mine during the trip;he and his crew, consisting of three men and a boy (his son) were to be at my orders. Of stores there were plenty—fish, poultry, and salted pork, captains’ biscuits from Plymouth, bloaters direct from Yarmouth, and real rum from Jamaica. As for the craft herself—named Mary Jane, after his little daughter at home—why, nothing afloat, from a St Michael oranger to a fifty-gun frigate, could stand with her in a gale or a breeze. All these things Captain Sam Rowe offered me, and in exchange only required the company of my humble self, and yarns from the seat of war.
Two days afterwards I embarked in the Mary Jane, and found her to be a smack of forty tons. A long time ago she had been a trawler, but was now employed in the more important service of a Government transport.
Captain Rowe I have already partly described. I will only add that he was dark-haired, fair-skinned, grey-eyed, about 5 feet 8 inches in height, broad-shouldered, with well-rounded limbs, daring to folly (but his folly had a method in it); and his sheet-anchor a Bible, and a stout-hearted Devonshire matron at home.
He had been in his youth first mate of an Indiaman, afterwards captain of a fruiterer, and now he was the commander of what had once been his father’s craft, then called the Sea-gull, but now rebaptised the Mary Jane. At home he had not found trawling a very profitable business, so with three other west-countrymen he had started with his little craft to barter with the natives on the West African coast.
How he got there was rather surprising. His only chronometer was his father’s old watch. He took no observations, but merely guessed at his position from the distance run and the log. Occasionally he took soundings—i. e., when he could find them; chart he had none. Small success had, however, attended his bold efforts, although he had several very grand “specs” on hand. In the hold were a lot of real Birmingham guns, bought at 7s. 6d. apiece, which had but one fault, that of sometimes sending off their contents at the wrong end, hitting the shooter instead of the object shot at. There were also scores of magnificent crowns for African kings, made up of tinsel paper, brass spikes, wax pearls, and glass diamonds. He hadeven once, he said, furnished a mighty Ashantee potentate with a throne. This, however, he seemed to regret, it having been an old family piece of furniture. Strange as this may seem, I believed it to be quite true, as the throne in question was merely an old arm-chair, the legs, arms, and back of which had been severely shaken and cracked by many a toss and tumble in the cabin of the Mary Jane.
On my expressing surprise at his placing so shaky a seat for the support of a king, he with a sharp twinkle of the eye replied, “That is the look-out of the occupant; and,” added he, “these old-fashioned articles, if spliced at the proper time and place, still last for some good length of time.” Sam, like myself, was a stanch Conservative, and preferred to patch his coat all over to turning it. Not that he preferred an old coat to a new one, but he liked the old constitutional cut.
Notwithstanding all his grand undertakings, Captain Sam had not succeeded as he wished, and he thought that he had been humbugging and humbugged enough. After struggling for two long years through fevers on land and heavysurf-breakers on the shore, he had finally reached Cape Town, from whence he was now engaged in carrying Government stores along the coast as far as Natal.
These and many similar yarns were spun in the cabin of Sam’s little craft, in which I was now cooped up, in an atmosphere which I found fearfully clammy and stuffy after inhalingle grand airfor two years on African uplands. Sam, however, did all he could to cheer the comfortless surroundings of his small cribbed cabin by the ever-varying novelty of his yarns. He related many a hard-fought fight with the storms of old ocean, to which, in spite of all, he still clung, and with which he still hoped to have many a tussle ere he was piped to settle his own long account.
When wearying sometimes with his tales, and the sound of the surges striking the thin wooden sides of the trembling Mary Jane, I would go upon deck, and there watch the long rolling waves that sweep round the Cape, or listen to the cheery voice of his sailor-boy, as he sang many a ditty of Cornish and Devon heroes, and the glorious deeds of Drake on the Spanish main.
In this way we furrowed our way along, making very wet weather round the coast, until we came to the spot where the Birkenhead had gone down so recently with all hands. Here we luffed up for a time, and, baring our brows to the breeze, offered a parting salute to the gallant crew and stout-hearted red-jackets who had here gone to their last account at duty’s call; then, sheering off once more, filled our sails to a half gale of wind, and bounded off like a startled sea-gull towards Table Bay.
After this fashion we sped on through the sea, throwing up ridges high above our decks, and on the 12th July rounded the Lion’s Mountain. Here becalmed for a time we stayed our course, when a heavy puff from the crest of that huge emblem of African life sent such a staggering pressure on our outspread canvas as nearly brought us to grief. With a sudden whirl we were on our beam-ends! My berth on board had never been very dry, but now I rolled into one still more watery in the lee-scuppers. By good luck the tackling gave way, the topsails went overboard, and the stout craft righted again, as Captain Sam expressed it, none theworse for a little deck-swabbing. I managed also to regain my place on board, none the worse for my startling bath.
The next morning I declined to land in Captain Sam’s little punt, much to his annoyance, as he volunteered himself to pull me ashore. I, however, gave him to understand that it was beneath the dignity of two such west-country commanders as we were to land in such a tub-looking receptacle. The fact is, after Sam had placed his own burly person in the centre of his boat, I saw no place except his own brawny shoulders on which I could perch.
ARRIVAL AT THE CAPE—OPINIONS ON THE WAR THERE—THE CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN—BAPTISM OF A RECENT CONVERT—CONVERTED JEWS IN BUCHAREST—THE METROPOLITAN OF THE GREEK CHURCH AND AN ENGLISH BISHOP—THE VOYAGE HOME—THE ARETHUSA—NOZIAH VISITS CAPE TOWN TO BID ME GOOD-BYE—AFRICAN TROPHIES—REFLECTIONS ON THE ACTUAL STATE OF THE CAPE.
On landing at Cape Town, I soon found that quite a different feeling existed regarding my dealings with the Kaffirs from the views taken of them in the eastern portion of the colony.
Here there were no burnt homesteads, despoiled farms, or murdered occupants to bring the horrors of war in a vivid manner before people. Merchants, who were enriching themselves by the money poured into the colony from Old England, considered, no doubt, the stagnation likely to ensue from the cessation of this golden stream.
Then, again, a pious class of Christians who had been devoutly praying for the Lord’s mercy upon all men, both for those who were cutting, and those who were having their throats cut, could hardly conceive how I had had the courage to hang, as report said, Hottentot deserters.
Had they been Englishmen, taken red-handed in the deed, as the Hottentots were, it might have been right; but that I should have hung these missionary converts, whose only conception of brotherhood was to perform the part of Cain, seemed beyond their understanding of what was due to benighted niggers.
It is strange to remark the emulation that exists among Christian sects in their attempts to convert heathens to Christianity. The object is pursued with much zeal, but with no adequate knowledge of the work, or how it ought to be carried on. I feel convinced that it is promoted, like a good deal of home charity, not from any purer motives than may be found in self or sect ostentation. Some people who would sell their own souls over the counter if any one would buy them, will often give their gold freely forbuying over to Christianity that of a nigger. The clergy and other high dignitaries of the Church, instead of attending to their starving flocks at home, look “to fresh fields and pastures new,” to try and tempt straggling black sheep to the fold. So lately as a month ago—I write in November 1879—a learned chief of the Protestant faith was engaged on a long voyage of several hundred miles to confirm a sinner. As I was a party to the pious ceremony in question, perhaps I may be allowed to relate how it took place. This stray sheep, brought back to the fold on the back of a shepherd that had once belonged to the unbelieving community, had but the merest notion of the language of the religion to which he had been so happily converted. As this innocent lamb knelt before the attentive observers, he looked like an old bearded goat of quite a different flock. The proceedings were carried on in a most mysterious manner: the bishop put the questions through the convert’s spiritual prompter, the Rev. Mr H——, who in his turn gave the cue to the principal actor. But this complicated by-play brought on a crisis; the prompter himself got confused, and hallooedout loud enough for the spectators to hear, “But whowasyour godfather?” to which query the repentant sinner murmured “De Devil!” This was almost too much for the bishop himself, and several times he was evidently in doubts as to whether or not he ought to give his spiritual blessing to such a child of the flesh. However, the ceremony was finally gone through, to everybody’s satisfaction and relief.
In former years, conversions were carried on far more rapidly, and on a much larger scale. The British consulates in the East used to give a certificate of baptism and a certificate of British nationality at the same time, for a moderate sum. I remember when, in the year 1854, I was commandant of the town of Bucharest, a deputation of Jewish converts to Christianity waited upon me for help. They complained that their pastor, the Rev. Mr M——s, had abandoned his sheep at home, and gone to sell sheepskin jackets to the British army in the Crimea. These poor forlorn wanderers added, that if I could not help them with pecuniary assistance, they would strike and knock off work as Christians, returning to their old faith. Onconsidering the price asked, and the value of what was proffered, I advised them strongly to do as they said, not feeling justified in spending a shilling upon them.
The East is a difficult labyrinth for a man to find his way through, there are so many finger-posts having political meanings, so many cross-paths of various denominations leading to heaven knows where!—lovely by-lanes, with all the delights of the world on their flowery banks, that men, bewildered and in despair, put up too often at the half-way houses on the road, making themselves as happy as they can with all the worldly joys around them; it is often the devil to pay—but, alas! many thousand freethinkers do not hesitate to do it. The only result of such a competition for converts is to separate men more widely than ever. This is not my opinion alone. I had, in the presence of the English bishop above mentioned, a conversation with the Metropolitan of the Greek Church of the East. I was alluding, in the name of the Protestant divine, to the regret experienced as to the divisions existing in the Church of our Lord. The exact words of the Metropolitan,and which I am authorised to state, were as follows:—
“Tell his eminence of the Anglican Church that it is not the flock of Christ which is so wayward; it is we shepherds who drive them about in different directions for our own profit. What would become of me, Metropolitan of a Greek Church, if his eminence could convert them to Protestantism? What would become of him if I could convert his sheep to orthodoxy? And it is so with all Churches: they, the congregations, could be brought easily to assemble and be thankful to God in one mode of faith, but it cannot take place because we shepherds have an interest in dividing them.”
This fearless expounder of the truth afterwards added, in reply to the bishop’s desire that a prayer should be offered up by the clergy for the union of the Christian Churches in one: “God would not listen to our prayers: our kingdom, the kingdom of the priests, has been in all times a worldly kingdom; that to come will, I believe, belong to the poor. If these latter were to ask, God would listen to them, but not to us who cannot sincerely pray for such an endthat would be the destruction of priestly power. “I will,” he added, “give you an instance of the intricacies of the question. I who hold in my own hand some of the threads, cannot surmise a real clue to the solution, but would, as a curiosity, like to explain what I know of them.”
“On a late visit to Paris I went in full canonical dress, and assisted at High Mass in Notre Dame. The ceremony was a grand one; the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris himself officiated. I knew but little of the rites and ceremonies he went through, but when he bowed or knelt I did the same. When he prayed, I joined in the prayer; when he blessed, I bowed my head and asked inwardly his blessing. I felt the devotion of all around, and I joined my gratitude to the Giver of all mercies.
“The ceremony over, I went to the usual room behind the altar for disrobing, and was disrobed by canonical officials, as though I had been one of the chiefs in the Church. I believe, from what I have heard since, that no one was offended by the manner in which I assumed a somewhat prominent part.
“The next day I went in my official robes as a Metropolitan of the Eastern Church, and attended by the acolytes usual on official occasions, to pay a visit to the Cardinal Archbishop himself.He would not receive me.No doubt orders had been sent from elsewhere forbidding an official recognition of my position in a Church at all events equal in antiquity to his own.
“You see what divisions sever the leaders; how then can we expect the flock to follow them into one fold? No, no; we priests divide in order to reign. Unity of the Church can only be obtained by people going to Christ without waiting for us. None of us can define, with convincing simplicity to the masses, what authority we really possess as delegates of our Saviour. I for my part am willing to hold out the hand of fellowship to all men, even to those erring brethren the Jews. In a few days I shall pronounce in the Senate a speech in favour of their admission into this country as citizens. I must confess that in this I have listened more to the voice of Christianity in the West than in this part of the world. It is difficult for usRoumanians to look upon the Jew as a brother who looks upon our Saviour as an impostor. Yet still I have persuaded myself to perform this ill-defined task. I only trust in God that the passing of the measure will not tend to increase free-thinking doubt. I would even open my seminaries to the Jews, so much do I long to see all men brethren, but they would not come to them; neither do I regret it, for the orthodox Church ought, I think, to remain in the present what she has been in the past—a prudent, wise, and charitable mother, seeking to govern her own children wisely, leaving other Churches to do the same with theirs.
“I shall go to England next year if my health allow; and although I shall try and convert no one, I hope there will be no necessity for conversion to convince English prelates that they have in me a true Christian brother.”
The English prelate was a kind-hearted, learned man, full to overflowing with a wish to do good, but evidently puzzled how to set about it. There is a patriarchal vigour about some of the older forms of belief, which, in its racybonhomie, dwarfs Anglicanism considerably, andmakes it look somewhat of a sect—true, a good one, as, from the power and influence at its disposal, it would be strange if it were not; yet in a contrast like the above, it must be confessed that it has, outwardly at least, a rather “Brummagem” look. The Protestantism of Germany, in spite of its dreary aspirations, has a much broader basis. It encourages an untrammelled intercourse between thinkers of all denominations. There is an ebb and flow of ideas going on between it and the older forms of religion in the East which merit the attention of all who follow the outward growth and forms of Christianity. I have attended a Protestant service in the East where more than half of a large congregation were members of the Greek Church; and of the many members of that community with whom I have come into contact, and with whom I have spoken on the subject of religion, none seemed to dislike, and many seemed to like, the Saxon form of Protestantism as it exists in Transylvania; and I must testify that a better class of men than there produced under this form of religion it would be difficult to find anywhere.
To return from this long digression to my position at Cape Town. My execution of some Hottentot deserters had made me some pious enemies there. Of this I was quite indifferent. The Commander-in-chief, who saw one of them strung up to a tree, displayed his approval of the proceeding. I intimated, however, to those who were kindly bestirring themselves to get up an address to me from the inhabitants of Cape Town to leave the matter alone. I had been perfectly satisfied with the recognition of those living near the seat of war, who had had opportunities of seeing the work I had to do, and the way in which I did it.
I now prepared for my return to England. I had several proposals, amongst others, from my friend Captain Sam Rowe, who placed himself and his stout little smack at my disposal. I hardly liked the idea of being cooped up again in so small a space for so long a voyage, although I was strongly tempted by the thought of visiting the whole western coast of Africa, as Captain Rowe proposed we should do. I even entertained, for a time, the idea of traversing the whole continent—at all events, of proceedingup the Zambesi, and from thence on to Zanzibar. But the supposed hostility of the Portuguese authorities to the last-named trip, which was somewhat confirmed by the conversations I had with the Portuguese Consul at Cape Town, prevented me. The trip across the continent was also put off by the refusal of the Hon. R. C——, who did not wish to go to such length on a shooting expedition (the only objecthehad in view); while I, more ambitiously inclined, had not the means to make alone so lengthened a journey as a trip across the dark continent would have been.
After many hesitations, the fortunate arrival of some brother officers from the seat of war decided the question. We engaged for ourselves a schooner-yacht called the Arethusa, belonging to a Mr Eade, a London merchant: the only part of the vessel not at our disposal was the necessary space for a sufficient cargo as ballast. Everything being ready for our departure, we were seated in the boat that was to convey us to the tight little ship that had already let go her hold of African ground, and was tacking about in the bay, bending her white wings tothe breeze, seemingly as eager as ourselves to wend her way to our island-home. There were many kind adieus waved to us from the shore, which the Arethusa acknowledged by a parting salute from her small miniature guns. Loud cheers, hurrahs, sham demonstrations—the more boisterous the better, to conceal real parting regret—when, above all the din, one clear shrill voice pierced my ear as an arrow. “Come back! come back!” it cried. I looked behind, and there, on the pier, stood Noziah beckoning me to return to the shore. How could I? What could I say to her? Never by word or deed had I wronged her. Often when she looked in a mirror had she told me that she wished herself dead because her skin was not white like mine. Her simple faith, however, shamed mine. When I told her that “God made us all equal,” her colour ever rose like a sable shroud between her life and mine. If ever the dream of making all races one is to be realised, God must do it; man never can. So the boat went on its way, and I left that dusky form standing on the narrow pier like a statue of clay.
When the war had come to an end, I had obtained, through the kindness of General Cathcart, an order for a commissariat transport to take Noziah to her brother Sandilli. This conveyance was afterwards sold off and purchased by her. In this she had come to Cape Town. My agent, Mr H——, upon whom she called the next day as she was leaving the town, wrote and informed me that she had gone back to her home. This was the last I heard of that pure-hearted, innocent African maid.
Once on board I had plenty of interesting matters to think about. I had brought down from the front several wild animals and birds, which I intended for the Zoological Gardens at home. Amongst others, a springbok, which Mr Mitchell, then director of the Gardens in Regents Park, informed me was the first of that species of antelope that had been seen alive in England.
I also had several birds equally rare, and monkeys, besides sacks of roots, bulbs, and herbs, the spoils of African glades, with which I intended to adorn my own little garden at home.
When all things had been safely stowed away, and night was drawing on, I went to the taffrail, and looking over, thought of the land now sinking in the distance. It is a glorious spot that Cape, which Vasco de Gama called of Good Hope, while he thought of the wonders it contained, as yet unseen by the white man. And so it is still to all those who seek a future for our race: that mighty continent which Grant has lately strode over, and Livingstone claimed for us by there laying down his life. The entire continent must, in my opinion, be yet spread open to us through the Cape of Good Hope.
When I proposed to the Hon. R. C—— the noble task of pioneering the way, I felt that we then stood at the real starting-point. It is useless to seek a passage by wading through the oceans of sandy deserts in effete Northern Africa, when the explorer may recruit his strength, and start almost every day with renewed life, from the fertile unexhausted Cape.
Of settled life there is already a strong and valuable nucleus. Both Dutch and English present as fine specimens of our common Protestantism,and are as enthusiastic lovers of constitutional rights, as are to be found anywhere. The fault hitherto impeding their useful amalgamation has been the forcing process employed by the Home Government.
The annexation of the Transvaal has been a most immature and ill-devised proceeding. However good the wished-for object may be in itself, the end can never justify violence; and the ten thousand Dutch Boers, born and bred with the same prevalent ideas as existed during the Puritan times at home, cannot, by a stroke of the pen, be brought into allegiance to the British Crown. The native population are slowly disappearing, like dark clouds at sunrise. The advent of the white man dispels all visions of the land ever returning to the blindness and horrors of a barbarian sway. Let those who dream of admixture of races look to the difficulties at home, and hold their peace.
ST HELENA—ASCENSION—MONKEYISH PRANKS IN THE “HORSE” LATITUDES—YOUNG BEN’S FATE—AN IRISH WAKE ON THE LINE—NARROW ESCAPE—THE MAURITIUS STEAMSHIP—OCEAN VISITORS—A WESTERLY GALE—SIGHT THE WHITE CLIFFS OF BRIGHTON—SALUTE THE NATIVE SOIL—A GREEDY MOUTHFUL—A DARK IMPRESSION—DIRECT ATTENTION OF GOVERNMENT TO NEGLECTED STATE OF NAPOLEON’S LATE RESIDENCE IN ST HELENA—OBTAIN REPLY IN 1855—DESIRE TO OBTAIN ACTIVE MILITARY EMPLOYMENT—DELAYS OF THE HORSE GUARDS AUTHORITIES—MY RECEPTION THERE.
We had a fine passage as far as St Helena. The Arethusa was a fast sailer and a good sea boat, although rather crank at times under the press of canvas we sometimes induced our good-natured Captain B—— to clap on her lofty spars; in fact she was overmasted, and required all that nice attention as to trimming that a top-heavy belle of the seas must have not to show too much of her keel.
From St Helena we sailed towards Ascension,noted for its turtle. The island itself is a dull, brown spot lying in the sea, its cracked surface looking like a burnt egg-shell. This place was discovered by Jan de Noves, a Portuguese navigator, on Ascension Day, 1501—hence its name—at least so I was told by a whitey-brown native who boarded us.
We had now arrived somewhat near the “horse” latitudes, and in calm weather, and with no work to kill the time, we began some horseplay with the monkeys on board. The name given to these latitudes arose from the number of horses the Spaniards used to throw overboard when becalmed—sometimes for weeks—in these regions, passing to and fro between their South American possessions and Europe. The chief object of our fun on board was a large, greenish, long-tailed monkey, who, with Darwinian forethought, had pitched upon young C—— as the fittest selection Providence had placed within his reach on the high seas. The competition as to natural fitness was so close between the two, that it was often a cause of serious dispute as to which should have his way.
One day, after a sharp bout of this kind, areal quarrel ensued, as will occur sometimes in the best-regulated families; and young C——, who prided himself much on ancestral descent, as, no doubt, did also his still more anciently descended rival, came to a regular stand-up fight with the monkey. Strength was on the side of C——, whilst cunning and skill were on the side of the old un; but at last the upstart gave his ancientconfrèresuch a tremendous upper cut, as he was holding on to the ratlines, near the bulwark, that he was knocked out of time into the bosom of the impenetrable deep, and poor young Ben (that was the name of our monkey) had to swim for it.
As this typical representative of lost nationality and universal brotherhood breasted the waves like a corker, we tried to lower a boat; but although the apparatus always acts at home, it never does at sea, so the boat stuck up in the air on its davits. We then threw a life-belt towards the now nearly exhausted Ben; but although he had enough instinct to grasp it, he had not enough sense to pass it over his head and under his arms. So we saw his efforts getting slowly weaker and weaker as he clasped andclutched at the slippery buoy, and at length he sank beneath the waves, down, down among the dead men, to be found again, no doubt, one day by some yet undreamt-of ethno-geologist, who will perhaps deduce from his bones that the aborigines of the Atlantic were very little men, with long caudal appendages, and descant learnedly upon every link in that long tail, until he comes to the end of his own, and finds out his mistake.
In commemoration of this sad event we proposed a sort of Irish wake, to be held as we passed the line.
From Ascension we reached away so far to the west that nothing but the most abstract calculation could give our captain any idea as to the latitude and longitude in which we really were, and our little bark seemed to be dancing about on the line like an amateur rope-dancer. This is a rather metaphysical metaphor; but I am talking learnedly now, influenced, no doubt, by our skipper’s tuition. Time hanging heavily on my hands in this dead calm, when even the green waves assumed thelifeless heaviness of molten lead, I had taught myself navigation, and held such lengthy discussions with our captain as to the position and value of stars, planets, and constellations, as to appear to the somewhat astonished listeners around as though I were a Newton and a Pascal rolled into one.
The captain and I, over our glasses (telescopes I mean, of course), had become so awfully knowing, that my only doubts were as to which knew the least of the two; and it was only for the sake of the respect due to seniority in this happy ignorance that I allowed him to navigate the ship. One day, however, nettled by some critical observations of mine, in a sudden fit of displeasure he threw up his commission as skipper, and I took his place; but as it happened to be a dead calm at the time, I had no means of showing my superior seamanship. Thus time passed on, while I still retained a certain happy-go-lucky faith in my ownstarquite as strong as the captain’s in his. In this I was fully justified, as the sequel will show.
On passing over the supposed line, which ourcaptain, after dinner, had kindly chalked out before us in a very zigzag manner on the mahogany, in the prelude to thein memoriamwake for poor Ben, whom, as I previously stated, we had left deep down in the phosphorescent waters of the southern hemisphere. While others were singing song after song in happy oblivion of past warfare at the Cape,Iwas thinking that we had entered into British waters. This was somewhat a stretch of imagination, but nothing is too big for me when I dream of Old England—like Ben, I dive into futurity. Thus human nature seeks for pleasure and enjoyment in many and varied channels, according to its own appreciation of wherein these consist.
The bottle was circling freely, and the hot, stifling atmosphere of the mess-cabin below made us feel delightfully dry every time it neared us, as one after another we passed the Rubicon between self-possession and being possessed. Notwithstanding all this joviality, an uncomfortable feeling was slowly creeping over me, and at last became so unbearable that I ran upon deck to breathe the fresh air. How grandall appeared under that mighty dome, compared to the rafters of the cabin below! The night was glorious in its starry splendour; the sea slept gently heaving, as though with loving dreams surging, while soft breezes rippled its face with smiles.
The boisterous mirth arising from the cabin below seemed strangely out of place. I turned to the man at the helm; the idiot seemed as screwed as the wheel that rolled in his slackened grasp. “Holloa, mate!” I said, “what is that light on the water you are steering for?” pointing to a flame I saw gleaming there. “A tar-barrel,” he said, “some chaps passing the line have chucked overboard.” “But it is nearing us too fast for that—look out, man! Good God! its a ship!—luff, luff!” and suiting the action to the word, I jumped to the wheel and jammed the helm down; then swiftly glided by a huge black hull, its deck crowded with dusky figures, shouting and gesticulating to us like demons, its stern grazing our quarter, as the good ship Arethusa, like a form endowed with life, sprang up into the wind, and saved herself from destruction. One second more and wehad been down, down amongst the dead men, not far from poor Ben.
Up rushed the startled convivialists from below, some with their glasses still in hand, and I crept ’neath the bulwarks, and kneeling, felt a mother’s prayer had been heard that night on my behalf. This vessel proved to be the Mauritius, a large iron screw, then bound on her first voyage to India round the Cape. She was afterwards one of the fleet of transports placed under my orders for the conveyance of troops to the Crimea, an account of which will shortly appear in my military correspondence concerning that war. This narrow squeak sobered us for a few days, but our spirits revived as the western winds now began to blow.
The frigate-hawk—a truly wonderful bird for its powers of flight—came often to pay us a visit, and changed the monotony of continually looking into the sea for beings endowed with life. I might have shot one or two, and had the head of my rifle more than once on their bodies, as they floated overhead without a quiver in their outspread wings; but such aerial life I did not like to see streaked with blood, so I left themalone in their boundless home, instead of sending them to a glass cage in the British Museum.
Of shark, bonito, and other scaly-looking denizens of the sea, there had been often exciting scenes of what some called sport, but I must say I never could see much fun in it. I certainly should have liked to have had a go-in with a vicious-looking shark on fair terms, but then I was most undeniably afraid of him in the water, and on the deck of our ship he was no match for me; so, before I had seen two such hooked monsters hauled on board and butchered with spears and knives, I used to feel rather disgusted than otherwise with such displays.
As for the huge, gaunt-looking albatross as they flapped their leather-looking wings like vampires around us, no one seemed particularly anxious to settle accounts with them: a superstitious awe influenced even the most reckless amongst us as they circled above our heads. Curiously enough, the only one who had the courage to pull a trigger at them was young K—— of the 74th, and he died soon after he landed.
We were now in latitudes where westerlygales are of frequent occurrence, and a rattling one caught us one night as we were running with studding-sails set. So sudden was its approach that there could be no question of our taking in sail; so, in a storm of wind and rain, we flew along as though Neptune on his foaming sea-horses was trying to catch us. The poor little Arethusa fairly staggered under the force of the gale, like a startled hare now swerving to the right, now to the left, twisting, cracking, and burying herself in the sea as deep as she could without absolutely giving up the struggle and going once for all to the bottom, until old blustering Boreas at last, in kind compassion, relieved us of some spars. Then, with the rags of our late flaunting sails, and with just as much more as was necessary to steady us on our course, we proceeded more safely if more humbly than before. The little ship rose buoyant to the seas as though no longer afraid of them, starting afresh from the top and sliding down the ribbed backs of the long-rolling billows, defying them as they crested their foaming heads in anger behind us.
It was very exciting. I thought of Sam Rowe and his little smack battling with such weather, and though I had more confidence in his skill than in that of our skipper, yet, like Tom Bowling, I preferred the Arethusa in the Bay of Biscay to the Mary Jane.
Good old Sam! I hope he won’t think me foolish as he reads these lines—for the old boy is hale and hearty yet, and, with spectacles on nose, and ‘Western Times’ in hand, can still discuss matters shrewdly.
On the 30th July the white cliffs of Brighton gladdened our eyes, and running up the coast, we hove to off Eastbourne and took a pilot on board. Some of us were so anxious to get ashore that we took passage in the boat that had brought out the pilot, and with a cheer from some of the more patient who had remained on deck, pulled away to the beach; but on our arrival there, we found that the boat was too deep in the water to get close in to the shore. This did not stop us. Young L—— and I jumped into the surf up to our waists and waded ashore. This ducking had in no wise cooled my excitement,for, in placing my foot once more on English soil, I threw myself on the ground and gave it a hearty kiss.
After this exhibition I felt rather taken aback by the astonished looks of some sight-seers who had come down to view our disembarkation. On rising to explain matters to the astonished natives I could not get a word out. They no doubt thought me to be choking with emotion, but it was otherwise. In the fervour of my embrace the sand had got into my mouth, and, as I had no tooth-brush at hand, I was obliged to make use of my finger to remove a lump of my fatherland from my mouth, as though it had been a quid.
Young L——, who jumped with me from the boat, had also gone through the same kissing ceremony; he, however, had not taken such a greedy mouthful, and after carefully wiping the salt water from his boots and trousers with his handkerchief, kindly offered to perform the same operation for me. To this I consented; but I thought he was paying rather too much solicitude to my appearance as he scrubbed away at my face; however, the task once over, we startedfor the Parade, to the laughing astonishment of all the bystanders. After proceeding a little distance L—— left me on some frivolous pretext, and I went on alone.
On reaching the Parade, among the first persons I met were Lady P—— and her daughters—intimate friends of my family. Without much hesitation I gave the old lady a kiss, and would have continued the salute all round if allowed, had not the expression, or rather impression, on her ladyship’s face made me hesitate. She had a marbled forehead, a black-spotted nose, and a comically shaped O round her lips. I saw that I must have blackened her face; and as I knew that it could not have been done by any African black imported from the Kaffirs, I recollected that it must have been by some of Day & Martin’s received from L——’s pocket-handkerchief as we made our hurried toilet on the beach. Lady P—— kindly accepted my excuses for this uncalled-for display of polished attention, and after a few words of explanation, left me spotless of any design to darken either her face or her fame.