When she was not cleaning the saucepan her other spare minutes were spent in cleaning up the camp ground, and burning all scraps.
One morning when doing this she made the great discovery. It was this—how to make toast without a good fire. She had wrapped some unused slices of bread in some waste paper, and put the whole lot among the ashes of our palm-leaf fire in order to burn them.
The paper gradually charred and burnt itself away, and left the bread behind it nicely roasted into crisp brown toast!
* * * * *
Another tip which we learnt in camp was how to find truffles. These are a kind of root akin to a mushroom, which grow entirely underground. They are very nice to eat, and command a good price in the market.
In France the people find them with pigs; the pigs are able to scent them, and proceed to root them up with their snouts, when the man steps in and collars the truffle.
The Arabs showed us how to find them on the desert, where they are quite plentiful.
We had to examine the ground pretty carefully as we went along, and where we saw a few little cracks in the surface leading out from one centre where the earth bulged up a little—there we dug down two or three inches and found the truffle.
* * * * *
At one railway station in Algeria we found a motor-car waiting to take us to our destination. The driver, unlike so many motor-car drivers, set to work to carry our luggage himself, and worked for us most willingly and well. He spoke English perfectly, with a South African accent.
We soon found that he came from the Transvaal, and had learnt his energetic helpfulness and courtesy through having been a Boy Scout in Johannesburg!
* * * * *
The story of the "Arab Marriage" reminds me of another legend about rocks, but this one was a Red Indian story about a rock in British Columbia, Canada.
The Arab story showed that the Arabs respect decent behaviour, and this one, on the opposite side of the world, shows that the Red Indians also give honour to manliness and purity.
[Illustration: TUNISIAN ARAB BOY WEARING A "CHEKIA" OR FEZ.]
[Illustration: TUNISIAN WOMAN OUT FOR A WALK—BLACK MASK AND ROOMY"BAGS."]
Just at the entrance to the harbour of Vancouver stands a solitary pinnacle of rock, straight and upright. It is called the Siwash Rock.
A young chief had made himself renowned for his wonderful courage in war and for his sense of duty to his tribe and to his religion, and for his courtesy to women.
He had married a wife, and when she was about to give birth to a child they did as laid down in the laws of the tribe, that is, they both bathed in the sea to be so clean that no wild animal should be able to scent them. This would ensure their child being clean in thought and deed.
The woman returned to their tent, but the young chief went on swimming to make sure that he should be clean and pure for the birth of his son.
While he swam a canoe came along with four giants in it. These shouted to him to get out of their way, but he only laughed back at them that he was swimming on important business.
But they shouted to him that he must cease swimming in the channel, as they were messengers of the great God, and that if he did not they would turn him into a fish, or a tree, or a stone.
[Illustration: A SPAHI (NATIVE CAVALRY SOLDIER) ADMIRED BY AN ABAB BOYSCOUT OF THE FUTURE.]
But he only replied that he must be clean for the birth of his child, and therefore he meant to go on swimming, no matter what the risk was to him.
This quite nonplussed the giants.
They could not run him down, because if their canoe were to touch a human being their power over men would be lost.
Just then, when they were pausing, wondering what to do, they heard the cry of a baby come from the woods on the shore.
Then one of the giants stood up and chanted to the swimmer a message from the great God that, because he had bravely held out against all their threats in order that his child should be the son of a clean father, he should never die, but should remain for ever as a reminder to other warriors to do their duty, and to obey the law of the tribe. And his wife and child, too, should be for ever near him.
So the moment he touched the shore he became the great upright rock, now called the Siwash Rock. And a short distance from him, in the woods, are two more rocks, a big one and a little one beside it—his wife and child.
They are monuments to the Indian belief that those who do their duty in spite of any difficulty or danger are the best men and the greatest heroes.
* * * * *
The Souks.
Perhaps you do not know what a "souk" is?
Imagine yourself in a long, narrow tunnel lit with skylights here and there, with small open shops along either side. That is what one of the "souks" or bazaars in Tunis is like.
There are miles of them, and they are generally crowded from end to end with the white-cloaked Arabs and shrouded figures of women with black masks over their faces, all busy shopping, buying or selling.
Each trade has a souk to itself. Thus, in one souk you will find nothing but shoemakers' shops one after another, in the next will be all coppersmiths, in another the cloth merchants, and so on.
There still stand the "Bardo" or Palace of the "Bey" or King of Tunis, and the "kasbah" or castle in which the Tunisian pirates of old days used to imprison the Christians whom they captured at sea; and there is still the old slave market where they used to sell them.
Many an English sailor has been lost for ever to his home and friends in that dismal place.
But on one occasion the prisoners got the better of their captors. As many as ten thousand of them had been collected, and they made a plan to escape, and, rising against their captors, they overwhelmed them by force of numbers and got away.
"Home, Sweet Home,"
An interesting spot in the city is the old Christian cemetery, in which lies buried the man who wrote the well-known song, "Home, Sweet Home." Most people think that it is an English song, but the composer was in reality an American—a clerk in the Consulate—named John Howard Payne.
* * * * *
Close to Tunis is the site of Carthage, the capital of the great country of that name in North Africa.
There is very little to be seen of it to-day, for the city was destroyed by its enemies, and the stones were taken to build the present town of Tunis.
It was founded nearly 900 years before the time of Christ, and was for hundreds of years a powerful and prosperous country till 146 years before Christ, when it was conquered by the Romans, and the city was given over to the flames.
The city was at that time twelve miles round, and was defended by huge walls sixty feet high and thirty-three feet thick with rooms inside them. In the lower storey were stables for horses and elephants (of which there were 300), and the upper storey served as barracks for over 20,000 soldiers, who formed the garrison for defence of the city.
But very few of these soldiers were Carthaginians. The Carthaginian young men did not care about soldiering: they preferred to loaf about and do nothing but watch public games, and foreigners or poor men were hired to do the soldiering for the country.
The country was large and rich, and had many colonies oversea and plenty of ships.
It looked as though no enemy could ever arise to come and attack her.But what seemed so unlikely actually happened in the end.
The Romans had no great fleet to speak of, but they had a fine army, and they meant business. They put their soldiers into crowded transports, and sailed across the short distance of ocean that lay between the two countries—not much farther than Hamburg in Germany is from Hull in Yorkshire.
Thus the country which, like Germany, had a fine, well-trained army, landed a force in Carthaginia, the country which, like Britain, had a great fleet and great colonies, but only a small army, and it smashed up the Carthaginians through their not Being Prepared for it.
Boar Hunting.
From Tunis one sees to the southward a mountain called Zaghouan. Though forty miles away it was from here that the Carthaginians got their water supply, and they conveyed it by a small canal, which they built all the way to Carthage.
[Illustration: You can imagine the fun of having a lot of wildly excited Arabs firing from the opposite side of the circle straight in your direction, with the animal in between you.]
That canal still serves to bring the water into Tunis, though it is now a good deal over two thousand years old!
I went to Zaghouan once to hunt wild boars. We got on that occasion a hyena. It was an exciting time when our Arab beaters, working in a big circle, gradually closed in on him from all sides.
It was exciting because every beater carried a gun, and every man meant having a shot at that hyena.
You can imagine the fun of having a lot of wildly excited Arabs firing from the opposite side of the circle straight in your direction at the animal in between you!
Fortunately on this occasion the first few shots killed him, and there were no other deaths to record.
The Arabs themselves see no special danger in it, because, they say, the guns are all pointing downwards at the animal, and if the bullet misses him it will only bury itself in the ground.
That is all very well, but it might as likely as not hit a stone and glance up again and catch one in the eye or elsewhere that might be unpleasant.
Personally, I did not hold with that kind of shooting, but the Arabs seemed to enjoy it so much and were so cheery and jolly over it that I, too, had to smile and look as if I liked it.
There is plenty of game near Tunis, and this day we saw two dead wild boars being brought in.
* * * * *
In the old days, as I told you, Carthage was the London of that time, being a city of 700,000 inhabitants, and the capital of a great empire, which had overseas colonies in Spain, Corsica, and Sicily.
For a very long time it was at war with the Romans, who were the great military nation then, and at first the Carthaginians got the better of their adversaries.
One great help to them was their corps of elephants. These elephants had scythes fixed on to their tusks, so that when they charged they not only cut down the serried ranks of their enemies, but they also trampled them underfoot.
In their great fight outside Carthage, the army belonging to the Carthaginians under a Greek officer, Xanthippus, carried the day with a grand charge of elephants, and thus defeated and routed the Romans under Regulus.
Of the 20,000 men who formed the Roman force only 2000 escaped. Regulus and a number of his best officers were captured and held as prisoners of war for several years.
* * * * *
As time went on, the Carthaginians tried to make peace, and they sent their prisoner, Regulus, over to Rome to persuade the Roman Government to come to terms. They made him promise on his word of honour that if he failed to bring about peace he would return again to Carthage, and become a prisoner once more.
When he got to Rome, instead of urging them to make peace, he told his countrymen to go on with the war.
The Roman Government were inclined to do this, but at the same time they saw that if they did, Regulus would probably be put to death by the Carthaginians for not having procured peace, so they did not know what to do.
Regulus, seeing their difficulty, told them that he was an old man and his life did not matter, and he pretended that he had already taken slow poison. So the Romans resolved to continue the war, and Regulus went back to Carthage, according to his promise, and gave himself up to the Carthaginians.
[Illustration: AN ARAB BOY AND HIS "MOKE."]
You might think that they would have admired him for his courage and sense of honour, but the Carthaginians, as I told you, were a cowardly lot; they hired soldiers to do their fighting for them, and, like all cowards, they were cruel, too; so instead of respecting this plucky old Roman, they punished him by shutting him into a box lined with sharp spikes, so that he could get no rest nor sleep.
Then they cut off his eyelids, and took him out of his dark cell into the blazing sunlight, so that he was blinded, and finally they killed him by crucifying him.
Supposing that we were invaded by an enemy who had a strong army, and we had nothing but paid soldiers to defend ourselves with because our men were too cowardly or too unpatriotic to learn how to defend their homes. If such an enemy were to defeat our weak army, and then order us to destroy every house in London, how should we like it?
Should not we feel, like the Carthaginians, enraged with our Government who had not made the country strong, and also enraged with ourselves because we had not trained ourselves to defend our homes before it was too late?
The Carthaginians in despair sent more messengers to the Roman general at their gates, begging for thirty days' grace in which to make their arrangements, but the conquerors sent these men back with the order that the destruction of the city was to begin at once.
Then a change came over the Carthaginians. From a mob of despairing, panic-stricken wretches they organised themselves into a defence force. They barred the city gates, and started to make weapons to replace those which they had surrendered to their enemies.
Night and day they worked—men, women, and children. They manufactured daily 100 shields, 300 swords, 500 spears, and 1000 balls for their catapults, and the women cut off their hair and plaited it into ropes for the catapults.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A CARTHAGINIAN CATAPULT.]
The catapult which the Carthaginians used was not the little implement that a boy uses nowadays; it was a big kind of windlass, by which a number of ropes were twisted up tightly till they acted as a spring to a strong wooden arm at the end of which was a leather cup. This held a stone about the size of a man's head.
When the spring was let go, this arm was flung violently forward, and the stone was thereby hurled into the air, and flew with great force for 400 or 500 yards.
The catapults served the purpose of artillery in those days when gunpowder had not been invented.
The Carthaginians, when a favourable wind blew, sent a lot of fire boats filled with faggots and tar to drift among the Roman fleet and burn their ships.
They also got together the wrecks of their own ships which had been smashed up by the enemy, and from them they built up others and sallied out of port in order to astonish the Romans.
But they did not make any bold attacks, consequently the Romans only sat tight and got reinforcements over, and in the end they attacked and forced their way into the city. There the fighting in the streets was very close and bitter.
For six days it went on, but the stern discipline and valour of the Romans gradually told, and very soon the whole city was in their hands. Fifty thousand inhabitants were allowed to escape, and the city was given over to the flames.
One lot of defenders the Romans refused to spare. Some 900 of them took refuge, and made a last stand, in the Temple of AEsculapius, and among them was the wife of Hasdrubal, the commander of the Carthaginians, and her two sons.
Hasdrubal himself saved his skin by surrendering to Scipio, the Roman commander, but his wife stood up on the temple, which was now on fire, and reviled him as a coward. Then she killed her two boys, and threw herself into the fire rather than give in to the Latin enemy.
* * * * *
A Home of Scouting.
Malta was a home of Scouting, since the Knights of St. John, who settled there after the Crusades, were typical Scouts.
They knew how to Be Prepared
I remember reading the diary of a traveller who visited Malta in their time—some three hundred years ago. He said that one morning a pirate ship was sighted off the island. The Grand Master at once ordered one of the fighting ships to get ready, and called upon the knights to man it. Any who desired to go were to parade in front of the Castile Palace (now the Mess house of the Royal Artillery). Some fifty or sixty would be sufficient, but instead of this over three hundred turned up on parade with their retainers and men-at-arms ready to start then and there.
In the Armoury can be seen among many others the suit of armour worn by the Grand Master Wignacourt.
One cannot but admire the beautiful fitting of the different folds of armour, made so that the arms and legs could be bent and yet thoroughly protected against wounds; also the whole is beautifully engraved with ornamental designs. Among these a quick-sighted Scout will at once notice the fleur-de-lys, or Scout's badge, on the breast.
* * * * *
The badge also occurs on another badge of the knights, that is, on the Maltese Cross, which all of them wore. This cross was eight-pointed in shape, and was originally derived from the skull and crossbones; it came from the crossbones, and served to remind the knights that it was their duty to fight to the death and never to give in.
[Illustration: A notice on the walls of the fortifications of Malta, where caper-plants grow plentifully, says: "No one is allowed to cut capers here except the Commanding Royal Engineer." This is how I picture him.]
Their motto might well have been that which the Boy Scouts use to-day:Never say die till you are dead—struggle on against any difficulty or danger, don't give in to it, and you will probably come out successful in the end.
* * * * *
Most of the Oversea Scouts wear, in addition to the Scout's badge of the fleur-de-lys, the badge belonging to their country. For instance, the Canadian Scouts wear the maple leaf, and the New Zealanders wear a leaf of the tree fern.
If the Maltese Scouts want a badge of their own they could not do better than adopt the Maltese Cross of the knights, and then stick to, and act up to the meaning of it.
* * * * *
When Napoleon was trying to conquer the whole of Europe a hundred years ago, he proceeded to take Malta.
But the Maltese people rose, and held the rest of the island against him, and sent and asked the British under Lord Nelson to come to their assistance.
This was promptly done, and the British Fleet laid siege to the French in Valetta, so that no supplies of food could be brought to the French, and some British troops were landed to help the Maltese.
Thus the French were defeated, and the Maltese handed themselves and their island over to become a colony of the British Empire.
One celebrated officer who largely helped to defeat the French inMalta was Admiral Troubridge.
Someone was condoling with Nelson once on his losing his right arm in action. The gallant seaman replied cheerily:
"My good sir, I have got three right arms. Here is one (raising his left arm), and there are my other two (pointing to Capt. Ball and Capt. Troubridge)."
At the time of the British investment of the French in Malta, the Maltese themselves were suffering from famine, and their state was so deplorable, and the British authorities so slow to help them, that Commodore Troubridge could bear it no longer, and to ease their sufferings he caused some grain ships at Messina to be seized and brought to Malta and their contents to be given out to feed the starving people.
Commodore Troubridge began life as a ship's boy at fifteen, and rose from seaman to be an officer through his steady attention to his duty, so in all ways he was a good example for a Scout to follow.
Malta remains to-day a British colony, small in size—not much bigger than the Isle of Wight—but having a numerous population of people speaking their own language, and at the same time loyal to King George and the British Empire.
Malta is chiefly valuable as having a harbour, dockyard, and coal stores for our Mediterranean Fleet, and is therefore strongly fortified and garrisoned by British troops, both infantry and artillery.
The Maltese themselves supply some companies of Fortress Artillery and two battalions of Infantry Militia.
* * * * *
Now, also, they have their Boy Scouts, whom I saw during my visit.
For Sea Scouts it is an ideal place, with its fine harbours, and its coasts with their numerous creeks and landing places.
The warm climate also induces much to bathing, and the Maltese are naturally good swimmers and handy men in boats. Their boats are very graceful in shape; they are called "daisas," which is spelt "dghaisa," but I never could see the use of the letters "gh" in the word; it sounds all right without them.
[Illustration: A MALTESE "DGHAISA."]
* * * * *
Long ago I was quartered in Malta for three years, and I greatly enjoyed my life there, especially the boating and the bathing.
After the South African War the people of Malta very kindly sent me a beautiful present, and, I suppose on account of my known love of boating, it took the form of a silver model of a sailing dghaisa. It was so accurately and carefully made that not only did it include oars and boat-hooks, etc., but even the thole-pins and the scoop for bailing out water.
I was, of course, delighted to see the place again after twenty years' absence, and to see so many of my old friends. Nothing seemed very much changed in all that time, except that the Boy Scouts had come into existence there as in every other important part of the British Empire.
* * * * *
Any boy who has read Marryat'sMidshipman Easywill remember how that cheeky young Naval officer and a friend of his went for a spree in an Italian sailing boat from Malta to Sicily, which is eighty miles away, and how their spree turned into a pretty desperate adventure.
The boys were attacked by their boat's crew during the night, and they only saved themselves by using their pistols on the Italian desperadoes. They eventually landed on the Sicilian coast not far from Syracuse.
Anyone who has read Count Erbach's diary of his visit to Malta in the time of the Knights of St. John will remember his exciting experiences when, on leaving the island, for Sicily, the vessel in which he sailed had got within sight of Syracuse when a rakish-looking craft, which proved to be an Algerian pirate, ran out from under the land, and chased and captured his ship, and carried him off a prisoner to Tunis.
Going farther back, every boy who has read his Greek and Roman history knows how Syracuse was in ancient days one of the great war harbours of the Mediterranean.
It was the arsenal where fleets fitted out, and the depot where they brought back their booties of valuables and slaves after their victorious raids.
You may imagine, then, that it was interesting to us to steam into the beautiful bay on a calm, sunny morning, past the old fort which guards the entrance, and into the back of the island on which the town now stands.
All was looking sweet and peaceful where for hundreds of years had been the scene of strife and adventure. The Cathedral and Circus.
The walls of the cathedral are supported by immense columns, which, 500 years before Christ was born, formed the walls of the Temple of Jupiter.
Many are the signs of the Greek and Roman occupation of the place.
We visited the great open-air circus where gladiators used to fight each other to the death, and where slaves were given to lions to devour before the eager eyes of ten thousand spectators. The seats are still there, and the dungeons of the slaves, and the dens of the wild beasts.
* * * * *
In the neighbourhood are the great quarries in which the slaves not only worked, but also lived. They were made to cut the walls so that they inclined inwards, and therefore could not be climbed.
The only entrance to the quarries was by ladder, so there was no escape for a man once he got in there.
There are huge caves cut in the walls of the quarries in which the slaves lived, and one of these caves has been cut into a narrow cleft exactly on the principle of the inside of your ear. So that anyone sitting at the top of the cleft can hear every word that is being spoken or even whispered in the cave below.
It is said that Dionysius, the ruler of Syracuse, had this made so that he could sit in the cleft (where there is a little chamber with private door) unknown to the people in the cave, and there he could overhear all that the prisoners talked about and plotted among themselves.
The whole cave is called "The Ear of Dionysius."
I remember a similar kind of "ear" in a natural cave in Matabeleland. It was here that one of the native sorcerers used to hide himself, and when he whispered through a crack in the rocks it could be heard all over the cave.
The people believed that it was the voice of a god speaking to them, so they used to come and pray to him for advice, and the old villain told them that they must rise up and murder all the white people, and their chief, Lobengula, who had long been dead, would come to life and lead them against their enemies once more.
He had nearly persuaded them to come out on the war-path, when Burnham, the American scout, made his way into the secret part of the cave and shot the supposed god while he was preaching murder.
* * * * *
A curious thing that strikes you in Sicily is the kind of cart and harness used by the country people.
[Illustration: A SICILIAN PAINTED CART AND DECORATED HARNESS.]
The cart is a light, two-wheeled affair of an ordinary kind, but every inch of it inside and out as far as the ends of the shafts and down the spokes of the wheels, is painted in gaudy colours, for the most part yellow, blue, red, and green.
Pictures of incidents in Bible history, of the war against the Turks in Tripoli, of ballet dancers, etc., are to be seen on most of these carts, while on others ornamental patterns only are painted.
Then the harness of the horse is of a very gaudy kind when new, but being largely made up of cheap gold braid and coloured cloth, it soon fades and looks tawdry.
* * * * *
In place of a bit there is a steel noseband on the horse's bridle by which he is driven and guided, and instead of the ordinary pad on the horse's back, a great ornamental brass affair is used.
Years ago I bought one of these pads and brought it home as a curiosity. A friend met me as I was bringing it along, and said:
"Hullo! what on earth is this? Surely it must be some sort of musical instrument. Look here! I am getting up a concert; youmustbring your instrument and play it there. Will you?"
Of course, I always like to oblige a friend, and I did not like to disappoint this one, so I meekly promised.
I chose a beautiful piece of high-class music, and got the orchestra to practise it over as accompaniment to my instrument, the "sellura." I tuned it by winding the brass flags which adorn it.
I fingered the knobs up and down the front of it as if they were the notes; the big projections on either side I pulled as if to alter the tone.
And the music? Well, I got that out of a comb and paper affixed to the back, and into which I sang.
But, mixed up with the other instruments, it sounded all right, and I got lots of applause and lots of questions afterwards as to where you could buy these wonderful organs, and how long did it take one to learn to play them, and so on!
* * * * *
Six hundred feet up on a mountain spur overhanging the sea stands the little town of Taormina.
Long ago it was chosen as a beauty spot by the Romans and Greeks, and here they had their villas and baths and theatre.
The theatre stands to this day, in ruins, it is true, but sufficiently whole to show what an ancient theatre was like.
One can sit in the upper circle and look down upon the "pit" and "orchestra," and the marble pillars and wall which formed the back of the stage in those days in place of scenery.
But an earthquake has thrown down the greater part of the back wall, and has thereby opened up a beautiful view of the coast of blue water and white sand far below, and of the purple slopes and snowy crest of Mount Etna above—a scene such as no scene painter could have equalled.
[Illustration: THE THEATRE AT TAORMINA.]
Among the quaint and ancient buildings of the town stand the old monastery and church of San Domenico. The monastery is now the chief hotel, and with the splendid view from its windows and its pretty gardens makes a charming place to stay at in this most charming spot.
* * * * *
Naples is a city lying around a great bay on the Italian coast, and behind it, about ten miles distant, rises the double-peaked mountain, Vesuvius. Vesuvius is, as you know, a volcano and a thin cloud of smoke is always coming out of it.
When I visited Naples a few years ago, the mountain was shaped like this:
[Illustration: ]
Now it is like this
[Illustration: ]
It lost its peak in one night, and I was there the night that it happened.
I was sleeping peacefully in my hotel, when I was awakened in the middle of the night by heavy bangings, and it at once occurred to me that the artillery were firing guns in the street below my window.
I thought: "Hullo, here's a revolution or something going on," and I rushed out on to my balcony.
The street below was empty, but in other streets I could hear people calling to each other and crying out.
Then came more of the awful banging, like claps of thunder, all round.Then there was suddenly a great blaze of red light up in the sky, andI realised that Vesuvius was breaking out.
It was just like a fountain of fire squirting up, with volumes of smoke and steam above it all lit up with the glow, and round it jagged, white lightning kept blazing and darting about.
Soon the flames were dimmed, the whole outbreak became a dull glare, even the houses round us grew indistinct, and what seemed to be a regular London fog set in.
But it was not a fog; it was a cloud of light dust—the ashes from the volcano, which had begun to fall over Naples.
When daylight came you could no longer see the mountain, although you could hear it rumbling like thunder.
You could scarcely see across the street, so thick was the ash fog. The fine dust got into one's eyes and nose, and everything, indoors and out, was covered with a thick coating of grit.
At the foot of Vesuvius a great stream of red-hot lava mud slid down the mountain side, straight across fields and roads, and over farms and villages, slowly but steadily pushing its way, the country people fleeing before it with such of their property as they were able to bundle on to carts or carry away with them.
* * * * *
But on the whole the people were not so frightened after the first outbreak as one might have expected.
Yet they had every reason to be, because near the mountain stand the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, which was overwhelmed, not by lava, but by just such a fall of ashes from a great eruption of Vesuvius about thirty years after the death of Christ.
The ashes had fallen lightly at first, but so thickly that in a very short space of time the whole city was buried under tons of it, and the people were crushed or suffocated in their homes.
You will find the whole story of it in the novel calledThe Last Days of Pompeii, but if you ever go to Pompeii the ruins which have been dug out tell their own story better than any book can do.
You walk through silent streets of beautifully decorated houses, of shops, theatres, and baths; the pavement is scored with the wheelmarks of the chariots, and in some of the houses the skeletons of the inhabitants are still to be seen.
* * * * *
To-day the whole country around the foot of the mountain is thickly populated, and towns and villages stand on the slopes of Vesuvius as if there were no danger of his ever breaking out again.
And Naples itself is a great, flourishing city with big factories, and a busy seaport where ships of every nation congregate.
And last, but not least, it has its Boy Scouts.
They are Italian boys, but they dress and work just the same as their British brothers. They have done a lot of camping out, and are all very good at cooking their grub. And also they do a bit of sea scouting in the splendid harbour and bay of Naples.
Our ship of twelve thousand tons, R.M.S.Orsova, was more like a floating hotel than a sea-going vessel, and the passengers living in bright, comfortable cabins with a fine dining saloon and first-rate food, could hardly imagine the work that was going on in other parts of the ship to insure their travelling with such ease and speed and safety.
A tour round the ship, such as we made one day, is full of interest and wonder. The second-class passengers are housed and fed just as well as those in the first-class, and there is accommodation for 230 of them.
In the third-class, again, they are wonderfully comfortable in cabins for two or for four people each, with nice dining and sitting-saloons, and a roomy, roofed-in deck where they can enjoy the fresh air in all weathers. There is room for 800 of these, and the cost of the journey from England to Australia is only 17 Pounds, which means board and lodging of the best description for six weeks while doing the journey out.
The crew, of course, live forward, and, including seamen, stokers, engineers, stewards, etc., they number about 300 men. On the navigating staff of officers, quartermasters, and look-out men depends much of our safety at sea.
Then down in the depths of the ship are the engineers and stokers, who make the ship go. Our chief engineer, like all chief engineers, is a Scotsman, and he loves and takes a pride in his engines, and is glad to show them.
In Rudyard Kipling's song of the chief engineer, he describes him as looking upon his engines as almost the work of God, in their wonderful power and intricate working.
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And it is indeed an impressive sight to stand below these great monsters of steel and watch them faithfully and untiringly pounding at their work, all in order, and exactly in agreement with each other, taking no notice of night or day, of storm or calm, but slinging along at all times, doing their duty with an energetic goodwill which makes them seem almost human—almost like gigantic Boy Scouts!
The great steel shaft which the four pistons keep driving round is nearly 100 yards in length, and carries the big bronze screw propeller at its end, which thrusts the ship along. There are two of these, one on each side of the ship, which is therefore called a twin-screw vessel.
There are four cylinders to each shaft, and the same lot of steam is used, passing from one cylinder to the other, beginning with the small high-pressure cylinder, which it enters at its highest strength, something like 250 lb. to the square inch, and ending with the big low-pressure cylinder, where the pressure is only about 5 lb.
Then there are numbers of other engines. One for condensing the salt water from the sea and making it into fresh water for the boilers. This is done by boiling up the salt water so that the watery part of it becomes steam, while the salty part remains behind as salt; the steam, when cooled, becomes fresh water, and is then fit to be used in the boilers to make steam.
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Then we go into the stokehold among the mighty boilers. Here are powerful, grimy men at work getting coal out of the coal bunkers, and shovelling it into the furnaces.
It sounds easy to shovel coal on to a fire, but it takes a lot of practice to get the knack of stoking a fire properly, and a lot of strength and skill to throw great shovelfuls quickly and well into the right part of the furnace.
The stokers work in gangs for four hours at a time, under "leading stokers," whose duty it is to see that the proper pressure of steam is kept up in the boilers by the heat of the fires.
Anyone who has travelled on an ocean-going steamer will know the sound which comes up from the interior of the ship every twenty minutes or so, which sounds like a rataplan being hammered by someone for his own amusement.
This is in reality the signal which is given by striking iron with a shovel, and can be heard by the men all over the stokehold, telling them to stoke up their various fires.
Besides the main engines there are pumping engines for supplying water to the boilers and to the various parts of the ship. Then there are ice-making machines for keeping the food-storage rooms cold, and electric dynamos for supplying electric light all over the vessel, and for use in the laundry.
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This is an interesting department. Here all the bed sheets, towels, tablecloths of the ship, and the linen of passengers are washed, dried, and ironed by machinery.
The linen is put into a circular "drum" full of soapy water and whirled round and round till well washed.
It is then partly dried by being put into another metal tub, which is whirled round by electricity at such a pace that the water flies out of the clothes. These are then put into a kind of mangle between hot steel rollers, which squeeze out any water that remains, and at the same time so heats the things that they come out quite dry and ironed into the airing-room, where they receive a final drying in hot air.
The ironing of small articles like shirts and blouses is done by a few laundrymaids using flat-irons heated by electricity.
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While on board we celebrated our birthday—that is, my wife's birthday and my own (for by a curious chance we were both born on the same day, though not in the same year!)—and at tea-time a beautiful birthday cake appeared upon the scene, beautifully sugared and decorated with our names and appropriate inscriptions, just as if it had been made ashore.
I do not know how the knowledge of the birthday got about, but I do know that the cake was a most excellent one, and the kind thought of the baker in making it was greatly appreciated by both of us.
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After seeing the stokehold, the engines, and the laundry, we visited the kitchens. The feeding of the passengers is an important point, for on board are no fewer than 200 first-class, 230 second-class, 800 third-class passengers, and over 300 officers and crew—more than 1500 people altogether.
The voyage to Australia takes nearly six weeks, so you can imagine that a pretty large amount of food has to be carried on board to take the ship out and home again.
Tons of fresh meat and vegetables, butter, and eggs are stored in ice-cold cellars. Each day a supply is brought up and put into iced larders for that day's issue.
Here are some of the amounts taken in the ship for one voyage: 5 tons bacon, 50,000 eggs, 6 1/2 tons butter, 45,000 oranges, 9000 lb. jam.
In the great kitchen are a dozen cooks at work preparing the meals for all classes—the cooking is exactly the same for all. Also the quality of food is the same, except that the first-class get more variety and choice of different dishes. In the bakery is made the daily supply of bread for the whole ship, and also baked puddings, cakes, and sweetmeats.
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There were lots of interesting machines used in the kitchen to save time and labour.
For instance, there was a machine for peeling potatoes; a round metal tub in which the potatoes were rushed round and round until their skins were rubbed off, and they were ready for the cooking-pot.
There were egg-boiling machines, which, working by clockwork, kept the eggs in boiling water for whatever time was desired, and then took them out without any attention on the part of the cook.
There was a bread-slicing machine and a plate-washing machine, the dirty plates being placed in iron racks and lowered into a tank where boiling water is dashed on to them from both sides, so that they clean themselves in no time. There was also a machine for kneading the dough for making bread.
In fact, the whole place was a marvel of work and organisation all compressed into a very small space, and yet done most successfully and cleanly.
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Here is one day's bill of fare for the third-class passengers, which shows that they do not fare badly. I had some of it myself, and it was excellent.
Porridge with MilkYarmouth BloatersHashed MeatCold Corned PorkBreadButterJamMarmalade TeaCoffeeCocoa
Mulligatawny SoupRoast MuttonPotatoesMashed PumpkinSuet Pudding with SyrupChildren—Milk Pudding BreadCheeseBiscuits
Lancashire Hot-PotCold Meat SaladPickles BreadButter JamMarmalade Currant Cake
BreadButterCocoaBiscuits and CheeseGruel for Infants if requiredCocoa or Coffee with Biscuits at 6.30 a.m.
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Of two of the cooks with whom I talked, one had been twenty-three years in the service of the Orient Company and the other twenty-six years: and nearly all the ship's company had been in this ship four years, though their engagement only lasts for one voyage. So it looks as though the Orient were a satisfactory line to serve with.
One of the cooks had been a soldier in the Wiltshire Regiment, and had served in the Zulu War of 1879. He had been in the siege and defence of Etshowe.
This place was surrounded by the Zulus, and another British force tried to get into signalling communication with it by means of the heliograph, which at that time was quite a new invention.
I reminded my cook friend of this, and he told me this little yarn about it. He said:
"I was walking out on the ridge there close to the camp with a corporal in my company when we noticed a light flickering on a hill in the distance. He had been through a course of signalling, and said it looked as if somebody were trying to flash a signal to us, so we got a bit of looking-glass and flashed it in their direction.
"Suddenly he said to me:
"'Write down what I tell you.'
"I got out a piece of paper and a pencil, and he spelt out a message which was meant for Colonel Pearson, our commanding officer. It was to say that if we sent a signaller on to the church steeple in Etshowe they could signal direct to him.
"I took the message to the colonel, and soon after a sailor managed to get up somehow or other, and we very quickly had messages going and coming."
In the days of Queen Elizabeth, nearly four hundred years ago, the sailors of Spain, of England, of Holland, and of Portugal were all making themselves famous for their daring voyages in small sailing ships across unknown oceans, by which they kept discovering new lands for their country in distant corners of the world.
There was one small cabin-boy on a coasting brig in the English Channel who used to long to become one of these discoverers but when he looked at the practical side of the question it seemed hopeless for a poor little chap like him ever to hope to rise in the world beyond his present hard life in a wretched little coaster, living on bad food and getting, as a rule, more kicks than halfpence—but it shows you how the poorest boy can get on if he only puts his back to it.
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Young Drake—for that was his name—did get on in spite of his difficulties; he worked hard at his duty until he became a captain of two small ships, one of seventy, the other of thirty tons, and with these he sailed to fight the Spaniards, who were at that time our enemies, away across the ocean in Central America.
He not only fought them, but was successful in taking some of their ships and a great deal of valuable booty from their towns.
On his return home he was promoted to command a large expedition of five ships, the biggest of which, however, was only 100 tons, and the smallest was 15 tons—no bigger than a fishing smack.
With these he sailed down the West Coast of Africa, then across to Brazil and down the South American coast till he rounded the end of it through the dangerous and difficult Straits of Magellan into the Pacific. He coasted up the western side of America as far as California, and then struck across the ocean to India, and thenceviathe Cape of Good Hope to England; this voyage took him nearly three years to complete.
His good ship, theGolden Hind, though much battered and wounded with war and weather, was received with great honour at Deptford. The Queen herself went on board, and while there she showed such pleasure at Drake's good work that she knighted him, using his own well-worn sword to make him Sir Francis Drake.
Soon after this King Philip of Spain began to prepare an enormous fleet, and though he told Queen Elizabeth that it was not intended to be used against England, Sir Francis Drake, who was now in command of a small fleet of British ships, maintained that it could be for no other purpose.
[Illustration: DRAKE'S SHIP, THE "GOLDEN HIND."]
And a secret letter was shortly afterwards intercepted which proved that his suspicions were right.
Drake went off with his fleet and sailed up and down the Spanish coast destroying their ships and stores wherever he could find them, and thus he hindered their preparations for war. In this way he sank or burnt some 12,000 tons of shipping, which meant a great many ships in those days.
He merely described it in his report as, "singeing the Spanish King's beard."
At the end of 1588, the great Spanish fleet—the Armada—was ready, and sailed against England. But there were a fine lot of British admirals and men awaiting it, for besides Lord Charles Howard of Effingham, the Lord High Admiral, there were Frobisher, and Davis, Walter Raleigh, and Francis Drake.
It is true they had only 67 ships with which to oppose the 130 of the Spaniards, but they sallied out and tackled them at once before the Spaniards were really ready for them, and drove them into Dunkirk. Here the Spaniards felt secure and would not come out till one night the English sent fire ships in among them which forced them to put to sea. Then ensued a tremendous sea fight, in which Drake, in theRevenge, took the lead.
The battle lasted all day, with guns roaring and ships foundering or exploding.
At length the Spaniards drew off northward to the German Ocean, the only line of escape open to them. Round the north of Scotland and Ireland they went, damaged by shot and beset by a gale, so that in the end, out of the magnificent fleet of 130 sail which had set out for the conquest of England, only 53 got back, with only about 9000 out of the original 30,000 men.
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Two hundred years after Drake came Nelson. He was the son of a clergyman in Norfolk, a poor, sickly little fellow, and was for a time in the merchant service.
His first step to greatness was when the ship which he was in captured an enemy's ship, and the first lieutenant was ordered to take a boat and some men and go aboard the prize. But owing to the heavy sea which was running the officer gave up the attempt as too dangerous, whereupon Nelson, like a good Scout, stepped forward and offered to go.
He succeeded, and thence was marked as a good officer.
Every boy knows how, after a splendid career of fighting for Britain, he finally won the great sea battle of Trafalgar against the French and Spanish fleets, and fell mortally wounded in the hour of victory.
But his work, and that of other great sea-captains who served with him, completed the supremacy of the British Navy begun by Drake and the sea-dogs of his time.
The navies of our enemies were entirely swept from off the seas, and their merchant ships could only carry on their trade so long as their countries remained at peace with Britain.
And that supremacy has remained with us till to-day.
In consequence of this we have been enabled to put a stop to the awful slave trade which used to go on on the coasts of Africa; to discover new lands for our Empire, and to bring civilisation to savages in the farthest corners of the world. And the enterprise of our merchant ships has made our trade successful all over the globe, and so increased the prosperity of our people both at home and in our Oversea Dominions.
The sailor has a grand life of it. Continually visiting strange and interesting lands, with a good ship manoeuvring through distant oceans, with plenty of contests with tides and winds. A free, open, and healthy life, which breeds cheery handiness and pluck such as make a sailor so deservedly loved by all. And all the time he is doing grand work for his country.
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We are hearing a great deal of the heroes of everyday life, but there are perhaps no greater heroes, no truer scouts than sailors of the kind that man our lifeboats all round the coasts of Great Britain. They have to Be Prepared to turn out at any minute, when the dangerous storm is at its worst, to face danger in order to save others.
Because they do it so often and so quietly we have come to look upon it almost as an everyday affair to be expected, but it is none the less splendid of them or worthy of our admiration. A large number of Boy Scouts have, by taking up "sea scouting" and by learning boat management and seamanship, been able to take their place in the service of their Country as seamen on our battleships, and in the merchant service, and as lifeboatmen upon our coasts.
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During the summer months Scouts in many parts of the country practise sea scouting as well as camping on shore. This involves living on board ship and learning all the duties of sailors—going on watch, going aloft, managing boats, saving life at sea, and swimming and saving life from drowning—with plenty of interesting games and practices.
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One game which can be played either by night or day is that of"Smugglers."
A patrol of smugglers endeavour to land from the seaward in a boat to conceal their goods, which consist of nothing more valuable than "a brick to each man," in a place called the "Smugglers' Cave," and then to get away in their boat again.
Other Scouts arc distributed as "preventive men" to watch the coast for a considerable distance with sentries. So soon as one of these preventive men sees a smuggler land he gives the alarm, and collects the rest to attack them; but the attack cannot be successful unless there are at least as many preventive men on the spot as smugglers, and if the smugglers succeed in depositing their goods in the Smugglers' Cave and then getting away again before they are attacked by an equal number of preventive men, they win the game.
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Another exciting game which tests the Scoutcraft of a patrol is that where they approach the shore in a boat and look out for marks which have been told to them, and, on finding these, they land, find a map hidden away, which gives further clues by means of landmarks, compass directions, tidemarks, and so on, to where the hidden treasure is to be found. Only a certain time will be allowed for finding it.
This game can be made a competition for one patrol against another, each patrol taking it in turn to carry out the same task. Naturally, each patrol would be very careful to wipe out all footmarks and tracks.
Then there can be whale hunts, as given in the bookScouting for Boys, and also "Shipwreck," when everybody on board ship will take their places and carry out orders for getting the women and children safely away, followed by the men of the ship.
"Castaways on a Desert Island" may also be practised, when they have to get ashore on rafts and otherwise, and rig up such shelters as they can out of the materials available, and light their fires and cook their food, and so on.
The pursuit of slavers' dhows by pinnaces from men-of-war can be practised, and "cutting-out" expeditions by boats full of armed Scouts taking a hostile ship or place in the night.
"Salvage" may also be practised by boats going out in parties, where they are to save some derelict ship in distress, and to tow her into safety.
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Water sports can also be indulged in, such as polo, jousting, pillow fighting, greasy pole, hurdle races, into the lifebuoy race, and other exciting incidents. But to take part in these practices and games it is necessary that a Scout should be able to swim, and I hope that every Scout will take the earliest opportunity of doing so.
And not only should he learn swimming without delay, but also study the means he ought to take for saving a drowning man and for reviving him when he has got him ashore. No Scout is too young for this.
I saw a case in the paper recently which is a fine example to other boys, where Frederick Delvin, eleven years of age, rescued another boy from drowning in the Surrey Canal, near the Old Kent Road bridge.
A small boy named George Spear was fishing in the canal when he fell into the water, and was on the point of drowning when Delvin, who had learned to swim last summer, jumped into the water and brought him safely ashore, and thus saved his life.
Well, now, any Scout could do that, if he knew how and had the pluck, and I should hope that every Scout has that at least.
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A serious disaster was narrowly averted at Dover in connection with a treat given to six hundred schoolgirls on the battleshipAlbion.
The children were being taken out to the battleship in boats in a rather heavy sea. A steam pinnace, towing two whaleboats, each containing about eighty girls, was rounding the Prince of Wales Pier, when the Government tugAdderunexpectedly came round from the opposite side of the pier, bearing right down on them.
There was great excitement, as a disaster seemed certain; but theNaval men in charge quickly cut the second boat adrift, and the tugpassed between the two crowded boatloads. The boat drifted towards theAdmiralty Pier until it was picked up and got safely in tow again.
That is the kind of "presence of mind" which every Scout should have.
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In "sea scouting," it will, of course, be necessary to know a lot of small as well as big things about our ships which the ordinary fellow does not know. Here is one. A man-of-war on duty always flies a pennant at her masthead—that is, a very long, very thin flag, which makes the mast look like a whip with a lash on the end of it. Here is the story of it.
In the old days, 250 years ago, Britain and Holland were both powerful nations at sea and rivals in commerce, but as we had command of the British Channel we made all foreign ships salute our men-of-war when passing them.
One day, May 19th, 1652, a Dutch fleet of forty-five ships; under their great admiral Van Tromp, came sailing up the Channel, and passed a British Fleet of twenty-three ships under Admiral Blake. Seeing how strong he was, the Dutch admiral declined to salute us. So our flagship fired a shot across his bows, as a signal to remind him of his duty; but Van Tromp promptly replied with a broadside into the stern of Admiral Blake's ship.
"That's very rude of him to break my windows," remarked Blake, and promptly ordered his small Fleet to attack the Dutch, although it was twice as strong.
The battle began at four o'clock in the afternoon, and went on hammer and tongs till after dark. The firing then lulled, and the British Fleet, having been badly mauled, spent the whole night repairing damages.
By dawn, although tired, they were all ready for a further go at the enemy, but as daylight came on they found there was no enemy to go for; he had cleared away in the night to less dangerous quarters. But only for a time, in order to get more ships, and a few days later he reappeared with something like eighty vessels.
This and a contrary wind proved too much for Blake's small Fleet, and though he made an obstinate fight of it, he was at last compelled to take refuge in the Thames, pursued by the Dutchmen.
Then it was that Van Tromp hoisted a broom at his masthead, as a sign that he had swept the British from off the seas. But he was a little bit "previous," as they say in America. The people in Britain rose to the occasion, and, instead of being down-hearted, they at once started to build a stronger Fleet, and trained men and boys—like sea scouts—to man it.
So soon as the ships were fitted out Blake put to sea with a Fleet of sixty, and went to look for the Dutchmen, and he soon found them.
Van Tromp, with seventy men-of-war, was coming up the Channel, guarding a large fleet of richly-laden merchant ships making for Holland.
The British, of course, went for this convoy, and it was a pretty tough fight, the Dutch merchantmen crowding on all sail to escape to Holland, while their men-of-war kept behind them, fighting stubbornly to hold off the pursuing British. It was a running fight, which was kept up for three days and nights, and at the end the British came home triumphant, having captured or sunk seventeen of the enemy's men-of-war and thirty of his merchant ships.
Van Tromp had to take down his broom.
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It was in June, 1653, that the two fleets finally came together for the deciding bout. Both countries had seen that a big naval fight must come sooner or later, and both had gone on building ships as hard as they could to meet the danger.
When each fleet was about ninety ships strong, they met at sea. Unfortunately Admiral Blake had been laid up in England with an old wound, while the Dutch fleet was under three of their best admirals, tough and plucky old sea-dogs all of them—Van Tromp, De Witt, and Ruyter. For a whole day the two fleets were engaged, both sides hammering away stubbornly and well, but by nightfall neither had gained much.
Next day they went at it again, and if anything the advantage was beginning to rest with the Dutch, when suddenly, in the afternoon, a fresh ship came banging its way through the rear of the Dutch fleet.
It was Blake!
His return seemed to put new life into the British. They went at it again with all their might. They boarded Van Tromp's ship; he blew her up and escaped to another; but in the end, with his fleet shattered and broken, he had to make his retreat under cover of night as best he could.
The British thus remained masters of the Channel, with eleven goodDutch men-of-war as prizes and eight more of them sent to the bottom.