Chapter C: Arthur Pearson, Ltd (10)

But when as yet the sky is serene above and the surface of the slumbering depths is just ruffled by a gentle air, there may often be heard another voice, as if some gigantic orchestra in another star was preparing for the signal to burst forth into such music as belongs not to our little planet. Fitful wailing notes in many keys, long sustained and all minor, encompass the voyager without and within. Now high, now low, but ever tending to deepen and become more massive in tone, this unearthly symphony is full of warning. It bids the watchful seaman make ready against the advent of the fast approaching storm, that, still some hundreds of leagues distant, is sending its pursuivants before its face. Nor are these spirit-stirring chords due to the harp-like obstruction offered by the web of rigging spread about the masts of a ship to the rising wind. It may be heard even more definitely in an open boat far from any ship or shore, although there, perhaps because of the great loneliness of the situation, it always seems to take a tone of deeper melancholy, as if in sympathy with the helplessness of the human creatures thus isolated from their fellows. It belongs, almost exclusively, to the extra-tropical regions where storms are many. And within a certain compass, its intimates find little variation of its scale. Always beginning in the treble clef and by regular melodic waves gradually descending until with the incidence of the storm it blends into the grand triumphal march spoken of before. But when it is heard within the tropics let the mariner beware. None can ever mistake its weird lament, sharpening every little while into a shrill scream as if impatient that its warning should be heeded without delay. It searches the very marrow of the bones, and beasts as well as men look up and are much afraid. For it is the precursor of the hurricane, before which the bravest seaman blanches, when sea and sky seem to meet and mingle, the waters that are above the firmament with the waters that are under the firmament, as in the days before God said “Let there be light.”

Far different again is the cheerful voice of the Trade wind over the laughing happy sea of those pleasant latitudes. No note of sadness or melancholy is to be detected there. Brisk and bright, confident and gay, it bids the sailor be glad in his life. Bids him mark anew how beautiful is the bright blue sea, how snowy are the billowy clouds piled peacefully around the horizon, while between them and the glittering edge of the vast circle shows a tender band of greyish green of a lucent clearness that lets the rising stars peep through as soon as they are above the horizon. Overhead through all the infinite fleckless dome eddy the friendly tones. Yet so diffused are they, so vast in their area that if one listen for them he cannot hear aright--they must be felt rather than heard. Well may their song be of content and good cheer. For they course about their ordained orbits as the healthful life tides through the human body, keeping sweet all adjacent shores and preventing by their beneficent agitation a baleful stagnation of the sea. By day the golden sun soars on his splendid road from horizon to zenith until he casts no shadow, and all the air quivers with living light, then in stately grandeur sinks through the pure serenity of that perfect scene, the guardian cumuli clustering round his goal melting apart so that, visible to the last of his blazing verge, he may go as he came, unshadowed by haze or cloud. Then, as the radiant train of lovely rays fade reluctantly from the blue concave above, all the untellable splendours of the night come forth in their changeless order, their scintillating lustre undimmed by the filmiest veil of haze. One incandescent constellation after another is revealed until, as the last faint sheen of the departing day disappears from the western horizon, the double girdle of the galaxy is flung across the darkling dome in all its wondrous beauty. And unceasingly through all the succeeding beauties of the day and night that flood of happy harmony rolls on.

How shall I speak of the voice of the calm? How describe that sound which mortal ear cannot hear? The pen of the inspired writers alone might successfully undertake such a task, so closely in touch as they were with the Master Mind. “When the morning stars sang together, and all the Sons of God shouted for joy.” Something akin to this sublime daring of language is needed to convey a just idea of what floods the soul when alone upon the face of the deep in a perfect calm. The scale of that heavenly harmony is out of our range. We can only by some subtle alchemy of the brain distil from that celestial silence the voices of angels and archangels and all the glorious company of heaven. Between us and them is but a step, but it is the threshold of the timeless dimension. Again and again I have seen men, racked through and through with a very agony of delight, dash aside the thralls that held them, sometimes with passionate tears, more often with raging words that grated harshly upon the velvet stillness. They felt the burden of the flesh grievous, since it shut them out from what they dimly felt must be bliss unutterable, not to be contained in any earthen vessel. On land a thousand things, even in a desert, distract the attention, loose the mind’s tension even when utterly alone. But at sea, the centre of one vast glassy circle, shut in on every hand by a perfect demi-globe as flawless as the mirror whereon you float, with even the softest undulation imperceptible, and no more motion of the atmosphere than there is in a perfect vacuum, there is absolutely nothing to come between the Soul of Man and the Infinite Silences of Creation. There and there only is it possible to realise what underlies that mighty line, “There was silence in Heaven for the space of half-an-hour.” Few indeed are the men, however rough and unthinking, that are not quieted and impressed by the marvel of a perfect calm. But the tension is too great to be borne long with patience. Men feel that this majestic environment is too redolent of the coming paradise to be supportable by flesh and blood. They long with intense desire for a breeze, for motion, for a change of any sort. So much so that long-continued calm is dreaded by seamen more than any other phase of sea-experience. And yet it is for a time lovely beyond description, soothing the jarring nerves and solemnising every faculty as if one were to be shut in before the Shekinah in the Holy of Holies. It is like the Peace of God.

Thus far I have feebly attempted to deal with some of the sea-voices untinctured by any contact with the land. But although the interposition of rock and beach, cliff and sand-bank introduces fresh changes with every variation of weather, new combinations of sound that do not belong solely to the sea, any description of the sea-music that should take no account of them would be manifestly one-sided and incomplete. And yet the mutabilities are so many, the gamut is so extended that it is impossible to do more than just take a passing note of a few characteristic impressions. For every lonely reef, every steep-to shore has an infinite variety of responses that it gives back to the besieging waves. Some of them are terrible beyond the power of words to convey. When the sailor in a crippled craft, his reckoning unreliable, and his vigour almost gone by a long-sustained struggle with the storm, hears to leeward the crashing impact of mountainous waves against the towering buttresses of granite protecting a sea-beset land, it is to him a veritable knell of doom. Or when through the close-drawn curtains of fog comes the hissing tumult of breaking seas over an invisible bank, interpolated with the hoarse bellowing of the advancing flood checked in its free onward sweep, bold and high indeed must be the courage that does not fail. The lonely lighthouse-keeper on the Bishop Rock during the utmost stress of an Atlantic gale notes with quickening pulse the change of tone as the oncoming sea, rolling in from freedom, first feels beneath it the outlying skirts of the solitary mountain. Nearer and deeper and fiercer it roars until, with a shock that makes the deep-rooted foundations of the rocks tremble, and the marvellous fabric of dovetailed stone sway like a giant tree, it breaks, hurling its crest high through the flying spindrift over the very finial of the faithful tower.

But on the other hand, on some golden afternoon among the sunny islands of summer seas, hear the soft soothing murmur of the gliding swell upon the slumbering shore. It fills the mind with rest. Sweeter than lowest lullaby, it comforts and composes, and even in dreams it laps the sleeper in Elysium. The charm of that music is chief among all the influences that bind the memory to those Enchanted Isles. It returns again and again under sterner skies, filling the heart with almost passionate longing to hear it, to feel it in all its mystery once again. Still when all has been said, every dweller on the sea-shore knows the voice of his own coast best. For him it has its special charm, whether it shriek around ice-laden rocks, roar against iron-bound cliffs, thunder over jagged reefs, or babble among fairy islets. And yet all these many voices are but one.

THE CALLING OF CAPTAIN RAMIREZ

When two whale-ships meet during a cruise, if there are no signs of whales near, an exchange of visits always takes place. The two captains foregather on board one ship, the two chief mates on board the other. While the officers are thus enjoying themselves, it is usual for the boats’ crews to go forrard and while away the time as best they can, such visitors being always welcome. This practice is called “gamming,” and is fruitful of some of the queerest yarns imaginable, as these sea-wanderers ransack their memories for tales wherewith to make the time pass pleasantly.

On the occasion of which I am writing, our ship had met the _Coral_ of Martha’s Vineyard off Nieuwe, and gamming had set in immediately. One of the group among whom I sat was a sturdy little native of Guam, in the Ladrone Islands, the picture of good-humour, but as ugly as a Joss. Being called upon for a song, he laughingly excused himself on the ground that his songs were calculated to give a white man collywobbles; but if we didn’t mind he would spin a “cuffer” (yarn) instead. Carried unanimously--and we lit fresh pipes as we composed ourselves to hear of “The Calling of Captain Ramirez.” I reproduce the story in a slightly more intelligible form than I heard it, the mixture of Spanish, Kanaka, &c., being a gibberish not to be understood by any but those who have lived among the polyglot crowd in a whaler.

“About fifteen years ago now, as near as I can reckon (for we don’t keep much account of time except we’re on monthly wage), I was cruising the Kingsmills in the old _Salem_, Captain Ramirez. They told me her name meant ‘Peace,’ and that may be; but if so, all I can say is that never was a ship worse named. Why, there wasn’t ever any peace aboard of her. Quiet there was, when the old man was asleep, for nobody wanted him wakened; but peace--well, I tell ye, boys, she was jest hell afloat. I’ve been fishing now a good many years in Yankee spouters, and there’s some blood-boats among ’em, but never was I so unlucky as when I first set foot aboard the _Salem_. Skipper was a Portugee from Flores, come over to the States as a nipper and brung up in Rhode Island. Don’t know and don’t care how he got to be skipper, but I guess Jemmy Squarefoot was his schoolmaster, for some of his tricks wouldn’t, couldn’t, have been thought of anywheres else but down below. I ain’t a-goin’ to make ye all miserable by telling you how he hazed us round and starved us and tortured us, but you can let your imagination loose if you want to, and then you won’t overhaul the facts of his daily amusements.

“Well, I’d been with him about a year when, as I said at first, we was cruising the Kingsmills, never going too close in, because at that time the natives were very savage, always fighting with each other, but very glad of the chance to go for a ship and kill and eat all hands. Then again we had some Kanakas aboard, and the skipper knew that if they got half a chance they would be overboard and off to the shore.

“Sperm whales were very plentiful, in fact they had been so all the cruise, which was another proof to all of us who the skipper was in co. with, for in nearly every ship we gammed the crowd were heart-broken at their bad luck. However, we’d only been a few days on the ground when one morning we lowered for a thundering big school of middling-size whales. We sailed in full butt, and all boats got fast. But no sooner was a strain put on the lines than they all parted like as if they was burnt. Nobody there ever seen or heard of such a thing before. It fairly scared us all, for we thought it was witchcraft, and some of ’em said the skipper’s time was up and his boss was rounding on him. Well, we bent on again, second irons, as the whales were all running anyhow, not trying to get away, and we all got fast again. ’Twas no good at all; all parted just the same as before. Well, we was about the worst gallied lot of men you ever see. We was that close to the ship that we knew the old man could see with his glasses everything that was going on. Every one of us knew just about how he was bearing it, but what could we do? Well, boys, we didn’t have much time to serlilerquise, for before you could say ‘knife’ here he comes, jumping, howling mad. Right in among us he busted, and oh! he did look like his old father Satan on the rampage. He was in the bow of his boat, and he let drive at the first whale he ran up against. Down went the fish and pop went the line same as before. Well, I’ve seen folks get mad more’n a little, but never in all my fishing did ever I see anything like he showed us then. I thought he’d a sploded all into little pieces. He snatched off his hat and tore it into ribbons with his teeth; the rattle of Portugee blasphemion was like our old mincing-machine going full kelter, and the foam flew from between his teeth like soapsuds.

“Suddenly he cooled down, all in a minute like, and said very quiet, ‘All aboard.’ We were all pretty well prepared for the worst by this time, but I do think we liked him less now than we did when he was ramping around--he looked a sight more dangerous. However, we obeyed orders smart, as usual, but he was aboard first. My! how that boat of his just flew. ’Twas like a race for life.

“We were no sooner on board than we hoisted boats and made them fast. Then the skipper yelled, ‘All hands lay aft.’ Aft we come prompt, and ranged ourselves across the quarter-deck in front of where he was prowling back and forth like a breeding tigress. As soon as we were all aft he stopped, facing us, and spoke. ‘Somebody aboard this ship’s been trying to work a jolt off on me by pisonin’ my lines. Now I want that man, so’s I can kill him, slow; ’n I’m going to have him too ’thout waiting too long. Now _I_ think this ship’s been too easy a berth for all of you, but from this out until I have my rights on the man I want she’s agoing to be a patent hell. Make up yer mines quick, fer I tell yer no ship’s crew ever suffered what you’re agoin’ to suffer till I get that man under my hands. Now go.’

“When we got forrard we found the fo’c’s’le scuttle screwed up so’s we couldn’t get below. There was no shelter on deck from the blazing sun, the hatches was battened so we couldn’t get into the fore-hold, so we had to just bear it. One man went aft to the scuttle butt for a drink of water, and found the spigot gone. The skipper saw him, and says to him, ‘You’ll fine plenty to drink in the bar’l forrard,’ and you know the sort of liquor _that’s_ full of. Some of us flung ourselves down on deck, being dog tired as well as hungry and thirsty, but he was forrard in a minute with both his shooting-irons cocked. ‘Up, ye spawn, ’n git some exercise; ye’r gettin’ too fat ’n lazy,’ says he. So we trudged about praying that he might drop dead, but none of us willing as yet to face certain death by defying him. The blessed night came at last, and we were able to get a little rest, he having gone below, and the officers, though willing enough to keep in with him at our expense, not being bad enough to drive us all night unless he was around to see it done. Along about eight bells came the steward, with a biscuit apiece for us and a bucket of water--about half a pint each. We were so starved and thirsty that the bite and sup was a godsend. What made things worse for us was the suspicion we had one of the other. As I said, we was, as usual, a mixed crowd and ready to sell one another for a trifle. He knew that, curse him, and reckoned with considerable certainty on getting hold of the victim he wanted. Well, the night passed somehow, and when morning came he was around again making us work, scouring iron-work bright, holy-stoning decks, scrubbing overside, as if our very lives depended on the jobs being done full pelt.

“We was drawing in pretty close to a small group of islands, closer than we had been yet in those waters, and we all wondered what was in the wind. Suddenly he gave orders to back the mainyard and have the dinghy lowered. She was a tiny tub of a craft, such as I never saw carried in a whaler before, only about big enough for three. A little Scotchman and myself was ordered into her, then to our amazement the old man got in, shoved off, and headed her for the opening through the reef surrounding the biggest island of the group. It was fairly well wooded with cocoa-nut trees and low bushes, while, unlike any of the other islets, there were several big rocks showing up through the vegetation in the middle of it. We weren’t long getting to the beach, where we jumped out and ran her up a piece so’s he could step out dry. We waited for a minute or two while he sat thinking, and looking straight ahead of him at nothing. Presently he jumped out and said to me, ‘Come,’ and to Sandy, ‘Stay here.’ Off he went up the beach and straight into the little wood, just as if somebody was calling him and he had to go. Apparently there wasn’t a living soul on the whole island except just us three. We had only got a few yards into the bush when we came to a little dip in the ground: a sort of valley. Just as we got to the bottom, we suddenly found ourselves in the grip of two Kanakas, the one that had hold of the skipper being the biggest man I ever saw. I made one wriggle, but my man, who was holding my two arms behind my back, gave them a twist that nearly wrenched them out of their sockets and quieted me good. As for the skipper, he was trying to call or speak, but although his mouth worked no sound came, and he looked like death. The giant that had him flung him on his face and lashed his wrists behind him with a bit of native fish-line, then served his ankles the same. I was tied next, but not so cruel as the skipper, indeed they didn’t seem to want to hurt me. The two Kanakas now had a sort of a consultation by signs, neither of them speaking a word. While they was at it I noticed the big one was horribly scarred all over his back and loins (they was both naked except for a bit of a grass belt) as well as crippled in his gait. Presently they ceased their dumb motions and came over to me. The big one opened his mouth and pointed to where his tongue had been, also to his right eye-socket, which was empty. Then he touched the big white scars on his body, and finally pointed to the skipper. Whole books couldn’t have explained his meaning better than I understood it then. But what was coming? I declare I didn’t feel glad a bit at the thought that Captain Ramirez was going to get his deserts at last.

“Suddenly the giant histed the skipper on his shoulder as if he had been a baby, and strode off across the valley towards the massive heap of rocks, followed by his comrade and myself. We turned sharply round a sort of gate, composed of three or four huge coral blocks balanced upon each other, and entered a grotto or cave with a descending floor. Over the pieces of rock with which the ground was strewed we stumbled onward in the dim light until we entered water and splashed on through it for some distance. Then, our eyes being by this time used to the darkness, the general features of the place could be made out. Communication with the sea was evident, for the signs of high-water mark could be seen on the walls of the cave just above our heads. For a minute or so we remained perfectly still in the midst of that dead silence, so deep that I fancied I could hear the shell-fish crawling on the bottom. Then I was brought a few paces nearer the Captain, as he hung upon the great Kanaka’s shoulder. Taking my eyes from his death-like face I cast them down, and there, almost at my feet, was one of those enormous clams such as you see the shells of thrown up on all these beaches, big as a child’s bath. Hardly had the horrible truth dawned on me of what was going to happen than it took place. Lifting the skipper into an upright position, the giant dropped him feet first between the gaping shells of the big clam, which, the moment it felt the touch, shut them with a smash that must have broken the skipper’s legs. An awful wail burst from him, the first sound he had yet made. I have said he was brave, and he was, too, although such a cruel villain, but now he broke down and begged hard for life. It may have been that the Kanakas were deaf as well as dumb; at any rate, for all sign of hearing they showed, they were. He appealed to me, but I was as helpless as he, and my turn was apparently now to come. But evidently the Kanakas were only carrying out what they considered to be payment of a due debt, for after looking at him fixedly for awhile, during which I felt the water rising round my knees, they turned their backs on him and led me away. I was glad to go, for his shrieks and prayers were awful to hear, and I couldn’t do anything.

“They led me to where they had first caught us, made me fast to a tree, and left me. Overcome with fatigue and hunger I must have fainted, for when I come to I found myself loose, lying on the sand, and two or three of my shipmates attending to me. As soon as I was able to speak they asked me what had become of the skipper. Then it all rushed back on me at once, and I told them the dreadful story. They heard me in utter silence, the mate saying at last, ‘Wall, sonny, it’s a good job fer yew the Kanakers made ye fast, or yew’d have had a job ter clear yersef of murder.’ And so I thought now. However, as soon as I was a bit rested and had something to eat, I led them to the cave, keeping a bright look-out meanwhile for a possible attack by the Kanakas. None appeared though, and the tide having fallen again we had no difficulty in finding the skipper. All that was left of him, that is, for the sea-scavengers had been busy with him, so that he was a sight to remember with a crawling at your stomach till your dying day. He was still fast in the grip of the clam, so it was decided to leave him there and get on board again at once.

“We did so unmolested, getting sail on the ship as soon as we reached her, so as to lose sight of that infernal spot. But it’s no use denying the fact that we all felt glad the skipper was dead; some rejoiced at the manner of his death, although none could understand who called him ashore or why he obeyed. Those who had whispered the theory of the finish of his contract with Jemmy Squarefoot chuckled at their prescience, as fully justified by the sequel, declaring that the big Kanaka whom I had seen was none other than Satan himself come for his bargain.

“Matters went on now in quite a different fashion. The relief was so great that we hardly knew ourselves for the same men, and it affected all hands alike, fore and aft. The secret of the breaking line was discovered when Mr. Peck, the mate, took the skipper’s berth over. In a locker beneath the bunk he found the pieces of a big bottle, what they call a ‘carboy,’ I think, and in hunting up the why of this a leakage through the deck was found into the store-room where the cordage was kept. Only two other coils were affected by the stuff that had run down, and of course they were useless, but the rest of the stock was all right. Now, I don’t know what it was, nor how it came there, nor any more about it, and if you ain’t tired of listening I’m mighty tired of talking. Pass that ‘switchel’[1] this way.”

[1] A drink of molasses, vinegar, and water.

MARATHON OF THE SEALS

Far beyond the roaring track of the homeward-bound merchantman, lie in the South Pacific the grim clusters of salt-whitened isles marked on the chart as the South Shetlands. Many years have come and gone since their hungry shores were busy with the labours of the sealers, that, disdainful of the terrors of snow-laden gale and spindrift-burdened air, toiled amid the Antarctic weather to fill their holds with the garments of the sea-folk. Then, after perils incredible, the adventurers would return to port, and waste in a week of debauch the fruit of their toil, utterly forgetful of crashing floe or hissing sea, frozen limbs or wrenching hunger pains. When all was spent they would return, resolutely forgetting their folly and wreaking upon the innocent seal all the rage of regret that _would_ rise within them. They spared none--bull, cow, and calf alike were slain, as if in pure lust of slaughter, until the helplessness of utter fatigue compelled them to desist and snatch an interval of death-like sleep, oblivious of all the grinding bitterness of their surroundings. Life was held cheap among them, a consequence, not to be wondered at, of its hardness and the want of all those things that make life desirable. And yet the stern existence had its own strong fascination for those who had become inured to it. Few of them ever gave it up voluntarily, ending their stormy life-struggle in some sudden ghastly fashion and being almost immediately forgotten. Occasionally some sorely-maimed man would survive the horrors of his disablement, lying in the fetid forecastle in sullen endurance until the vessel reached a port whence he could be transferred to civilisation. But these unhappy men fretted grievously for the vast openness of the Antarctic, the gnashing of the ice-fangs upon the black rocks, the unsatisfied roar of the western gale, and the ceaseless combat with the relentless sea.

Many years came and went while the Southern sealer plied his trade, until at last none of the reckless skippers could longer disguise from themselves the fact that their harvest fields were rapidly becoming completely barren. Few and far between were the islets frequented by the seals, the majority of the old grounds being quite abandoned. One by one the dejected fishermen gave up the attempt, until in due time those gaunt fastnesses resumed their primitive loneliness. The long, long tempest roared questioningly over the deserted islands, as if calling for its vanished children, and refusing to be comforted because they were not. Years passed in solitude, but for the busy sea-fowl, who, because they had no commercial value, were left unmolested to eat their fill of the sea’s rich harvest, and rear among the bleak rock-crannies their fluffy broods. At last, out of the midst of a blinding smother of snow, there appeared one day off the most southerly outlier of the South Shetlands a little group of round velvety heads staring with wide, humid eyes at the surf-lashed fortresses of the shore. Long and warily they reconnoitred, for although many generations had passed since their kind had been driven from those seas, the memory of those pitiless days had been so steadily transmitted through the race that it had become a part of themselves, an instinct infallible as any other they possessed. No enemy appearing, they gradually drew nearer and nearer, until their leader, a fine bull seal of four seasons, took his courage in both flippers and mounted the most promising slope, emerging from the foaming breakers majestically, and immediately becoming a hirpling heap of clumsiness that apparently bore no likeness to the graceful, agile creature of a few moments before. Obediently his flock followed him until they reached a little patch of hard smooth sand sheltered by a semi-circle of great wave-worn boulders, and admirably suited to their purpose. Here, with sleepless vigilance of sentinels, they rested, rather brokenly at first, as every incursion of the indignant sea-fowl startled them, but presently subsiding into ungainly attitudes of slumber.

Whence they had come was as great a mystery as all the deep-water ways of the sea-people must ever be to man, or how many halting-places they must have visited and rejected at the bidding of their unerring instinct warning them that the arch-destroyers’ visits were to be feared. However, they soon made themselves at home, fattening marvellously upon the innumerable multitudes of fish that swarmed around the bases of those barren islands, and between whiles basking in the transient sun-gleams that occasionally touched the desolate land with streaks of palest gold. And as time went on, being unmolested in their domestic arrangements, the coming generation tumbled about the rugged shore in those pretty gambols that all young things love, learning steadily withal to take their appointed places in the adult ranks as soon as they had proved their capability so to do. Thus uneventfully and happily passed the seasons until the little party of colonists had grown to be a goodly herd, with leaders of mighty prowess, qualified to hold their own against any of their kind, and inured to combat by their constantly recurring battles with each other, their love affairs, in which they fought with a fury astonishing to witness.

But one bright spring morning, when after a full meal the females were all dozing peacefully among the boulders, and the pups were gleefully waddling and tumbling among them, there came a message from the sea to the fighting males, who instantly suspended their family battles to attend to the urgent call. How the news came they alone knew, its exact significance was hidden even from them, but a sense of imminent danger was upon them all. The females called up their young and retreated farther inland among the labyrinth of rocky peaks that made the place almost impossible for human travel. The males, about forty of them, ranged uneasily along the shore, their wide nostrils dilated and their whiskers bristling with apprehension. Ever and anon they would pause in their watchful patrol and couch silently as if carved in marble, staring seaward with unwinking eyes at the turbulent expanse of broken sea. Presently, within a cable’s length of the shore, up rose an awful head--the enemy had arrived. Another and another appeared until a whole herd of several scores of sea-elephants were massed along the land edge and beginning to climb ponderously over the jagged pinnacles shoreward. Not only did they outnumber the seals by about four to one, but each of them was equal in bulk to half-a-dozen of the largest of the defenders. Huge as the great land mammal from whom they take their trivial name, ferocious in their aspect, as they inflated their short trunks and bared their big gleaming teeth, they hardly deigned to notice the gallant band of warriors who faced them. Straight upward they came as if the outlying rocks had suddenly been endowed with life and were shapelessly invading the dry land. But never an inch did the little company of defenders give back. With every head turned to the foe and every sinew tense with expectation they waited, waited until at last the two forces met. Such was the shock of their impact that one would have thought the solid earth trembled beneath them, and for a while in that writhing, groaning, roaring mass nothing could be clearly distinguished. Presently, however, it could be seen that the lighter, warier seals were fighting upon a definite plan, and that they carefully avoided the danger of being overwhelmed under the unwieldy masses of their enemies. While the huge elephants hampered each other sorely, and often set their terrible jaws into a comrade’s neck, shearing through blubber and sinew and bone, the nimbler seals hung on the outskirts of the heavy leviathans and wasted no bite. But the odds were tremendous. One after another of the desperately fighting seals fell crushed beneath a mammoth many times his size; again and again a fiercely struggling defender, jammed between two gigantic assailants, found his head between the jaws of one of them, who would instantly crush it into pulp. Still they fought on wearily but unflinchingly until only six remained alive. Then, as suddenly as if by some instant agreement, hostilities ceased. The remnant of the invaders crawled heavily seaward, leaving the rugged battle-ground piled mountainously with their dead. The survivors sank exhausted where they had fought such a memorable fight, and slept securely, knowing well that their home was safe, the enemy would return no more. And the rejoicing, ravenous birds came in their countless hosts to feast upon the slain.

OCEAN CURRENTS

So mysterious are all the physical phenomena of the sea that it is, perhaps, hardly possible to say of any particular one that it is more wonderful than the rest. And yet one is sorely tempted thus to distinguish when meditating upon the movements of the almost inconceivable mass of water which goes to make up that major portion of the external superficies of our planet which we call “the sea.” In spite of all the labours of investigators, notwithstanding all the care and patience which science has bestowed upon oceanography, it is nevertheless true that, except in a few broad instances, the direction, the rate, and the dependability of ocean currents still remain a profound mystery. Nor should this excite any wonder. If we remember how great is the influence over the sea possessed by the winds, how slight an alteration in the specific gravity of water is sufficient to disturb its equilibrium and cause masses hundreds of square miles in area to exchange levels with the surrounding ocean, we shall at once admit that, except in those few instances hinted at which may be referred to constant causes, ocean currents must of necessity be still among the phenomena whose operations cannot be reckoned upon with any certainty, but must be watched for and guarded against with the most jealous care by those who do business in great waters.

Perhaps one of the commonest of the many errors made in speaking of marine things is that of confounding current with tide. Now tide, though a variable feature of the circulation of the waters near land, is fairly dependable. That is to say, the navigator may calculate by means of the moon’s age and the latitude of the place not only the time of high water, but knowing the mean height at full and change of the moon, he may and does ascertain to what height the water will rise, or how low it will fall at a certain place on a given date. True, a heavy gale of wind blowing steadily in or against the same direction of the ebbing or flowing tide will accelerate or retard, raise or depress, that tide at the time; but these aberrations, though most unpleasant oftentimes to riparian householders, are rarely of much hindrance or danger to navigation. This cannot be said of the currents of the sea. The tides have their limits assigned to them both inland and off-shore, although in the latter case it is almost impossible to tell exactly where their influence becomes merged in the vaster sway of the ocean currents, with all their unforeseen developments. The limits of tidal waters in rivers, on the other hand, being well under observation at all times, may be and are determined with the greatest exactitude.

With regard to the few instances of dependability among ocean currents, the first place will undoubtedly by common consent be given to the Gulf Stream. Owing its existence primarily to the revolution of the earth upon its axis, its outflow through the tortuous channel connecting the Gulf of Florida with the North Atlantic is more constant and steady in direction than any ebbing or flowing tide in the world, inasmuch as its “set” is invariably upon one course. Its rate is not so uniform, varying somewhat with the season, but in the narrowest part of the channel remaining fairly constant at about four knots an hour. Yet sail but a few score leagues into the Florida Gulf whence this great river in the sea takes its apparent rise, and its influence disappears! The mariner may seek there in vain for that swift, silent flow which in the Straits of Florida sweeps him north-eastward irresistibly in the teeth of the strongest gale. What has happened? Does the mighty stream drain westward into that great land-locked sea by hundreds of channels from the Equatorial regions, but far below the surface, and, obeying some all-compelling impulse, rise to the light upon reaching the Bahama Banks, pouring out its beneficent flood as it comes at the rate of a hundred miles per day? It sweeps into the broad Atlantic, and immediately spreads out into a breadth to which the Amazon is but a brooklet, losing its velocity meanwhile, until, having skirted the North American coast as far as the Grand Banks, it rolls in sublime grandeur eastward towards these “fortunate isles.” As it does so the mystery attendant upon it deepens. Its balmy presence cannot be mistaken, for the air on either side of it may be piercing in its keenness, while immediately above it there is summer. A gale blowing at right angles to its course will raise that terrible combination of waves which gives alike to the “Western Ocean” and the “pitch of the Cape” their evil reputation as the most dangerous in the world; and yet who among navigators has ever been able to determine what, if any, rate of speed it has in mid-Atlantic? Look through hundreds of log-books kept on board ships that are, perhaps, more carefully navigated than any others, the North Atlantic liners, and you shall not find a trace of the Gulf Stream “set” mentioned. In order to make this clear, it should be said that in all properly navigated ships the course steered and the speed made are carefully noted throughout the twenty-four hours; and this course, with distance run, calculated from the position accurately fixed by observation of the celestial bodies at the previous noon, gives the ship’s position by “dead reckoning.” The ship’s position being also found by the celestial bodies at the same time, the difference between the latter and the “dead reckoning” position should give the “set” and direction of the current for the twenty-four hours. And in vessels so carefully steered, and whose speed is so accurately known, as the great liners are, such current data are as trustworthy as any nautical data can be. But according to the records kept by these able navigators, there is no current setting eastward across the North Atlantic. Perhaps the explanation is that it is so very sluggish as to be unnoticeable, for those dreadful monuments of misfortune to themselves and others, the derelict ships, have been known to drift completely backwards and forwards across the Atlantic, finding not only a current to carry them eastward, but its counter-current to carry them back again.

But who among us with the slightest smattering of physiography is there that is not assured that but for the genial warmth of this mighty silent sea-river our islands would revert to their condition at the glacial epoch; who is there but feels a shiver of dread pass over his scalp when he contemplates the possibility of any diversion of its life-giving waters from our shores? The bare suggestion of such a calamity is most terrifying.

As steady and reliable in its operations is the great Equatorial current which, sweeping along the Line from east to westward, is doubtless the fountain and origin of the Gulf Stream, although its operations among that ring of islands guarding the entrance to the Mexican Gulf are involved in such obscurity that none may trace them out. And going farther south, we find the Agulhas current, beloved of homeward-bound sailing-ships round the Cape of Good Hope, pursuing its even, resistless course around the Southern Horn of Africa changelessly throughout the years. How its stubborn flow frets the stormy Southern Sea! No wonder that the early navigators doubling the Cape outward-bound, and fearing to go south, believed that some unthinkable demon held sway over those wild waves. The passage of Cape Horn from east to west holds the bad eminence to-day among seafarers of being the most difficult in the world, but what the outward passage around the Cape of Storms must have been before men learned that it was possible to avoid the stream of the Agulhas current by going a few degrees south we of these later days can only imagine. What becomes of the Agulhas current when once it has poured its volume of Indian Ocean waters into the Atlantic? Does it sink below the surface some hundreds of fathoms, and silently, smoothly, glide south to the confines of the Antarctic ice barrier, or does it wander northward into warmer regions? In any case, it fulfils the one grand function of all currents, whether of air or water--the avoidance of stagnation, the circulation of health among the nations of the earth.

Coming northward in the Pacific, let us note the counterpart of the Gulf Stream, the Kuro Siwo, or Black River of Japan, with the multitudinous isles of the East Indian Archipelago for its Caribbean Sea, and Nippon for its British Isles. It is, however, but a poor competitor in benevolence with our own Gulf Stream, as all those who know their Japan in winter can testify. Others there are that might be noted and classified if this aimed at being a scientific article, but these will suffice. These are surely wide fields enough for the imagination to rove in, wonderful depths of energy in plenty wherein the reverent and thoughtful mind may find all-sufficient food for its workings. Remembering that the known is but the fringe of the unknown, and that the secrets of the ocean are so well kept that man’s hand shall never fully tear aside the veil, we may patiently ponder and wonder. That great sea of the ancients beyond whose portals, according to their wisdom, lay Cimmerian darkness--what keeps its almost tideless waters sweet? Unseen currents enter and leave by the Pillars of Hercules at differing levels, and could we but penetrate those dim regions we should doubtless find the ingress and egress of that incalculable mass of water proceeding continually, the one above the other, renewing from the exhaustless stores of the Atlantic the staleness of the great midland lake, itself apparently remaining in unchanging level.

But when all these great well-known movements of the ocean have been considered, there still remain an infinite number of minor divagations influenced by who knows what hidden causes. The submarine upheavals of central heat, when from out of her glowing entrails the old earth casts incandescent stores of lava, raising the superincumbent mass of water for many square miles almost to boiling-point--who can estimate the effect that these throes have upon the trend of great areas of ocean? The almost infernal energy of those gyrating meteors of the tropics as they rage across the seas--how can any mind, however acute, assess the drag upon the whole body of surface water that is manifested thereby? To say nothing of the displacement caused by the less violent but far more frequent stress laid upon the much-enduring sea by extra-tropical gales, whereby the baffled mariner’s calculations are all overset, and his ship that should be careering safely in the wide offing is suddenly dashed in ruins upon the iron-bound shore!

Great efforts have been made to lay down for the benefit of seafarers a comprehensive scheme of ocean currents all over the watery surface of the globe, but in the great majority of cases the guidance is delusive, the advice untrustworthy, through no fault of the compilers. They have done their best, but mean results can never help particular needs. And so the wary mariner, as far as may be, trusts to the old-fashioned three “L’s,”--lead, log, and look-out; knowing full well how little reliance is to be placed in the majority of cases upon any advice soever concerning the mystery of ocean currents.

THE UNDYING ROMANCE OF THE SEA

Some of the greatest among men have spoken and written regarding the material progress of mankind as if every new invention for shortening distance, for economising time or labour, and increasing production were but another step in the direction of eliminating romance from the weary world.

Especially has this been said of sea traffic. We are asked to believe that in the tiny vessels of Magalhaens, the pestilential hulls of Anson’s squadron, or the cumbrous wooden walls of Trafalgar, there dwelt a romance which is now non-existent at sea--that the introduction of the steam-driven ship has been fatal to a quality which in truth belongs not at all to material things, but holds its splendid court in the minds of men. Do they, these mourners over departed romance, hold, then, that misery is essential to romance? Is it essential to romantic interest at sea that because of the smallness of the ships, their lack of healthful food, their clumsiness of build and snail-like progress, men should suffer horribly and die miserably? Truly, if these things are necessary in order that romance shall flourish, we may find them still amongst us both at sea and on land, though happily in ever lessening proportion to an improved order of things.

But sober consideration will surely convince us that as far as true romance is concerned the modern ironclad warship, for instance, need abate no jot of her claim to the three-decker of last century or the _Great Harry_ of our infant Navy. The sight of a 15,000-ton battleship cleared for action and silently dividing the ancient sea in her swift rush to meet the foe, not a man visible anywhere about her, but all grim, adamantine, and awe-inspiring--in what is she less romantic than the _Victory_ under all canvas breaking the line at Trafalgar? As an incentive to the exercise of the imagination, the ironclad certainly claims first place. Like some fire-breathing dragon of ancient fable she comes, apparently by her own volition, armed with powers of destruction overtopping all the efforts of ancient story-tellers. Yet to the initiated she is more wonderful, more terror-striking, than to the unknowing observer. For the former pierce with the eye of knowledge her black walls of steel, and see within them hundreds of quiet, self-possessed men standing calmly by gun-breech, ammunition-hoist, fire-hose, and hospital. Deep under the water-line are scores of fiercely toiling slaves to the gigantic force that actuates the whole mass. Hardly recognisable as human, sealed up in stokeholes under abnormal air pressure, the clang of their weapons never ceases as they feed the long row of caverns glowing white with fervent heat. All around them and beneath them and above, clearly to be discerned through all the diabolical clamour of engines and roaring of furnaces, is that sense of invisible forces subdued by the hand of man, yet ferociously striving against restraint, a sense that makes the head of the new-comer throb and beat in sympathy until it seems as if the brain must burst its containing bone.

Just abaft these chambers of accumulating energy are the giants being fed thereby. Unhappy the man who can see no romance in the engine-room! Nothing exalting, soul-stirring, in the rhythmical race of weariless pistons, no storm-song in their magnificent voices as they dash round the shaft at ninety revolutions per minute. Standing amid these modern genii, to which those of “The Thousand and One Nights” are but puny weaklings, the sight, the senses are held captive, fascinated by so splendid a manifestation of the combination of skill and strength. And when unwillingly the gazer turns away, there are the men; the grimy, greasy, sweat-stained men. Watchful, patient, cat-like. Ready at the first hint, either from the racing Titans themselves or from the soaring bridge away up yonder in the night, to manipulate lever, throttle-valve, and auxiliaries as swiftly, deftly, and certainly as the great surgeon handles his tools in contact with the silent, living form under his hands.

What a lesson on faith is here. Faith in the workmanship of the complicated monsters they control, faith in one another to do the right thing at the right moment when a mistake would mean annihilation, faith in the watcher above who is guiding the whole enormous mass amidst dangers seen and unseen. This, too, is no blind faith, no mere credulity. It is born of knowledge, and the consequences of its being misplaced must be constantly in mind in order to insure effective service in time of disaster. It would surely be a good thing if more poetry were written on the lines of “McAndrew’s Hymn,” always supposing the poets could be found; greater efforts made to acquaint us who lead comfortable lives ashore with the everyday heroism of, the continual burnt-offering rendered by, the engineer, fireman, and trimmer. Perhaps we might then begin to discern dimly and faintly that so far from the romance of the sea being destroyed by the marine engine, it has been strengthened and added to until it is deeper and truer than ever.