Chapter C: Arthur Pearson, Ltd (6)

Some delightfully interesting articles on the ancient sport of “hawking,” or falconry, whichever is the correct term to use, in _Country Life_ have vividly recalled to me a quaint and unusual experience in that line, which fell to my lot while the vessel of whose crew I was a very minor portion was slowly making her way homewards from a port at the extreme western limit of the Gulf of Mexico. We were absolutely without live stock of any kind on board the _Investigator_, unless such small deer as rats and cockroaches might be classed under that head. And, as so often happens at sea when that is the case, the men were very discontented at the absence of any dumb animals to make pets of, and often lamented what they considered to be the lonely condition of a ship without even a cat. But we had not been out of port many days when, to our delight as well as amazement, we saw one sunny morning hopping contentedly about the fo’c’s’le a sweet little blue and yellow bird about the bigness (or littleness) of a robin. Being well out of sight of land, no one could imagine whence he came, neither did anybody see him arrive. He just materialised as it were in our midst, and made himself at home forthwith, as though he had been born and bred among men and fear of them was unknown to him. We had hardly got over the feeling of almost childish delight this pretty, fearless wanderer gave us when another appeared, much the same size, but totally different in colour. It was quite as tame as the first arrival, and did not quarrel with the first-comer. Together they explored most amicably the recesses of the fo’c’s’le, apparently much delighted with the cockroaches, which swarmed everywhere. And before long many others came and joined them, all much about the same size, but of all the hues imaginable. They were all alike in their tameness, and it really was one of the most pleasant sights I ever witnessed to see those tiny, brilliant birds fluttering about our dingy fo’c’s’le, or, tired out, roosting on such queer perches as the edge of the bread-barge or the shelves in our bunks. Their presence had a most elevating influence upon the roughest of us--we went softly and spoke gently, for fear of startling these delicate little visitors who were so unafraid of the giants among whom they had voluntarily taken up their abode. At meal-times they hopped about the fo’c’s’le deck picking up crumbs and behaving generally as if they were in the beautiful glades and aromatic forests whence they had undoubtedly come. For it is hardly necessary to say that they were all land birds; and when during a calm one day one of them, stooping too near the sea, got wet, and was unable to rise again, August McManus, as tough a citizen as ever painted the Highway red, leapt overboard after it, and, with a touch as gentle as the enwrapping of lint, rescued it from its imminent peril.

This strange development of sea-life went on for a week, the weather being exceedingly fine, with light winds and calms. And then we became suddenly aware that some large birds had arrived and taken up positions upon the upper yards, where they sat motionless, occasionally giving vent to a shrill cry. What they were none of us knew, until shortly after we had first noticed them one of our little messmates flew out from the ship’s side into the sunshine. There was a sudden swish of wings, like the lash of a cane through the air, and downward like a brown shadow came one of the watchers from aloft, snatching in a pair of cruel-looking talons the tiny truant from our midst. Then the dullest of us realised that in some mysterious way these rapacious birds, a species of falcon, had become aware that around our ship might be found some of their natural food. Now we were not less than 200 miles from the coast at the time, and to my mind it was one of the strangest things conceivable how those hawks should have known that around a solitary ship far out at sea would be found a number of little birds suitable to their needs. The presence of the small birds might easily be explained by their having been blown off the land, as high winds had prevailed for some little time previous to their appearance, but as the hawks did not come till a week afterwards, during the whole of which time we had never experienced even a four-knot breeze, I am convinced that the same theory would not account for their arrival. It may have been a coincidence, but if so it was a very remarkable one; and in any case what were these essentially land birds of powerful flight doing of their own free will so far from land? Unless, of course, they were a little band migrating, and even then the coincidence of their meeting our ship was a most strange one.

We, however, troubled ourselves but little with these speculations. The one thing patent to us was that our little pets were exposed to the most deadly peril, that these ravenous birds were carrying them off one by one, and we were apparently powerless to protect them. We could not cage them, although the absence of cages would have been no obstacle, as we should soon have manufactured efficient substitutes; but they were so happy in their freedom that we felt we could not deprive them of it. But we organised a raid among those bloodthirsty pirates, as we called them, forgetting that they were merely obeying the law of their being, and the first dark hour saw us silently creeping aloft to where they had taken their roost. Two were caught, but in both cases the captors had something to remember their encounter by. Grasping at the shadowy birds in the darkness with only one free hand, they were unable to prevent the fierce creatures defending themselves with beak and talons, and one man came down with his prize’s claws driven so far into his hand that the wounds took many days to heal. When we had secured them we couldn’t bring ourselves to kill them, they were such handsome, graceful birds, but had they been given a choice in the matter I make no doubt they would have preferred a speedy death rather than the lingering pain of starvation which befell them. For they refused all food, and sat moping on their perches, only rousing when any one came near, and glaring unsubdued with their bold, fierce eyes, bright and fearless until they glazed in death. We were never able to catch any more of them, although they remained with us until our captain managed to allow the vessel to run ashore upon one of the enormous coral reefs that crop up here and there in the Gulf of Mexico. The tiny spot of dry land that appeared at the summit of this great mountain of coral was barren of all vegetation except a little creeping plant, a kind of _arenaria_, so that it would have afforded no satisfactory abiding-place for our little shipmates, even if any of them could escape the watchful eyes of their enemies aloft. So that I suppose after we abandoned the ship they remained on board until she broke up altogether, and then fell an easy prey to the falcons.

This was the only occasion upon which I have known a vessel at sea to be visited by so varied a collection of small birds, and certainly the only case I have ever heard of where land birds have flown on board and made themselves at home. When I say at sea, of course I do not mean in a narrow strait like the Channel, where passing vessels must often be visited by migrants crossing to or from the Continent. But when well out in the North Atlantic, certainly to the westward of the Azores, and out of sight of them, I have several times known a number of swallows to fly on board and cling almost like bats to whatever projections they first happened to reach. Exhausted with their long battle against the overmastering winds, faint with hunger and thirst, they had at last reached a resting-place, only to find it so unsuited to all their needs that nothing remained for them to do but die. Earnest attempts were made to induce them to live, but unsuccessfully; and as they never regained strength sufficient to resume their weary journey, they provided a sumptuous meal for the ship’s cat. Even had they been able to make a fresh start, it is hard to imagine that the sense of direction which guides them in their long flight from or to their winter haunts would have enabled them to shape a course from such an utterly unknown base as a ship at sea must necessarily be to them.

While making a passage up the China Sea vessels are often boarded by strange bird visitors, and some of them may be induced to live upon such scanty fare as can be found for them on shipboard. I once witnessed with intense interest a gallant attempt made by a crane to find a rest for her weary wings on board of an old barque in which I was an able seaman. We were two days out from Hong-Kong, bound to Manila, through a strong south-west monsoon. The direction of the wind almost enabled us to lay our course, and therefore the “old man” was cracking on, all the sail being set that she would stagger under close-hauled. Being in ballast, she lay over at an angle that would have alarmed anybody but a yachtsman; but she was a staunch, weatherly old ship, and hung well to windward. It was my wheel from six to eight in the evening, and as I wrestled with it in the attempt to keep the old barky up to her work, I suddenly caught sight of the gaunt form of a crane flapping her heavy wings in dogged fashion to come up with us from to leeward, we making at the time about eight knots an hour. After a long fight the brave bird succeeded in reaching us, and coasted along the lee side, turning her long neck anxiously from side to side as if searching for a favourable spot whereon to alight. Just as she seemed to have made up her mind to come inboard abaft the foresail, a gust of back-draught caught her wide pinions and whirled her away to leeward, about a hundred fathoms at one sweep, while it was evident that she had the utmost difficulty in maintaining her balance. Another long struggle ensued as the gloom of the coming night deepened, and the steady, strenuous wind pressed us onward through the turbulent sea. The weary pilgrim at last succeeded in fetching up to us again, and with a feeling of the keenest satisfaction I saw her work her way to windward, as if instinct warned her that in that way alone she would succeed in reaching a place of rest. Backward and forward along our weather side she sailed twice, searching with anxious eye the whole of our decks, but fearing to trust herself thereon, where so many men were apparently awaiting to entrap her. No, she would not venture, and quite a pang of disappointment and sympathy shot through me as I saw her drift away astern and renew her hopeless efforts to board us on the lee side. At last she came up so closely that I could see the laboured heaving of her breast muscles, and I declare that the expression in her full, dark eyes was almost human in its pathos of despair. She poised herself almost above the rail, the vessel gave a great lee lurch, and down the slopes of the mizen came pouring an eddy of baffled wind. It caught the doomed bird, whirled her over and over as she fought vainly to regain her balance, and at last bore her down so closely to the seething tumult beneath her that a breaking wave lapped her up and she disappeared. All hands had witnessed her brave battle with fate, and quite a buzz of sympathy went up for her in her sad defeat.

That same evening one of the lads found a strange bird nestling under one of the boats. None of us knew what it was, for none of us ever remembered seeing so queer a creature before. Nor will this be wondered at when I say that it was a goat-sucker, as I learned long afterwards by seeing a plate of one in a Natural History I was reading. But the curious speculations that its appearance gave rise to in the fo’c’s’le were most amusing. The wide gape of its mouth, so unexpected when it was shut, was a source of the greatest wonder, while the downy fluff of its feathers made one man say it reminded him of a “nowl” that a skipper of a ship he was in once caught and kept alive for a long time as a pet.

Of the few visitors that board a ship in mid-ocean none are more difficult to account for than butterflies. I have seen the common white butterfly fluttering about a ship in the North Atlantic when she was certainly over 500 miles from the nearest land. And in various parts of the world butterflies and moths will suddenly appear as if out of space, although the nearest land be several hundreds of miles distant. I have heard the theory advanced that their chrysalides must have been on board the ship, and they have just been hatched out when seen. It may be so, although I think unlikely; but yet it is hard to imagine that so fragile a creature, associated only in the mind with sunny gardens or scented hillsides, could brave successfully the stern rigour of a flight extending over several hundred miles of sea. All that is certain about the matter is that they _do_ visit the ships at such distances from land, and disappear as if disheartened at the unsuitability of their environment. Lying in Sant’ Ana, Mexico, once, loading mahogany, I witnessed the labours of an unbidden guest that made me incline somewhat to the chrysalis theory about the butterflies. Our anchorage was some three miles off shore in the open roadstead, where the rafts of great mahogany logs tossed and tumbled about ceaselessly alongside. They had all been a long time in the water before they reached us, and were consequently well coated with slime, which made them an exceedingly precarious footing for the unfortunate slingsman, who was as often in the water as he was on the raft. One evening as I lay in my bunk reading by the light of a smuggled candle, I was much worried by a persistent buzz that sounded very near, and far too loud to be the voice of any mosquito that I had ever been unfortunate enough to be attended by. Several times I looked for this noisy insect without success, and at last gave up the task and went on deck, feeling sure there wasn’t room in the bunk for the possessor of that voice and myself. Next day after dinner I was again lying in my bunk, resting during the remainder of the dinner hour, when to my amazement I saw what I took to be an overgrown wasp or hornet suddenly alight upon a beam overhead, walk into a corner, and begin the music that had so worried me overnight. I watched him keenly, but could hardly make out his little game, until he suddenly flew away. Then getting a light, for the corner was rather dark, I discovered a row of snug apartments much like acorn-cups, only deeper, all neatly cemented together, and as smooth inside as a thimble. Presently along came Mr. Wasp, or Hornet, or whatever he was, again, and set to work, while I watched him as closely as I dared without giving him offence, noticing that he carried his material in a little blob on his chest between his fore legs. It looked like mud; but where could he get mud from? I could swear there was none on board under that fierce sun, and I couldn’t imagine him going six miles in five minutes, which he must needs have done had he gone ashore for it. So I watched his flight as well as I could, but it was two days before I discovered my gentleman on one of the logs alongside, scraping up a supply of slime, and skipping nimbly into the air each time the sea washed over his alighting-place. That mystery was solved at any rate. I kept careful watch over that row of dwellings thereafter, determined to suppress the whole block at the first sign of a brood of wasps making their appearance. None ever did, and at last I took down the cells with the greatest care, finding them perfectly empty. So I came to the conclusion that my ingenious and industrious guest had been building for the love of the thing, or for amusement, or to keep his hand in, or perhaps something warned him in time that the site he had selected for his eligible row of residences was liable to sudden serious vicissitudes of climate. At any rate, he abandoned them, much to my comfort.

“THE WAY OF A SHIP”

Solomon had, among the many mighty qualities of mind which have secured his high eminence as the wisest man of the world, an attribute which does not always accompany abundant knowledge. He was prompt to admit his limitations, as far as he knew them, frankly and fully. And among them he confesses an inability to understand “the way of a ship in the midst of the sea.” It may be urged that there was little to wonder at in this, since the exigencies of his position must have precluded his gaining more than the slightest actual experience of seafaring. Yet it is marvellous that he should have mentioned this thing, seemingly simple to a shore-dweller, which is to all mariners a mystery past finding out. No matter how long a sailor may have sailed the seas in one ship, or how deeply he may have studied the ways of that ship under apparently all combinations of wind and sea, he will never be found to assert thoughtfully that he _knows_ her altogether. Much more, then, are the myriad idiosyncrasies of all ships unknowable. Kipling has done more, perhaps, than any other living writer to point out how certain fabrics of man’s construction become invested with individuality of an unmistakable kind, and of course so acute an observer could not fail to notice how pre-eminently is this the case with ships.

Now, in what follows I seek as best I may to show, by a niggardly handful of instances in my own experience, how the “personality” of ships expresses itself, and how incomprehensible these manifestations are to the men whose business it is to study them. Even before the ship has quitted the place of her birth, yea, while she is yet a-building, something of this may be noted. One man will study deepest mathematical problems, will perfectly apply his formulæ, and see them accurately embodied in steel or timber, so that by all ordinary laws of cause and effect the resultant vessel should be a marvel of speed, stability, and strength. And yet she is a failure. She has all the vices that the sailor knows and dreads: crank, slow, leewardly, hanging in stays, impossible to steer satisfactorily. Every man who ever sails in her carries in his tenacious sea-memory, to the day of his death, vengeful recollections of her perversities, and often in the dog-watch holds forth to his shipmates in eloquent denunciation of her manifold iniquities long after one would have thought her very name would be forgotten. Another shipbuilder, innocent of a scintilla of mathematics, impatient of diagrams, will begin apparently without preparation, adding timber to timber, and breast-hook to stem, until out of the dumb cavern of his mind a ship is evolved, his inexpressible idea manifested in graceful yet massive shape. And that ship will be all that the other is not. As if the spirit of her builder had somehow been wrought into her frame, she behaves with intelligence, and becomes the delight, the pride, of those fortunate enough to sail in her.

Such a vessel it was once my good fortune to join in London for a winter passage across to Nova Scotia. Up to that time my experience had been confined to large vessels and long voyages, and it was not without the stern compulsion of want that I shipped in the _Wanderer_. She was a brigantine of two hundred and forty tons register, built in some little out-of-the-way harbour in Nova Scotia by one of the amphibious sailor-farmers of that ungenerous coast, in just such a rule-of-thumb manner as I have spoken of. When I got on board I pitied myself greatly. I felt cramped for room; I dreaded the colossal waves of the Atlantic at that stormy winter season, in what I considered to be a weakly built craft fit only for creeping closely along-shore. We worked down the river, also a new departure to me, always accustomed hitherto to be towed down to Beachy Head by a strenuous tug. The delicate way in which she responded to all the calls we made on her astonished our pilot, who was loud in his praises of her “handiness,” one of the most praiseworthy qualities a ship can have in a seaman’s eyes. Nevertheless, I still looked anxiously forward to our meeting with the Atlantic, although day by day, as we zigzagged down Channel, I felt more and more amazed at the sympathy she showed with her crew. At last we emerged upon the wide, open ocean, clear of even the idea of shelter from any land; and as if to show conclusively how groundless were my fears, it blew a bitter north-west gale. Never have I known such keen delight in watching a vessel’s behaviour as I knew then. As if she were one of the sea-people, such as the foam-like gulls or wheeling petrels, next of kin to the waves themselves, she sported with the tumultuous elements, her motion as easy as the sway of the seaweed and as light as a bubble. And even when the strength of the storm-wind forbade us to show more than the tiniest square of canvas, she answered the touch of her helm, as sensitive to its gentle suasion as Hiawatha’s Cheemaun to the voice of her master. Never a wave broke on deck, although she had so little free-board that a bucket of water could almost be dipped without the aid of a lanyard. That gale taught me a lesson I have never been able to forget. It was, never to judge of the seaworthy qualities of a ship by her appearance at anchor, but to wait until she had an opportunity of telling me in her own language what she could do.

Then came a spell of favourable weather--for the season, that is--when we could carry plenty of sail and make good use of our time. Another characteristic now revealed itself in her--her steerability. Once steady on her course under all canvas, one turn of a spoke, or at most of two spokes, of the wheel was sufficient to keep her so; and for an hour I have walked back and forth before the wheel, with both hands in my pockets, while she sped along at ten knots an hour, as straight as an arrow in its flight. But when any sail was taken off her, no matter which, she would no longer steer herself, as if the just and perfect balance of her sail area had been disturbed; but she was easier to steer then than any vessel I have ever known. Lastly, a strong gale tested her powers of running before it, the last touch of excellence in any ship being that she shall run safely dead before a gale. During its height we _passed_ the Anchor liner _California_, a huge steamship some twenty times our bulk. From end to end of that mighty ship the frolicsome waves leaped and tumbled; from every scupper and swinging-port spouted a briny flood. Every sea, meeting her mass in its way, just climbed on board and spread itself, so that she looked, as sailors say, like a half-tide rock. From her towering hurricane-deck our little craft must have appeared a forlorn little object--just a waif of the sea, existing only by a succession of miracles. Yet even her muffled-up passengers, gazing down upon the white dryness of our decks, looked as if they could dimly understand that the comfort which was unmistakably absent from their own wallowing monster was cosily present with us.

Another vessel, built on the same coast, but three times the size of the _Wanderer_, was the _Sea Gem_, in which I had an extended experience. Under an old sea-dog of a captain who commanded her the first part of the voyage, she played more pranks than a jibbing mule with a new driver. None of the ordinary manœuvres necessary to a sailing-ship would she perform without the strangest antics and refusals. She seemed possessed of a stubborn demon of contrariness. Sometimes at night, when, at the change of the watch, all hands were kept on deck to tack ship, more than an hour would be wasted in futile attempts to get her about in a seamanlike way. She would prance up into the wind gaily enough, as if about to turn in her own length, and then at the crucial moment fall off again against the hard-down helm, while all hands cursed her vigorously for the most obstinate, clumsy vessel ever calked. Or she would come up far enough for the order of “mainsail haul,” and there she would stick, like a wall-eyed sow in a muddy lane, hard and fast in irons. With her mainyards braced a-port and her foreyards a-starboard, she reminded all hands of nothing so much as the old sea-yarn of the Yankee schooner-skipper who for the first time found himself in command of a bark. Quite scared of those big square sails, he lay in port until, by some lucky chance, he got hold of a mate who had long sailed in square-rigged vessels. Then he boldly put to sea. But by some evil hap the poor mate fell overboard and was drowned when they had been several days out; and one morning a homeward-bounder spied a bark in irons making rapid signals of distress, although the weather was fine, and the vessel appeared staunch and seaworthy enough. Rounding to under the sufferer’s stern, the homeward-bound skipper hailed, “What’s the matter?” “Oh!” roared the almost frantic Yankee, “for God’s sake send somebody aboard that knows somethin’ about this kind er ship. I’ve lost my square-rigged mate overboard, an’ I cain’t git a move on her nohow!” He’d been trying to sail her “winged out,” schooner fashion. So disgusted was our skipper with the _Sea Gem_ that he left her in Mobile, saying that he was going to retire from the sea altogether. But we all believed he was scared to death that she would run away with him some fine day. Another skipper took command, a Yankee Welshman by the name of Jones. The first day out I heard the second mate say to him deferentially, “She’s rather ugly in stays, sir.” “_Is_ she?” queried the old man, with an astonished air. “Wall, I should hev surmised she was ez nimble ez a kitten. Yew don’t say!” Shortly after it became necessary to tack, and, to our utter amazement, the _Sea Gem_ came about in almost her own length, with never a suggestion that she had ever been otherwise than as handy as a St. Ives smack. Nor did she ever after betray any signs of unwillingness to behave with the same cheerful alacrity. Had her trim been different we could have understood it, because some ships handy in ballast are veritable cows when loaded, and _vice versâ_. But that reasoning had here no weight, since her draft was essentially the same.

Not without a groan do I recall a passage in one of the handsomest composite barks I ever saw. Her name I shall not give, as she was owned in London, and may be running still, for all I know. My eye lingered lovingly over her graceful lines as she lay in dock, and I thought gleefully that a passage to New Zealand in her would be like a yachting-trip. An additional satisfaction was some patent steering-gear which I had always longed to handle, having been told that it was a dream of delight to take a trick with it. I admit that she was right down to her Plimsoll, and I will put it to her credit that she was only some dozen miles to leeward of the ill-fated _Eurydice_ when that terrible disaster occurred that extinguished so many bright young lives. But the water was smooth, and we had no long row of lower-deck ports open for the sea to rush in when the vessel heeled to a sudden squall. It is only her Majesty’s ships that are exposed to such dangers as that. In fact, for the first fortnight out she was on her extra-special behaviour, although none of us fellows for’ard liked a dirty habit she had of lifting heavy sprays over fore and aft in a whole-sail breeze. Presently along came a snifter from the south-west, and every man of us awoke to the fact that we were aboard of a hooker saturated with every vicious habit known to ships. There was no dryness in her. You never knew where or when she would bow down to a harmless-looking sea and allow it to lollop on board, or else, with a perversity almost incredible, fall up against it so clumsily that it would send a blinding sheet of spray as high as the clues of the upper topsails. Words fail me to tell of the patent atrocity with which we were condemned to steer. Men would stand at the wheel for their two hours’ trick, and imagine tortures for the inventor thereof, coming for’ard at four or eight bells, speechlessly congested with the volume of their imprecations upon him. Yet I have no doubt he, poor man, considered himself a benefactor to the genus seafarer. In any weather you could spin the wheel round from hard up to hard down without feeling the slightest pressure of the sea against the rudder. And as, to gain power, speed must be lost, two turns of the wheel were equal to only one with the old-fashioned gear. The result of these differences was to a sailor simply maddening. For all seamen steer as much by the _feel_ of the wheel as by anything else (I speak of sailing-ships throughout), a gentle increase of pressure warning you when she wants a little bit to meet her in her sidelong swing. Not only so, but there is a subtle sympathy (to a good helmsman) conveyed in those alterations of pressure which, while utterly unexplainable in words, make all the difference between good and bad steering. Then, none of us could get used to the doubling of the amount of helm necessary. We were always giving her too much or too little. As she was by no means an easy-steering ship, even had her gear been all right, the consequence of this diabolical impediment to her guidance was that the man who kept her within two points and a half, in anything like a breeze, felt that he deserved high praise.

Still, with all these unpleasantnesses, we worried along in fairly comfortable style, for we had a fresh mess and railway-duff (a plum at every station) every Sunday. Every upper bunk in the fo’c’s’le was leaky, and always remained so; but we rigged up water-sheds that kept us fairly dry during our slumbers. So we fared southward through the fine weather, forgetting, with the lax memory of the sailor for miserable weather, the sloppy days that had passed, and giving no thought to the coming struggle. Gradually we stole out of the trade area, until the paling blue of the sky and the accumulation of torn and feathery cloud-fields warned us of our approach to that stern region where the wild western wind reigns supreme. The trades wavered, fell, and died away. Out from the west, with a rush and a roar, came the cloud-compeller, and eastward we fled before it. An end now to all comfort fore and aft. For she wallowed and grovelled, allowing every sea, however kindly disposed, to leap on board, until the incessant roar of the water from port to starboard dominated our senses even in sleep. A massive breakwater of two-inch kauri planks was fitted across the deck in front of the saloon for the protection of the afterguard, who dwelt behind it as in a stockaded fort. As the weather grew worse, and the sea got into its gigantic stride, our condition became deplorable; for it was a task of great danger to get from the fo’c’s’le to the wheel, impossible to perform without a drenching, and always invested with the risk of being dashed to pieces. We “carried on” recklessly in order to keep her at least ahead of the sea; but at night, when no stars were to be seen, and the compass swung madly through all its thirty-two points, steering was mental and physical torture. In fact, it was only possible to steer at all by the feel of the wind at one’s back, and even then the best helmsman among us could not keep her within two points on each side of her course. We lived in hourly expectation of a catastrophe, and for weeks none of us forward ever left off oilskins and sea-boots even to sleep in. At last, on Easter Sunday, three seas swept on board simultaneously. One launched itself like a Niagara over the stern, and one rose on each side in the waist, until the two black hills of water towered above us for fully twenty feet. Then they leaned toward each other and fell, their enormous weight threatening to crush our decks in as if they had been paper. Nothing could be seen of the hull for a smother of white, except the forecastle-head. When, after what seemed an age, she slowly lifted out of that boiling, yeasty whirl, the breakwater was gone, and so was all the planking of the bulwarks on both sides from poop to forecastle break. Nothing was left but to heave to, and I, for one, firmly believed that we should never get her up into the wind. However, we were bound to try; and watching the smooth (between two sets of seas), the helm was put hard down and the mizen hauled out. Round she came swiftly enough, but just as she presented her broadside to the sea, up rose a monstrous wave. Over, over she went--over until the third ratline of the lee rigging was under water; that is to say, the lee rail was full six feet under the sea. One hideous tumult prevailed, one dazzling glare of foaming water surrounded us; but I doubt whether any of us thought of anything but how long we could hold our breath. Had she been less deeply loaded she must have capsized. As it was, she righted again, and came up into the wind still afloat. But never before or since have I seen a vessel behave like that hove to. We were black and blue with being banged about, our arms strained almost to uselessness by holding on. Beast as she was, the strength of her hull was amazing, or she would have been racked to splinters: for in that awful sea she rolled clean to windward until she filled herself, then canted back again until she lay nearly on her beam-ends; and this she did continually for three days and nights. At the first of the trouble the cabin had been gutted so that neither officers nor passengers had a dry thread, and of course all cooking was impossible. I saw the skipper chasing his sextant (in its box) around the saloon-table, which was just level with the water which was making havoc with everything. And not a man of us for’ard but had some pity to spare for the one woman passenger (going out with her little boy to join her husband), who, we knew, was crouching in the corner of an upper bunk in her cabin, hugging her child to her bosom, and watching with fascinated eyes the sullen wash of the dark water that plunged back and forth across the sodden strip of carpet.

In spite of all these defects in the ship, she reached Lyttelton in safety at last; and I, with more thankfulness than I knew how to express, was released from her, and took my place as an officer on board a grand old ship three times her size. Unfortunately for me, my sea experience of her extended only over one short passage to Adelaide, where she was laid up for sale; and of my next ship I have spoken at length elsewhere, so I may not enlarge upon her behaviour here. After that I had the good fortune to get a berth as second mate of the _Harbinger_, to my mind one of the noblest specimens of modern shipbuilding that ever floated. She was lofty--210 feet from water-line to skysail truck--and with all her white wings spread, thirty-one mighty sails, she looked like a mountain of snow. She was built of steel, and in every detail was as perfect as any sailor could wish. For all her huge bulk she was as easy to handle as any ten-ton yacht--far easier than some--and in any kind of weather her docility was amazing. No love-sick youth was ever more enamoured of his sweetheart than I of that splendid ship. For hours of my watch below I have sat perched upon the martingale guys under the jib-boom, watching with all a lover’s complacency the stately sheer of her stem through the sparkling sea, and dreamily noting the delicate play of rainbow tints through and through the long feather of spray that ran unceasingly up the stem, and, curling outward, fell in a diamond shower upon the blue surface below. She was so clean in the entrance that you never saw a foaming spread of broken water ahead, driven in front by the vast onset of the hull. She parted the waves before her pleasantly, as an arrow the air; graciously, as if loath to disturb their widespread solitude.

But it needed a tempest to show her “way” in its perfection. Like the _Wanderer_, but in a grand and gracious fashion, she seemed to claim affinity with the waves, and they in their wildest tumult met her as if they too knew and loved her. She was the only ship I ever knew or heard of that would “stay” under storm-staysails, reefed topsails, and a reefed foresail in a gale of wind. In fact, I never saw anything that she would not do that a ship should do. She was so truly a child of the ocean that even a bungler could hardly mishandle her; she _would_ work well in spite of him. And, lastly, she would _steer_ when you could hardly detect an air out of the heavens, with a sea like a mirror, and the sails hanging apparently motionless. The men used to say she would go a knot with only the quartermaster whistling at the wheel for a wind.

Then for my sins I shipped before the mast in an equally large iron ship bound for Calcutta. She was everything that the _Harbinger_ was not--an ugly abortion that the sea hated. When I first saw her (after I had shipped), I asked the cook whether she wasn’t a razeed steamboat--I had almost said an adapted loco-boiler. When he told me that this was only her second voyage I had to get proof before I could believe him. And as her hull was, so were her sails. They looked like a job lot scared up at ship-chandlers’ sales, and hung upon the yards like rags drying. Our contempt for her was too great for words. Of course she was under water while there was any wind to speak of, and her motions were as strange as those of a seasick pig. A dredger would have beaten her at sailing; a Medway barge, with her Plimsoll mark in the main-rigging, would have been ten times as comfortable. Somehow we buttocked her out in 190 days with 2500 tons of salt in her hold, and again my fortunate star intervened to get me out of her and into a better ship as second mate.

Of steamers I have no authority to speak, although they, too, have their ways, quite as non-understandable as sailing-ships, and complicated, too, by the additional entity of the engines within. But everything that floats and is built by man, from the three-log catamaran of the Malabar coast, or the balsa of Brazil, up to the latest leviathan, has a way of its own, and that way is certainly, in all its variations, past finding out.

SEA ETIQUETTE

Nothing is more loudly regretted by the praisers of old times than the gradual disappearance of etiquette under the stress and burden of these bustling days, and nowhere is the decay of etiquette more pronounced than at sea. Romance persists because until machinery can run itself humanity must do so, and where men and women live romance cannot die. But were it not for the Royal Navy, with its perfect discipline and unbroken traditions, etiquette at sea must without doubt perish entirely, and that soon. Such fragments of it as still survive in the Merchant Service are confined to sailing-ships, those beautiful visions that are slowly disappearing one by one from off the face of the deep. Take, for instance, the grand old custom so full of meaning of “saluting the deck.” The poop or raised after-deck of a ship over which floated the national flag was considered to be always pervaded by the presence of the Sovereign, and, as the worshipper of whatever rank removes his hat upon entering a church, so from the Admiral to the powder-monkey every member of the ship’s company as he set foot upon the poop “saluted the deck”--the invisible presence. As the division between men-of-war and merchantmen widened so the practice weakened in the latter, and only now survives in the rigidly enforced practice of every person below the rank of Captain or mate coming up on to the poop by the lee side. And among the officers the practice is also observed according to rank, for with the Captain on deck the chief mate takes the lee side. But since in steamers there is often no lee side, the custom in them has completely died out. To etiquette also belongs the strict observance of the rule in all vessels of tacking “Sir” on to every reply to an officer, or the accepted synonym for his position to a tradesman who is a petty officer, as “Boss” for boatswain, “Chips” for carpenter, “Sails” for sailmaker, and “Doctor” for cook. A woeful breach of etiquette is committed by the Captain who, coming on deck while one of his mates is carrying out some manœuvre, takes upon himself to give orders direct to the men. It is seldom resented by junior officers for obvious reasons, but the chief mate would probably retire to another part of the vessel at once with the remark that it was “only one man’s work.”

In many cases etiquette and discipline are so closely interwoven that it is hard to know where one leaves off and the other begins, but in all such cases observance is strictly enforced as being one of the few remaining means whereby even a simulacrum of discipline is maintained in undermanned and oversparred sailing-ships--such as the repetition of every order given by the hearer, the careful avoidance of any interference by one man with another’s work in the presence of an officer, and the preservation of each officer’s rightful attitude toward those under his charge and his superiors. Thus during the secular work of the day, work, that is, apart from handling the ship, the mate gives his orders to the boatswain, who sees them carried out. Serious friction always arises when during any operation the mate comes between the boatswain and his gang, unless, as sometimes happens, the boatswain be hopelessly incompetent.

In the private life of the ship every officer’s berth is his house, sacred, inviolable, wherein none may enter without his invitation. And in a case of serious dereliction of duty or disqualification it becomes his prison. “Go to your room, sir,” is a sentence generally equivalent to professional ruin, since a young officer’s future lies in the hollow of his Commander’s hand. The saloon is free to officers only at meal-times, not a common parlour wherein they may meet for chat and recreation, except in port with the Captain ashore. And as it is “aft” so in its degree is it “forrard.” In some ships the carpenter has a berth to himself and a workshop besides, into which none may enter under pain of instant wrath--and “Chips” is not a man to be lightly offended. But in most cases all the petty officers berth together in an apartment called by courtesy the “half-deck,” although it seldom resembles in a remote degree the dingy, fœtid hole that originally bore that name. Very dignified are the petty officers, gravely conscious of their dignity, and sternly set upon the due maintenance of their rightful status as the backbone of the ship’s company. Such a grave breach of etiquette as an “A.B.” entering their quarters, with or without invitation, is seldom heard of, and quite as infrequent are the occasions when an officer does so. In large ships, where six or seven apprentices are carried, an apartment in a house on deck is set apart for their sole occupation, and the general characteristic of such an abode is chaos--unless, indeed, there should be a senior apprentice of sufficient stability to preserve order, which there seldom is. These “boys’ houses” are bad places for a youngster fresh from school, unless a conscientious Captain or chief mate should happen to be at the head of affairs and make it his business to give an eye to the youngsters’ proceedings when off duty. Of course etiquette may be looked for in vain here, unless it be the etiquette of “fagging” in its worst sense.

The men’s quarters, always called the forecastle, even when a more humane shipowner than usual has relegated the forecastle proper to its rightful use as lockers for non-perishable stores and housed his men in a building on deck, is always divided longitudinally in half. The port or mate’s watch live on the port side, the starboard or second mate’s watch on the starboard side. To this rule there is no exception. And here we have etiquette _in excelsis_. Although the barrier between the two sides is usually of the flimsiest and often quite imaginary in effect, it is a wall of separation with gates guarded and barred. The visitor from one side to the other, whatever his excuse, approaches humbly, feeling ill at ease until made welcome. And from dock to dock it is an unheard-of thing for any officer save the Captain to so much as _look_ into the forecastle. Of course, exceptional circumstances do arise, such as a general outbreak of recalcitrancy, but the occasion must be abnormal for such a breach of etiquette to be made. Some Captains very wisely make it their duty to go the round of the ship each morning, seeing that everything is as it should be, and these enter the forecastle as a part of their examination. But this is quite the exception to the general rule, and is always felt to be more or less of an infringement of immemorial right.

In what must be called the social life of the forecastle, although it is commonly marked by an utter absence of social observances, there are several well-defined rules of etiquette which persist in spite of all other changes. One must not lock his chest at sea. As soon as the last landsman has left the ship, unlock the “donkey,” throw the key ostentatiously into the till, and, letting the lid fall, seat yourself upon it, and light your pipe. It is a Masonic sign of good-fellowship, known and read of all men, that you are a “Sou’ Spainer” indeed, at home again. The first time that the newly assembled crew sit down gipsy fashion to a meal (for tables are seldom supplied), there may be one, usually a boy, who fails to remove his cap. Then does the nearest man’s hand seek the “bread-barge” for a whole biscuit, generally of tile-like texture and consistency. Grasping it by spreading his fingers all over its circumference, the mentor brings it down crushingly upon the covered head of the offender, who is thus initiated, as it were, to the fact that he must “show respect to his grub,” as the term goes. But often when the commons have been exceptionally short or bad an old seaman will deliberately put on his cap again with the remark “’Tain’t wuth it.” If a man wants to smoke while a meal is in progress let him go outside, unless he desires deliberately to raise a storm. And when on the first day of serving out stores a man has been induced to undertake the onerous duty of dividing to each one his weekly portion--“whacking out”--gross indeed must be his carelessness or unfairness before any sufferer will raise a protest. It used to be the practice to load the boys or ordinary seamen (a grade between “A.B.” and boy) with all the menial service of the forecastle, such as food-fetching, washing up utensils, scrubbing, &c. But a juster and wiser plan has been borrowed from the Navy, whereby each man takes in rotation a week as “cook of the mess.” He cooks nothing, the “Doctor” will take care of that, but he is the servant of his house for that week, responsible for its due order and cleanliness. The boys are usually kept out of the forecastle altogether, and berthed with the petty officers, a plan which has with some advantages grave drawbacks. One curious old custom deserves passing notice. Upon a vessel’s arrival in ports where it is necessary to anchor, it is usual to set what is called an “anchor-watch” the first night. All hands take part in this for one hour each, or should do so, but that sometimes there are too few and sometimes too many. As soon as the order is given to “pick for anchor-watch” an old hand draws a rude circle on the deck, which he subdivides into as many sections as there are men. Then one man retires while all the rest come forward and make each man his private mark in a section. When all have contributed, the excluded one (whose mark has been made for him by deputy) is called in and solemnly rubs out mark after mark, the first to be rubbed out giving its owner the first hour’s watch, and so on.

Nothing has been said about etiquette in the Royal Navy, because there it is hardly ever to be distinguished from disciplinary rule. Nor has allusion been more than casually made to steamships, whose routine excludes etiquette, having no more room for it than it has for seamanship, except upon rare occasions.

WAVES

Beloved of the poet and the painter, appealing by the inimitable grace of their curves and marvel of their motion to all mankind, the waves of the sea take easily their high place with the stars and the mountains as some of the chief glories attendant upon the round world. Only an artist, perhaps, could do justice to the multiplicity of lovely lines into which the ruffled surface of the ocean enwreathes itself under the pressure of the storm. Yet any one with an eye for the beautiful will find it hard to leave a sight so fair, will watch unweariedly for hours the gliding, curling masses as they rise, apparently in defiance of law, subside and rise again and yet again.