The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 1
by Frederick Whymper · English · Gutenberg #39341 · 955,021 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 1
Author: Frederick Whymper
Release date: April 1, 2012 [eBook #39341]
Most recently updated: June 17, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39341
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA: ITS STIRRING STORY OF ADVENTURE, PERIL, & HEROISM. VOLUME 1 ***
[Illustration: BRITISH CROSSES & MEDALS, _see Key_]
BRITISH CROSSES AND MEDALS.—(_Coloured Frontispiece._)
1. MEDAL OF ELIZABETH. (DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA, 1588.)
2. CRIMEA MEDAL AND 5. NAVAL MEDAL OF 3. CHINA MEDAL WITH
NAVAL CLASP FOR COMMONWEALTH TWO NAVAL CLASPS
AZOFF (1854-6). (1650). (1857-58).
4. NAVAL WAR MEDAL 6. CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY
RIBBON (1793, 1840). RIBBON (1854, 1874).
7. NAVAL MEDAL OF 8. NAVAL MEDAL OF 9. NAVAL MEDAL OF
COMMONWEALTH CHARLES II. COMMONWEALTH
(BLAKE’S VICTORIES (BLAKE’S VICTORIES
OVER THE DUTCH) OVER THE DUTCH)
(1653). (1653).
10. COLLAR OF THE ORDER OF THE BATH.
11. GOOD CONDUCT AND 12. BALTIC MEDAL (1854).
LONG-SERVICE MEDAL.
13. VICTORIA CROSS 15. ALBERT MEDAL (SEA).
WITH NAVAL RIBBON.
14. BADGE OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE BATH
(MILITARY AND NAVAL DIVISION).
[Illustration: Illustrated title page]
THE SEA
_Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism._
BY
F. WHYMPER,
AUTHOR OF “TRAVELS IN ALASKA,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED._
CASSELL PETTER & GALPIN:
_LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK_.
[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
MEN-OF-WAR. PAGE
Our Wooden Walls—The _Victory_—Siege of Toulon—Battle of St. 4
Vincent—Nelson’s Bridge—Trafalgar’s Glorious Day—The Day for such
Battles gone—Iron _v._ Wood—Lessons of the Crimean War—Moral
Effect of the Presence of our Fleets—Bombardment of
Sebastopol—Red-hot Shot and Gibraltar—The Ironclad Movement—The
_Warrior_—Experiences with Ironclads—The _Merrimac_ in Hampton
Roads—A Speedily-decided Action—The _Cumberland_ sunk and
_Congress_ burned—The First Monitor—Engagement with the
_Merrimac_—Notes on Recent Actions—The _Shah_ and _Huascar_—An
Ironclad tackled by a Merchantman
CHAPTER II.
MEN OF PEACE.
Naval Life in Peace Times—A Grand Exploring Voyage—The Cruise of 28
the _Challenger_—Its Work—Deep-sea Soundings—Five Miles
down—Apparatus employed—Ocean Treasures—A Gigantic
Sea-monster—Tristan d’Acunha—A Discovery Interesting to the
Discovered—The Two Crusoes—The Inaccessible Island—Solitary
Life—The Sea-cart—Swimming Pigs—Rescued at Last—The Real Crusoe
Island to Let—Down South—The Land of Desolation—Kerguelen—The
Sealers’ Dreary Life—In the Antarctic—Among the Icebergs
CHAPTER III.
THE MEN OF THE SEA.
The Great Lexicographer on Sailors—The Dangers of the Sea—How 42
Boys become Sailors—Young Amyas Leigh—The Genuine Jack
Tar—Training-Ships _versus_ the old Guard-Ships—“Sea-goers and
Waisters”—The Training Undergone—Routine on Board—Never-ending
Work—Ship like a Lady’s Watch—Watches and “Bells”—Old Grogram and
Grog—The Sailor’s Sheet Anchor—Shadows in the Seaman’s Life—The
Naval Cat—Testimony and Opinion of a Medical Officer—An
Example—Boy Flogging in the Navy—Shakespeare and Herbert on
Sailors and the Sea
CHAPTER IV.
PERILS OF THE SAILOR’S LIFE.
The Loss of the _Captain_—Six Hundred Souls swept into Eternity 54
without a Warning—The Mansion and the Cottage alike
Sufferers—Causes of the Disaster—Horrors of the Scene—Noble
Captain Burgoyne—Narratives of Survivors—An almost Incredible
Feat—Loss of the _Royal George_—A Great Disaster caused by a
Trifle—Nine Hundred Lost—A Child saved by a Sheep—The Portholes
Upright—An Involuntary Bath of Tar—Rafts of Corpses—The Vessel
Blown up in 1839-40—The Loss of the _Vanguard_—Half a Million
sunk in Fifty Minutes—Admirable Discipline on Board—All Saved—The
Court Martial
CHAPTER V.
PERILS OF THE SAILOR’S LIFE (_continued_).
The Value of Discipline—The Loss of the _Kent_—Fire on Board—The 67
Ship Waterlogged—Death in Two Forms—A Sail in Sight—Transference
of Six Hundred Passengers to a Small Brig—Splendid Discipline of
the Soldiers—Imperturbable Coolness of the Captain—Loss of the
_Birkenhead_—Literally broken in Two—Noble Conduct of the
Military—A Contrary Example—Wreck of the _Medusa_—Run on a
Sand-bank—Panic on Board—Raft constructed—Insubordination and
Selfishness—One Hundred and Fifty Souls abandoned—Drunkenness and
Mutiny on the Raft—Riots and Murders—Reduced to Thirty
Persons—The Stronger Part massacre the Others—Fifteen
Left—Rescued at Last—Another Contrast—Wreck of the
_Alceste_—Admirable Conduct of the Crew—The Ironclad Movement—The
Battle of the Guns
CHAPTER VI.
ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR.
The Mediterranean—White, Blue, Green, and Purple 87
Waters—Gibraltar—Its History—Its First Inhabitants the
Monkeys—The Moors—The Great Siege preceded by Thirteen Others—The
Voyage of Sigurd to the Holy Land—The Third Siege—Starvation—The
Fourth Siege—Red-hot Balls used before ordinary Cannon-balls—The
Great Plague—Gibraltar finally in Christian Hands—A Naval Action
between the Dutch and Spaniards—How England won the Rock—An
Unrewarded Hero—Spain’s Attempts to regain it—The Great Siege—The
Rock itself and its Surroundings—The Straits—Ceuta, Gibraltar’s
Rival—The Saltness of the Mediterranean—“Going aloft”—On to Malta
CHAPTER VII.
ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (_continued_).
MALTA AND THE SUEZ CANAL.
Calypso’s Isle—A Convict Paradise—Malta, the “Flower of the 98
World”—The Knights of St. John—Rise of the Order—The Crescent and
the Cross—The Siege of Rhodes—L’Isle Adam in London—The Great
Siege of Malta—Horrible Episodes—Malta in French and English
Hands—St. Paul’s Cave—The Catacombs—Modern Incidents—The
Shipwreck of St. Paul—Gales in the Mediterranean—Experiences of
Nelson and Collingwood—Squalls in the Bay of San Francisco—A Man
Overboard—Special Winds of the Mediterranean—The Suez Canal and
M. de Lesseps—His Diplomatic Career—Saïd Pacha as a Boy—As a
Viceroy—The Plan settled—Financial Troubles—Construction of the
Canal—The Inauguration Fête—Suez—Passage of the Children of
Israel through the Red Sea
CHAPTER VIII.
ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (_continued_).
THE INDIA AND CHINA STATIONS.
The Red Sea and its Name—Its Ports—On to the India 117
Station—Bombay: Island, City, Presidency—Calcutta—Ceylon, a
Paradise—The China Station—Hong Kong—Macao—Canton—Capture of
Commissioner Yeh—The Sea of Soup—Shanghai—“Jack” Ashore
there—Luxuries in Market—Drawbacks: Earthquakes and Sand
Showers—Chinese Explanations of Earthquakes—The Roving Life of
the Sailor—Compensating Advantages—Japan and its People—The
Englishmen of the Pacific—Yokohama—Peculiarities of the
Japanese—Off to the North
CHAPTER IX.
ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (_continued_).
NORTHWARD AND SOUTHWARD—THE AUSTRALIAN STATION.
The Port of Peter and Paul—Wonderful Colouring of Kamchatka 131
Hills—Grand Volcanoes—The Fight at Petropaulovski—A Contrast—An
International Pic-nic—A Double Wedding—Bering’s Voyages—Kamchatka
worthy of Further Exploration—Plover Bay—Tchuktchi
Natives—Whaling—A Terrible Gale—A Novel “Smoke-stack”—Southward
again—The Liverpool of the East—Singapore, a Paradise—New
Harbour—Wharves and Shipping—Cruelties of the Coolie Trade—Junks
and Prahus—The Kling-gharry Drivers—The Durian and its
Devotees—Australia—Its Discovery—Botany Bay and the Convicts—The
First Gold—Port Jackson—Beauty of Sydney—Port Philip and
Melbourne
CHAPTER X.
ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (_continued_).
THE PACIFIC STATION.
Across the Pacific—Approach to the Golden Gate—The Bay of San 156
Francisco—The City—First Dinner Ashore—Cheap Luxury—San Francisco
by Night—The Land of Gold, Grain, and Grapes—Incidents of the
Early Days—Expensive Papers—A Lucky Sailor—Chances for English
Girls—The Baby at the Play—A capital Port for Seamen—Hospitality
of Californians—Victoria, Vancouver Island—The Naval Station at
Esquimalt—A Delightful Place—Advice to Intending
Emigrants—British Columbian Indians—Their Fine Canoes—Experiences
of the Writer—The Island on Fire—The Chinook Jargon—Indian
“Pigeon-English”—North to Alaska—The Purchase of Russian America
by the United States—Results—Life at Sitka—Grand Volcanoes of the
Aleutian Islands—The Great Yukon River—American Trading Posts
round Bering Sea
CHAPTER XI.
ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (_continued_).
FROM THE HORN TO HALIFAX.
The Dreaded Horn—The Land of Fire—Basil Hall’s Phenomenon—A 175
Missing Volcano—The South American Station—Falkland Islands—A
Free Port and Naval Station—Penguins, Peat, and Kelp—Sea
Trees—The West India Station—Trinidad—Columbus’s First View of
it—Fatal Gold—Charles Kingsley’s Enthusiasm—The Port of Spain—A
Happy-go-lucky People—Negro Life—Letters from a Cottage
Ornée—Tropical Vegetation—Animal Life—Jamaica—Kingston
Harbour—Sugar Cultivation—The Queen of the Antilles—Its
Paseo—Beauty of the Archipelago—A Dutch Settlement in the Heart
of a Volcano—Among the Islands—The Souffrière—Historical
Reminiscences—Bermuda: Colony, Fortress, and Prison—Home of Ariel
and Caliban—The Whitest Place in the World—Bermuda Convicts—New
York Harbour—The City—First Impressions—Its Fine
Position—Splendid Harbour—Forest of Masts—The Ferry-boats,
Hotels, and Bars—Offenbach’s Impressions—Broadway, Fulton Market,
and Central Park—New York in Winter—Frozen Ships—The Great
Brooklyn Bridge—Halifax and its Beauties—Importance of the
Station—Bedford Basin—The Early Settlers—The Blue Noses—Adieu to
America
CHAPTER XII.
ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (_continued_).
THE AFRICAN STATION.
Its Extent—Ascension—Turtle at a Discount—Sierra Leone—An 202
Unhealthy Station—The Cape of Good Hope—Cape Town—Visit of the
Sailor Prince—Grand Festivities—Enthusiasm of the Natives—Loyal
Demonstrations—An African “Derby”—Grand Dock Inaugurated—Elephant
Hunting—The Parting Ball—The Life of a Boer—Circular Farms—The
Diamond Discoveries—A £12,000 Gem—A Sailor First President of the
Fields—Precarious Nature of the Search—Natal—Inducements held out
to Settlers—St. Helena and Napoleon—Discourteous Treatment of a
Fallen Foe—The Home of the Caged Lion
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SERVICE.—OFFICERS’ LIFE ON BOARD.
Conditions of Life on Ship-board—A Model Ward-room—An Admiral’s 214
Cabin—Captains and Captains—The Sailor and his Superior
Officers—A Contrast—A Commander of the Old School—Jack
Larmour—Lord Cochrane’s Experiences—His Chest curtailed—The
Stinking Ship—The First Command—Shaving under Difficulties—The
_Speedy_ and her Prizes—The Doctor—On Board a Gun-boat—Cabin and
Dispensary—Cockroaches and Centipedes—Other Horrors—The Naval
Chaplain—His Duties—Stories of an Amateur—The Engineer—His
Increasing Importance—Popularity of the Navy—Nelson always a
Model Commander—The Idol of his Colleagues, Officers, and
Men—Taking the Men into his Confidence—The Action between the
_Bellona_ and _Courageux_—Captain Falknor’s Speech to the Crew—An
Obsolete Custom—Crossing the Line—Neptune’s Visit to the
Quarter-deck—The Navy of To-day—Its Backbone—Progressive Increase
in the Size of Vessels—Naval Volunteers—A Noble
Movement—Excellent Results—The Naval Reserve
CHAPTER XIV.
THE REVERSE OF THE PICTURE—MUTINY.
Bligh’s Bread-fruit Expedition—Voyage of the 235
_Bounty_—Otaheite—The Happy Islanders—First Appearance of a
Mutinous Spirit—The Cutter stolen and recovered—The _Bounty_
sails with 1,000 Trees—The Mutiny—Bligh overpowered and
bound—Abandoned with Eighteen Others—Their Resources—Attacked by
Natives—A Boat Voyage of 3,618 Miles—Violent Gales—Miserable
Condition of the Boat’s Crew—Bread by the Ounce—Rum by the
Tea-spoonful—Noddies and Boobies—“Who shall have this?”—Off the
Barrier Reef—A Haven of Rest—Oyster and Palm-top Stews—Another
Thousand Miles of Ocean—Arrival at Coupang—Hospitality of the
Residents—Ghastly Looks of the Party—Death of Five of the
Number—The _Pandora_ dispatched to catch the Mutineers—Fourteen
in Irons—_Pandora’s_ Box—The Wreck—Great Loss of Life—Sentences
of the Court Martial—The Last of the Mutineers—Pitcairn Island—A
Model Settlement—Another Example: The Greatest Mutiny of
History—40,000 Disaffected Men at One Point—Causes—Legitimate
Action of the Men at First—Apathy of Government—Serious
Organisation—The Spithead Fleet ordered to Sea—Refusal of the
Crews—Concessions made, and the First Mutiny quelled—Second
Outbreak—Lord Howe’s Tact—The Great Mutiny of the Nore—Richard
Parker—A Vile Character but Man of Talent—Wins the Men to his
Side—Officers flogged and ducked—Gallant Duncan’s
Address—Accessions to the Mutineers—Parker practically Lord High
Admiral—His Extravagant Behaviour—Alarm in London—The Movement
dies out by Degrees—Parker’s Cause lost—His Execution—Mutinies at
Other Stations—Prompt Action of Lords St. Vincent and Macartney
CHAPTER XV.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS.
The First Attempts to Float—Hollowed Logs and Rafts—The Ark and 258
its Dimensions—Skin Floats and Basket-boats—Maritime Commerce of
Antiquity—Phœnician Enterprise—Did they round the Cape?—The Ships
of Tyre—Carthage—Hanno’s Voyage to the West Coast of
Africa—Egyptian Galleys—The Great Ships of the Ptolemies—Hiero’s
Floating Palace—The Romans—Their Repugnance to Seafaring
Pursuits—Sea Battles with the Carthaginians—Cicero’s Opinions on
Commerce—Constantinople and its Commerce—Venice—Britain—The First
Invasion under Julius Cæsar—Benefits accruing—The Danish
Pirates—The London of the Period—The Father of the British
Navy—Alfred and his Victories—Canute’s Fleet—The Norman
Invasion—The Crusades—Richard Cœur de Lion’s Fleet—The Cinque
Ports and their Privileges—Foundation of a Maritime Code—Letters
of Marque—Opening of the Coal Trade—Chaucer’s Description of the
Sailors of his Time—A Glorious Period—The Victories at
Harfleur—Henry V.’s Fleet of 1,500 Vessels—The Channel
Marauders—The King-Maker Pirate—Sir Andrew Wood’s Victory—Action
with Scotch Pirates—The _Great Michael_ and the _Great
Harry_—Queen Elizabeth’s Astuteness—The Nation never so well
provided—“The Most Fortunate and Invincible Armada”—Its Size and
Strength—Elizabeth’s Appeal to the Country—A Noble
Response—Effingham’s Appointment—The Armada’s First
Disaster—Refitted, and resails from Corunna—Chased in the Rear—A
Series of _Contretemps_—English Volunteer Ships in Numbers—The
Fire-ships at Calais—The Final Action—Flight of the Armada—Fate
of Shipwrecked Spanish in Ireland—Total Loss to Spain—Rejoicings
and Thanksgivings in England
CHAPTER XVI.
THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).
Noble Adventurers—The Earl of Cumberland as a Pirate—Rich 291
Prizes—Action with the _Madre de Dios_—Capture of the Great
Carrack—A Cargo worth £150,000—Burning of the _Cinco Chagas_—But
Fifteen saved out of Eleven Hundred Souls—The _Scourge of
Malice_—Establishment of the Slave Trade—Sir John Hawkins’
Ventures—High-handed Proceedings—The Spaniards forced to
purchase—A Fleet of Slavers—Hawkins sanctioned by “Good Queen
Bess”—Joins in a Negro War—A Disastrous Voyage—Sir Francis
Drake—His First Loss—The Treasure at Nombre de Dios—Drake’s First
Sight of the Pacific—Tons of Silver captured—John Oxenham’s
Voyage—The First Englishman on the Pacific—His Disasters and
Death—Drake’s Voyage Round the World—Blood-letting at the
Equator—Arrival at Port Julian—Trouble with the Natives—Execution
of a Mutineer—Passage of the Straits of Magellan—Vessels
separated in a Gale—Loss of the _Marigold_—Tragic Fate of Eight
Men—Drake driven to Cape Horn—Proceedings at Valparaiso—Prizes
taken—Capture of the Great Treasure Ship—Drake’s Resolve to
change his Course Home—Vessel refitted at Nicaragua—Stay in the
Bay of San Francisco—The Natives worship the English—Grand
Reception at Ternate—Drake’s Ship nearly wrecked—Return to
England—Honours accorded Drake—His Character and Influence—Sir
Humphrey Gilbert’s Disasters and Death—Raleigh’s Virginia
Settlements
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
British Crosses & Medals
Examining a “Haul” on Board the _Challenger_ _Frontispiece._
The _Victory_ at Portsmouth 5
Rocks near Cape St. Vincent 9
The _Victory_ at Close Quarters with the 12
_Redoubtable_
The Siege of Gibraltar 17
The Original _Merrimac_ 21
Engagement between the _Merrimac_ and _Monitor_ 25
The Peruvian Ironclad _Huascar_ attacked by two
Chilian Ironclads
The Peruvian Ironclad _Huascar_
Objects of Interest brought Home by the _Challenger_ 32
The _Challenger_ in Antarctic Ice 33
The “Accumulator” 35
The _Challenger_ at Juan Fernandez 36
The _Challenger_ made fast to St. Paul’s Rocks (South
Atlantic)
The Naturalist’s Room on Board the _Challenger_ 37
Dredging Implements used by the _Challenger_ 38
The _Chichester_ Training-ship 45
Instruction on Board a Man-of-war 49
The _Captain_ in the Bay of Biscay 56
The Wreck of the _Royal George_ 61
The Loss of the _Vanguard_ _To face page_ 63
The Loss of the _Kent_ 64
H.M.S. _Vanguard_ at Sea
The _Vanguard_ as she appeared at Low Water 65
Falmouth Harbour 72
The Loss of the _Birkenhead_ 73
The Raft of the _Medusa_ 76
On the Raft of the _Medusa_—a Sail in sight 81
Section of a First-class Man-of-war 84
The _Warrior_ 85
The Rock of Gibraltar from the Mainland _To face page_ 87
Gibraltar: the Neutral Ground 89
Moorish Tower at Gibraltar 93
Malta 96
The Defence of Malta by the Knights of St. John 100
against the Turks in 1565
Catacombs at Citta Vecchia, Malta 101
M. Lesseps 105
Bird’s-eye View of Suez Canal 109
Map of the Suez Canal 111
Opening of the Suez Canal (Procession of Ships) _To face page_ 113
The Suez Canal: Dredges at Work 113
Catching Pelicans on Lake Menzaleh 116
Jiddah, from the Sea 117
Cyclone at Calcutta 120
Macao 124
Vessels in the Port of Shanghai 125
Yokohama 128
The Fusiyama Mountain 129
A Tea Mart in Japan 133
Petropaulovski and the Avatcha Mountain 137
Whalers at Work 140
Our “Patent Smoke-stack” 141
View in the Straits of Malacca 145
Junks in a Chinese Harbour 148
Island in the Straits of Malacca _To face page_ 149
Chinese Junk at Singapore 149
Singapore, looking Seawards 152
Looking down on Singapore 153
A Timber Wharf at San Francisco 156
The Bay of San Francisco 160
The British Camp: San Juan 165
The Port of Valparaiso 173
Cape Horn 176
The Landing of Columbus at Trinidad 177
View in Jamaica 180
Kingston Harbour, Jamaica 181
Havana 184
The _Centaur_ at the Diamond Rock, Martinique _To face page_ 187
Bermuda, from Gibbs Hills 188
The North Rock, Bermuda 189
The Bermuda Floating Dock 192
Voyage of the _Bermuda_ 193
Map of New York Harbour 195
Brooklyn Bridge 196
Ferry Boat, New York Harbour 197
The Island of Ascension 200
Tristan D’Acunha 201
Sierra Leone 204
Cape Town 205
The _Galatea_ passing Knysna Heads 209
St. Helena 213
On Deck a Man-of-war, Eighteenth Century _To face page_ 214
Between Decks of a Man-of-war, Eighteenth Century 217
Naval Officers and Seamen, Eighteenth Century 221
Engine Room of H.M.S. _Warrior_ 225
Fight between the _Courageux_ and the _Bellona_ 229
The _Great Harry_ and _Great Eastern_ in contrast 233
The Crew of H.M.S. _Bounty_ landing at Otaheite 236
The Mutineers seizing Captain Bligh 237
Bligh cast adrift 240
Map of the Islands of the Pacific 245
H.M.S. _Briton_ at Pitcairn Island 248
Pitcairn Island
The Mutiny at Portsmouth _To face page_ 251
Admiral Duncan addressing his Crew 253
Lord St. Vincent 257
Fleet of Roman Galleys 261
Approach of the Danish Fleet 265
Ships of William the Conqueror 268
Crusaders and Saracens 269
Duel between French and English Ships 272
Reverse of the Seal of Sandwich 274
Sir Andrew Wood’s Victory 277
Old Deptford Dockyard 280
The Defeat of Sir A. Barton _To face page_ 280
The First Shot against the Armada 285
The Fire-ships attacking the Armada 288
Drake’s First View of the Pacific _To face page_ 289
Queen Elizabeth on her way to St. Paul’s 289
The Earl of Cumberland and the _Madre de Dios_ 293
On the Coast of Cornwall 297
Sir John Hawkins 300
Hawkins at St. Juan de Ulloa 301
Oxenham embarking on the Pacific 304
Sir F. Drake 309
Drake’s Arrival at Ternate 312
The Death of Sir Humphrey Gilbert 317
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE SEA.
One can hardly gaze upon the great ocean without feelings akin to awe and
reverence. Whether viewed from some promontory where the eye seeks in vain
another resting-place, or when sailing over the deep, one looks around on
the unbounded expanse of waters, the sea must always give rise to ideas of
infinite space and indefinable mystery hardly paralleled by anything of
the earth itself. Beneficent in its calmer aspect, when the silvery moon
lights up the ripples and the good ship scuds along before a favouring
breeze; terrible in its might, when its merciless breakers dash upon some
rock-girt coast, carrying the gallant bark to destruction, or when, rising
mountains high, the spars quiver and snap before the tempest’s power, it
is always grand, sublime, irresistible. The great highway of commerce and
source of boundless supplies, it is, notwithstanding its terrors,
infinitely more man’s friend than his enemy. In how great a variety of
aspects may it not be viewed!
The poets have seen in it a “type of the Infinite,” and one of the
greatest(1) has taken us back to those early days of earth’s history when
God said—
“‘Let there be firmament
Amid the waters, and let it divide
The waters from the waters.’ ...
So He the world
Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide
Crystalline ocean.”
“Water,” said the great Greek lyric poet,(2) “is the chief of all.” The
ocean covers nearly three-fourths of the surface of our globe. Earth is
its mere offspring. The continents and islands have been and _still are
being_ elaborated from its depths. All in all, it has not, however, been
treated fairly at the hands of the poets, too many of whom could only see
it in its sterner lights. Young speaks of it as merely a
“Dreadful and tumultuous home
Of dangers, at eternal war with man,
Wide opening and loud roaring still for more,”
ignoring the blessings and benefits it has bestowed so freely, forgetting
that man is daily becoming more and more its master, and that his own
country in particular has most successfully conquered the seemingly
unconquerable. Byron, again, says:—
“Roll on, thou dark and deep blue ocean—roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin—his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deeds.”
And though this is but the exaggerated and not strictly accurate language
of poetry, we may, with Pollok, fairly address the great sea as “strongest
of creation’s sons.” The first impressions produced on most animals—not
excluding altogether man—by the aspect of the ocean, are of terror in
greater or lesser degree. Livingstone tells us that he had intended to
bring to England from Africa a friendly native, a man courageous as the
lion he had often braved. He had never voyaged upon nor even beheld the
sea, and on board the ship which would have safely borne him to a friendly
shore he became delirious and insane. Though assured of safety and
carefully watched, he escaped one day, and blindly threw himself headlong
into the waves. The sea terrified him, and yet held and drew him,
fascinated as under a spell. “Even at ebb-tide,” says Michelet,(3) “when,
placid and weary, the wave crawls softly on the sand, the horse does not
recover his courage. He trembles, and frequently refuses to pass the
languishing ripple. The dog barks and recoils, and, according to his
manner, insults the billows which he fears.... We are told by a traveller
that the dogs of Kamtschatka, though accustomed to the spectacle, are not
the less terrified and irritated by it. In numerous troops, they howl
through the protracted night against the howling waves, and endeavour to
outvie in fury the Ocean of the North.”
The civilised man’s fear is founded, it must be admitted, on a reasonable
knowledge of the ocean, so much his friend and yet so often his foe. Man
is not independent of his fellow-man in distant countries, nor is it
desirable that he should be. No land produces all the necessaries, and the
luxuries which have begun to be considered necessaries, sufficient for
itself. Transportation by land is often impracticable, or too costly, and
the ocean thus becomes the great highway of nations. Vessel after vessel,
fleet after fleet, arrive safely and speedily. But as there is danger for
man lurking everywhere on land, so also is there on the sea. The world’s
wreck-chart for one year must, as we shall see hereafter, be something
appalling. That for the British Empire alone in one year has often
exceeded 1,000 vessels, great and small! Averaging three years, we find
that there was an annual loss during that period of 1,095 vessels and
1,952 lives.(4) Nor are the ravages of ocean confined to the engulfment of
vessels, from rotten “coffin-ships” to splendid ironclads. The coasts
often bear witness of her fury.
The history of the sea virtually comprises the history of adventure,
conquest, and commerce, in all times, and might almost be said to be that
of the world itself. We cannot think of it without remembering the great
voyagers and sea-captains, the brave naval commanders, the pirates,
rovers, and buccaneers of bygone days. Great sea-fights and notable
shipwrecks recur to our memory—the progress of naval supremacy, and the
means by which millions of people and countless millions of wealth have
been transferred from one part of the earth to another. We cannot help
thinking, too, of “Poor Jack” and life before the mast, whether on the
finest vessel of the Royal Navy, or in the worst form of trading ship. We
recall the famous ships themselves, and their careers. We remember, too,
the “toilers of the sea”—the fishermen, whalers, pearl-divers, and
coral-gatherers; the noble men of the lighthouse, lifeboat, and coastguard
services. The horrors of the sea—its storms, hurricanes, whirlpools,
waterspouts, impetuous and treacherous currents—rise vividly before our
mental vision. Then there are the inhabitants of the sea to be
considered—from the tiniest germ of life to the great leviathan, or even
the doubtful sea-serpent. And even the lowest depths of ocean, with their
mountains, valleys, plains, and luxurious marine vegetation, are full of
interest; while at the same time we irresistibly think of the submerged
treasure-ships of days gone by, and the submarine cables of to-day. Such
are among the subjects we propose to lay before our readers. THE SEA, as
one great topic, must comprise descriptions of life on, around, and in the
ocean—the perils, mysteries, phenomena, and poetry of the great deep. The
subject is too vast for superfluous detail: it would require as many
volumes as a grand encyclopædia to do it justice; whilst a formal and
chronological history would weary the reader. At all events, the present
writer purposes to occasionally gossip and digress, and to arrange facts
in groups, not always following the strict sequence of events. The voyage
of to-day may recall that of long ago: the discovery made long ago may be
traced, by successive leaps, as it were, to its results in the present
epoch. We can hardly be wrong in believing that this grand subject has an
especial interest for the English reader everywhere; for the spirit of
enterprise, enthusiasm, and daring which has carried our flag to the
uttermost parts of the earth, and has made the proud words “Britannia
rules the waves” no idle vaunt, is shared by a very large proportion of
her sons and daughters, at home and abroad. Britain’s part in the
exploration and settlement of the whole world has been so pre-eminent that
there can be no wonder if, among the English-speaking races everywhere, a
peculiar fascination attaches to the sea and all concerning it. Countless
thousands of books have been devoted to the land, not a tithe of the
number to the ocean. Yet the subject is one of almost boundless interest,
and has a special importance at the present time, when so much intelligent
attention and humane effort is being put forth to ameliorate the condition
of our seafarers.
CHAPTER I.
MEN-OF-WAR.
Our Wooden Walls—The _Victory_—Siege of Toulon—Battle of St.
Vincent—Nelson’s Bridge—Trafalgar’s glorious Day—The Day for such
Battles gone—Iron _v._ Wood—Lessons of the Crimean War—Moral
Effect of the Presence of our Fleets—Bombardment of
Sebastopol—Red-hot Shot and Gibraltar—The Ironclad Movement—The
_Warrior_—Experiences with Ironclads—The _Merrimac_ in Hampton
Roads—A speedily decided Action—The _Cumberland_ sunk and
_Congress_ burned—The first Monitor—Engagement with the
_Merrimac_—Notes on recent Actions—The _Shah_ and _Huascar_—An
Ironclad tackled by a Merchantman.
[Illustration]
If the reader should at any time find himself a visitor to the first naval
port of Great Britain—which he need not be told is Portsmouth—he will
find, lying placidly in the noble harbour, which is large enough to
accommodate a whole fleet, a vessel of modern-antique appearance, and
evidently very carefully preserved. Should he happen to be there on
October 21st, he would find the ship gaily decorated with wreaths of
evergreen and flags, her appearance attracting to her side an unusual
number of visitors in small boats from the shore. Nor will he be surprised
at this when he learns that it is none other than the famous _Victory_,
that carried Nelson’s flag on the sad but glorious day of Trafalgar, and
went bravely through so many a storm of war and weather. Very little of
the oft-shattered hulk of the original vessel remains, it is true—she has
been so often renewed and patched and painted; yet the lines and form of
the old three-decker remain to show us what the flag-ship of Hood, and
Jervis, and Nelson was in general appearance. She towers grandly out of
the water, making the few sailors and loiterers on deck look like
marionettes—mere miniature men; and as our wherry approaches the
entrance-port, we admire the really graceful lines of the planks,
diminishing in perspective. The triple battery of formidable guns, peeping
from under the stout old ports which overshadowed them, the enormous
cables and spare anchors, and the immensely thick masts, heavy shrouds and
rigging, which she had in old times, must have given an impression of
solidity in this good old “heart of oak” which is wanting even in the
strongest-built iron vessel. Many a brave tar has lost his life on her,
but yet she is no coffin-ship. On board, one notes the scrupulous order,
the absolute perfection of cleanliness and trimness; the large guns and
carriages alternating with the mess-tables of the crew. And we should not
think much of the man who could stand emotionless and unmoved over the
spots—still pointed out on the upper deck and cockpit below—where Nelson
fell and Nelson died, on that memorable 21st, off Trafalgar Bay. He had
embarked, only five weeks before, from the present resting-place of his
brave old ship, when enthusiastic crowds had pressed forward to bless and
take one last look at England’s preserver. “I had their hurrahs before,”
said the poor shattered hero; “now I have their hearts!” And when, three
months later, his body was brought home, the sailors divided the leaden
coffin into fragments, as relics of “Saint Nelson,” as his gunner had
termed him.
[Illustration: THE “VICTORY” AT PORTSMOUTH.]
The _Victory_ was one of the largest ships of war of her day and
generation. She was rated for 100 guns, but really carried 102, and was
classed first-rate with such ships as the _Royal Sovereign_ and
_Britannia_, both of 100, carrying only two in excess of the “brave old
_Téméraire_”—made still more famous by Turner’s great picture—and the
_Dreadnought_, which but a few years back was such a familiar feature of
the reach of the Thames in front of Greenwich. She was of 2,164 tons
burden, and, having been launched in 1765, is now a good 112 years of age.
Her complement was 841 men. From the first she deserved her name, and
seemed destined to be associated with little else than success and
triumph. Nelson frequently complains in his journals of the
unseaworthiness of many of his vessels; but this, his last flag-ship, was
a veritable “heart of oak,” and endured all the tests that the warfare of
the elements or of man could bring against her.
The good ship of which we have spoken more particularly is now enjoying a
well-earned repose, after passing nearly unscathed through the very thick
of battles inscribed on the most brilliant page of our national history.
Her part was in reality a very prominent one; and a glance at a few of the
engagements at which she was present may serve to show us what she and
other ships like her were made of, and what they were able to effect in
naval warfare. The _Victory_ had been built nearly thirty years when, in
1793, she first came prominently to the front, at the occupation and
subsequent siege of Toulon, as the flag-ship of Lord Hood, then in command
of a large fleet destined for the Mediterranean.
France was at that moment in a very revolutionary condition, but in Toulon
there was a strong feeling of loyalty for the Bourbons and monarchical
institutions. In the harbour a large French fleet was assembled—some
seventeen vessels of the line, besides many other smaller craft—while
several large ships of war were refitting and building; the whole under
the command of the Comte de Trogoff, an ardent Royalist. On the appearance
of the British fleet in the offing, two commissioners came out to the
flag-ship, the _Victory_, to treat for the conditional surrender of the
port and shipping. The Government had not miscalculated the disaffection
existing, and the negotiations being completely successful, 1,700 of our
soldiers, sailors, and marines were landed, and shortly afterwards, when a
Spanish fleet appeared, an English governor and a Spanish commandant were
appointed, while Louis XVII. was proclaimed king. But it is needless to
say that the French Republic strongly objected to all this, and soon
assembled a force numbering 45,000 men for the recapture of Toulon. The
English and their Royalist allies numbered under 13,000, and it became
evident that the city must be evacuated, although not until it should be
half destroyed. The important service of destroying the ships and
magazines had been mainly entrusted to Captain Sir Sidney Smith, who
performed his difficult task with wonderful precision and order, and
without the loss of one man. Shots and shells were plunged into the very
arsenal, and trains were laid up to the magazines and storehouses; a
fire-ship was towed into the basin, and in a few hours gave out flames and
shot, accompanied by terrible explosions. The Spanish admiral had
undertaken the destruction of the shipping in the basin, and to scuttle
two powder-vessels, but his men, in their flurry, managed to ignite one of
them in place of sinking it, and the explosion which occurred can be
better imagined than described. The explosion shook the _Union_ gunboat to
pieces, killing the commander and three of the crew; and a second boat was
blown into the air, but her crew were miraculously saved. Having completed
the destruction of the arsenal, Sir Sidney proceeded towards the basin in
front of the town, across which a boom had been laid, where he and his men
were received with such volleys of musketry that they turned their
attention in another direction. In the inner road were lying two large
74-gun ships—the _Héros_ and _Thémistocle_—filled with French prisoners.
Although the latter were greatly superior to the attacking force, they
were so terrified that they agreed to be removed and landed in a place of
safety, after which the ships were destroyed by fire. Having done all that
man could do, they were preparing to return, when the second
powder-vessel, which should only have been scuttled by the Spaniards,
exploded. Wonderful to relate, although the little _Swallow_, Sir Sidney’s
tender, and three boats were in the midst of the falling timbers, and
nearly swamped by the waves produced, they escaped in safety. Nowadays
torpedoes would settle the business of blowing up vessels of the kind in a
much safer and surer manner. The evacuation was effected without loss,
nearly 15,000 Toulonese refugees—men, women, and children—being taken on
board for removal to England. Fifteen French ships of war were taken off
as prizes, while the magazines, storehouses, and shipping were destroyed
by fire. The total number of vessels taken or burned by the British was
eighteen of the line, nine frigates, and eleven corvettes, and would have
been much greater but for the blundering or treachery of the Spaniards,
and the pusillanimous flight of the Neapolitans. Thus the _Victory_ was
the silent witness of an almost bloodless success, so far as our forces
were concerned, in spite of the noise and smoke and flame by which it was
accompanied. A little later, she was engaged in the siege of Bastia,
Corsica, which was taken by a naval force numbering about one-fourth of
their opponents; and again at Calvi, where Nelson lost an eye and helped
to gain the day. In the spring of 1795 she was again in the Mediterranean,
and for once was engaged in what has been described as a “miserable
action,” although the action, or want thereof, was all on the part of a
vice-admiral who, as Nelson said, “took things too coolly.” Twenty-three
British line-of-battle ships, whilst engaging, off the Hyères Isles, only
seventeen French, with the certainty of triumphant results, if not,
indeed, of the complete annihilation of the enemy, were signalled by
Admiral Hotham to discontinue the fight. The disgust of the commanders in
general and Nelson in particular can well be understood. The only prize
taken, the _Alcide_, blew up, with the loss of half her crew, as if in
very disgust at having surrendered, and we can well believe that even the
inanimate timbers of the _Victory_ and her consorts groaned as they were
drawn off from the scene of action. The fight off the Hyères must be
inscribed in black, but happily the next to be recorded might well be
written with letters of gold in the annals of our country, although its
glory was soon afterwards partially eclipsed by others still greater.
When Sir John Jervis hoisted his flag on board the _Victory_ it marked an
epoch not merely in our career of conquest, but also in the history of the
navy as a navy. Jervis, though then over sixty years of age, was hale and
hearty, and if sometimes stern and severe as a disciplinarian, should long
be remembered as one who honestly and constantly strove to raise the
character of the service to its highest condition of efficiency, and he
was brave as a lion. As the Spanish fleet loomed through the morning fog,
off Cape St. Vincent, it was found that Cordova’s force consisted of
twenty-nine large men-of-war, exclusive of a dozen 34-gun frigates,
seventy transports, and other vessels. Jervis was walking the quarter-deck
as the successive reports were brought to him. “There are eighteen sail of
the line, Sir John.” “Very well, sir.” “There are twenty sail, Sir John.”
“Very well, sir.” “There are twenty-seven sail of the line, Sir John;
nearly double our own.” “Enough, sir, no more of that, sir; if there are
fifty I’ll go through them.” “That’s right, Sir John,” said Halliwell, his
flag-captain, “and a jolly good licking we’ll give them.”
The grand fleet of Spain included six ships of 112 guns each, and the
flag-ship _Santissima Trinidada_, a four-decker, carrying 130. There were,
besides, twenty-two vessels of eighty and seventy-four guns. To this large
force Jervis could only oppose fifteen vessels of the line, only two of
which carried 100 guns, three of ninety-eight guns, one of ninety, and the
remainder, with one exception, seventy-four each. Owing to gross
mismanagement on the part of the Spaniards, their vessels were scattered
about in all directions, and six(5) of them were separated wholly from the
main body, neither could they rejoin it. The English vessels advanced in
two lines, compactly and steadily, and as they neared the Spaniards, were
signalled from the _Victory_ to tack in succession. Nelson, on the
_Captain_, was in the rear of the line, and he perceived that the
Spaniards were bearing up before the wind, either with the intention of
trying to join their separated ships, or perhaps to avoid an engagement
altogether. By disobeying the admiral’s signal, he managed to run clear
athwart the bows of the Spanish ships, and was soon engaged with the great
_Santissima Trinidada_, four other of the larger vessels, and two smaller
ones. Trowbridge, in the _Culloden_, immediately came to the support, and
for nearly an hour the unequal contest continued, till the _Blenheim_
passed between them and the enemy, and gave them a little respite, pouring
in her fire upon the Spaniards. One of the Spanish seventy-fours struck,
and Nelson thought that the _Salvador_, of 112 guns, struck also.
“Collingwood,” wrote Nelson, “disdaining the parade of taking possession
of beaten enemies, most gallantly pushed up, with every sail set, to save
his old friend and messmate, who was, to appearance, in a critical
situation,” for the _Captain_ was being peppered by five vessels of the
enemy’s fleet, and shortly afterwards was rendered absolutely
incapable—not a sail, shroud, or rope left, with a topmast and the
steering-wheel shot away. As Dr. Bennett sings(6)—
“Ringed round by five three-deckers, she had fought through all the
fight,
And now, a log upon the waves, she lay—a glorious sight—
All crippled, but still full of fight, for still her broadsides roared,
Still death and wounds, fear and defeat, into the Don she poured.”
Two of Nelson’s antagonists were now nearly _hors de combat_, one of them,
the _San Nicolas_, in trying to escape from Collingwood’s fire, having got
foul of the _San Josef_. Nelson resolved in an instant to board and
capture _both_—an unparalleled feat, which, however, was accomplished,
although
“To get at the _San Josef_, it seemed beyond a hope;
Out then our admiral spoke, and well his words our blood could stir—
‘In, boarders, to their seventy-four! We’ll make a bridge of her.’”
The “bridge” was soon taken; but a steady fire of musketry was poured upon
them from the _San Josef_. Nelson directed his people to fire into the
stern, and sending for more boarders, led the way up the main-chains,
exclaiming, “Westminster Abbey or victory!” In a few moments the officers
and crew surrendered; and on the quarter-deck of a Spanish first-rate he
received the swords of the vanquished, which he handed to William Fearney,
one of his bargemen, who tucked them, with the greatest _sang-froid_, in a
perfect sheaf under his arm. The _Victory_ came up at the moment, and
saluted the conquerors with hearty cheers.
It will be hardly necessary here to point out the altered circumstances of
naval warfare at the present day. A wooden vessel of the old type, with
large and numerous portholes, and affording other opportunities for
entering or climbing the sides, is a very different affair to the modern
smooth-walled iron vessel, on which a fly would hardly get a foothold,
with few openings or weak points, and where the grappling-iron would be
useless. Apart from this, with heavy guns carrying with great accuracy,
and the facilities afforded by steam, we shall seldom hear, in the future,
of a fight at close quarters; skilful manœuvring, impossible with a
sailing vessel, will doubtless be more in vogue.
[Illustration: ROCKS NEAR CAPE ST. VINCENT.]
Meantime, the _Victory_ had not been idle. In conjunction with two of the
fleet, she had succeeded in silencing the _Salvador del Mundi_, a
first-rate of 112 guns. When, after the fight, Nelson went on board the
_Victory_, Sir John Jervis took him to his arms, and insisted that he
should keep the sword taken from the Spanish rear-admiral. When it was
hinted, during some private conversation, that Nelson’s move was
unauthorised, Jervis had to admit the fact, but promised to forgive any
such breach of orders, accompanied with the same measure of success.
The battle had now lasted from noon, and at five p.m. four Spanish
line-of-battle vessels had lowered their colours. Even the great
_Santissima Trinidada_ might then have become a prize but for the return
of the vessels which had been cut off from the fleet in the morning, and
which alone saved her. Her colours had been shot away, and she had hoisted
English colours in token of submission, when the other ships came up, and
Cordova reconsidered his step. Jervis did not think that his fleet was
quite equal to a fresh conflict; and the Spaniards showed no desire to
renew the fight. They had lost on the four prizes, alone, 261 killed, and
342 wounded, and in all, probably, nearly double the above. The British
loss was seventy-three killed, and 227 wounded.
Of Trafalgar and of Nelson, both day and man so intimately associated with
our good ship, what can yet be said or sung that has gone unsaid,
unsung?—how when he left Portsmouth the crowds pressed forward to obtain
one last look at their hero—England’s greatest hero—and “knelt down before
him, and blessed him as he passed;”(7) that beautiful prayer, indited in
his cabin, “May the great God whom I worship grant to my country, and for
the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory, and may no
misconduct in any one tarnish it, and may humanity after victory be the
predominant feature of the British fleet,” or the now historical signal
which flew from the mizen top-gallant mast of that noble old ship, and
which has become one of the grand mottoes of our tongue, are facts as
familiar to every reader as household words.
The part directly played by the _Victory_ herself in the battle of
Trafalgar was second to none. From the very first she received a raking
fire from all sides, which must have been indeed severe, when we find the
words extorted from Nelson, “This is too warm work to last long,”
addressed to Captain Hardy. At that moment fifty of his men were lying
dead or wounded, while the _Victory’s_ mizen-mast and wheel were shot
away, and her sails hanging in ribbons. To the terrible cannonading of the
enemy, Nelson had not yet returned a shot. He had determined to be in the
very thick of the fight, and was reserving his fire. Now it was that
Captain Hardy represented to Nelson the impracticability of passing
through the enemy’s line without running on board one of their ships; he
was coolly told to take his choice. The _Victory_ was accordingly turned
on board the _Redoubtable_, the commander of which, Captain Lucas, in a
resolute endeavour to block the passage, himself ran his bowsprit into the
figurehead of the _Bucentaure_, and the two vessels became locked
together. Not many minutes later, Captain Harvey, of the _Téméraire_,
seeing the position of the _Victory_ with her two assailants, fell on
board the _Redoubtable_, on the other side, so that these four ships
formed as compact a tier as though moored together. The _Victory_ fired
her middle and lower deck guns into the _Redoubtable_, which returned the
fire from her main-deck, employing also musketry and brass pieces of
larger size with most destructive effects from the tops.
“_Redoubtable_ they called her—a curse upon her name!
’Twas from her tops the bullet that killed our hero came.”
Within a few minutes of Lord Nelson’s fall, several officers and about
forty men were either killed or wounded from this source. But a few
minutes afterwards the _Redoubtable_ fell on board the _Téméraire_, the
French ship’s bowsprit passing over the British ship. Now came one of the
warmest episodes of the fight. The crew of the _Téméraire_ lashed their
vessel to their assailants’ ship, and poured in a raking fire. But the
French captain, having discovered that—owing, perhaps, to the sympathy
exhibited for the dying hero on board the _Victory_, and her excessive
losses in men—her quarter-deck was quite deserted, now ordered an attempt
at boarding the latter. This cost our flag-ship the lives of Captain Adair
and eighteen men, but at the same moment the _Téméraire_ opened fire on
the _Redoubtable_ with such effect that Captain Lucas and 200 men were
themselves placed _hors de combat_.
In the contest we have been relating, the coolness of the _Victory’s_ men
was signally evinced. “When the guns on the lower deck were run out, their
muzzles came in contact with the sides of the _Redoubtable_, and now was
seen an astounding spectacle. Knowing that there was danger of the French
ship taking fire, the fireman of each gun on board the British ship stood
ready with a bucketful of water to dash into the hole made by the shot of
his gun—thus beautifully illustrating Nelson’s prayer, ‘that the British
might be distinguished by humanity in victory.’ Less considerate than her
antagonist, the _Redoubtable_ threw hand-grenades from her tops, which,
falling on board herself, set fire to her, ... and the flame communicated
with the foresail of the _Téméraire_, and caught some ropes and canvas on
the booms of the _Victory_, risking the destruction of all; but by immense
exertions the fire was subdued in the British ships, whose crews lent
their assistance to extinguish the flames on board the _Redoubtable_, by
throwing buckets of water upon her chains and forecastle.”(8)
Setting aside, for the purpose of clearness, the episode of the taking of
the _Fougueux_, which got foul of the _Téméraire_ and speedily
surrendered, we find, five minutes later, the main and mizen masts of the
_Redoubtable_ falling—the former in such a way across the _Téméraire_ that
it formed a bridge, over which the boarding-party passed and took quiet
possession. Captain Lucas had so stoutly defended his flag, that, out of a
crew of 643, only 123 were in a condition to continue the fight; 522 were
lying killed or wounded. The _Bucentaure_ soon met her fate, after being
defended with nearly equal bravery. The French admiral, Villeneuve, who
was on board, said bitterly, just before surrendering, “_Le Bucentaure a
rempli sa tâche; la mienne n’est pas encore achevée_.”
Let the reader remember that the above are but a few episodes of the most
complete and glorious victory ever obtained in naval warfare. Without the
loss of one single vessel to the conqueror, more than half the ships of
the enemy were captured or destroyed, while the remainder escaped into
harbour to rot in utter uselessness. Twenty-one vessels were lost for ever
to France and Spain. It is to be hoped and believed that no such contest
will ever again be needed; but should it be needed, it will have to be
fought by very different means. The instance of four great ships locked
together, dealing death and destruction to each other, has never been
paralleled. Imagine that seething, fighting, dying mass of humanity, with
all the horrible concomitants of deafening noise and blinding smoke and
flashing fire! It is not likely ever to occur in modern warfare. The
commanders of steam-vessels of all classes will be more likely to fight at
out-manœuvring and shelling each other than to come to close quarters,
which would generally mean blowing up together. It would be interesting to
consider how Nelson would have acted with, and opposed to, steam-frigates
and ironclads. He would, no doubt, have been as courageous and far-seeing
and rapid in action as ever, but hardly as reckless, or even daring.
[Illustration: THE “VICTORY” AT CLOSE QUARTERS WITH THE “REDOUBTABLE.”]
“And still, though seventy years, boys,
Have gone, who, without pride,
Names his name—tells his fame
Who at Trafalgar died?”
May we always have a Nelson in the hour of national need!
The day for such battles as this is over; there may be others as
gloriously fought, but never again by the same means. Ships, armaments,
and modes of attack and defence are, and will be, increasingly different.
Those who have read Nelson’s private letters and journals will remember
how he gloried in the appreciation of his subordinate officers just before
Trafalgar’s happy and yet fatal day, when he had explained to them his
intention to attack the enemy with what was practically a wedge-formed
fleet. He was determined to break their line, and, Nelson-like, he did.
But that which he facetiously christened the “Nelson touch” would itself
nowadays be broken up in a few minutes and thrown into utter confusion by
any powerfully-armed vessel hovering about under steam. Or if the wedge of
wooden vessels were allowed to form, as they approached the apex, a couple
of ironclads would take them in hand coolly, one by one, and send them to
the bottom, while their guns might as well shoot peas at the ironclads as
the shot of former days.
Taking the _Victory_ as a fair type of the best war-ships of her day (a
day when there was not that painful uncertainty with regard to naval
construction and armament existing now, in spite of our vaunted progress),
we still know that in the presence of a powerful steam-frigate with heavy
guns, or an 11,000-ton ironclad, she would be literally nowhere. She was
one of the last specimens, and a very perfect specimen, too, of the
_wooden_ age. This is the age of iron and steam. One of the largest
vessels of her day, she is now excelled by hundreds employed in ordinary
commerce. The Royal Navy to-day possesses frigates nearly three times her
tonnage, while we have ironclads of five times the same. The monster
_Great Eastern_, which has proved a monstrous mistake, is 22,500 tons.
But size is by no means the only consideration in constructing vessels of
war, and, indeed, there are good reasons to believe that, in the end,
vessels of moderate dimensions will be preferred for most purposes of
actual warfare. Of the advantages of steam-power there can, of course, be
only one opinion; but as regards iron _versus_ oak, there are many points
which may be urged in favour of either, with a preponderance in favour of
the former. A strong iron ship, strange as it may appear, is not more than
half the weight of a wooden vessel of the same size and class. It will, to
the unthinking, seem absurd to say that an iron ship is more buoyant than
one of oak, but the fact is that the proportion of actual weight in iron
and wooden vessels of ordinary construction is about six to twenty. The
iron ship, therefore, stands high out of the water, and to sink it to the
same line will require a greater weight on board. From this fact, and the
actual _thinness_ of its walls, its carrying capacity and stowage are so
much the greater. This, which is a great point in vessels destined for
commerce, would be equally important in war. But these remarks do not
apply to the modern armoured vessel. We have ironclads with plates
eighteen inches and upwards in thickness. What is the consequence? Their
actual weight, with that of the necessary engines and monster guns
employed, is so great that a vast deal of room on board has to be
unemployed. Day by day we hear of fresh experiments in gunnery, which keep
pace with the increased strength of the vessels. The invulnerable of
to-day is the vulnerable of to-morrow, and there are many leading
authorities who believe in a return to a smaller and weaker class of
vessel—provided, however, with all the appliances for great speed and
offensive warfare _at a distance_. Nelson’s preference for small,
easily-worked frigates over the great ships of the line is well known, and
were he alive to-day we can well believe that he would prefer a
medium-sized vessel of strong construction, to steam with great speed, and
carrying heavy, but, perhaps, not the heaviest guns, to one of those
modern unwieldy masses of iron, which have had, so far, a most disastrous
history. The former might, so to speak, act while the latter was making up
her mind. Even a Nelson might hesitate to risk a vessel representing six
or seven hundred thousand pounds of the nation’s money, in anything short
of an assured success. We have, however, yet to learn the full value and
power of our ironclad fleet. Of its cost there is not a doubt. Some time
ago our leading newspaper estimated the expense of construction and
maintenance of our existing ironclads at £18,000,000. Mr. Reed states that
they have cost the country a million sterling per annum since the first
organisation of the fleet. Warfare will soon become a luxury only for the
richest nations, and, regarding it in this light, perhaps the very men who
are racking their powers of invention to discover terrible engines of war
are the greatest peacemakers, after all. They may succeed in making it an
impossibility.
“Hereafter, naval powers prepared with the necessary fleet will be able to
transport the base of operations to any point on the enemy’s coast, turn
the strongest positions, and baffle the best-arranged combinations. Thanks
to steam, the sea has become a means of communication more certain and
more simple than the land; and fleets will be able to act the part of
movable bases of operations, rendering them very formidable to powers
which, possessing coasts, will not have any navy sufficiently powerful to
cause their being respected.”(9) So far as navy to navy is concerned, this
is undoubtedly true; yet there is another side to the question. A fort is
sometimes able to inflict far greater damage upon its naval assailants
than the latter can inflict upon it. A single shot may send a ship to the
bottom, whilst the fire from the ship during action is more or less
inaccurate. At Sebastopol, a whole French fleet, firing at ranges of 1,600
to 1,800 yards, failed to make any great impression on a fort close to the
water’s edge; while a wretched earthen battery, mounting only five guns,
inflicted terrible losses and injury on four powerful English men-of-war,
actually disabling two of them, without itself losing one man or having a
gun dismounted; while, as has been often calculated, the cost of a single
sloop of war with its equipment will construct a fine fort which will last
almost for ever, while that of two or three line-of-battle ships would
raise a considerable fortress. Whilst the monster ironclad with heavy guns
would deal out death and destruction when surrounded by an enemy’s fleet
of lighter iron vessels or wooden ones as strong as was the _Victory_, she
would herself run great risk in approaching closely-fortified harbours and
coasts, where a single shot from a gun heavy enough to pierce her armour
might sink her. Her safety would consist in firing at long ranges and in
steaming backwards and forwards.
The lessons of the Crimean war, as regards the navy, were few, but of the
gravest importance, and they have led to results of which we cannot yet
determine the end. The war opened by a Russian attack on a Turkish
squadron at Sinope, November 20th, 1853.(10) That determined the fact that
a whole fleet might be annihilated in an hour or so by the use of large
shells. No more necessity for grappling and close quarters; the iron age
was full in view, and wooden walls had outlived their usefulness, and must
perish.
But the lesson had to be again impressed, and that upon a large English
and French fleet. Yet, in fairness to our navy, it must be remembered that
the Russians had spent every attention to rendering Sebastopol nearly
impregnable on the sea-side, while a distinguished writer,(11) who was
present throughout the siege, assures us that until the preceding spring
they had been quite indifferent in regard to the strength of the
fortifications on the land-side. And the presence of the allied fleets was
the undeniable cause of one Russian fleet being sunk in the harbour of
Sebastopol, while another dared not venture out, season after season, from
behind stone fortresses in the shallow waters of Cronstadt.(12) A great
naval authority thinks that, while England was, at the time, almost
totally deficient in the class of vessels essential to attacking the
fleets and fortifications of Russia, the fact that the former never dared
“to accept the challenge of any British squadron, however small, is one
the record of which we certainly may read without shame.” But of that
period it would be more pleasant to write exultingly than apologetically.
When the Allies had decided to commence the bombardment of Sebastopol, on
October 17th, 1854, it was understood that the fleet should co-operate,
and that the attack should be made by the line-of-battle ships in a
semicircle. They were ready at one p.m. to commence the bombardment. Lyons
brought the _Agamemnon_, followed by half a dozen other vessels, to within
700 yards of Fort Constantine, the others staying at the safer distances
of 1,800 to 2,200 yards. The whole fleet opened with a tremendous roar of
artillery, to which the Russians replied almost as heavily. Fort
Constantine was several times silenced, and greatly damaged; but, on the
other hand, the Russians managed to kill forty-seven and wound 234 men in
the English fleet, and a slightly smaller number in the French. They had
an unpleasant knack of firing red-hot shot in profusion, and of hitting
the vessels even at the distance at which they lay. Several were set on
fire, and two for a time had to retire from the action. These were
practical shots at our wooden walls. This naval attack has been
characterised as “even a greater failure than that by land”—meaning, of
course, the first attack.
Here we may for a moment be allowed to digress and remind the reader of
the important part played by red-hot shot at that greatest of all great
sieges—Gibraltar. As each accession to the enemy’s force arrived, General
Elliott calmly built more furnaces and more grates for heating his most
effective means of defence. Just as one of their wooden batteries was on
the point of completion, he gave it what was termed at the time a dose of
“cayenne pepper;” in other words, with red-hot shot and shells he set it
on fire. When the ordnance portable furnaces for heating shot proved
insufficient to supply the demands of the artillery, he ordered large
bonfires to be kindled, on which the cannon-balls were thrown; and these
supplies were termed by the soldiers “hot potatoes” for the enemy. But the
great triumph of red-hot shot was on that memorable 13th of September,
1782, when forty-six sail of the line, and a countless fleet of gun and
mortar boats attacked the fortress. With all these appliances of warfare,
the great confidence of the enemy—or rather, combined enemies—was in their
floating batteries, planned by D’Arcon, an eminent French engineer, and
which had cost a good half million sterling. They were supposed to be
impervious to shells or red-hot shot. After persistently firing at the
fleet, Elliott started the admiral’s ship and one of the batteries
commanded by the Prince of Nassau. This was but the commencement of the
end. The unwieldy leviathans could not be shifted from their moorings, and
they lay helpless and immovable, and yet dangerous to their neighbours;
for they were filled with the instruments of destruction. Early the next
morning eight of these vaunted batteries “indicated the efficacy of the
red-hot defence. The light produced by the flames was nearly equal to
noonday, and greatly exposed the enemy to observation, enabling the
artillery to be pointed upon them with the utmost precision. The rock and
neighbouring objects are stated to have been highly illuminated by the
constant flashes of cannon and the flames of the burning ships, forming a
mingled scene of sublimity and terror.”(13) “An indistinct clamour, with
lamentable cries and groans, arose from all quarters.”(14)
When 400 pieces of artillery were playing on the rock at the same moment,
Elliott returned the compliment with a shower of red-hot balls, bombs, and
carcases, that filled the air, with little or no intermission. The Count
d’Artois had hastened from Paris to witness a capitulation. He arrived in
time to see the total destruction of the floating batteries and a large
part of the combined fleet. Attempting a somewhat feeble joke, he wrote to
France:—“_La batterie la plus effective était ma batterie de cuisine_.”
Elliott’s cooking-apparatus and “roasted balls” beat it all to nothing.
Red-hot shot has been entirely superseded in “civilised” warfare by
shells. It was usually handled much in the same way that ordinary shot and
shell is to-day. Each ball was carried by two men, having between them a
strong iron frame, with a ring in the middle to hold it. There were two
heavy wads, one dry and the other slightly damped, between the powder and
ball. At the siege of Gibraltar, however, matters were managed in a much
more rough-and-ready style. The shot was heated at furnaces and wheeled
off to the guns in wheelbarrows lined with sand.
[Illustration: THE SIEGE OF GIBRALTAR]
The partial failure of the navy to co-operate successfully with the
land-forces, so far as bombardment was concerned, during the Crimean war,
has had much to do with the adoption of the costly ironclad floating
fortresses, armed with enormously powerful guns, of the present day. The
earliest form, indeed, was adopted during the above war, but not used to
any great extent or advantage. The late Emperor of the French(15) saw that
the coming necessity or necessary evil would be some form of
strongly-armoured and protected floating battery that could cope with
fortresses ashore, and this was the germ of the ironclad movement. The
first batteries of this kind, used successfully at Kinburn, were otherwise
unseaworthy and unmanageable, and were little more than heavily-plated and
more or less covered barges.
The two earliest European ironclads were _La Gloire_ in France and the
_Warrior_ in England—the latter launched in 1860. Neither of these vessels
presented any great departure from the established types of build in large
ships of war. The _Warrior_ is an undeniably fine, handsome-looking
frigate, masted and rigged as usual, but she and her sister-ship, the
_Black Prince_, are about the only ironclads to which these remarks
apply—every form and variety of construction having been adopted since. As
regarded size, she was considerably larger than the largest frigate or
ship of the line of our navy, although greatly exceeded by many ironclads
subsequently built. She is 380 feet in length, and her displacement of
more than 9,100 tons was 3,000 tons greater than that of the largest of
the wooden men-of-war she was superseding. The _Warrior_ is still among
the fastest of the iron-armoured fleet. Considered _as_ an ironclad,
however, she is a weak example. Her armour, which protects only
three-fifths of her sides, is but four and a half inches thick, with
eighteen inches of (wood) backing, and five-eighths of an inch of what is
technically called “skin-plating,” for protection inside. The remote
possibility of a red-hot shot or shell falling inside has to be
considered. Her bow and stern, rudder-head and steering-gear, would, of
course, be the vulnerable points.
From this small beginning—one armoured vessel—our ironclad fleet has grown
with the greatest rapidity, till it now numbers over sixty of all
denominations of vessels. The late Emperor of the French gave a great
impetus to the movement; and other foreign nations speedily following in
his wake, it clearly behoved England to be able to cope with them on their
own ground, should occasion demand. Then there was the “scare” of invasion
which took some hold of the public mind, and was exaggerated by certain
portions of the press, at one period, till it assumed serious proportions.
Leading journals complained that by the time the Admiralty would have one
or two ironclads in commission, the French would have ten or twelve. Thus
urged, the Government of the day must be excused if they made some
doubtful experiments and costly failures.
But apart from the lessons of the Crimea, and the activity and rivalry of
foreign powers, attention was seriously drawn to the ironclad question by
the events of the day. It was easy to guess and theorise concerning this
new feature in warfare, but early in 1862 practical proof was afforded of
its power. The naval engagement which took place in Hampton Roads, near
the outset of the great American civil war, was the first time in which an
ironclad ship was brought into collision with wooden vessels, and also the
first time in which two distinct varieties of the species were brought
into collision with each other.
The Southerners had, when the strife commenced, seized and partially
burned the _Merrimac_, a steam-frigate belonging to the United States
navy, then lying at the Norfolk Navy-yard. The hulk was regarded as nearly
worthless,(16) until, looking about for ways and means to annoy their
opponents, they hit on the idea of armouring her, in the best manner
attainable at the moment; and for awhile at least, this condemned wreck,
resuscitated, patched up, and covered with iron plates,(17) became the
terror of the enemy. She was provided with an iron prow or ram capable of
inflicting a severe blow under water. Her hull, cut down to within three
feet of the water-line, was covered by a bomb-proof, sloping-roofed house,
which extended over the screw and rudder. This was built of oak and pine,
covered with iron; the latter being four and a half inches thick, and the
former aggregating twenty inches in thickness. While the hull was
generally iron-plated, the bow and stern were covered with steel. There
were no masts—nothing seen above but the “smoke-stack” (funnel),
pilot-house, and flagstaff. She carried eight powerful guns, most of them
eleven-inch. “As she came ploughing through the water,” wrote one
eyewitness of her movements, “she looked like a huge half-submerged
crocodile.” The Southerners re-christened her the _Virginia_, but her
older name has clung to her. The smaller vessels with her contributed
little to the issue of the fight, but those opposed to her were of no
inconsiderable size. The _Congress_, _Cumberland_, _Minnesota_, and
_Roanoake_ were frigates carrying an aggregate of over 150 guns and nearly
2,000 men. They, however, were wooden vessels; and although, in two cases
in particular, defended with persistent heroism, had no chance against the
ironclad, hastily as she had been prepared. There is little doubt that the
officers of the two former vessels, in particular, knew something of the
nature of the “forlorn hope” in which they were about to engage, when she
hove in sight on that memorable 8th of March, 1862. It is said that the
sailors, however, derided her till she was close upon them—so close that
their laughter and remarks were heard on board. “That Southern Bugaboo,”
“that old Secesh curiosity,” were among the milder titles applied to her.
[Illustration: THE ORIGINAL “MERRIMAC.”]
The engagement was fought in the Hampton Roads, which is virtually an
outlet of the James River, Virginia. The latter, like the Thames, has
considerable breadth and many shallows near its mouth. The _Merrimac_ left
Norfolk Navy-yard (which holds to the James River somewhat the position
that Sheerness does to the Thames) hurriedly on the morning of the 8th,
and steamed steadily towards the enemy’s fleet, accompanied by some
smaller vessels of war and a few tug-boats.
“Meanwhile, the shapeless iron mass
Came moving o’er the wave,
As gloomy as a passing hearse,
As silent as the grave.”
The morning was still and calm as that of a Sabbath-day. That the
_Merrimac_ was not expected was evidenced by the boats at the booms, and
the sailors’ clothes still hanging in the rigging of the enemy’s vessels.
“Did they see the long, dark hull? Had they made it out? Was it ignorance,
apathy, or composure that made them so indifferent? or were they provided
with torpedoes, which could sink even the _Merrimac_ in a minute?” were
questions mooted on the Southern side by those watching on board the boats
and from the shore.
As soon, however, as she was plainly discerned, the crews of the
_Cumberland_, _Congress_, and other vessels were beat to quarters, and
preparations made for the fight. “The engagement,” wrote the Confederate
Secretary of the Navy, “commenced at half-past three p.m., and at four
p.m. Captain Buchanan had sunk the _Cumberland_, captured and burned the
_Congress_, disabled and driven the _Minnesota_ ashore, and defeated the
_St. Lawrence_ and _Roanoake_, which sought shelter under the guns of
Fortress Monroe. Two of the enemy’s small steamers were blown up, and the
two transport steamers were captured.” This, as will be seen, must, as
regards time, be taken _cum grano salis_, but in its main points is
correct.
The _Merrimac_ commenced the action by discharging a broadside at the
_Congress_, one shell from which killed or disabled a number of men at the
guns, and then kept on towards the _Cumberland_, which she approached with
full steam on, striking her on the port side near the bow, her stem
knocking two of the ports into one, and her ram striking the vessel under
the water-line. Almost instantaneously a large shell was discharged from
her forward gun, which raked the gun-deck of the doomed ship, and killed
ten men. Five minutes later the ship began to sink by the head, a large
hole having been made by the point of the ram, through which the water
rushed in. As the _Merrimac_ rounded and rapidly came up again, she once
more raked the _Cumberland_, killing or wounding sixteen more men.
Meantime the latter was endeavouring to defend herself, and poured
broadside after broadside into the _Merrimac_; but the balls, as one of
the survivors tells us, bounced “upon her mailed sides like india-rubber,
apparently making not the least impression except to cut off her
flagstaff, and thus bring down the Confederate colours. None of her crew
ventured at that time on her outside to replace them, and she fought
thenceforward with only her pennant flying.”(18) Shortly after this, the
_Merrimac_ again attacked the unfortunate ship, advancing with her
greatest speed, her ram making another hole below the water-line. The
_Cumberland_ began to fill rapidly. The scene on board is hardly to be
described in words. It was one of horrible desperation and fruitless
heroism. The decks were slippery with human gore; shreds of human flesh,
and portions of the body, arms, legs, and headless trunks were scattered
everywhere. Below, the cockpit was filled with wounded, whom it would be
impossible to succour, for the ship was sinking fast. Meantime the men
stuck to their posts, powder was still served out, and the firing kept up
steadily, several of the crew lingering so long in the after shell-room,
in their eagerness to pass up shell, that they were drowned there. The
water had now reached the main gun-deck, and it became evident that the
contest was nearly over. Still the men lingered, anxious for one last
shot, when their guns were nearly under water.
“Shall we give them a broadside, my boys, as she goes?
Shall we send yet another to tell,
In iron-tongued words, to Columbia’s foes,
How bravely her sons say ‘Farewell?’”
The word was passed for each man to save himself. Even then, one man, an
active little fellow, named Matthew Tenney, whose courage had been
conspicuous during the action, determined to fire once more, the next gun
to his own being then under water, the vessel going down by the head. He
succeeded, but at the cost of his life, for immediately afterwards,
attempting to scramble out of the port-hole, the water suddenly rushed in
with such force that he was washed back and drowned. Scores of poor
fellows were unable to reach the upper deck, and were carried down with
the vessel. The _Cumberland_ sank in water up to the cross-trees, and went
down _with her flag still flying from the peak_.(19) The whole number lost
was not less than 120 souls. Her top-masts, with the pennant flying far
above the water, long marked the locality of one of the bravest and most
desperate defences ever made
“By men who knew that all else was wrong
But to die when a sailor ought.”
The _Cumberland_ being utterly demolished, the _Merrimac_ turned her
attention to the _Congress_. The Southerners showed their chivalric
instincts at this juncture by not firing on the boats, or on a small
steamer, which were engaged in picking up the survivors of the
_Cumberland’s_ crew. The officers of the _Congress_, seeing the fate of
the _Cumberland_, determined that the _Merrimac_ should not, at least,
sink their vessel. They therefore got all sail on the ship, and attempted
to run ashore. The _Merrimac_ was soon close on them, and delivered a
broadside, which was terribly destructive, a shell killing, at one of the
guns, every man engaged except one. Backing, and then returning several
times, she delivered broadside after broadside at less than 100 yards’
distance. The _Congress_ replied manfully and obstinately, but with little
effect. One shot is supposed to have entered one of the ironclad’s
port-holes, and dismounted a gun, as there was no further firing from that
port, and a few splinters of iron were struck off her sloping mailed roof,
but this was all. The guns of the _Merrimac_ appeared to have been
specially trained on the after-magazine of the _Congress_, and shot after
shot entered that part of the ship. Thus, slowly drifting down with the
current, and again steaming up, the _Merrimac_ continued for an hour to
fire into her opponent. Several times the _Congress_ was on fire, but the
flames were kept under. At length the ship was on fire in so many places,
and the flames gathering with such force, that it was hopeless and
suicidal to keep up the defence any longer. The national flag was sadly
and sorrowfully hauled down, and a white flag hoisted at the peak. The
_Merrimac_ did not for a few minutes see this token of surrender, and
continued to fire. At last, however, it was discerned through the clouds
of smoke, and the broadsides ceased. A tug that had followed the
_Merrimac_ out of Norfolk then came alongside the _Congress_, and ordered
the officers on board. This they refused, hoping that, from the nearness
of the shore, they would be able to escape. Some of the men, to the
number, it is believed, of about forty, thought the tug was one of the
Northern (Federal) vessels, and rushed on board, and were, of course, soon
carried off as prisoners. By the time that all the able men were off
ashore and elsewhere, it was seven o’clock in the evening, and the
_Congress_ was a bright sheet of flame fore and aft, her guns, which were
loaded and trained, going off as the fire reached them. A shell from one
struck a sloop at some distance, and blew her up. At midnight the fire
reached her magazines, containing five tons of gunpowder, and, with a
terrific explosion, her charred remains blew up. Thus had the _Merrimac_
sunk one and burned a second of the largest of the vessels of the enemy.
Having settled the fate of these two ships, the _Merrimac_ had, about 5
o’clock in the afternoon, started to tackle the _Minnesota_. Here, as was
afterwards proved, the commander of the former had the intention of
capturing the latter as a prize, and had no wish to destroy her. He,
therefore, stood off about a mile distant, and with the _Yorktown_ and
_Jamestown_, threw shot and shell at the frigate, doing it considerable
damage, and killing six men. One shell entered near her waist, passed
through the chief engineer’s room, knocking two rooms into one, and
wounded several men; a shot passed through the main-mast. At nightfall the
_Merrimac_, satisfied with her afternoon’s work of death and destruction,
steamed in under Sewall’s Point. “The day,” said the Baltimore _American_,
“thus closed most dismally for our side, and with the most gloomy
apprehensions of what would occur the next day. The _Minnesota_ was at the
mercy of the _Merrimac_, and there appeared no reason why the iron monster
might not clear the Roads of our fleet, destroy all the stores and
warehouses on the beach, drive our troops into the fortress, and command
Hampton Roads against any number of wooden vessels the Government might
send there. Saturday was a terribly dismal night at Fortress Monroe.”
But about nine o’clock that evening Ericsson’s battery, the _Monitor_,(20)
arrived in Hampton Roads, and hope revived in the breasts of the
despondent Northerners. She was not a very formidable-looking craft, for,
lying low on the water, with a plain structure amidships, a small
pilot-house forward, and a diminutive funnel aft, she might have been
taken for a raft. It was only on board that her real strength might be
discovered. She carried armour about five inches thick over a large part
of her, and had practically two hulls, the lower of which had sides
inclining at an angle of 51° from the vertical line. It was considered
that no shot could hurt this lower hull, on account of the angle at which
it must strike it. The revolving turret, an iron cylinder, nine feet high,
and twenty feet in diameter, eight or nine inches thick everywhere, and
about the portholes eleven inches, was moved round by steam-power. When
the two heavy Dahlgren guns were run in for loading, a kind of pendulum
port fell over the holes in the turret. The propeller, rudder, and even
anchor, were all hidden.
This was a war of surprises and sudden changes. It is doubtful if the
Southerners knew what to make of the strange-looking battery which steamed
towards them next morning, or whether they despised it. The _Merrimac_ and
the _Monitor_ kept on approaching each other, the former waiting until she
would choose her distance, and the latter apparently not knowing what to
make of her queer-looking antagonist. The first shot from the _Monitor_
was fired when about one hundred yards distant from the _Merrimac_, and
this distance was subsequently reduced to fifty yards; and at no time
during the furious cannonading that ensued were the vessels more than two
hundred yards apart. The scene was in plain view from Fortress Monroe, and
in the main facts all the spectators agree. At first the fight was very
furious, and the guns of the _Monitor_ were fired rapidly. The latter
carried only two guns, to its opponent’s eight, and received two or three
shots for every one she gave. Finding that she was much more formidable
than she looked, the _Merrimac_ attempted to run her down; but her
superior speed and quicker handling enabled her to dodge and turn rapidly.
“Once the _Merrimac_ struck her near midships, but only to prove that the
battery could not be run down nor shot down. She spun round like a top;
and as she got her bearing again, sent one of her formidable missiles into
her huge opponent.
“The officers of the _Monitor_ at this time had gained such confidence in
the impregnability of their battery that they no longer fired at random
nor hastily. The fight then assumed its most interesting aspect. The
_Monitor_ went round the _Merrimac_ repeatedly, probing her sides, seeking
for weak points, and reserving her fire with coolness, until she had the
right spot and the right range, and made her experiments accordingly. In
this way the _Merrimac_ received three shots.... Neither of these three
shots rebounded at all, but appeared to cut their way clear through iron
and wood into the ship.”(21) Soon after receiving the third shot, the
_Merrimac_ made off at full speed, and the contest was not renewed. Thus
ended this particular episode of the American war.
[Illustration: ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN THE “MERRIMAC” AND “MONITOR.”]
Lieutenant Worden was in the pilot-house of the _Monitor_ when the
_Merrimac_ directed a whole broadside at her, and was, besides being
thrown down and stunned by the concussion, temporarily blinded by the
minute fragments of shells and powder driven through the eye-holes—only an
inch each in diameter—made through the iron to enable them to keep a
look-out. He was carried away, but, on recovering consciousness, his first
thoughts reverted to the action. “Have I saved the _Minnesota_?” said he,
eagerly. “Yes; and whipped the _Merrimac_!” was the answer. “Then,”
replied he, “I don’t care what becomes of me.” The concussion in the
turret is described as something terrible; and several of the men, though
not otherwise hurt, were rendered insensible for the time. Each side
claimed that they had seriously damaged the other, but there seems to have
been no foundation for these assertions in facts.
But although this, the original _Monitor_, was efficient, if not
omnipotent, in the calm waters at the mouth of the James River, she was,
as might be expected with her flat, barge-like bottom, a bad sea-boat, and
was afterwards lost. Her ports had to be closed and caulked, being only
five feet above the water, and she was therefore unable to work her guns
at sea. Her constructor had neglected Sir Walter Raleigh’s advice to
Prince Henry touching the model of a ship, “that her ports be so laid, as
that she may carry out her guns all weathers.” She plunged
heavily—completely submerging her pilot-house at times, the sea washing
over and into her turret. The heavy shocks and jars of the armour, as it
came down upon the waves, made her leaky, and she went to the bottom in
spite of pumps capable of throwing 2,000 gallons a minute, which were in
good order and working incessantly.
[Illustration: THE PERUVIAN IRONCLAD _HUASCAR_ ATTACKED BY TWO CHILIAN
IRONCLADS.]
Since the conclusion of the American war, the ironclad question has
assumed serious aspects, and many facts could be cited to show that they
have not by any means always confirmed the first impressions of their
strength and invulnerability. Two recent cases will be fresh in the
memories of our readers. The first is the recent engagement off Peru
between the Peruvian ironclad turret-ship _Huascar_ and the British
unarmoured men-of-war _Shah_ and _Amethyst_. With the political aspect of
the affair we have nothing, of course, to do, in our present work. It was
really a question between the guns quite as much as between the vessels.
The _Huascar_ is only a moderately-strong armoured vessel, her plates
being the same thickness as those of the earliest English ironclad, the
_Warrior_, and her armament is two 300-pounders in her turret, and three
shell-guns. On the other hand, the _Shah_, the principal one of the two
British vessels, is only a large iron vessel sheathed in wood, and not
armoured at all; but she carries, besides smaller guns, a formidable
armament in the shape of two 12-ton and sixteen 6½-ton guns. An eyewitness
of the engagement states(22) that, after three hours’ firing, at a
distance of from 400 to 3,000 yards, the only damage inflicted by the
opposing vessels was a hole in the _Huascar’s_ side, made by a shell, the
bursting of which killed one man. “One 9-in. shot (from a 12-ton gun) also
penetrated three inches into the turret without effecting any material
damage. There were nearly 100 dents of various depths in the plates, but
none of sufficient depth to materially injure them. The upper works—boats,
and everything destructible by shell—were, of course, destroyed. Her
colours were also shot down.” According to theory, the _Shah’s_ two larger
guns should have penetrated the _Huascar’s_ sides when fired at upwards of
3,000 yards’ distance. The facts are very different, doubtless because the
shots struck the armour obliquely, at any angles but right ones. The
_Huascar_ was admirably handled and manœuvred, but her gunnery was so
indifferent that none of the shots even struck the _Shah_, except to cut
away a couple of ropes, and the latter kept up so hot a fire of shells
that the crew of the former were completely demoralised, and the officers
had to train and fire the guns. She eventually escaped to Iquique, under
cover of a pitchy-dark night. The same correspondent admits, however, that
the _Shah_, although a magnificent vessel, is not fitted for the South
American station, since Peru has three ironclads, Chili two, and Brazil
and the River Plate Republics several, against which no ordinary English
man-of-war could cope, were the former properly handled.
[Illustration: THE PERUVIAN IRONCLAD _HUASCAR_.]
The recent story of the saucy Russian merchantman,(23) which not merely
dared the Turkish ironclad, but fought her for five hours, and inflicted
quite as much damage as she received, will also be remembered, although it
may be taken just for what it is worth. One Captain Baranoff, of the
Imperial Russian Navy, had, in an article published in the _Golos_, of St.
Petersburg, recommended his Government to abandon ironclads, avoid naval
battles, and confine operations at sea to the letting loose of a number of
cruisers against the enemy’s merchantmen. Where a naval engagement was
inevitable, he “preferred fighting with small craft, making up by agility
and speed what they lacked in cuirass, and if the worst came to the worst,
easily replaced by other specimens of the same type.” The article created
much notice; and at the beginning of the present war, the author was given
to understand by the Russian Admiralty that he should have an opportunity
of proving his theories by deeds. The _Vesta_, an ordinary iron steamer of
light build, was selected; she had been employed previously in no more
warlike functions than the conveyance of corn and tallow from Russia to
foreign ports. She was equipped immediately with a few 6-in. mortars, her
decks being strengthened to receive them, but no other changes were made.
On the morning of the 23rd of July, cruising in the Black Sea, Captain
Baranoff encountered the Turkish ironclad _Assari Tefvik_, a formidable
vessel armoured with twelve inches of iron, and carrying 12-ton guns, and
nothing daunted by the disproportion in size and strength, immediately
engaged her. Both vessels were skilfully manœuvred, the ironclad moving
about with extraordinary alertness and speed. She was only hit three times
with large balls; the second went through her deck, “kindling a fire which
was quickly extinguished;” the third was believed to have injured the
turret. Meantime, the _Vesta_ was herself badly injured, a grenade hitting
her close to the powder-magazine, which would have soon blown up but for
the rapid measures taken by her commander. Her rudder was struck and
partially disabled, but still she was not sunk, as she should have been,
according to all theoretical considerations. She eventually steamed back
again to Sebastopol—after two other vessels had come to the ironclad’s
assistance—covered with glory, having for five hours worried, and somewhat
injured, a giant vessel to which, in proportion, she was but a weak and
miserable dwarf.
It will be obvious that from neither of the above cases can any positive
inferences be safely drawn. In the former case, the weaker vessel had the
stronger guns, and so matters were partially balanced; in the second
example, the ironclad ought to have easily sunk the merchantman by means
of her heavy guns, even from a great distance—but she didn’t. The ironclad
question will engage our attention again, as it will, we fear, that of the
nation, for a very long time to come.
CHAPTER II.
MEN OF PEACE.
Naval Life in Peace Times—A Grand Exploring Voyage—The Cruise of
the _Challenger_—Its Work—Deep-sea Soundings—Five Miles
Down—Apparatus Employed—Ocean Treasures—A Gigantic
Sea-monster—Tristan d’Acunha—A Discovery Interesting to the
Discovered—The Two Crusoes—The Inaccessible Island—Solitary
Life—The Sea-cart—Swimming Pigs—Rescued at Last—The Real Crusoe
Island to Let—Down South—The Land of Desolation—Kerguelen—The
Sealers’ Dreary Life—In the Antarctic—Among the Icebergs.
No form of life presents greater contrasts than that of the sailor. Storm
and calm alternate; to-day in the thick of the fight—battling man or the
elements—to-morrow we find him tranquilly pursuing some peaceful scheme of
discovery or exploration, or calmly cruising from one station to another,
protecting by moral influence alone the interests of his country. His
deeds may be none the less heroic because his conquests are peaceful, and
because Neptune rather than Mars is challenged to cede his treasures.
Anson, Cook, and Vancouver, Parry, Franklin, M’Clintock, and M’Clure,
among a host of others, stand worthily by the side of our fighting
sailors, because made of the same stuff. Let us also, then, for a time,
leave behind the smoke and din, the glories and horrors of war, and cool
our fevered imaginations by descending, in spirit at least, to the depths
of the great sea. The records of the famous voyage of the _Challenger_(24)
will afford a capital opportunity of contrasting the deeds of the men of
peace with those of men of war.
We may commence by saying that no such voyage has in truth ever been
undertaken before.(25) Nearly 70,000 miles of the earth’s watery surface
were traversed, and the Atlantic and Pacific crossed and recrossed several
times. It was a veritable _voyage en zigzag_. Apart from ordinary
soundings innumerable, 374 deep-sea soundings, when the progress of the
vessel had to be stopped, and which occupied an hour or two apiece, were
made, and at least two-thirds as many successful dredgings and trawlings.
The greatest depth of ocean reached was 4,575 fathoms (27,450 feet), or
_over five miles_. This was in the Pacific, about 1,400 miles S.E. of
Japan. We all know that this ocean derives its name from its generally
calmer weather and less tempestuous seas; and the researches of the
officers of the _Challenger_, and of the United States vessel _Tuscarora_,
show that the bottom slopes to its greatest depths very evenly and
gradually, little broken by submarine mountain ranges, except off volcanic
islands and coasts like those of the Hawaiian (Sandwich) Islands. Off the
latter there are mountains in the sea ranging to as high as 12,000 feet.
The general evenness of the bottom helps to account for the long, sweeping
waves of the Pacific, so distinguishable from the short, cut-up, and
“choppy” waves of the Atlantic. In the Atlantic, on the voyage of the
_Challenger_ from Teneriffe to St. Thomas, a pretty level bottom off the
African coast gradually deepened till it reached 3,125 fathoms (over three
and a half miles), at about one-third of the way across to the West
Indies. If the Alps, Mont Blanc and all, were submerged at this spot,
there would still be more than half a mile of water above them! Five
hundred miles further west there is a comparatively shallow part—two miles
or so deep—which afterwards deepens to three miles, and continues at the
same depth nearly as far as the West Indies.
[Illustration: EXAMINING A “HAUL” ON BOARD THE “CHALLENGER.”]
A few words as to the work laid out for the _Challenger_, and how she did
it. She is a 2,000-ton corvette, of moderate steam-power, and was put into
commission, with a reduced complement of officers and men, Captain (now
Sir) George S. Nares, later the commander of the Arctic expedition, having
complete charge and control. Her work was to include soundings,
thermometric and magnetic observations, dredgings and chemical
examinations of sea-water, the surveying of unsurveyed harbours and
coasts, and the resurveying, where practicable, of partially surveyed
coasts. The (civil) scientific corps, under the charge of Professor
Wyville Thomson, comprised three naturalists, a chemist and physicist, and
a photographer. The naturalists had their special rooms, the chemist his
laboratory, the photographer his “dark-room,” and the surveyors their
chart-room, to make room for which all the guns were removed except two.
On the upper deck was another analysing-room, “devoted to mud, fish,
birds, and vertebrates generally;” a donkey-engine for hauling in the
sounding, dredging, and other lines, and a broad bridge amidships, from
which the officer for the day gave the necessary orders for the
performance of the many duties connected with their scientific labours.
Thousands of fathoms of rope of all sizes, for dredging and sounding; tons
of sounding-weights, from half to a whole hundredweight apiece; dozens of
thermometers for deep-sea temperatures, and gallons of methylated spirits
for preserving the specimens obtained, were carried on board.
[Illustration: THE “ACCUMULATOR.”]
Steam-power is always very essential to deep-sea sounding. No trustworthy
results can be obtained from a ship under sail; a perpendicular sounding
is the one thing required, and, of course, with steam the vessel can be
kept head to the wind, regulating her speed so that she remains nearly
stationary. The sounding apparatus used needs some little description. A
block was fixed to the main-yard, from which depended the “accumulator,”
consisting of strong india-rubber bands, each three-fourths of an inch in
diameter and three feet long, which ran through circular discs of wood at
either end. These are capable of stretching seventeen feet, and their
object is to prevent sudden strain on the lead-line from the inevitable
jerks and motion of the vessel. The sounding-rod used for great depths is,
with its weights,(26) so arranged that on touching bottom a spring
releases a wire sling, and the weights slip off and are left there. These
rods were only employed when the depths were considered to be over 1,500
fathoms; for less depths a long, conical lead weight was used, with a
“butterfly valve,” or trap, at its basis for securing specimens from the
ocean bed. There are several kinds of “slip” water-bottles for securing
samples of sea-water (and marine objects of small size floating in it) at
great depths. One of the most ingenious is a brass tube, two and a half
feet in length, fitted with easily-working stop-cocks at each end,
connected by means of a rod, on which is a movable float. As the bottle
descends the stop-cocks must remain open, but as it is hauled up again the
flat float receives the opposing pressure of the water above it, and,
acting by means of the connecting-rod, shuts both cocks simultaneously,
thus inclosing a specimen of the water at that particular depth.
Self-registering thermometers were employed, sometimes attached at
intervals of 100 fathoms to the sounding-line, so as to test the
temperatures at various depths. For dredging, bags or nets from three to
five feet in depth, and nine to fifteen inches in width, attached to iron
frames, were employed, whilst at the bottom of the bags a number of
“swabs,” similar to those used in cleaning decks, were attached, so as to
sweep along the bottom, and bring up small specimens of animal life—coral,
sponges, &c. These swabs were, however, always termed “hempen tangles”—so
much does science dignify every object it touches! The dredges were
afterwards set aside for the ordinary beam-trawls used in shallow water
around our own coasts. Their open meshes allowed the mud and sand to
filter through easily, and their adoption was a source of satisfaction to
some of the officers who looked with horror on the state of their usually
immaculate decks, when the dredges were emptied of their contents.
Not so very long ago, our knowledge of anything beneath the ocean’s
surface was extremely indefinite; for even of the coasts and shallows we
knew little, marine zoology and botany being the last, and not the
earliest, branches of natural history investigated by men of science. It
was asserted that the specific gravity of water at great depths would
cause the heaviest weights to remain suspended in mid-sea, and that animal
existence was impossible at the bottom. When, some sixteen years ago, a
few star-fish were brought up by a line from a depth of 1,200 fathoms, it
was seriously considered that they had attached themselves at some midway
point, and not at the bottom. In 1868-9-70, the Royal Society borrowed
from the Admiralty two of Her Majesty’s vessels, the _Lightning_ and
_Porcupine_; and in one of the latter’s trips, considerably to the south
and west of Ireland, she sounded to a depth of 2,400 fathoms,(27) and was
very successful in many dredging operations. As a result, it was then
suggested that a vessel should be specially fitted out for a more
important ocean voyage round the world, to occupy three or more years, and
the cruise of the _Challenger_ was then determined upon.
The story of that cruise is utterly unsensational; it is one simply of
calm and unremitting scientific work, almost unaccompanied by peril. To
some the treasures acquired will seem valueless. Among the earliest gains,
obtained near Cape St. Vincent, with a common trawl, was a beautiful
specimen of the Euplectella, “glass-rope sponge,” or “Venus’s
flower-basket,” alive. This object of beauty and interest, sometimes seen
in working naturalists’ and conchologists’ windows in London, had always
previously been obtained from the seas of the Philippine Islands and
Japan, to which it was thought to be confined, and its discovery so much
nearer home was hailed with delight. It has a most graceful form,
consisting of a slightly curved conical tube, eight or ten inches in
height, contracted beneath to a blunt point. The walls are of light
tracery, resembling opaque spun glass, covered with a lace-work of
delicate pattern. The lower end is surrounded by an upturned fringe of
lustrous fibres, and the wider end is closed by a lid of open network.
These beautiful objects of nature make most charming ornaments for a
drawing-room, but have to be kept under a glass case, as they are somewhat
frail. In their native element they lie buried in the mud. They were
afterwards found to be “the most characteristic inhabitants of the great
depths all over the world.” Early in the voyage, no lack of living things
were brought up—strange-looking fish, with their eyes blown nearly out of
their heads by the expansion of the air in their air-bladders, whilst
entangled among the meshes were many star-fish and delicate zoophytes,
shining with a vivid phosphorescent light. A rare specimen of the
clustered sea-polyp, twelve gigantic polyps, each with eight long fringed
arms, terminating in a close cluster on a stalk or stem three feet high,
was obtained. “Two specimens of this fine species were brought from the
coast of Greenland early in the last century; somehow these were lost, and
for a century the animal was never seen.” Two were brought home by one of
the Swedish Arctic expeditions, and these are the only specimens ever
obtained. One of the lions of the expedition was not “a rare sea-fowl,”
but a transparent lobster, while a new crustacean, perfectly blind, which
feels its way with most beautifully delicate claws, was one of the
greatest curiosities obtained. Of these wonders, and of some geological
points determined, more anon. But they did not even sight the sea-serpent,
much less attempt to catch it. Jules Verne’s twenty miles of inexhaustible
pearl-meadows were evidently missed, nor did they even catch a glimpse of
his gigantic oyster, with the pearl as big as a cocoa-nut, and worth
10,000,000 francs. They could not, with Captain Nemo, dive to the bottom
and land amid submarine forests, where tigers and cobras have their
counterparts in enormous sharks and vicious cephalopods. Victor Hugo’s
“devil-fish” did not attack a single sailor, nor did, indeed, any
formidable cuttle-fish take even a passing peep at the _Challenger_, much
less attempt to stop its progress. Does the reader remember the story
recited both by Figuier and Moquin Tandon,(28) concerning one of these
gigantic sea-monsters, which should have a strong basis of truth in it, as
it was laid before the French Académie des Sciences by a lieutenant of
their navy and a French consul?
[Illustration: OBJECTS OF INTEREST BROUGHT HOME BY THE “CHALLENGER.”
Fig. 1.—Shell of _Globigerina_ (highly magnified). Fig. 2.—_Ophioglypha
bullata_ (six times the size in nature). Fig. 3.—_Euplectella Suberea_
(popularly “Venus’s Flower-basket”). Fig. 4.—_Deidamia leptodactyla_ (a
Blind Lobster).
(_From __“__The Voyage of the Challenger,__”__ by permission of Messrs.
Macmillan & Co._)]
The steam-corvette _Alecton_, when between Teneriffe and Madeira, fell in
with a gigantic cuttle-fish, fifty feet long in the body, without counting
its eight formidable arms covered with suckers. The head was of enormous
size, out of all proportion to the body, and had eyes as large as plates.
The other extremity terminated in two fleshy lobes or fins of great size.
The estimated weight of the whole creature was 4,000 lbs., and the flesh
was soft, glutinous, and of a reddish-brick colour. “The commandant,
wishing, in the interests of science, to secure the monster, actually
engaged it in battle. Numerous shots were aimed at it, but the balls
traversed its flaccid and glutinous mass without causing it any vital
injury. But after one of these attacks, the waves were observed to be
covered with foam and blood, and—singular thing—a strong odour of musk was
inhaled by the spectators.... The musket-shots not having produced the
desired results, harpoons were employed, but they took no hold on the
soft, impalpable flesh of the marine monster. When it escaped from the
harpoon, it dived under the ship and came up again at the other side. They
succeeded, at last, in getting the harpoon to bite, and in passing a
bowling-hitch round the posterior part of the animal. But when they
attempted to hoist it out of the water, the rope penetrated deeply into
the flesh, and separated it into two parts, the head, with the arms and
tentacles, dropping into the sea and making off, while the fins and
posterior parts were brought on board; they weighed about forty pounds.
The crew were eager to pursue, and would have launched a boat, but the
commander refused, fearing that the animal might capsize it. The object
was not, in his opinion, one in which he could risk the lives of his
crew.” M. Moquin Tandon, commenting on M. Berthelot’s recital, considers
“that this colossal mollusc was sick and exhausted at the time by some
recent struggle with some other monster of the deep, which would account
for its having quitted its native rocks in the depths of the ocean.
Otherwise it would have been more active in its movements, or it would
have obscured the waves with the inky liquid which all the cephalopods
have at command. Judging from its size, it would carry at least a barrel
of this black liquid.”
The _Challenger_ afterwards visited Juan Fernandez, the real Robinson
Crusoe island where Alexander Selkirk passed his enforced residence of
four years. Thanks to Defoe, he lived to find himself so famous, that he
could hardly have grudged the time spent in his solitary sojourn with his
dumb companions and man Friday. Alas! the romance which enveloped Juan
Fernandez has somewhat dimmed. For a brief time it was a Chilian penal
colony, and after sundry vicissitudes, was a few years ago leased to a
merchant, who kept cattle to sell to whalers and passing ships, and also
went seal-hunting on a neighbouring islet. He was “monarch of all he
surveyed”—lord of an island over a dozen miles long and five or six broad,
with cattle, and herds of wild goats, and capital fishing all round—all
for two hundred a year! Fancy this, ye sportsmen, who pay as much or more
for the privileges of a barren moor! Yet the merchant was not satisfied
with his venture, and, at the time of the _Challenger’s_ visit, was on the
point of abandoning it: by this time it is probably to let. Excepting the
cattle dotted about the foot of the hills and a civilised house or two,
the appearance of the island must be precisely the same now as when the
piratical buccaneers of olden time made it their rendezvous and haunt
wherefrom to dash out and harry the Spaniards; the same to-day as when
Alexander Selkirk lived in it as its involuntary monarch; the same to-day
as when Commodore Anson arrived with his scurvy-stricken “crazy ship, a
great scarcity of water, and a crew so universally diseased that there
were not above ten foremast-men in a watch capable of doing duty,” and
recruited them with fresh meat, vegetables, and wild fruits.
[Illustration: THE “CHALLENGER” AT JUAN FERNANDEZ.]
“The scenery,” writes Lord George Campbell, “is grand: gloomy and wild
enough on the dull, stormy day on which we arrived, clouds driving past
and enveloping the highest ridge of the mountain, a dark-coloured sea
pelting against the steep cliffs and shores, and clouds of sea-birds
swaying in great flocks to and fro over the water; but cheerful and
beautiful on the bright sunny morning which followed—so beautiful that I
thought, ‘This beats Tahiti!’” The anchorage of the _Challenger_ was in
Cumberland Bay, a deep-water inlet from which rises a semi-circle of high
land, with two bold headlands, “sweeping brokenly up thence to the highest
ridge—a square-shaped, craggy, precipitous mass of rock, with trees
clinging to its sides to near the summit. The spurs of these hills are
covered with coarse grass or moss.... Down the beds of the small ravines
run burns, overgrown by dock-leaves of enormous size, and the banks are
clothed with a rich vegetation of dark-leaved myrtle, bignonia, and
winter-bark, tree-shrubs, with tall grass, ferns, and flowering plants.
And as you lie there, humming-birds come darting and thrumming within
reach of your stick, flitting from flower to flower, which dot blue and
white the foliage of bignonias and myrtles. And on the steep grassy slopes
above the sea-cliffs herds of wild goats are seen quietly
browsing—quietly, that is, till they scent you, when they are off—as wild
as chamois.” This is indeed a description of a rugged paradise!
Near the ship they found splendid, but laborious, cod-fishing; laborious
on account of sharks playing with the bait, and treating the stoutest
lines as though made of single gut; also on account of the forty-fathom
depth these cod-fish lived in. Cray-fish and conger-eels were hauled up in
lobster-pots by dozens, while round the ship’s sides flashed shoals of
cavalli, fish that are caught by a hook with a piece of worsted tied
roughly on, swished over the surface, giving splendid play with a rod.
“And on shore, too, there was something to be seen and done. There was
Selkirk’s ‘look-out’ to clamber up the hill-side to—the spot where
tradition says he watched day after day for a passing sail, and from
whence he could look down on both sides of his island home, over the
wooded slopes, down to the cliff-fringed shore, on to the deserted ocean’s
expanse.”
The _Challenger_, in its cruise of over three years, naturally visited
many oft-described ports and settlements with which we shall have nought
to do. After a visit to Kerguelen’s Land—“the Land of Desolation,” as
Captain Cook called it—in the Southern Indian Ocean, for the purpose of
selecting a spot for the erection of an observatory, from whence the
transit of Venus should be later observed, they proceeded to Heard Island,
the position of which required determining with more accuracy. They
anchored, in the evening, in a bay of this most gloomy and utterly
desolate place, where they found half-a-dozen wretched sealers living in
two miserable huts near the beach, which were sunk into the ground for
warmth and protection against the fierce winds. Their work is to kill and
boil down sea-elephants. One of the men had been there for two years, and
was going to stay another. They are left on the island every year by the
schooners, which go sealing or whaling elsewhere. Some forty men were on
the island, unable to communicate with each other by land, as the interior
is entirely covered with glacier, like Greenland. They have barrels of
salt pork, beef, and a small store of coals, and little else, and are
wretchedly paid. “Books,” says Lord Campbell, “tell us that these
sea-elephants grow to the length of twenty-four feet; but the sealers did
not confirm this at all. One of us tried hard to make the Scotch mate say
he had seen one eighteen feet long; but ‘waull, he couldn’t say.’ Sixteen
feet? ‘Waull, he couldn’t say.’ Fourteen feet? ‘Waull, yes, yes—something
more like that;’ but thirteen feet would seem a fair average size.... One
of our fellows bought a clever little clay model of two men killing a
sea-elephant, giving for it—he being an extravagant man—one pound and a
bottle of rum. This pound was instantly offered to the servants outside in
exchange for another bottle.”
Crossing the Antarctic Circle, they were soon among the icebergs, keeping
a sharp look-out for Termination Land, which has been marked on charts as
a good stretch of coast seen by Wilkes, of the American expedition, thirty
years before. To make a long story short, Captain Nares, after a careful
search, _un-discovered_ this discovery, finding no traces of the land. It
was probably a long stretch of ice, or possibly a _mirage_, which
phenomenon has deceived many a sailor before. John Ross once thought that
he had discovered some grand mountains in the Arctic regions, which he
named after the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Croker. Next year Parry
sailed over the site of the supposed range; and the “Croker” Mountains
became a standing joke against Ross.
[Illustration: “THE CHALLENGER” IN ANTARCTIC ICE.]
Icebergs of enormous size were encountered; several of three _miles_ in
length and two hundred feet or more in height were seen one day, all close
together. But bergs of this calibre were exceptional; they were, however,
very often over half a mile in length. “There are few people now alive,”
says the author we have recently quoted, “who have seen such superb
Antarctic iceberg scenery as we have. We are steaming towards the supposed
position of land, only some thirty miles distant, over a glass-like sea,
unruffled by a breath of wind; past great masses of ice, grouped so close
together in some cases as to form an unbroken wall of cliff several miles
in length. Then, as we pass within a few hundred yards, the chain breaks
up into two or three separate bergs, and one sees—and beautifully from the
mast-head—the blue sea and distant horizon between perpendicular walls of
glistening alabaster white, against which the long swell dashes, rearing
up in great blue-green heaps, falling back in a torrent of
rainbow-flashing spray, or goes roaring into the azure caverns, followed
immediately by a thundering _thud_, as the compressed air within buffets
it back again in a torrent of seething white foam.” Neither words
adequately describe the beauty of many of the icebergs seen. One had three
high arched caverns penetrating far to its interior; another had a large
tunnel through which they could see the horizon. The delicate colouring of
these bergs is most lovely—sweeps of azure blue and pale sea-green with
dazzling white; glittering, sparkling crystal merging into depths of
indigo blue; stalactite icicles hanging from the walls and roofs of
cavernous openings. The reader will imagine the beauty of the scene at
sunrise and sunset, when as many as eighty or ninety bergs were sometimes
in sight. The sea was intensely green from the presence of minute algæ,
through belts of which the vessel passed, while the sun, sinking in a
golden blaze, tipped and lighted up the ice and snow, making them sparkle
as with brightest gems. A large number of tabular icebergs, with
quantities of snow on their level tops, were met. They amused themselves
by firing a 9-pounder Armstrong at one, which brought the ice down with a
rattling crash, the face of the berg cracking, splitting, and splashing
down with a roar, making the water below white with foam and powdered ice.
These icebergs were all stratified, at more or less regular distances,
with blue lines, which before they capsized or canted from displacement of
their centres of gravity, were always horizontal. During a gale, the
_Challenger_ came into collision with a berg, and lost her jibboom,
“dolphin-striker,” and other head-gear. An iceberg in a fog or gale of
wind is not a desirable obstruction to meet at sea.
[Illustration: THE _CHALLENGER_ MADE FAST TO ST. PAUL’S ROCKS (SOUTH
ATLANTIC).]
The observations made for deep-sea temperatures gave some remarkable
results. Here, among the icebergs, a band or stratum of water was found,
at a depth of eighty to 200 fathoms, _colder_ than the water either above
or below it. Take one day as an example: on the 19th of February the
surface temperature of the sea-water was 32°; at 100 fathoms it was 29·2°;
while at 300 fathoms it had risen to 33°. In the Atlantic, on the eastern
side about the tropics, the _bottom_ temperature was found to be very
uniform at 35·2°, while it might be broiling hot on the surface. Further
south, on the west side of the Atlantic below the equator, the bottom was
found to be very nearly three degrees cooler. It is believed that the cold
current enters the Atlantic from the Antarctic, and does not rise to
within 1,700 fathoms of the surface. These, and many kindred points,
belong more properly to another section of this work, to be hereafter
discussed.
[Illustration: THE NATURALIST’S ROOM ON BOARD THE “CHALLENGER.”]
The _Challenger_ had crossed, and sounded, and dredged the broad Atlantic
from Madeira to the West Indies—finding their deepest water off the Virgin
Islands; thence to Halifax, Nova Scotia; recrossed it to the Azores,
Canary, and Cape de Verde Islands; recrossed it once more in a great
zig-zag from the African coast, through the equatorial regions to Bahia,
Brazil; and thence, if the expression may be used, by a great angular
sweep through the Southern Ocean to Tristan d’Acunha _en route_ to the
Cape, where they made an interesting discovery, one that, unlike their
other findings, was most interesting to the _discovered_ also. It was that
of _two_ modern Robinson Crusoes, who had been living by themselves a
couple of years on a desolate rocky island, the name of which,
“Inaccessible,” rightly describes its character and position in mid ocean.
Juan Fernandez, the _locale_ of Defoe’s immortal story, is nothing to it
now-a-days, and is constantly visited. On arrival at the island of Tristan
d’Acunha, itself a miserable settlement of about a dozen cottages, the
people, mostly from the Cape and St. Helena, some of them mulattoes,
informed the officers of the _Challenger_ that two Germans, brothers, had
some time before settled, for the purpose of catching seals, on a small
island about thirty miles off, and that, not having been over there or
seen any signs of them for a long time, they feared that they had
perished. It turned out afterwards that the Tristan d’Acunha people had
not taken any trouble in the matter, looking on them as interlopers on
their fishing-grounds. They had promised to send them some animals—a bull,
cow, and heifer—but, although they had stock and fowls of all kinds, had
left them to their fate. But first as to this little-known Tristan
d’Acunha, of which Lord George Campbell(29) furnishes the following
account:—“It is a circular-shaped island, some nine miles in diameter, a
peak rising in the centre 8,300 feet high—a fine sight, snow-covered as it
is two-thirds of the way down. In the time of Napoleon a guard of our
marines was sent there from the Cape; but the connection between Nap’s
being caged at St. Helena and a guard of marines occupying this island is
not very obvious, is it? Any way, that was the commencement of a
settlement which has continued with varying numbers to this day, the
marines having long ago been withdrawn, and now eighty-six people—men,
women, and children—live here.... A precipitous wall of cliff, rising
abruptly from the sea, encircles the island, excepting where the
settlement is, and there the cliff recedes and leaves a long grass slope
of considerable extent, covered with grey boulders. The cottages, in
number about a dozen, look very Scotch from the ship, with their white
walls, straw roofs, and stone dykes around them. Sheep, cattle, pigs,
geese, ducks, and fowls they have in plenty, also potatoes and other
vegetables, all of which they sell to whalers, who give them flour or
money in exchange. The appearance of the place makes one shudder; it looks
so thoroughly as though it were always blowing there—which, indeed, it is,
heavy storms continually sweeping over, killing their cattle right and
left before they have time to drive them under shelter. They say that they
have lost 100 head of cattle lately by these storms, which kill the
animals, particularly the calves, from sheer fatigue.” The men of the
place often go whaling or sealing cruises with the ships that touch there.
[Illustration: DREDGING IMPLEMENTS USED BY THE “CHALLENGER.”
Fig. 1, Sounding machines. Fig. 2, Slip water-bottles. Fig. 3, Deep-sea
thermometer. Fig. 4, The dredge. Fig. 5, Cup sounding lead.]
The _Challenger_ steamed slowly over to Inaccessible Island during the
night, and anchored next morning off its northern side, where rose a
magnificent wall of black cliff, splashed green with moss and ferns,
rising sheer 1,300 feet above the sea. Between two headlands a strip of
stony beach, with a small hut on it, could be seen. This was the residence
of our two Crusoes.
Their story, told when the first exuberance of joy at the prospect of
being taken off the island had passed away, was as follows:—One of the
brothers had been cast away on Tristan d’Acunha some years before, in
consequence of the burning of his ship. There he and his companions of the
crew had been kindly treated by the settlers, and told that at one of the
neighbouring islands 1,700 seals had been captured in one season. Telling
this to a brother when he at last reached home in the Fatherland, the two
of them, fired with the ambition of acquiring money quickly, determined to
exile themselves for a while to the islands. By taking passage on an
outward-bound steamer from Southampton, and later transferring themselves
to a whaler, they reached their destination in safety on the 27th of
November, 1871. They had purchased an old whale-boat—mast, sails, and oars
complete—and landed with a fair supply of flour, biscuit, coffee, tea,
sugar, salt, and tobacco, sufficient for present needs. They had blankets
and some covers, which were easily filled with bird’s feathers—a German
could hardly forget his national luxury, his feather-bed. They had
provided themselves with a wheelbarrow, sundry tools, pot and kettles; a
short Enfield rifle, and an old fowling-piece, and a very limited supply
of powder, bullets, and shot. They had also sensibly provided themselves
with some seeds, so that, all in all, they started life on the island
under favourable circumstances.
The west side of the island, on which they landed, consisted of a beach
some three miles in length, with a bank of earth, covered with the strong
long tussock grass, rising to the cliff, which it was just possible to
scale. The walls of rock by which the island is bounded afforded few
opportunities for reaching the comparatively level plateau at the top.
Without the aid of the grass it was impossible, and in one place, which
had to be climbed constantly, it took them an hour and a half of hard
labour, holding on with hands and feet, and _even teeth_, to reach the
summit. Meantime, they had found on the north side a suitable place for
building their hut, near a waterfall that fell from the side of the
mountain, and close to a wood, from which they could obtain all the
firewood they required. Their humble dwelling was partly constructed of
spars from the vessel that had brought them to the island, and was
thatched with grass. About this time (December) the seals were landing in
the coast, it being the pupping season, and they killed nineteen. In
hunting them their whale-boat, which was too heavy for two men to handle,
was seriously damaged in landing through the surf; but yet, with constant
bailing, could be kept afloat. A little later they cut it in halves, and
constructed from the best parts a smaller boat, which was christened the
_Sea Cart_. During the summer rains their house became so leaky that they
pulled it down, and shifted their quarters to another spot. At the
beginning of April the tussock grass, by which they had ascended the
cliff, caught fire, and their means of reaching game, in the shape of wild
pigs and goats, was cut off. Winter (about our summer-time, as in
Australia, &c.) was approaching, and it became imperative to think of
laying in provisions. By means of the _Sea Cart_ they went round to the
west side, and succeeded in killing two goats and a pig, the latter of
which furnished a bucket of fat for frying potatoes. The wild boars there
were found to be almost uneatable; but the sows were good eating. The
goats’ flesh was said to be very delicate. An English ship passed them far
out at sea, and they lighted a fire to attract attention, but in vain;
while the surf was running too high, and their _Cart_ too shaky to attempt
to reach it.
Hitherto they had experienced no greater hardships than they had expected,
and were prepared for. But in June [mid-winter] their boat was, during a
storm, washed off the beach, and broken up. This was to them a terrible
disaster; their old supplies were exhausted, and they were practically cut
off from not merely the world in general, but even the rest of the island.
They got weaker and weaker, and by August were little better than two
skeletons.
The sea was too tempestuous, and the distance too great for them to
attempt to swim round (as they afterwards did) to another part of the
island. But succour was at hand; they were saved by the penguins, a very
clumsy form of relief. The female birds came ashore in August to lay their
eggs in the nests already prepared by their lords and masters, the male
birds, who had landed some two or three weeks previously. Our good Germans
had divided their last potato, and were in a very weak and despondent
condition when the pleasant fact stared them in the face that they might
now fatten on eggs _ad libitum_. Their new diet soon put fresh heart and
courage in them, and when, early in September, a French bark sent a boat
ashore, they determined still to remain on the island. They arranged with
the captain for the sale of their seal-skins, and bartered a quantity of
eggs for some biscuit and a couple of pounds of tobacco. Late in October a
schooner from the Cape of Good Hope called at the island, and on leaving,
promised to return for them, as they had decided to quit the island, not
having had any success in obtaining peltries or anything else that is
valuable; but she did not re-appear, and in November their supplies were
again at starvation-point. Selecting a calm day, the two Crusoes
determined to swim round the headland to the eastward, taking with them
their rifles and blankets, and towing after them an empty oil-barrel
containing their clothes, powder, matches, and kettle. This they repeated
later on several occasions, and, climbing the cliffs by the tussock grass,
were able to kill or secure on the plateau a few of the wild pigs.
Sometimes one of them only would mount, and after killing a pig would cut
it up and lower the hams to his brother below. They caught three little
sucking-pigs, and towed them alive through the waves, round the point of
their landing-place, where they arrived half drowned. They were put in an
enclosure, and fed on green stuff and penguin’s eggs—good feeding for a
delicate little porker. Attempting on another occasion to tow a couple in
the same way, the unfortunate pigs met a watery grave in the endeavour to
weather the point, and one of the brothers barely escaped, with some few
injuries, through a terrible surf which was beating on their part of the
coast. Part of their time was passed in a cave during the cold weather.
When the _Challenger_ arrived their only rifle had burst in two places,
and was of little use, while their musket was completely burst in all
directions, and was being used as a blow-pipe to freshen the fire when it
got low. Their only knives had been made by themselves from an old saw.
Their library consisted of eight books and an atlas, and these, affording
their only literary recreation for two years, they knew almost literally
by heart. When they first landed they had a dog and two pups, which they,
doubtless, hoped would prove something like companions. The dogs almost
immediately left, and made for the penguin rookeries, where they killed
and worried the birds by hundreds. One of them became mad, and the
brothers thought it best to shoot the three of them. Captain Nares gave
the two Crusoes a passage to the Cape, where one of them obtained a good
situation; the other returned to Germany, doubtless thinking that about a
couple of dozen seal-skins—all they obtained—was hardly enough to reward
them for their two years’ dreary sojourn on Inaccessible Island.
[Illustration]
Chapter III.
THE MEN OF THE SEA.
The great Lexicographer on Sailors—The Dangers of the Sea—How Boys
become Sailors—Young Amyas Leigh—The Genuine Jack
Tar—Training-Ships _versus_ the old Guard-Ships—“Sea-goers and
Waisters”—The Training Undergone—Routine on Board—Never-ending
Work—Ship like a Lady’s Watch—Watches and “Bells”—Old Grogram and
Grog—The Sailor’s Sheet Anchor—Shadows in the Seaman’s Life—The
Naval Cat—Testimony and Opinion of a Medical Officer—An
Example—Boy Flogging in the Navy—Shakespeare and Herbert on
Sailors and the Sea.
Dr. Johnson, whose personal weight seems to have had something to do with
that carried by his opinion, considered going to sea a species of
insanity.(30) “No man,” said he, “will be a sailor who has contrivance
enough to get himself into a jail: for being in a ship is being in a jail,
with the chance of being drowned.” The great lexicographer knew Fleet
Street better than he did the fleet, and his opinion, as expressed above,
was hardly even decently patriotic or sensible. Had all men thought as he
professed to do—probably for the pleasure of saying something ponderously
brilliant for the moment—we should have had no naval or commercial
superiority to-day—in short, no England.
The dangers of the sea are serious enough, but need not be exaggerated.
One writer(31) indeed, in serio-comic vein, makes his sailors sing in a
gale—
“When you and I, Bill, on the deck
Are comfortably lying,
My eyes! what tiles and chimney-pots
About their heads are flying!”
leading us to infer that the dangers of town-life are greater than those
of the sea in a moderate gale. We might remind the reader that Mark Twain
has conclusively shown, from statistics, that more people die in bed
comfortably at home than are killed by all the railroad, steamship, or
other accidents in the world, the inference being that going to bed is a
dangerous habit! But the fact is, that wherever there is danger there will
be brave men found to face it—even when it takes the desperate form just
indicated! So that there is nothing surprising in the fact that in all
times there have been men ready to go to sea.
Of those who have succeeded, the larger proportion have been carried
thither by the spirit of adventure. It would be difficult to say whether
it has been more strongly developed through actual “surroundings,” as
believed by one of England’s most intelligent and friendly critics,(32)
who says, “The ocean draws them just as a pond attracts young ducks,” or
through the influence of literature bringing the knowledge of wonderful
voyages and discoveries within the reach of all. The former are immensely
strong influences. The boy who lives by, and loves the sea, and notes
daily the ships of all nations passing to and fro, or who, maybe, dwells
in some naval or commercial port, and sees constantly great vessels
arriving and departing, and hears the tales of sailors bold, concerning
new lands and curious things, is very apt to become imbued with the spirit
of adventure. How charmingly has Charles Kingsley written on the latter
point!(33) How young Amyas Leigh, gentle born, and a mere stripling
schoolboy, edged his way under the elbows of the sailor men on Bideford
Quay to listen to Captain John Oxenham tell his stories of heaps—“seventy
foot long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high”—of silver bars, and
Spanish treasure, and far-off lands and peoples, and easy victories over
the coward Dons! How Oxenham, on a recruiting bent, sang out, with good
broad Devon accent, “Who ’lists? who ’lists? who’ll make his fortune?
“‘Oh, who will join, jolly mariners all?
And who will join, says he, O!
To fill his pockets with the good red goold,
By sailing on the sea, O!’”
And how young Leigh, fired with enthusiasm, made answer, boldly, “I want
to go to sea; I want to see the Indies. I want to fight the Spaniards.
Though I’m a gentleman’s son, I’d a deal liever be a cabin-boy on board
your ship.” And how, although he did not go with swaggering John, he lived
to first round the world with great Sir Francis Drake, and after fight
against the “Invincible” Armada. The story had long before, and has many a
time since, been enacted in various forms among all conditions of men. To
some, however, the sea has been a last refuge, and many such have been
converted into brave and hardy men, perforce themselves; while many
others, in the good old days of press-gangs, appeared, as Marryat tells
us, “to fight as hard not to be forced into the service as they did for
the honour of the country after they were fairly embarked in it.” It may
not generally be known that the law which concerns impressing has never
been abolished, although there is no fear that it will ever again be
resorted to in these days of naval reserves, training-ships, and naval
volunteers.
The altered circumstances of the age, arising from the introduction of
steam, and the greatly increased inter-commercial relations of the whole
world, have made the Jack Tar pure and simple comparatively rare in these
days; not, we believe, so much from his disappearance off the scene as by
the numbers of differently employed men on board by whom he is surrounded,
and in a sense hidden. A few A.B.’s and ordinary seamen are required on
any steamship; but the whole tribe of mechanicians, from the important
rank of chief engineer downwards, from assistants to stokers and
coal-passers, need not know one rope from another. On the other hand, the
rapid increase of commerce has apparently outrun the natural increase of
qualified seamen, and many a good ship nowadays, we are sorry to say, goes
to sea with a very motley crew of “green” hands, landlubbers, and
foreigners of all nationalities, including Lascars, Malays, and Kanakas,
from the Sandwich Islands. A “confusion of tongues,” not very desirable on
board a vessel, reigns supreme, and renders the position of the officers
by no means enviable. To obviate these difficulties, and furnish a supply
of good material both to the Royal Navy and Mercantile Marine,
training-ships have been organised, which have been, so far, highly
successful. Let these embryo defenders of their country’s interests have
the first place.
Of course, at all periods the boys, and others who entered to serve before
the mast, received some training, and picked up the rest if they were
reasonably clever. The brochure of “an old salt,”(34) which has recently
appeared, gives a fair account of his own treatment and reception. Running
away from London, as many another boy has done, with a few coppers in his
pocket, he tramped to Sheerness, taking by the way a hearty supper of
turnips with a family of sheep in a field. Arrived at his destination, he
found a handsome flag-ship, surrounded by a number of large and small
vessels. Selecting the very smallest—as best adapted to his own size—he
went on board, and asked the first officer he met—one who wore but a
single epaulet—whether his ship was “_manned__ with boys_?” He was
answered, “No, I want men; and pray what may you want?” “I want to go to
sea, sir, please.” “You had better go home to your mother,” was the
answer. With the next officer—“a real captain, wearing grey hair, and as
straight as a line”—he fared better, and was eventually entered as a
third-class boy, and sent on board a guard-ship. Here he was rather
fortunate in being taken in charge by a petty officer, who had, as was
often the case then, his wife living on board. The lady ruled supreme in
the mess. She served out the grog, too, and, to prevent intoxication among
the men, used to keep one finger inside the measure! This enabled her to
the better take care of her husband. She is described as the best “man” in
the mess, and irresistibly reminds us of Mrs. Trotter in “Peter Simple,”
who had such a horror of rum that she could not be induced to take it
except when the water was bad. The water, however, always _was_ bad! But
the former lady took good care of the new-comer, while, as we know, Mrs.
Trotter fleeced poor Peter out of three pounds sterling and twelve pairs
of stockings before he had been an hour on board. Mr. Mindry tells the
usual stories of the practical jokes he had to endure—about being sent to
the doctor’s mate for mustard, for which he received a peppering; of the
constant thrashings he received—in one case, with a number of others,
receiving two dozen for _losing his dinner_. He was cook of the mess for
the time, and having mixed his dough, had taken it to the galley-oven,
from the door of which a sudden lurch of the ship had ejected it on the
main deck, “the contents making a very good representation of the White
Sea.” The crime for which he and his companions suffered was for
endeavouring to scrape it up again! But the gradual steps by which he was
educated upwards, till he became a gunner of the first class, prove that,
all in all, he had cheerily taken the bull by the horns, determined to
rise as far and fast as he might in an honourable profession. He was after
a year or so transferred to a vessel fitting for the West Indies, and soon
got a taste of active life. This was in 1837. Forty or fifty years before,
the guard-ships were generally little better than floating pandemoniums.
They were used partly for breaking in raw hands, and were also the
intermediate stopping-places for men waiting to join other ships. In a
guard-ship of the period described, a most heterogeneous mass of humanity
was assembled. Human invention could not scheme work for the whole, while
skulking, impracticable in other vessels of the Royal Navy, was deemed
highly meritorious there. A great body of men were thus very often
assembled together, who resolved themselves into hostile classes,
separated as any two castes of the Hindoos. A clever writer in
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, more than fifty years ago, describes them first as
“sea-goers,”—_i.e._, sailors separated from their vessels by illness, or
temporary causes, or ordered to other vessels, who looked on the
guard-ship as a floating hotel, and, having what they were pleased to call
_ships of their own_, were the aristocrats of the occasion, who would do
no more work than they were obliged. The second, and by far the most
numerous class, were termed “waisters,” and were the simple, the
unfortunate, or the utterly abandoned, a body held on board in the utmost
contempt, and most of whom, in regard to clothing, were wretched in the
extreme. The “waister” had to do everything on board that was
menial—swabbing, sweeping, and drudging generally. At night, in defiance
of his hard and unceasing labour, he too often became a bandit, prowling
about seeking what he might devour or appropriate. What a contrast to the
clean orderly training-ships of to-day! Some little information on this
subject, but imperfectly understood by the public, may perhaps be
permitted here.
[Illustration: THE “CHICHESTER” TRAINING-SHIP.]
It is not generally known that our supply of seamen for the Royal Navy is
nowadays almost entirely derived from the training-ships—first established
about fourteen years ago. In a late blue-book it was stated that during a
period of five years only 107 men had been entered from other sources, who
had not previously served. Training-ships, accommodating about 3,000, are
stationed at Devonport, Falmouth, Portsmouth, and Portland, where the lads
remain for about a year previous to being sent on sea-going ships. The age
of entry has varied at different periods; it is now fifteen to sixteen and
a half years. The recruiting statistics show whence a large proportion
come—from the men of Devon, who contribute, as they did in the days of
Drake and Hawkins, Gilbert and Raleigh, the largest quota of men willing
to make their “heritage the sea.”
Dr. Peter Comrie, R.N., a gentleman who has made this matter a study,
informs the writer that on board these ships, as regards cleanliness, few
gentlemen’s sons are better attended to, while their education is not
neglected, as they have a good schoolmaster on all ships of any size. He
says that boys brought up in the service not merely make the best seamen,
but generally like the navy, and stick to it. The order, cleanliness, and
tidy ways obligatory on board a man-of-war, make, in many cases, the
ill-regulated fo’castle of most merchant ships very distasteful to them.
Their drilling is just sufficient to keep them in healthy condition. No
one can well imagine the difference wrought in the appearance of the
street arab, or the Irish peasant boy, by a short residence on board one
of these ships. He fills out, becomes plump, loses his gaunt, haggard,
hunted look; is natty in his appearance, and assumes that jaunty, rolling
gait that a person gifted with what is called “sea-legs” is supposed to
exhibit. Still, “we,” writes the doctor, “have known Irish boys, who had
very rarely even perhaps seen animal food, when first put upon the liberal
dietary of the service, complain that they were being starved, their
stomachs having been so used to be distended with large quantities of
vegetables, that it took some time before the organ accommodated itself to
a more nutritious but less filling dietary.”
You have only got to watch the boy from the training-ship on leave to
judge that the navy has yet some popularity. Neatly dressed, clean and
natty, surrounded by his quondam playmates, he is “the observed of all
observers,” and is gazed at with admiring respect by the street arab from
a respectful distance. He has, perhaps, learned to “spin a few yarns,” and
give the approved hitch to his trousers, and, while giving a favourable
account of his life on board ship, with its forecastle jollity and “four
bitter,” is the best recruiting-officer the service can have. The great
point to be attended to, in order to make him a sailor, is that “you must
catch him young.”(35) That a good number have been so caught is proved by
the navy estimates, which now provide for over 7,000 boys, 4,000 of the
number in sea-going ships.
Governments, as governments, may be paternal, but are rarely very
benevolent, and the above excellent institutions are only organised for
the safety and strength of the navy. There is another class of
training-ships, which owe their existence to benevolence, and deserve
every encouragement—those for rescuing our street waifs from the treadmill
and prison. The larger part of these do not enter the navy, but are passed
into the Merchant Marine, their training being very similar. The
Government simply _lends_ the ship. Thus the _Chichester_, at Greenhithe,
a vessel which had been in 1868 a quarter of a century lying
useless—_never_ having seen service—was turned over to a society, a mere
shell or carcase, her masts, rigging, and other fittings having to be
provided by private subscriptions. Her case irresistibly reminds the
writer of a vessel, imaginary only in name, described by James
Hannay:(36)—“H.M.S. _Patagonian_ was built as a three-decker, at a cost of
£120,000, when it was discovered that she could not sail. She was then cut
down into a frigate, at a cost of £50,000, when it was found out that she
would not tack. She was next built up into a two-decker, at a cost of
another £50,000, and then it was discovered she could be made useful, so
the Admiralty kept her unemployed for ten years!” A good use was, however,
found at last for the _Chichester_, thanks to benevolent people, the
quality of whose mercy is twice blessed, for they both help the wretched
youngsters, and turn them into good boys for our ships. Some of these
street arabs previously have hardly been under a roof at night for years
together. Hear M. Esquiros:—“To these little ones London is a desert, and,
though lost in the drifting sands of the crowd, they never fail to find
their way. The greater part of them contract a singular taste for this
hard and almost savage kind of life. They love the open sky, and at night
all they dread is the eye of the policeman; their young minds become
fertile in resources, and glory in their independence in the ‘battle of
life;’ but if no helping hand is stretched out to arrest them in this
fatal and down-hill path, they surely gravitate to the treadmill and the
prison. How could it be otherwise?... The question is, what are these lads
good for?” That problem, M. Esquiros, as you with others predicted, has
been solved satisfactorily. The poor lads form excellent raw material for
our ever-increasing sea-service.
The training of a naval cadet—_i.e._, an embryo midshipman, or
“midshipmite” (as poor Peter Simple was irreverently called—before,
however, the days of naval cadets)—is very similar in many respects to
that of an embryo seaman, but includes many other acquirements. After
obtaining his nomination from the Admiralty, and undergoing a simple
preliminary examination at the Royal Naval College in ordinary branches of
knowledge, he is passed to a training-ship, which to-day is the
_Britannia_ at Dartmouth. Here he is taught all the ordinary acquirements
in rigging, seamanship, and gunnery; and, to fit him to be an officer, he
is instructed in taking observations for latitude and longitude, in
geometry, trigonometry, and algebra. He also goes through a course of
drawing-lessons and modern languages. He is occasionally sent off on a
brig for a short cruise, and after a year on the training-ship, during
which he undergoes a quarterly examination, he is passed to a sea-going
ship. His position on leaving depends entirely on his certificate—if he
obtains one of the First Class, he is immediately rated midshipman; while
if he only obtains a Third Class certificate, he will have to serve twelve
months more on the sea-going ship, and pass another examination before he
can claim that rank.(37)
The actual experiences of intelligent sailors, or voyagers, written by
themselves, have, of course, a greater practical value than the
sea-stories of clever novelists, while the latter, as a class, confine
themselves very much to the quarter-deck. Dana’s “Two Years Before the
Mast” is so well known that few of our readers need to be told that it is
the story of an American student, who had undermined his health by
over-application, and who took a voyage, _viâ_ Cape Horn, to California in
order to recover it. But the old brig _Pilgrim_, bound to the northern
Pacific coast for a cargo of hides, was hardly a fair example, in some
respects, of an ordinary merchant-vessel, to say nothing of a fine clipper
or modern steam-ship. Dana’s experiences were of the roughest type, and
may be read by boys, anxious to go to sea, with advantage, if taken in
conjunction with those of others; many of them are common to all grades of
sea service. A little work by a “Sailor-boy,”(38) published some years
ago, gives a very fair idea of a seaman’s lot in the Royal Navy, and the
two stories in conjunction present a fair average view of sea-life and its
duties.
Passing over the young sailor-boy’s admission to the training-ship—the
“Guardho,” as he terms it—we find his first days on board devoted to the
mysteries of knots and hitch-making, in learning to lash hammocks, and in
rowing, and in acquiring the arts of “feathering” and “tossing” an oar.
Incidentally he gives us some information on the etiquette observed in
boats passing with an officer on board. “For a lieutenant, the coxswain
only gets up and takes his cap off; for a captain, the boat’s crew lay on
their oars, and the coxswain takes his cap off; and for an admiral the
oars are tossed (_i.e._, raised perpendicularly, _not_ thrown in the
air!), and all caps go off.” Who would not be an admiral? While in this
“instruction” he received his sailor’s clothes—a pair of blue cloth
trousers, two pairs of white duck ditto, two blue serge and two white
frocks, two pairs of white “jumpers,” two caps, two pairs of stockings, a
knife, and a marking-type. As soon as he is “made a sailor” by these
means, he was ordered to the mast-head, and tells with glee how he was
able to go up outside by the futtock shrouds, and not through “lubber’s
hole.” The reader doubtless knows that the lubber’s hole is an open space
between the head of the lower mast and the edge of the top; it is so named
from the supposition that a “land-lubber” would prefer that route. The
French call it the _trou du chat_—the hole through which the cat would
climb. Next he commenced cutlass-drill, followed by rifle-drill, big-gun
practice, instruction in splicing, and all useful knots, and in using the
compass and lead-line. He was afterwards sent on a brig for a short sea
cruise. “Having,” says he, “to run aloft without shoes was a heavy trial
to me, and my feet often were so sore and blistered that I have sat down
in the ‘tops’ and cried with the pain; yet up I had to go, and furl and
loose my sails; and up I did go, blisters and all. Sometimes the pain was
so bad I could not move smartly, and then the unmerited rebuke from a
thoughtless officer was as gall and wormwood to me.”
Dana, in speaking of the incessant work on board any vessel, says, “A ship
is like a lady’s watch—always out of repair.” When, for example, in a
calm, the sails hanging loosely, the hot sun pouring down on deck, and no
way on the vessel, which lies
“As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean,”
there is always sufficient work for the men, in “setting up” the rigging,
which constantly requires lightening and repairing, in picking oakum for
caulking, in brightening up the metal-work, and in holystoning the deck.
The holystone is a large piece of porous stone,(39) which is dragged in
alternate ways by two sailors over the deck, sand being used to increase
its effect. It obtains its name from the fact that Sunday morning is a
very common time on many merchant-vessels for cleaning up generally.
[Illustration: INSTRUCTION ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR.]
The daily routine of our young sailor on the experimental cruises gave him
plenty of employment. In his own words it was as follows:—Commencing at
five a.m.—“Turn hands up; holystone or scrub upper deck; coil down ropes.
Half-past six—breakfast, half an hour; call the watch, watch below, clean
the upper deck; watch on deck, clean wood and brass-work; put the upper
decks to rights. Eight a.m.—hands to quarters; clean guns and arms;
division for inspection; prayers; make sail, reef topsails, furl
top-sails, top-gallant sails, royals; reef courses, down top-gallant and
royal yards. This continued till eight bells, twelve o’clock, dinner one
hour. ‘All hands again; cutlass, rifle, and big-gun drill till four
o’clock; clear up decks, coil up ropes;’ and then our day’s work is done.”
Then they would make little trips to sea, many of them to experience the
woes of sea-sickness for the first time.
But the boys on the clean and well-kept training-brig were better off in
all respects than poor Dana. When first ordered aloft, he tells us, “I had
not got my ‘sea-legs’ on, was dreadfully sea-sick, with hardly strength to
hold on to anything, and it was ‘pitch-dark’ * * * How I got along I
cannot now remember. I ‘laid out’ on the yards, and held on with all my
strength. I could not have been of much service; for I remember having
been sick several times before I left the top-sail yard. Soon all was snug
aloft, and we were again allowed to go below. This I did not consider much
of a favour; for the confusion of everything below, and that inexpressibly
sickening smell, caused by the shaking up of bilge-water in the hold, made
the steerage but an indifferent refuge to the cold, wet decks. I had often
read of the nautical experiences of others, but I felt as though there
could be none worse than mine; for, in addition to every other evil, I
could not but remember that this was only the first night of a two years’
voyage. When we were all on deck, we were not much better off, for we were
continually ordered about by the officer, who said that it was good for us
to be in motion. Yet anything was better than the horrible state of things
below. I remember very well going to the hatchway and putting my head
down, when I was oppressed by nausea, and felt like being relieved
immediately.” We can fully recommend the example of Dana, who, acting on
the advice of the black cook on board, munched away at a good half-pound
of salt beef and hard biscuit, which, washed down with cold water, soon,
he says, made a man of him.
Some little explanation of the mode of dividing time on board ship may be
here found useful. A “watch” is a term both for a division of the crew and
of their time: a full watch is four hours. At the expiration of each four
hours, commencing from twelve o’clock noon, the men below are called in
these or similar terms—“All the starboard (or port) watch ahoy! Eight
bells!” The watch from four p.m. to eight p.m. is divided, on a
well-regulated ship, into two “dog-watches;” the object of this is to make
an uneven number of periods—seven, instead of six, so that the men change
the order of their watches daily. Otherwise, it will be seen that a man,
who, on leaving port, stood in a particular watch—from twelve noon to four
p.m.—would stand in the same watch throughout the voyage; and he who had
two night-watches at first would always have them. The periods of the
“dog-watches” are usually devoted to smoking and recreation for those off
duty.
As the terms involved must occur frequently in this work, it is necessary
also to explain for some readers the division of time itself by “bells.”
The limit is “eight bells,” which are struck at twelve, four, and eight
o’clock a.m. or p.m. The ship’s bell is sounded each half-hour. Half-past
any of the above hours is “one bell” struck sharply by itself. At the
hour, two strokes are made sharply _following_ each other. Expressing the
strokes by signs, half-past twelve would be | (representing one stroke);
one o’clock would be || (two strokes sharply struck, one after the other);
half-past one, || |; two o’clock, || ||; half-past two, || || |; three
o’clock, || || ||; half-past three, || || || |; and four o’clock, || || ||
||, or “eight bells.” The process is then repeated in the next watch, and
the only disturbing element comes from the elements, which occasionally,
when the vessel rolls or pitches greatly, cause the bell to strike without
leave.
Seamen before the mast are divided into three classes—able, ordinary, and
boys. In the merchant service a “green hand” of forty may be rated as a
boy; a landsman must ship for boy’s wages on the first voyage. Merchant
seamen rate themselves—in other words, they cause themselves to be entered
on the ship’s books according to their qualifications and experience.
There are few instances of abuse in this matter, and for good reason.
Apart from the disgrace and reduction of wages and rating which would
follow, woe to the man who sets himself up for an A.B. when he should
enter as a boy; for the rest of the crew consider it a fraud on
themselves. The vessel would be short-handed of a man of the class
required, and their work would be proportionately increased. No mercy
would be shown to such an impostor, and his life on board would be that of
a dog, but anything rather than that of a “jolly sea-dog.”(40)
There are lights in the sailor’s chequered life. Seamen are, Shakespeare
tells us, “but men”—and, if we are to believe Dibdin, grog is a decided
element in their happier hours. “Grog” is now a generic term; but it was
not always. One Admiral Vernon—who persisted in wearing a grogram(41)
tunic so much that he was known among his subordinates as “Old
Grog”—earned immortality of a disagreeable nature by watering the
rum-ration of the navy to its present standard. At 11.30 a.m., on all
ships of the Royal Navy nowadays, half a gill of watered rum—two parts of
water to one of the stronger drink—is served out to each of the crew,
unless they have forfeited it by some act of insubordination. The
officers, including the petty officers, draw half a gill of pure rum; the
former put it into the general mess, and many never taste it. “Six-water”
grog is a mild form of punishment. “Splicing the main-brace” infers extra
grog served out for extraordinary service. Formerly, and, indeed, as late
as forty odd years ago, the daily ration was a full gill; but, as sailors
traded and bartered their drinks among themselves, it would happen once in
awhile that one would get too much “on board.” It has happened
occasionally in consequence that a seaman has tumbled overboard, or fallen
from the yards or rigging, and has met an inglorious death. Boys are not
allowed grog in the Royal Navy, and there is no absolute rule among
merchant-vessels. In the American navy there is a coin allowance in lieu
of rum, and every nation has its own peculiarities in this matter. In the
French navy, wine, very _ordinaire_, and a little brandy is issued.
There are shadows, too, in the sailor’s life—as a rule, he brings them on
himself, but by no means always. If sailors are “but men,” officers rank
in the same category, and occasionally act like brutes. So much has been
written on the subject of the naval “cat”—a punishment once dealt out for
most trifling offences, and not abolished yet, that the writer has some
diffidence in approaching the subject. A volume might be written on the
theme; let the testimony of Dr. Stables,(42) a surgeon of the Royal Navy,
suffice. It shall be told in his own words:—
“One item of duty there is, which occasionally devolves on the medical
officer, and for the most part goes greatly against the feeling of the
young surgeon; I refer to his compulsory attendance at floggings. It is
only fair to state that the majority of captains and commanders use the
cat as seldom as possible, and that, too, only sparingly. In some ships,
however, flogging is nearly as frequent as prayers of a morning. Again, it
is more common on foreign stations than at home, and boys of the first or
second class, marines, and ordinary seamen, are for the most part the
victims.... We were at anchor in Simon’s Bay. All the minutiæ of the scene
I remember as though it were but yesterday. The morning was cool and
clear, the hills clad in lilac and green, sea-birds floating high in air,
and the waters of the bay reflecting the blue of the sky, and the lofty
mountain-sides forming a picture almost dream-like in its quietude and
serenity. The men were standing about in groups, dressed in their whitest
of pantaloons, bluest of smocks, and neatest of black-silk neckerchiefs.
By-and-by the culprit was led in by a file of marines, and I went below
with him to make the preliminary examination, in order to report whether
or not he might be fit for the punishment.
“He was as good a specimen of the British mariner as one could wish to
look upon—hardy, bold, and wiry. His crime had been smuggling spirits on
board.
“‘Needn’t examine me, doctor,’ said he; ‘I aint afeared of their four
dozen; they can’t hurt me, sir—leastways my back, you know—my breast,
though; hum—m!’ and he shook his head, rather sadly I thought, as he bent
down his eyes.
“‘What,’ said I, ‘have you anything the matter with your chest?’
“‘Nay, doctor, nay; it’s my feelings they’ll hurt. I’ve a little girl at
home that loves me, and, bless you, sir, I won’t look her in the face
again nohow.’
“I felt his pulse. No lack of strength there, no nervousness; the artery
had the firm beat of health, the tendons felt like rods of iron beneath
the finger, and his biceps stood out hard and round as the mainstay of an
old seventy-four.... All hands had already assembled—the men and boys on
one side, and the officers, in cocked hats and swords, on the other. A
grating had been lashed against the bulwark, and another placed on deck
beside it. The culprit’s shoulders and back were bared, and a strong belt
fastened around the lower part of the loins for protection; he was then
firmly tied by the hands to the upper, and by the feet to the lower
grating; a little basin of cold water was placed at his feet, and all was
now prepared. The sentence was read, and orders given to proceed with the
punishment. The cat is a terrible instrument of torture; I would not use
it on a bull unless in self-defence; the shaft is about a foot and a half
long, and covered with green or red baize, according to taste; the thongs
are nine, about twenty-eight inches in length, of the thickness of a
goose-quill, and with two knots tied on each. Men describe the first blow
as like a shower of molten lead.
“Combing out the thongs with his five fingers before each blow, firmly and
determinedly was the first dozen delivered by the bo’swain’s mate, and as
unflinchingly received.
“Then, ‘One dozen, sir, please,’ he reported, saluting the commander.
“‘Continue the punishment,’ was the calm reply.
“A new man, and a new cat. Another dozen reported; again the same reply.
Three dozen. The flesh, like burning steel, had changed from red to
purple, and blue, and white; and between the third and fourth dozen, the
suffering wretch, pale enough now, and in all probability sick, begged a
comrade to give him a mouthful of water.
“There was a tear in the eye of the hardy sailor who obeyed him,
whispering as he did so, ‘Keep up, Bill; it’ll soon be over now.’
“‘Five, six,’ the corporal slowly counted; ‘seven, eight.’ It is the last
dozen, and how acute must be the torture! ‘Nine, ten.’ The blood comes now
fast enough, and—yes, gentle reader, I _will_ spare your feelings. The man
was cast loose at last, and put on the sick-list; he had borne his
punishment without a groan, and without moving a muscle. A large pet
monkey sat crunching nuts in the rigging, and grinning all the time; I
have no doubt _he_ enjoyed the spectacle immensely, _for he was only an
ape_.”
Dr. Stables gives his opinion on the use of the cat in honest and
outspoken terms. He considers “corporal punishment, as applied to men,
_cowardly_, _cruel_, and debasing to _human nature_; and as applied to
boys, _brutal_, and sometimes even _fiendish_.”
The writer has statistics before him which prove that 456 cases of
flogging boys took place in 1875, and that only seven men were punished
during that year. There is every probability that the use of the naval cat
will ere long be abolished, and important as is good discipline on board
ship, there are many leading authorities who believe that it can be
maintained without it. The captain of a vessel is its king, reigning in a
little world of his own, and separated for weeks or months from the
possibility of reprimand. If he is a tyrannical man, he can make his ship
a floating hell for all on board. A system of fines for small offences has
been proposed, and the idea has this advantage, that in case they prove on
investigation to have been unjustly imposed, the money can be returned.
The disgrace of a flogging sticks to a boy or man, and, besides, as a
punishment is infinitely too severe for most of the offences for which it
is inflicted. It would be a cruel punishment were the judge infallible,
but with an erring human being for an irresponsible judge, the matter is
far worse. And that good seamen are deterred from entering the Royal Navy,
knowing that the commission of a peccadillo or two may bring down the cat
on their unlucky shoulders, is a matter of fact.
We shall meet the sailor on the sea many a time and again during the
progress of this work, and see how hardly he earns his scanty reward in
the midst of the awful dangers peculiar to the elements he dares.
Shakespeare says that he is—
“A man whom both the waters and the wind,
In that vast tennis-court, hath made the ball
For them to play on”—
that the men of all others who have made England what she is, have not
altogether a bed of roses even on a well-conducted vessel, whilst they may
lose their lives at any moment by shipwreck and sudden death. George
Herbert says—
“Praise the sea, but keep on land.”
And while the present writer would be sorry to prevent any healthy,
capable, adventurous boy from entering a noble profession, he recommends
him to first study the literature of the sea to the best and fullest of
his ability. Our succeeding chapter will exhibit some of the special
perils which surround the sailor’s life, whilst it will exemplify to some
extent the qualities specially required and expected from him.
CHAPTER IV.
PERILS OF THE SAILOR’S LIFE.
The Loss of the _Captain_—Six Hundred Souls swept into Eternity
without a Warning—The Mansion and the Cottage alike
Sufferers—Causes of the Disaster—Horrors of the Scene—Noble
Captain Burgoyne—Narratives of Survivors—An almost Incredible
Feat—Loss of the _Royal George_—A great Disaster caused by a
Trifle—Nine Hundred Lost—A Child saved by a Sheep—The Portholes
Upright—An involuntary Bath of Tar—Rafts of Corpses—The Vessel
Blown up in 1839-40—The Loss of the _Vanguard_—Half a Million sunk
in Fifty Minutes—Admirable Discipline on Board—All Saved—The Court
Martial.
England, and indeed all Europe, long prior to 1870 had been busily
constructing ironclads, and the daily journals teemed with descriptions of
new forms and varieties of ships, armour, and armament, as well as of new
and enormous guns, which, rightly directed, might sink them to the bottom.
Among the more curious of the ironclads of that period, and the
construction of which had led to any quantity of discussion, sometimes of
a very angry kind, was the turret-ship—practically the sea-going
“monitor”—_Captain_, which Captain Cowper Phipps Coles had at length been
permitted to construct. Coles, who was an enthusiast of great scientific
attainments, as well as a practical seaman, which too many of our
experimentalists in this direction have not been, had distinguished
himself in the Crimea, and had later made many improvements in rendering
vessels shot-proof. His revolving turrets are, however, the inventions
with which his name are more intimately connected, although he had much to
do with the general construction of the _Captain_, and other ironclads of
the period.
The _Captain_ was a large double-screw armour-plated vessel, of 4,272
tons. Her armour in the most exposed parts was eight inches in thickness,
ranging elsewhere downwards from seven to as low as three inches. She had
two revolving turrets, the strongest and heaviest yet built, and carried
six powerful guns. Among the peculiarities of her construction were, that
she had only nine feet of “free-board”—_i.e._, that was the height of her
sides out of water. The forecastle and after-part of the vessel were
raised above this, and they were connected with a light hurricane-deck.
This, as we shall see, played an important part in the sad disaster we
have to relate.
On the morning of the 8th of September, 1870, English readers, at their
breakfast-tables, in railway carriages, and everywhere, were startled with
the news that the _Captain_ had foundered, with all hands, in the Bay of
Biscay. Six hundred men had been swept into eternity without a moment’s
warning. She had been in company with the squadron the night before, and,
indeed, had been visited by the admiral, for purposes of inspection, the
previous afternoon. The early part of the evening had been fine; later it
had become what sailors call “dirty weather;” at midnight the wind rose
fast, and soon culminated in a furious gale. At 2.15 in the morning of the
7th a heavy bank of clouds passed off, and the stars came out clear and
bright, the moon then setting; but no vessel could be discerned where the
_Captain_ had been last observed. At daybreak the squadron was all in
sight, but scattered. “_Only ten ships instead of eleven could be
discerned, the __‘__Captain__’__ being the missing one._” Later, it
appeared that seventeen of the men and the gunner had escaped, and landed
at Corbucion, north of Cape Finisterre, on the afternoon of the 7th. _All
the men who were saved belonged to the starboard watch_; or, in other
words, none escaped except those on deck duty. Every man below, whether
soundly sleeping after his day’s work, or tossing sleeplessly in his
berth, thinking of home and friends and present peril, or watching the
engines, or feeding the furnaces, went down, without the faintest
possibility of escaping his doom.
Think of this catastrophe, and what it involved! The families and friends
of 600 men plunged into mourning, and the scores on scores of wives and
children into poverty! In _one_ street of Portsea, thirty wives were made
widows by the occurrence.(43) The shock of the news killed one poor woman,
then in weak health. Nor were the sad effects confined to the cottages of
the poor. The noble-hearted captain of the vessel was a son of
Field-Marshal Burgoyne; Captain Coles, her inventor; a son of Mr.
Childers, the then First Lord of the Admiralty; the younger son of Lord
Northbrook; the third son of Lord Herbert of Lea; and Lord Lewis Gordon,
brother of the Marquis of Huntley, were among the victims of that terrible
morning. The intelligence arrived during the excitement caused by the
defeat and capitulation of Sedan, which, involving, as it did, the
deposition of the Emperor and the fate of France, was naturally the great
topic of discussion, but for the time it overshadowed even those great
events, for it was a national calamity.
From the statements of survivors we now know that the watch had been
called a few minutes past midnight; and as the men were going on deck to
muster, the ship gave a terrible lurch to starboard, soon, however,
righting herself on that occasion. Robert Hirst, a seaman, who afterwards
gave some valuable testimony, was on the forecastle. There was a very
strong wind, and the ship was then only carrying her three top-sails,
double reefs in each, and the foretop-mast stay-sail. The yards were
braced sharp up, and the ship had little way upon her.(44) As the watch
was mustered, he heard Captain Burgoyne give the order, “Let go the
foretop-sail halyards!” followed by, “Let go fore and maintop-sail
sheets!” By the time the men got to the top-sail sheets the ship was
heeling over to starboard so much that others were being washed off the
deck, the ship lying down on her side, as she was gradually turning over
and trembling through her whole frame with every blow which the short,
jumping, vicious seas, now white with the squall, gave her.(45) The roar
of the steam from her boilers was terrific, “outscreaming the noise of the
storm,” but not drowning the shrieks of the poor engineers and stokers
which were heard by some of the survivors. The horrors of their situation
can be imagined. The sea, breaking down the funnel, would soon, no doubt,
extinguish the furnaces, but not until some of their contents had been
dashed into the engine-room, with oceans of scalding water; the boilers
themselves may, likely enough, have given way and burst also. Mercifully,
it was not for long. Hirst, with two other men, rushed to the
weather-forecastle netting and jumped overboard. It was hardly more than a
few moments before they found themselves washed on to the bilge of the
ship’s bottom, for in that brief space of time the ship had turned
completely over, and almost immediately went down. Hirst and his
companions went down with the ship, but the next feeling of consciousness
by the former was coming into contact with a floating spar, to which he
tied himself with his black silk handkerchief. He was soon, however,
washed from the spar, but got hold of the stern of the second launch,
which was covered with canvas, and floating as it was stowed on board the
ship. Other men were there, on the top of the canvas covering. Immediately
after, they fell in with the steam-lifeboat pinnace, bottom-up, with
Captain Burgoyne and several men clinging to it. Four men, of whom Mr.
May,(46) the gunner, was one, jumped from off the bottom of the
steam-pinnace to the launch. One account says that Captain Burgoyne
incited them, by calling out, “Jump, men, jump!” but did not do it
himself. The canvas was immediately cut away, and with the oars free, they
attempted to pull up to the steam-pinnace to rescue the captain and others
remaining there. This they found impossible to accomplish. As soon as they
endeavoured to get the boat’s head up to the sea to row her to windward to
where the capsized boat was floating, their boat was swamped almost level
to her thwarts, and two of the men were washed clean out of her. The pump
was set going, and the boat bailed out with their caps, &c., as far as
possible. They then made a second attempt to row the boat against the sea,
which was as unsuccessful as before. Meantime, poor Burgoyne was still
clinging to the pinnace, in “a storm of broken waters.” When the launch
was swept towards him once, one of the men on board offered to throw him
an oar, which he declined, saying, nobly, “For God’s sake, men, keep your
oars: you will want them.” This piece of self-abnegation probably cost him
his life, for he went down shortly after, following “the six hundred” of
his devoted crew into “the valley of death.” The launch was beaten hither
and thither; and a quarter of an hour after the _Captain_ had capsized,
sighted the lights of one of their own ships, which was driven by in the
gale, its officers knowing nothing of the fate of these unfortunates, or
their still more hapless companions. Mr. May, the gunner, took charge of
the launch, and at daybreak they sighted Cape Finisterre, inside which
they landed after twelve hours’ hard work at the oars.
[Illustration: THE “CAPTAIN” IN THE BAY OF BISCAY.]
One man, when he found the vessel capsizing, crawled over the
weather-netting on the port side, and performed an almost incredible feat.
It is well told in his own laconic style:—“Felt ship heel over, and felt
she would not right. Made for weather-hammock netting. She was then on her
beam-ends. Got along her bottom by degrees, as she kept turning over,
until I was where her keel would have been if she had one. The seas then
washed me off. I saw a piece of wood about twenty yards off, and swam to
it.” In other words, he got over her side, and walked _up_ to the bottom!
While in the water, two poor drowning wretches caught hold of him, and
literally tore off the legs of his trousers. He could not help them, and
they sank for the last time.
Many and varied were the explanations given of the causes of this
disaster. There had evidently been some uneasiness in regard to her
stability in the water at one time, but she had sailed so well on previous
trips, in the same stormy waters, that confidence had been restored in
her. The belief, afterwards, among many authorities, was that she ought
not to have carried sail at all.(47) This was the primary cause of the
disaster, no doubt; and then, in all probability, when the force of the
wind had heeled her over, a heavy sea struck her and completely capsized
her—the water on and over her depressed side assisting by weighting her
downwards. The side of the hurricane-deck acted, when the vessel was
heeled over, as one vast sail, and, no doubt, had much to do with putting
her on her beam-ends. The general impression of the survivors appeared to
be that, with the ship heeling over, the pressure of a strong wind upon
the under part of the hurricane-deck had a greater effect or leverage upon
the hull, than the pressure of the wind on her top-sails. They were also
nearly unanimous in their opinion that when the _Captain’s_ starboard side
was well down in the water, with the weight of water on the turret-deck,
and the pressure of the wind blowing from the port hand on the under
surface of the hurricane-deck, and thus pushing the ship right over, she
had no chance of righting herself again.
It is to be remarked that long after the _Captain_ had sunk, the admiral
of the squadron thought that he saw her, although it was very evident
afterwards that it must have been some other vessel. In his despatch to
the Admiralty,(48) which very plainly indicated that he had some anxiety
in regard to her stability in bad weather, he described her appearance and
behaviour up till 1.30 a.m.—more than an hour after her final exit to the
depths below. In the days of superstitious belief, so common among
sailors, a thrilling story of her image haunting the spot would surely
have been built on this foundation.
In the old fighting-days of the Royal Navy, when success followed success,
and prize after prize rewarded the daring and enterprise of its
commanders, they did not think very much of the loss of a vessel more or
less, but took the lesser evils with the greater goods. The seamanship was
wonderful, but it was very often utterly reckless. A captain trained in
the school of Nelson and Cochrane would stop at nothing. The country,
accustomed to great naval battles, enriched by the spoils of the enemy—who
furnished some of the finest vessels in our fleet—was not much affected by
the loss of a ship, and the Admiralty was inclined to deal leniently with
a spirited commander who had met with an accident. But then an accident in
those days did not mean the loss of half a million pounds or so. The cost
of a large ironclad of to-day would have built a small wooden fleet of
those days.
The loss of the _Captain_ irresistibly brings to memory another great loss
to the Royal Navy, which occurred nearly ninety years before, and by which
900 lives were in a moment swept into eternity. It proved too plainly that
“wooden walls” might capsize as readily as the “crankiest” ironclad. The
reader will immediately guess that we refer to the loss of the _Royal
George_, which took place at Spithead, on the 28th of August, 1782, in
calm weather, but still under circumstances which, to a very great extent,
explain how the _Captain_—at the best, a vessel of doubtful
stability—capsized in the stormy waters of Biscay. The _Royal George_ was,
at the time, the oldest first-rate in the service, having been put into
commission in 1755. She carried 108 guns, and was considered a staunch
ship, and a good sailer. Anson, Boscawen, Rodney, Howe, and Hawke had all
repeatedly commanded in her.
From what small causes may great and lamentable disasters arise! “During
the washing of her decks, on the 28th, the carpenter discovered that the
pipe which admitted the water to cleanse and sweeten the ship, and which
was about three feet under the water, was out of repair—that it was
necessary to replace it with a new one, and to heel her on one side for
that purpose.” The guns on the port side of the ship were run out of the
port-holes as far as they would go, and those from the starboard side were
drawn in and secured amidships. This brought her porthole-sills on the
lower side nearly even with the water. “At about 9 o’clock a.m., or rather
before,” stated one of the survivors,(49) “we had just finished our
breakfast, and the last lighter, with rum on board, had come alongside;
this vessel was a sloop of about fifty tons, and belonged to three
brothers, who used her to carry things on board the men-of-war. She was
lashed to the larboard side of the _Royal George_, and we were piped to
clear the lighter and get the rum out of her, and stow it in the hold....
At first, no danger was apprehended from the ship being on one side,
although the water kept dashing in at the portholes at every wave; and
there being mice in the lower part of the ship, which were disturbed by
the water which dashed in, they were hunted in the water by the men, and
there had been a rare game going on.” Their play was soon to be rudely
stopped. The carpenter, perceiving that the ship was in great danger, went
twice on the deck to ask the lieutenant of the watch to order the ship to
be righted; the first time the latter barely answered him, and the second
replied, savagely, “If you can manage the ship better than I can, you had
better take the command.” In a very short time, he began himself to see
the danger, and ordered the drummer to beat to right ship. It was too
late—the ship was beginning to sink; a sudden breeze springing upheeled
her still more; the guns, shot, and heavy articles generally, and a large
part of the men on board, fell irresistibly to the lower side; and the
water, forcing itself in at every port, weighed the vessel down still
more. She fell on her broadside, with her masts nearly flat on the water,
and sank to the bottom immediately. “The officers, in their confusion,
made no signal of distress, nor, indeed, could any assistance have availed
if they had, after her lower-deck ports were in the water, which forced
itself in at every port with fearful velocity.” In going down, the
main-yard of the _Royal George_ caught the boom of the rum-lighter and
sank her, drowning some of those on board.
At this terrible moment there were nearly 1,200 persons(50) on board.
Deducting the larger proportion of the watch on deck, about 230, who were
mostly saved by running up the rigging, and afterwards taken off by the
boats sent for their rescue, and, perhaps, seventy others who managed to
scramble out of the ports, &c., the whole of the remainder perished.
Admiral Kempenfelt, whose flag-ship it was, and who was then writing in
his cabin, and had just before been shaved by the barber, went down with
her. The first-captain tried to acquaint him that the ship was sinking,
but the heeling over of the ship had so jammed the doors of the cabin that
they could not be opened. One young man was saved, as the vessel filled,
by the force of the water rushing upwards, and sweeping him bodily before
it through a hatchway. In a few seconds, he found himself floating on the
surface of the sea, where he was, later, picked up by a boat. A little
child was almost miraculously preserved by a sheep, which swam some time,
and with which he had doubtless been playing on deck. He held by the
fleece till rescued by a gentleman in a wherry. His father and mother were
both drowned, and the poor little fellow did not even know their names;
all that he knew was that his own name was Jack. His preserver provided
for him.
[Illustration: THE WRECK OF THE “ROYAL GEORGE.”]
One of the survivors,(51) who got through a porthole, looked back and saw
the opening “as full of heads as it could cram, all trying to get out. I
caught,” said he, “hold of the best bower-anchor, which was just above me,
to prevent falling back again into the porthole, and seizing hold of a
woman who was trying to get out of the same porthole, I dragged her out.”
The same writer says that he saw “all the heads drop back again in at the
porthole, for the ship had got so much on her larboard side _that the
starboard portholes were as upright as if the men had tried to get out of
the top of a __chimney, with nothing for their legs and feet to act
upon_.” The sinking of the vessel drew him down to the bottom, but he was
enabled afterwards to rise to the surface and swim to one of the great
blocks of the ship which had floated off. At the time the ship was
sinking, an open barrel of tar stood on deck. When he rose, it was
floating on the water like fat, and he got into the middle of it, coming
out as black as a negro minstrel!
When this man had got on the block he observed the admiral’s baker in the
shrouds of the mizentop-mast, which were above water not far off; and
directly after, the poor woman whom he had pulled out of the porthole came
rolling by. He called out to the baker to reach out his arm and catch her,
which was done. She hung, quite insensible, for some time by her chin over
one of the ratlines of the shrouds, but a surf soon washed her off again.
She was again rescued shortly after, and life was not extinct; she
recovered her senses when taken on board our old friend the _Victory_,
then lying with other large ships near the _Royal George_. The captain of
the latter was saved, but the poor carpenter, who did his best to save the
ship, was drowned.
In a few days after the _Royal George_ sank, bodies would come up, thirty
or forty at a time. A corpse would rise “so suddenly as to frighten any
one.” The watermen, there is no doubt, made a good thing of it; they took
from the bodies of the men their buckles, money, and watches, and then
made fast a rope to their heels and towed them to land.” The writer of the
narrative from which this account is mainly derived says that he “saw them
towed into Portsmouth Harbour, in their mutilated condition, in the same
manner as rafts of floating timber, and promiscuously (for particularity
was scarcely possible) put into carts, which conveyed them to their final
sleeping-place, in an excavation prepared for them in Kingstown
churchyard, the burial-place belonging to the parish of Portsea.” Many
bodies were washed ashore on the Isle of Wight.
Futile attempts were made the following year to raise the wreck, but it
was not till 1839-40 that Colonel Pasley proposed, and successfully
carried out, the operations for its removal. Wrought-iron cylinders, some
of the larger of which contained over a ton each of gunpowder, were
lowered and fired by electricity, and the vessel was, by degrees, blown
up. Many of the guns, the capstans, and other valuable parts of the wreck
were recovered by the divers, and the timbers formed then, and since, a
perfect godsend to some of the inhabitants of Portsmouth, who manufactured
them into various forms of “relics” of the _Royal George_. It is said that
the sale of these has been so enormous that if they could be collected and
stuck together they would form several vessels of the size of the fine old
first-rate, large as she was! But something similar has been said of the
“wood of the true cross,” and, no doubt, is more than equally libellous.
It is said, by those who descended to the wreck, that its appearance was
most beautiful, when seen from about a fathom above the deck. It was
covered with seaweeds, shells, starfish, and anemones, while from and
around its ports and openings the fish, large and small, swam and
played—darting, flashing, and sparkling in the clear green water.
[Illustration: H.M.S. _VANGUARD_ AT SEA.]
There is probably no reasonable being in or out of the navy who does not
believe that the ironclad is the war-vessel of the immediate future. But
that a woeful amount of uncertainty, as thick as the fog in which the
_Vanguard_ went down, envelops the subject in many ways, is most certain.
The circumstances connected with that great disaster are still in the
memory of the public, and were simple and distinct enough. During the last
week of August, 1875, the reserve squadron of the Channel Fleet,
comprising the _Warrior_, _Achilles_, _Hector_, _Iron Duke_, and
_Vanguard_, with Vice-Admiral Sir W. Tarleton’s yacht _Hawk_, had been
stationed at Kingstown. At half-past ten on the morning of the 1st of
September they got into line for the purpose of proceeding to Queenstown,
Cork. Off the Irish lightship, which floats at sea, six miles off
Kingstown, the _Achilles_ hoisted her ensign to say farewell—her
destination being Liverpool. The sea was moderate, but a fog came on and
increased in density every moment. Half an hour after noon, the “look-out”
could not distinguish fifty yards ahead, and the officers on the bridge
could not see the bowsprit. The ships had been proceeding at the rate of
twelve or fourteen knots, but their speed had been reduced when the fog
came on, and they were running at not more than half the former speed. The
_Vanguard_ watch reported a sail ahead, and the helm was put hard aport to
prevent running it down. The _Iron Duke_ was then following close in the
wake of the _Vanguard_, and the action of the latter simply brought them
closer, and presented a broadside to the former, which, unaware of any
change, had continued her course. The commander of the _Iron Duke_,
Captain Hickley, who was on the bridge at the time, saw the spectre form
of the _Vanguard_ through the fog, and ordered his engines to be reversed,
but it was too late. The ram of the _Iron Duke_ struck the _Vanguard_
below the armour-plates, on the port side, abreast of the engine-room. The
rent made was very large—amounting, as the divers afterwards found, to
four feet in width—and the water poured into the hold in torrents. It
might be only a matter of minutes before she should go down.(52)
[Illustration: THE LOSS OF THE “VANGUARD.”]
The vessel was doomed; a very brief examination proved that: nothing
remained but to save the lives of those on board. Captain Dawkins gave the
necessary orders with a coolness which did not represent, doubtless, the
conflicting feelings within his breast. The officers ably seconded him,
and the crew behaved magnificently. One of the mechanics went below in the
engine-room to let off the steam, and so prevent an explosion, at the
imminent risk of his life. The water rose quickly in the after-part, and
rushed into the engine and boiler rooms, eventually finding its way into
the provision-room flat, through imperfectly fastened (so-called)
“water-tight” doors, and gradually over the whole ship. There was no time
to be lost. Captain Dawkins called out to his men that if they preserved
order all would be saved. The men stood as at an inspection—not one moved
until ordered to do so. The boats of both ships were lowered. While the
launching was going on, the swell of the tide caused a lifeboat to surge
against the hull, and one of the crew had his finger crushed. This was
absolutely the only casualty. In twenty minutes the whole of the men were
transferred to the _Iron Duke_, no single breach of discipline occurring
beyond the understandable request of a sailor once in awhile to be allowed
to make one effort to secure some keepsake or article of special value to
himself. But the order was stern: “Boys, come instantly.” As “four bells”
(2 p.m.) was striking, the last man having been received on the _Iron
Duke_, the doomed vessel whirled round two or three times, and then sank
in deep water.(53)
It is obvious, then, that the discipline and courage of the service had
not deteriorated from that always expected in the good old days. Captain
Dawkins was the last man to leave his sinking ship, and his officers one
and all behaved in the same spirit. They endeavoured to quiet and reassure
the men—pointing out to them the fatal consequences of confusion. Captain
Dawkins may or may not have been rightly censured for his seamanship;
there can be no doubt that he performed his duty nobly in these systematic
efforts to save his crew. However much was lost to the nation, no mother
had to mourn the loss of her sailor-boy; no wife had been made a widow, no
child an orphan; five hundred men had been saved to their country.
One of the officers of the _Vanguard_, in a letter to a friend,
graphically described the scene at and after the collision. After having
lunched, he entered the ward-room, where he encountered the surgeon, Dr.
Fisher, who was reading a newspaper. “After remarking on the thickness of
the fog, Fisher went to look out of one of the ports, and immediately
cried out, ‘God help us! here is a ship right into us!’ We rushed on deck,
and at that moment the _Iron Duke_ struck us with fearful force, spars and
blocks falling about, and causing great danger to us on deck. The _Iron
Duke_ then dropped astern, and was lost sight of in the fog. The water
came into the engine-room in tons, stopping the engines, putting the fires
out, and nearly drowning the engineers and stokers.... The ship was now
reported sinking fast, although all the water-tight compartments had been
closed. But in consequence of the shock, some of the water-tight doors
leaked fearfully, letting water into the other parts of the ship.
Minute-guns were being fired, and the boats were got out.... At this
moment the _Iron Duke_ appeared, lowering her boats and sending them as
fast as possible. The sight of her cheered us up, as we had been
frightened that she would not find us in the fog, in spite of the guns.
The scene on deck can only be realised by thos
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