Fragments of voyages and travels, including anecdotes of a naval life

by Basil Hall

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

---

	Page
EARLY PREDILECTIONS	[1]
FIRST GOING AFLOAT	[33]
SPECIMENS OF COCK-PIT DISCIPLINE	[61]
BERMUDA IN THE PEACE	[100]
MIDSHIPMEN’S PRANKS	[137]
DIVERSITIES IN DISCIPLINE	[161]
GEOLOGY—NAUTICAL SQUABBLES	[179]
MAST-HEADING A YOUNG GENTLEMAN	[196]
KEEPING WATCH	[217]
DANGERS OF A NOVA SCOTIA FOG	[261]
BLOCKADING A NEUTRAL PORT	[283]
THE SCHOOLMASTER AFLOAT	[302]

FRAGMENTS
OF
VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.

---

CHAPTER I.
EARLY PREDILECTIONS.

Various circumstances conspired to give me, very early in life, what is called a taste for the sea. In the first place, I came into the world in the midst of a heavy gale of wind; when such was the violence of the storm, and the beating of the rain, that there were some thoughts of removing the whole party to a less ricketty corner of the old mansion, which shook from top to bottom. So strong, indeed, was the impression made on the imagination of those present, by the roaring of the surf, close at hand, the whistling of the wind in the drenched forest, and the obvious rocking of the house, under the heavy gusts of that memorable gale, that, as soon as I was old enough to understand any thing at all, the association between the events of my future life, and those of my birth-night, began to be sown in my mind. Thus, long before I shipped a pair of trousers, I felt that a salt-water destiny was to be mine; and as every body encouraged me to cherish these early predilections for the sea, I grew up with something of the same kind of certainty of becoming a sailor, as an elder brother does of becoming a country gentleman, from his knowing—‘for quickly comes such knowledge’—that the estate is entailed upon him.

The holydays, also, which released me from the irksome confinement of the High School of Edinburgh, were passed in the country, on a part of the rugged sea-coast of Scotland, peculiarly calculated to foster nautical propensities. During the weary months which preceded and followed these six delicious weeks of liberty, my thoughts, instead of being devoted to the comprehension of abstract rules of grammar, which it was our worthy preceptor’s sole object in life to drive into us, invariably strayed back to the picturesque and iron-bound shore, as it is happily termed in naval language, along which I was wont to ramble in full enjoyment during these holydays.

So incessantly, indeed, was the contrast presented to my imagination, between the cramped routine of school discipline, and the glorious freedom of the sea-beach, that I took little or no interest even in the games which filled up the play-hours of the other boys; and, from dwelling upon these thoughts day and night, I became so gloomy and wretched, that the bare recollection of my feelings at that period often makes me shudder, though more than thirty busy years have since passed over my head. The master of our class was as excellent a man, I believe, as could be; but he would have deemed it a shocking crime against his calling—which he very naturally considered the first on earth—to have allowed that any one boy possessed a particle more of feeling, or was conscious of more independence of thought, than his companions. Still less could he understand that any boy should pretend to have aspirations and wild fancies—dreams he called them—the object of which lay far beyond the boundary walls of the play-ground. Accordingly, I dragged on a tolerably profitless and painful existence for several years; though, perhaps, with a little management, this period might have been rendered not only useful, but happy.

Once only, during my continuance in this Limbo, as the Spaniards call the Purgatory of Children, I was addressed in a very kind manner by the head master, though a severe personage in his way, as far as regarded the use of the formidable strap, or taws, which in Scotland supply the place of the wholesome birch of English seminaries. He took me on one side, and said, in a tone so unusual in the despotic government of schools in those days, that it made me start,—“How comes it, little fellow, that you are always so gloomy; and that you never play as the rest do, but look for ever as if some misfortune had befallen you?”

I answered, ‘that the confinement of the school was much too great, and that I could not bear being always treated as if I had no feelings or peculiar wishes worthy of separate consideration. That it was not the number of hours’ confinement I complained of, but the awkward selection of the periods.’ “Let me, sir,” I said, “but choose the time for study, and I will cheerfully work even much longer. At present, the day is totally cut up and destroyed.”

He smiled, patted me on the head, and said the hours and discipline could not be changed, merely to suit the fantastic taste of one boy. I knew this well enough already; in fact, I was not so absurd as to suppose that a public school could be maintained on my visionary principles, or that any rules could be established for their government but such as took account of average abilities, and made allowance for an ordinary share of feeling and patience. Whether or not my quantum of sensibility were needlessly great, is of little consequence: it certainly was so different from that of my companions, that it completely prevented my profiting, in the mean time, by the opportunities of this school, and drove me to rest my only prospect of happiness in getting away from its thraldom.

Certain very troublesome misgivings, also, as to the future, came across my juvenile thoughts about this epoch; especially as to the probabilities of happiness in that wide world of freedom for which my soul panted, and of which I knew nothing, except by description. I happened, one day, to get hold of Gray’s Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College,—a poem fraught, it is true, with images of the highest possible beauty, both of thought and of expression, but most of which are certainly far better calculated to beget despondency than hope, by teaching that school days are unavoidably happier than those of after-life.

What the ‘march of intellect’ may have done lately to remedy this matter, I cannot say; but in my time, and at the particular school alluded to, the season of boyhood was, to me at least, any thing but a happy one; and I well remember, after reading the poem in question, exclaiming, in a state of great despair, “If it is certain that my future life is to be more wretched than this, which is now so full of misery, what, alas! is existence worth?”

In this terrified frame of mind, I dived into various other works, but, to my sorrow, very seldom met with anything of a more consolatory nature. Nor was it till many years’ trial of the wear and tear of actual life, that I came to learn the fallacy of most of these assertions respecting the comparative happiness of school; and to feel assured that the whole, or nearly the whole matter, lies essentially with ourselves, since, in any situation in life, the amount of our happiness will be found to bear, in the long run, a pretty exact ratio to the heartiness with which we perform our duty. Whereas Gray’s Ode, Young’s Night Thoughts, and other sombre productions, too often thrust into the hands of young people, would almost seem to inculcate the notion that the most virtuous persons are the least happy, and that life is necessarily filled with care and remorse, instead of being, as it really is, to those who choose to make it so, a scene of high enjoyment—not, indeed, one of unmixed enjoyment, but one in which the pleasures generally far outweigh the sorrows. It has, accordingly, always seemed to me a libel on our nature, and a perverse misapplication of the gifts of Providence, to consider that the earliest days of life must of course be the happiest. It may do very well, in poetical fiction, to talk of childhood being the ‘sunshine of the breast;’ but surely the true, broad daylight of life, not poetically, but practically speaking, is to be found at a later period, when the faculties are far more matured, and the will is left free.

Be all this, however, as it may, I never lost a minute in hurrying away from school, the instant our examinations were ended. At these periodical trials, it may be well supposed, I never cut any great figure; for, I contented myself with trying to keep a little above the middle, partly because some boys sat thereabouts to whom I was attached, anti partly because the particular bench alluded to was near the fire. As soon as the term of imprisonment was over, I flew to the coach-office, and never felt perfectly satisfied that all was right and safe, till fairly seated on the top, by the side of my friend the guard, and bowling along the high road. On reaching the country, the first object always was to hunt out some of the fishermen on the shore, who readily engaged to give me a row next morning. After a sleepless night of anticipated delights, I commonly found myself, at sunrise, in a fishing-boat, half a league from the coast, surrounded by congenial spirits—fellows who had no idea of grammar—and who were willing, either from bribery, or from motives of professional sympathy, to consider me as somebody, and not to reckon me as a mere zero, serving no other purpose but to augment the numbers of a school, without having any value in myself.

At all events, these hardy boatmen were so much amused with my enthusiasm about their art, that they took great pleasure in feeding my young fancy with tales of nautical dangers and hardships, the joyous excitement of which placed the dull drudgery of syntax in sad contrast. On these expeditions, however, I was always wofully sea-sick; for the boats, or cobbles, as they are called, were not altogether so tidy as a man-of-war’s gig; besides which, they generally enclosed a due allowance of bilge water, and decayed remnants of forgotten fish. So that my taste for the sea had often tough work to hold its ground, against the deranged action of the stomach; and it must be owned that I often leaped on shore again, to the enjoyment of steady footing and an atmosphere less fishified, with a half-uttered vow at my lips that I would never tempt the ocean more.

This slight infidelity to my beloved element, however, was always very transient, as it seldom lasted longer than the time it cost to climb the high, steep bank, which guarded the coast. From this elevation, the view extended far up the Firth of Forth on one hand, with many a mountain lying beyond it; right out into the German Ocean in front; while the scene was bounded on the right, or eastern side, by the noble promontory called Fast Castle, better known as the Wolf’s Crag of the Waverley Novels. To my young fancy this seemed the grandest of all landscapes—and still, after I have rambled for more than a quarter of a century over the earth’s surface, and made personal acquaintance with some of the sublimest works of nature, my opinion of the beautiful scenery in question is not changed, otherwise than by increased admiration. Indeed, it will often require much time, and more extended means of comparison, as well as the assistance of just conceptions of what is really meant by the great and beautiful in nature, which spring from experience alone, before we can fairly estimate the advantages which frequently lie at our very doors. This will apply, perhaps, to other things besides scenery—but it is with that alone I have to do just now—and certainly few things can be imagined more brilliant than the view from the part of the coast in question. For the sea at that point being a great commercial thoroughfare, is generally studded over with vessels of various sizes and descriptions, and, I may add, of colours. For what the lights and shades of heaven do not perform in this respect, the seamen do for themselves, by tanning their sails, and painting the ships of many different hues. As these vessels drifted past, and dropped, one by one, out of sight, beyond the horizon, I felt the most eager desire to follow their wanderings into those wide seas, about which I had so often read—where the land is lost sight of for months together, and where every evening brings fresh stars into view, and every bird and fish, as well as every breath of air, indicates another climate, and almost another world.

In the meantime, however, my operations in nautical affairs were necessarily limited to the horse pond, upon which, by the assistance of an obliging carpenter lad, I managed to make the first fair trial of that element with which, in after life, it was my happy lot to become so familiar. Our vessel consisted of two or three rough logs, filched from the farm-yard, and sundry planks nailed or lashed across them. A mast was readily obtained by the abstraction of a bar from the nearest paling. But considerable difficulty arose as to the sail; for canvass was a material much beyond our finances or influence. At length my ingenious companion—who, by the way, distinguished himself in after-life as a ship-builder—suggested the idea of employing one of the mats used by the gardener to protect his plants from the frost. Thus, step by step, our gallant vessel was at length rigged out; and on the second day of our labours, every thing being ready, and the wind fair, we started from one end of this inland sea, and, after a prosperous voyage of about ten minutes, by ‘God’s grace’—to use the quaint language still printed in bills of lading—more than by any skill of our own—we reached the other extremity, without any serious disaster.

The pleasure which this primitive voyage inspired, has never since been much exceeded. It was the first unalloyed happiness I had ever experienced, and at once opened up a new prospect of hope and resolution, which rendered the weary load of school existence somewhat less intolerable than it had been before. It also gave me a foretaste of the joys of enterprise, and independent command, which, in their turn, called up innumerable visions of successful resource, surmounted difficulties, and all the demi-savage delights of such a life as that of Robinson Crusoe, with the additional advantage of that great adventurer’s experience.

Little did I then think, and, in fact, it was nearly impossible I should reasonably think, that the realities of life could ever reach these imaginary conceptions. And yet I have lived to experience that, sanguine as I then was, these anticipations fell much short of the glorious reality which is almost every where to be met with. Indeed, I may say, with perfect truth, that in all these voyages and travels, I have generally found things more curious, and more interesting, in all respects, than I had looked for—or, if the career of curiosity has at any time been checked, it has only been followed by a more ardent pursuit, and ultimately by still higher rewards.

This process of feeding the curiosity, was well enough exemplified by a series of very exciting, though often painful and seemingly discouraging, incidents that occurred every year on the coast already mentioned, as forming the scene where I passed the holydays. Ten leagues, or thirty geographical miles, due north of the house in which I was born, lies the Bell Rock, just off the mouth of the Tay, and close to the northern side of the great estuary called the Firth of Forth. At the time I am speaking of, this rock was justly considered one of the most formidable dangers that the navigators of those seas had to encounter; for its head was merged under the surface during greater part of the tide, and at no time did it make any shew above the water. There was nothing to be done, therefore, but to keep well clear of the mischief, or, as seamen express themselves, to give the rock a wide birth. Ships, accordingly, bound for the Forth, in their constant terror of this ugly reef, were not content with giving it ten or even twenty miles of elbow room, but must needs edge off a little more to the south, so as to hug the shore, in such a way, that, when the wind chopped round to the northward, as it often did, these overcautious navigators were apt to get embayed in a deep bight to the westward of Fast Castle. If the breeze freshened before they could work out, they paid dearly for their apprehensions of the Bell Rock, by driving upon ledges fully as sharp, and far more extensive and inevitable. Thus, at that time, from three to four, and sometimes half a dozen vessels used to be wrecked every winter, within a mile or two of our very door.

Perhaps there are few more exciting spectacles than a vessel stranded on a lee-shore—and especially such a shore—which is fringed with reefs extending far out, and offering no spot for shelter. The hapless ship lies dismasted, bilged, and beat about by the waves, with her despairing crew clinging to the wreck, or to the shrouds, and uttering cries totally inaudible in the roar of the sea—while at each successive dash of the breakers, the number of the survivors is thinned, till, at length, they all disappear—the gallant bark goes to pieces—and the coast, for a league on either side, is strewed with broken planks, masts, boxes, and ruined portions of the goodly cargo, with which, a few hours before, she was securely freighted, and dancing merrily over the waters.

But it is the greatest of all mistakes to suppose that the actual contemplation of such disasters, still less the description of hardships, has any tendency to divert a young mind from following its original bent, towards a profession of such varied and high excitement as that of the sea. At all events, the effect of each succeeding shipwreck I witnessed, was only to stimulate me more and more to pursue the object of all my thoughts, waking or dreaming.

I can recollect, however, being conscious of a feeling of awe, approaching at times to dread, as I saw the waves curling themselves over these devoted vessels, and gradually tearing them to pieces as the tide advanced. But still there was always more of confidence and pleasure in the prospect which my mind’s eye conjured up to itself beyond these stirring adventures. To this day there is told a traditional story amongst our fishermen, of my having once contributed to save a ship’s crew, by engaging some country people to transport a boat from a distance, across the hills, in a cart. The account farther sets forth, that I had only a few halfpence in my pocket; and that when these proved insufficient to induce the carter to go out of his way, I stoutly asserted I had authority from my father to offer five pounds for any such assistance. Upon this pledge, the cart was freighted with its unwonted cargo, and the boat was brought in time to the spot. I have no recollection whatsoever of this incident; but something of the kind may possibly have occurred, or, more probably, may have been merely talked of amongst the fishermen, my great patrons and admirers. These things, by making me feel not so utterly useless in the world, as I was made to appear at school, must have united me by still stronger ties to the animating profession to which I grew up, apparently as a matter of course.

Future generations of the family, however, will not have this costly and melancholy source of encouragement for their children to go to sea:—since the shipwrecks that helped to do me this good turn, are now, fortunately for commerce and humanity, hardly ever known. The fatal Bell Rock—the direct and indirect cause of so many losses—has recently been converted into one of the greatest sources of security that navigation is capable of receiving. By dint of scientific skill, backed by well-managed perseverance, and the example of the Eddystone to copy from, a light-house, one hundred and twenty feet high, has been raised upon this formidable reef as a foundation. So that the mariner, instead of doing all he can to avoid the spot, once so much dreaded, now eagerly runs for it, and counts himself happy when he gets sight of the revolving star on the top, which, from its being variously coloured, he can distinguish from every other light in that quarter. He is then enabled to steer directly for his port, in perfect security, though the night be ever so dark.

On returning from these scenes of real life and activity, to that most picturesque of cities, the Old Town of Edinburgh, I was plunged into tenfold gloom; and really do not know what I should have done had I not lighted accidentally upon Shakspeare’s description of the ship-boy reposing on the high and giddy mast. This idea was so congenial to the fancy of a sailor elect, and withal so exquisitely poetical, that I could not rest till possessed of a copy of the whole of his Plays, which were forthwith read over from beginning to end—to the total destruction, I am half ashamed to say, of all the little respect I then had for the ancient classics. The Tempest was soon learned almost by heart—the nautical part of it in particular—and I swore an eternal friendship with the boatswain, whose seamanship, by the way, though wild and strange, is, upon the whole, wonderfully correct. One would like to know how Shakspeare picked it up.

About this period, also, when my thoughts presented a strange jumble of real and imaginary shipwrecks, with the intricate niceties of Latin grammar, I met my father one day in the streets, close to the late Lord Duncan’s house.

“Well met!” he cried, “come along, master sailor, and you shall see the hero of Camperdown.”

I was accordingly introduced as a future brother-seaman to this great officer, whose noble appearance was in such good keeping with his renown, that I felt my respect for him rise at every moment of the interview.

“You are a youngster of some taste,” observed his lordship good-naturedly; “and if you will come here with me, I can shew you something to encourage you to stick to your business.”

So saying, he led the way to another room, where a flag he had taken from Admiral de Winter, on the 11th of October, 1797, was hanging up. This sight was interesting, to be sure, but I was still more enchanted with the frankness and kindliness of the veteran’s manner,—and I could not help saying to myself, that if such a man saw reason to treat a boy with attention, I was surely entitled to something less disrespectful than I met with at school,—and I remember, next morning, shedding a torrent of tears as I entered the scene of what I considered my imprisonment, and contrasted the master’s reception with that of the admiral.

Not long afterwards, I happened to meet Professor Playfair, of Edinburgh College, at a house in the country. It was the singular fortune of this amiable and accomplished philosopher, to be equally a favourite with the young as with the old. He won the regard and the confidence of children, not only by the matchless sweetness of his disposition, but by the generous encouragement he delighted to give to their opening thoughts; whilst among men of science, or of letters, he was not less admired for the extent and variety of his attainments, than for the clear, popular, and often eloquent facility which he possessed of giving expression to the most abstract branches of knowledge.

I found him one morning seated on the ground, taking the sun’s altitude with a pocket sextant, from an artificial horizon, which had been made by pouring some treacle into a bowl. Upon my expressing great curiosity to know what magical operation he could be about, he at once explained, or rather endeavoured to explain, the object of such pursuits. Instead of cutting me short with some idle reply about the thing being above my comprehension, he intermitted his work, and sought earnestly to make me perceive how closely such observations were connected with the duties of a naval life. Next day he gave me a copy of Bonnycastle’s Astronomy, which I possess to this hour; and I think I may date from the conversation above alluded to, the growth of a taste for this branch of professional pursuits—I mean nautical astronomy—which has not only proved at all times a source of the highest enjoyment, but, as will be seen in the sequel, has been accompanied by no small utility in helping me on in the world.

I shall be sorry if what I have here said dispose any idle youth who may not find himself happy at school, to try so rugged a profession as that of the sea, unless he have many other, and more substantial reasons for preferring it to all others. The whole system of school discipline, however, has been so much changed since the present century commenced, that boys have probably much less excuse than I had for not sticking to their lessons. And yet truth forces me to confess, that the fault lay fully more with the scholar than with the school. But my head had got so filled with notions of voyaging and travelling, that, even if I had been at Eton, I dare say I should have sighed to be allowed to fly away.

It is clear enough, that no boy, instruct him as we will, can form correct ideas of what he is likely to meet with in any profession; still, if his mind be ardently bent upon one particular pursuit, and it be decided to indulge this fancy, he will be bound in honour, if he have the spirit of a gentleman within him, to persevere in following up the line he has been allowed to choose for himself. The incipient difficulties and discomforts of all professions are probably pretty much alike; and the boy who has not energy enough to set his face resolutely against the early discouragements of any particular calling, will, in all probability, be successful in no other. It is, however, so great an advantage to have a young person’s own feelings, and his point of honour heartily engaged in the cause in which he has embarked, that, if circumstances render such a thing at all expedient, or not quite unreasonable, the choice of a profession may often be conceded with advantage. But such free choice ought to be afterwards burdened, with a positive interdict against change. In the case of a sea life, this appears to be quite indispensable; for the contrast is so striking, in most cases, between the comforts of home and the discomforts of a ship—to say nothing of rough fare, hard work, sea-sickness, and strict discipline—that, if an opening be constantly presented for escape, few youngsters will have resolution enough to bear up against those trials to which they must be exposed, and which they ought to hold themselves prepared to meet with cheerfulness.

Perhaps the naval profession owes a good deal of its peculiar character to these very disadvantages, as they are called; and though we may often regret to see young men, of good abilities, dropping out of the navy, who, if they had only cast on the right tack, might have done the service and themselves much honour—yet there is no denying that their more vigorous-minded and sterner-framed companions, whom they leave afloat, are, upon the whole, better fitted to make useful public servants.

In many other professions, it is possible to calculate, beforehand, with more or less precision, the degree and kind of work which a young man is likely to be called upon to perform; but there is peculiar difficulty in coming to any just conclusion upon these points, even in a vague way, in the life of a sailor. His range of duties includes the whole world,—he may be lost in the wilderness of a three-decker, or be wedged into a cock-boat;—he may be fried in Jamaica, or frozen in Spitzbergen;—he may be cruising, or be in action during six days of the week, in the midst of a fleet, and flounder in solitude on the seventh; or he may waste his years in peaceful idleness, the most fatal to subordination, or be employed on the home station, and hear from his friends every day, or he may be fifteen months, as I have been, at a time, without getting a letter or seeing a newspaper. He may have an easy-going commander, which is a very great evil; or his captain may be one of those tight hands, who, to use the slang of the cock-pit, keeps every one on board ‘under the fear of the Lord and a broomstick.’ In short, a man may go to sea for twenty years, and find no two men, and hardly two days alike. All this, which is delightful to some minds, and productive in them of every kind of resource, is utterly distracting, and very often ruinous, to others. Weak frames generally sink under its severity; and weak minds become confused with its complication, and the intensity of its action. But, on the other hand, the variety of its objects is so boundless, that if a young man have only strength of body, to endure the wear and tear of watching and other inevitable fatigues; and have also strength of character enough to persevere, in the certainty of openings occurring, sooner or later, by which his talents or his industry may find profitable employment,—there can be little doubt that the profession of a sailor might be made suitable to most of those who, on entering it, are positively cut off from retreat.

Supposing that this ticklish question, of the choice of a profession, has been conceded to a boy, there remains the still more perplexing problem—what is the fittest method of training him beforehand, so that he may enter his new life with best effect? The difficulty arises, I suspect, from two causes, one of which applies to education generally, the other to the particular case of a lad intended for the navy. Most people seem to think, and very naturally, that the object of a school is to teach knowledge which shall afterwards be practically available in the business of life; and they cannot well understand what is the use of teaching Latin and Greek, which appear to be so little applicable to real work. Much of this difficulty vanishes, however, if it be considered that the chief purpose of education is to discipline the mind, and to train up the character, so that it may be found equal to any task, no matter how unlooked-for it may be. In such a view, the Classics are as good, and probably better than any other.

If the principles, the faculties, and the feelings of a boy be duly cultivated at school, he may be expected to enter the world in as fit a state to profit by the opportunities in his path, as his nature will allow of; nor does it, perhaps, much matter by what artificial machinery this degree of perfection in mental culture has been attained. All that seems essentially of importance is, that the endowments given him by nature, should have been so well exercised, that when brought to bear on the real, manly business of life, they may act with effect. If the process of education has been well managed, its utility will probably not be the least sensibly felt, in cases where the pursuits to be followed in earnest are dissimilar to those, by means of which the boy’s faculties were originally developed at school.

In the instance of young men intended for the navy, I think this rule applies with particular force. The early age of thirteen, at which they must of necessity go on board ship, renders it almost impossible that they can have acquired any great stock of what is usually called knowledge. But, by proper management, they may, previous to that age, have secured a very large stock of that particular description of information which will be of most use to them in the outset of life; and their growing minds may have been fitted, by a good system of school discipline, to submit with cheerfulness, as well as advantage, to that singular mixture of constraint and freedom, which forms the most striking feature of a sea life. If this be true, it is perhaps of no great consequence whether the ground-work of such an education be the ancient classics, the mathematics, or modern languages: for the real object to be arrived at, viz. mental training, may, by proper management, be equally well attained by any of these methods.

No two boys, perhaps, out of a dozen, intended for the sea, may require the same training; but still there is no reason why the whole number should not be equally well fitted, by previous education, to advance themselves in the service, according to their respective talents, though some of them, at starting, may be altogether ignorant of those subjects, generally supposed to be of the most indispensable utility at sea.

Antecedent, therefore, to the age of thirteen, after which a boy ought never to commence his naval career, it appears to matter extremely little what he learns, provided his mind be kept fully occupied. It will be better, no doubt, if a boy’s taste happen to lie in that direction, that his occupations at school have as direct a reference as possible to his future pursuits. If, for instance, he have a turn for mathematics, or for modern languages, he ought certainly to be indulged in his fancy. But the essential objects to be attended to, at this stage of his education, lie a great deal further from the surface, and consequently make much less show. The formation of character, upon the solid basis of religion, and a due cultivation of manners, especially of those branches which relate to temper and self-denial, are quite within the range of education antecedent to the age of thirteen. If, then, a boy be only well grounded in his principles, and if he be taught to think and feel and act like a gentleman, before he is turned adrift on the wide ocean, and he have also acquired habits of industry and obedience, together with the ordinary elements of knowledge—reading, writing, and so on—it matters little, as I conceive, whether he has acquired much information besides—for all else that is wanting will follow in good time.

The consideration of what system of instruction should be pursued afterwards, at the naval college, or on board ship, is a totally different affair, and deserves to be treated by itself.

CHAPTER II.
FIRST GOING AFLOAT.

I know not what other persons may have felt on these occasions; but I must own, that, in spite of all my enthusiasm, when the actual time came for fairly leaving friends and home, and plunging quite alone and irrevocably into a new life, I felt a degree of anxiety, and distrust of myself, which, as these feelings were quite strange, I scarcely knew how to manage. I had been allowed to choose my own profession, it is true, and was always eager to be off; yet I almost wished, when the actual moment arrived, that I had not been taken at my word. For the first time in my life, I knew what was meant by the word responsibility, and all the shame of failure stared me in the face. When at school, nine-tenths of my thoughts had always rambled abroad, to those unknown regions, upon which my imagination loved to feast, day and night. Still, I can well remember, my heart sunk within me, and I felt pretty much as if I were on the verge of death, when the carriage that was to convey me away, drove up to the door. I still believed that there was, even on this earth, a new and a much better world before me; but when I tasked my judgment, to say upon what grounds this belief rested, the answer was so meagre, that I began to dread I had done a mighty foolish thing in setting out to seek for it.

“What a scrape I shall be in,” I said to myself, “if the gloomy representations of these sad fellows the poets be true pictures of life! What if this existence of ours be but a scene of gradually-increasing misery! How shall I be able to get on at all, if a sea life be not more enjoyable than that of the High School of Edinburgh? and what kind of figure shall I cut, when driven back, by sheer distress, to petition my father to take me home again, to eat the bitter bread of idleness, or to seek for some other profession, wherein all the rubs and tugs may prove just as bad as those of the sea, and possibly not very much better than those of school?”

I took good care, however, to let none of these unworthy doubts and alarms find any expression in word or in look; and, with a heart almost bursting, I took leave of the holyday scenes of the country I had loved so well, and which, to my young fancy, appeared the most beautiful spot on earth,—a judgment which, as I before observed, a tolerably extensive acquaintance with the rest of the world has only tended to confirm. Of course, I had a regular interview and leave-taking with my capital friends the fishermen, whom I had long held to be the best-informed persons of my acquaintance, merely because they knew most about ropes and ship matters generally. I cannot say that these worthy mariners stood the test of after-communication, quite so well as the romantic coast-scenery near which they resided. I remember, on returning from my first voyage, going down to the beach, in my uniform jacket, and in no very modest spirit, to shew off my superior nautical attainments to these poor fellows, who had been sticking fast to their rocks during the interval, much after the fashion of their own shell-fish. Their reception, of course, was highly flattering; but their confined views of the profession, and scanty knowledge of many of its details, made me look back with wonder to the time when I had hailed them as first-rate masters in the noble art of seamanship.

On the 16th of May, 1802, I left home; and next day my father said to me, “Now you are fairly afloat in the world, you must begin to write a journal;” and, suiting the action to the word, he put a blank book into one hand, and a pen into the other, with a hint for me to proceed at once to business. The following is a fair specimen of the result, which I certainly little imagined was ever destined to attain the honour of being printed:—

“May 17.—Journey to London.—Left Dunglass. Breakfasted at the Press Inn, and changed horses. Got to Belford; changed horses. Alnwick—dined there, and got to Morpeth, where we slept. Up early; breakfasted at Newcastle. Stopped at Durham. Walked forward till the chaise should overtake us; got into the chaise. Stopped to give the horses some drink. Saw two deep draw-wells. Observed some coal-carts at Newcastle coal-pits. The wheels are so constructed, that they run down-hill upon things in the road, which are made for the purpose. The horse follows the cart, to draw it up the hill, after it has emptied the load.”

The rest of the journal is pretty much in the same style—a record of insignificant facts which lead to nothing, useless as memorandums at the time, and of course not more useful at the distance of eight-and-twenty years. I would give a good deal, at this moment, to possess, instead of these trashy notices, some traces, no matter how faint, of what was actually passing in my mind upon the occasion of this journey. The resolutions we make at such a period, together with the doubts and fears which distract us, may have a certain amount of value, if then jotted down in good faith; but if these fleeting thoughts be once allowed to pass without record, they necessarily lose most of their force. There is always, indeed, something interesting, and often much that is useful, in tracing the connexion between sentiment and action, especially in the elementary stages of life, when the foundations of character are laid. But the capacity of drawing such inferences belongs to a very different period of life; and hence it arises, that early journals are generally so flat and profitless, unless they be written in a spirit which few people think of till too late.

I shall have so many better opportunities than the present of speaking on the copious subject of journal-writing, that I shall merely remark, in passing, for the consideration of my young readers, that what most people wish to find recorded there, is not so much a dry statement of facts, however important these may be, as some account of the writer’s opinions and his feelings upon the occasion. These, it may be observed, are like the lights and shades and colours of a painting, which, while they contribute fully as much to the accuracy of a representation as the correctness of the mere outline, impress the mind of the spectator with a still more vivid image of the object intended to be described.

I ought to have mentioned before, that the object of this journey was to ship me off to sea; and it was arranged that I should join the flag-ship of Sir Andrew Mitchell, then fitting in the River for the Halifax station. We, of course, set out for London, as the grand focus from which every thing in the English world radiates. But I find nothing in the memorandums of that period worthy of being extracted, nor do I recollect any incident which excited me strongly, except the operation of rigging myself out for the first time in midshipman’s uniform. There was something uncommonly pleasing, I remember, in the glitter of the dirk and its apparatus; and also in the smart air, as well as new cut of the dress; but the chief satisfaction arose from the direct evidence this change of garb afforded that there was no joke in the matter, but that the real business of life was actually about to begin. Accordingly, in a tolerable flutter of spirits, I made my first appearance on the deck of one of his Majesty’s ships. The meagre journal of that day is as follows:—

“Went to Deptford after breakfast in a hackney-coach—when we got there, we got out of the coach, walked down the street, and met the captain of the Leander. Went with him to the clerk of the cheque’s office, and had my name put in some book or other. Went with him to his lodgings, where he gave us a list of some things I was to get. Got a boat and went on board the Leander for the first time. Came home on a stage-coach—got a boat at London bridge—went up in it to the Adelphi—got out and went to the hotel.”

In most other professions, the transition from the old to the new mode of life is more or less gradual; but in that of the sea, it is so totally abrupt, and without intervening preparation, that a boy must be either very much of a philosopher, or very much of a goose, not to feel, at first, well nigh overwhelmed with the change of circumstances. The luxuries and the kindnesses of home are suddenly exchanged for the coarse fare of a ship, and the rough intercourse of total strangers. The solicitude with which he has been watched heretofore, let the domestic discipline have been ever so strict, is tenderness itself, compared to the utter indifference, approaching to dislike, with which a youngster, or ‘squeaker,’ as he is well called, is received on board. Even if he possess any acquaintances amongst his own class, they have few consolations in their power; and, generally speaking, are rather disposed to laugh at the home-sick melancholy of a new comer, than to cheer him up, when his little heart is almost breaking.

It so happened that I knew no one on board the ship, excepting two middies similarly circumstanced with myself. I was introduced also to a very gruff, elderly, service-soured master’s mate, to whose care, against his own wishes, I had been consigned by a mutual friend, a captain with whom he had formerly served. Our own excellent commanding officer had a thousand other things to look after, far more pressing than the griefs and cares of a dozen of boys under his charge.

I felt bewildered and subdued, by the utter solitude of my situation, as my father shook me by the hand, and quitted the ship. I well recollect the feeling of despair when I looked round me, and was made conscious of my utter insignificance. “Shall I ever be able,” thought I, “to fill any respectable part in this vast scene? What am I to do? How shall I begin? Whom can I consult?” I could furnish no satisfactory answer to these queries; and though I had not the least idea of shrinking from what I had undertaken, yet, I confess, I was not far from repenting that I had been so decided about the matter.

There is a vehement delight, no doubt, in novelty—but we may have too much of it at once; and certainly, if my advice were asked as to this point, in the case of another, I should recommend that a boy be gradually introduced to his future home; and, if possible, placed under the auspices of some one older than himself, and who, from having a real interest in him, might soften the needless rigours of this formidable change. I had no such preparation; and was without one friend or even acquaintance on board, who cared a straw for me. I was also very little for my age, spoke broad Scotch, and was, withal, rather testy in my disposition. The cock-pit, it is true, is a pretty good place to work the bad humours out of a crotchety young fellow, and to bring him to his due bearings; but I think I have seen a good many tenderer plants than I was, crushed down under the severity of this merciless discipline. Perhaps it is all for the best; because youngsters who cannot, or will not stand this rough rubbing, are just as well out of the way, both for themselves and the public.

There is one practice, however, which, as I invariably followed it myself, I know to be in every boy’s power, and I venture strongly to recommend it to others in the same situation; nor is it very likely that many will be exposed to greater trials, in a small way, than I was at first. The maxim is, always, in writing home, to put the best face upon matters, and never, if possible, to betray any inevitable unhappiness. Such a practice is doubly useful—for it contributes essentially to produce that character of cheerfulness in reality, which is partly assumed at the moment of writing, in order to save our friends from distress on our account. It would be wrong, indeed, to say, in writing home, that we are very happy, when in truth we are very much the reverse; but, without stating any falsehood, or giving into any subterfuge—which is still worse—those particular things may very fairly be dwelt upon which are agreeable, almost to the exclusion of those which are otherwise. We should learn, in short, to see and to describe the cheerful things; and, both in our practice and in description, leave the unpleasant ones to take care of themselves.

For example, I remember, as well as if the incidents had occurred yesterday, most of the details which are stated in the following letter, written only the day after I was left to my fate—amongst strangers—in the unknown world of a man-of-war. I certainly was far from happy, and might easily have made my friends wretched by selecting chiefly what was disagreeable. I took a different course.

“H. M. Ship Leander, June 12, 1802,
Cock Pit.

“DEAR FATHER,

“After you left us, I went down into the mess-room; it is a place about twenty feet long, with a table in the middle of it, and wooden seats upon which we sit. When I came down there were a great many cups and saucers upon the table. A man came in, and poured hot water into the tea-pot. There are about fourteen of us mess at the same time. We were very merry in this dark hole, where we had only two candles.

“We come down here, and sit when we like; and at other times go upon deck. At about ten o’clock we had supper upon bread and cheese, and a kind of pudding which we liked very much. Some time after this I went to a hammock, which was not my own, as mine was not ready, there not being enough of clues at it, but I will have it to-night. I got in at last. It was very queer to find myself swinging about in this uncouth manner, for there was only about a foot of space between my face and the roof—so, of course, I broke my head a great many times on the different posts in the cock-pit, where all the midshipmen sleep. After having got in, you may be sure I did not sleep very well, when all the people were making such a noise, going to bed in the dark, and the ship in such confusion. I fell asleep at last, but was always disturbed by the quarter-master coming down to awake the midshipmen who were to be on guard during the night. He comes up to their bed-sides and calls them; so I, not being accustomed to it, was always awaked, too. I had some sleep, however, but, early in the morning, was again roused up by the men beginning to work.

“There is a large hole which comes down from the decks, all the way through to the hold, where they let down the casks. The foot of the hammock that I slept in was just at the hole, so I saw the casks all coming down close by me. I got up at half-past seven, and went into the birth (our mess-room), and we were all waiting for breakfast till eight, when the man who serves and brings in the dishes for the mess came down in a terrible passion, saying, that as he was boiling the kettle at the stove, the master-at-arms had thrown water upon the fire and put it out. All this was because the powder was coming on board. So we had to want our breakfast for once. But we had a piece of bread and butter; and as we were eating it, the master-at-arms came down, and said that our candles were to be taken away: so we had to eat our dry meal in the dark.

“I then went upon deck, and walked about, looking at the Indiamen coming up the river, till eleven, when I and one of my companions went and asked the lieutenant if he would let us go on shore in the jolly-boat, as it was going at any rate. We intended to take a walk in some of the fields. We got leave, and some more of the midshipmen went with us. There are about six men row the boat, and we sit any where we like. Got on shore, and ran about the park you were mentioning when in the boat. Then came back to an inn, where we had some rolls and butter and coffee, to make up for the loss of our breakfast in the morning. We then took a walk to the church at Dartford, where we lounged about till we were tired—then came back through the fields to the boat, which we got into, and made the ship.”

Professional eyes will detect a curious mixture of ignorance and knowledge in the above production, in which, if the nautical terms—such as ‘hole’ for hatchway—be not too severely criticised, the information may pass pretty well for twenty-four hours’ experience.

In a letter written a few days afterwards, from the Nore, I find some touches of the same kind.

“On Sunday, about three o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by a great noise of the boatswain’s mates and the captain bawling for all hands up to unfurl the sails. As I thought I could not sleep much more, I got up in the dark and went upon deck. All the men were hauling the anchor in: they were a good while about it. As soon as the anchor was got in, all the men ran up the masts like so many cats, and went out on the yard-arms and untied the sails. In a little while all the sails were set, and we scudded down the river, very quick. Got to the Nore about twelve o’clock, where we now lie for three or four days.”

In another letter, of the same date, after giving an account of the “confounded noise made by the men, and the boatswain’s mates ordering the anchor to be drawn up”—and describing, more correctly than in the above extract, that the sailors “ran up the shrouds,” I proceed to plume myself, rather prematurely, upon being already a voyager.

“About twelve o’clock we made the Nore—the first time I have been in open sea!” I half suspect that the motion of the ship, which, even at that stage of our progress, began, as I well remember, to overturn the serenity of my stomach, may have led me to conclude we were at sea. In the same epistle, in spite of the open ocean, there occur the following sentences:—

“I like my station very much indeed. Have some very agreeable messmates, and the schoolmaster is a very pleasant man, who has travelled a great deal. We have not begun our school yet, as we are all in confusion, but shall, as soon as we have tripped our anchor for Halifax.”

The next letter was written from Spithead, and is characteristic enough.

“H. M. S. Leander, Spithead, June 18.

“I am much better pleased with my situation than I suspected I would at my first coming on board. We have in our mess four Scotchmen, six Englishmen, and two Irish, so that we make a very pleasant company down in the cock-pit. We dine at twelve, and breakfast at eight in the morning. At breakfast we get tea and sea cake: at dinner we have either beef, pork, or pudding. But when we come into a harbour or near one, there are always numbers of boats come out with all sorts of vegetables and fresh meat, which are not left long in the boat—for the people all run, and buy up the soft bread, and fresh provisions.

“About nine o’clock on the 17th, we anchored in the Downs—the famous Downs—but, instead of seeing a large fleet of great ships thundering out a salute to us on our entrance, there was not one but a Dane and a Swede; so we had to moor ship in the now solitary Downs. All the hills along the coast are chalk. I should have liked to have gone on shore at Dover to get you a piece of the rock, but could not, as the ship was sailing as we passed it.

“We saw the coast of France, but were not near enough to see any thing that was going on in the French territories.

“We midshipmen are upon watch every night for four hours together; we do nothing but walk the quarter-deck, if the ship is not sailing. There is always half the crew upon deck when the ship is sailing, and we and the lieutenants order them to do so and so about the ropes and sails. All the men’s hammocks are brought upon deck, and laid in places at the side for the purpose, both to give room for the men to work under the decks, and to give them air. All the decks are washed and well scrubbed every morning, which is very right, as they are often dirtied.

“There is a sort of cylinder of sail-cloth, about two feet in diameter, which is hung above the deck, and is continued down through the decks to the cock-pit. The wind gets in at the top, and so runs down and airs the cock-pit, which is a very pleasant thing, down here, at the bottom of the ship.

“This morning, about eight o’clock, we arrived at Spithead, and saw the celebrated Portsmouth, but I did not go ashore the first day, as so many others were going; but I intend to go as soon as I get leave. As we were coming along we saw the Isle of Wight; it is very pretty indeed, viewed from the ship, whatever it might be were we on it. I saw some pretty places there, with plenty of wood round them. The sun was fast setting on the water in the opposite horizon, which had a fine effect, and cast a light upon the island, which I cannot describe to you, as it is such a rich country, and contains so many objects—it is too pretty to describe. There are some ships at Spithead, both large and small. In my next letter, if I go to Portsmouth, I will give you an account of all the harbour and docks, &c. &c. We remain here for ten days, I believe.”

These extracts, though of course sufficiently boyish, help to shew what may be made out of the most common-place details, when all things are totally new both to the writer and the reader. It is on this account I give a place to these juvenile lucubrations; for it is not about the particular incidents that we care, in such cases, so much as the state of feeling and genuine opinions of a young person, exposed, for the first time, to the actual contact of the world. It would be unreasonable to expect such ideas to be expressed in so many words; but they may be picked up, in some degree, by the very terms used in describing the most ordinary transactions.

The following letter shews how little difficulty people find in expressing themselves when well charged with their topic. On reading it over at the distance of nearly thirty years, I cannot help remarking how different, and yet how much alike, the same person may be at various periods of his life—how much changed in thought—in sentiment—in action! It is curious also to discover, how independent the man at one stage of life is of the same man at another stage—though, after all, they may possibly be more nearly allied in character, at bottom, than any two other persons who could be placed in comparison. At the same time, under the circumstances described in this letter, I really do not see that I should act differently at this hour.

“Portsmouth, June 19.

“We were very near all being destroyed, and blown up, last night, by an alarming fire on board. As I was standing making my hammock, last night about ten o’clock, near two others making theirs, we were alarmed by seeing a large burst of sparks come from one corner of the cock-pit. Without going to see what was the matter, I ran into our birth, or place where we mess, and got hold of all the pots of beer which the midshipmen were going to drink. I returned with these, and threw them on the fire, while others ran for water.

“When I came back, I saw the purser’s steward covered with fire, and rubbing it off him as fast as he could, with a pile of burning sheets and blankets lying at his feet. One of us ran up to the quarter-deck, and seizing the fire-buckets that were nearest, filled them, and brought them down. We also got some of the men out of their hammocks, but took good care not to awaken any of the rest, for fear of bustle and confusion.

“The sentry, as soon as he discovered the smell, went down to the captain and lieutenants, who immediately came to the cock-pit, and whispered out ‘Silence!’ They then got more buckets of water, and quenched the flames, which, as they thought, were only in the purser’s steward’s cabin. But one of the men opened the door of the steward’s store-room, and saw a great deal of fire lying on the floor. Water, of course, was applied, and it also was quenched; the store-room was then well flooded.

“The captain ordered the purser’s steward to be put in irons directly, as well as his boy, who had stuck the light up in the cabin. The captain next went with the master-at-arms into the powder magazine, which was close to the purser’s steward’s cabin, and found the bulkhead or partition half-burnt through by the fire in the cabin!

“All this mischief was occasioned by sticking a naked light upon the beam above the cabin, from whence it had fallen down and set fire to the sheets. The steward, in trying to smother it with more, had set fire to the whole bundle, which he then flung in a mass into the store-room. There was a watch kept all night near the spot. Nobody has been hurt.

“I am very sorry for the purser’s steward, for he was a very good-natured and obliging man, and much liked by all of us. He gave us plums, &c. when we asked them from him. He is broke, I fear. I will give you the issue in my next letter.”

This incident served, in a small way, to bring me into notice; for the very next day, to my great satisfaction, I was ordered by the first lieutenant to go in the jolly-boat, which was manned alongside, with some message to a ship which he named, lying near us at Spithead. I hesitated; and upon his asking me why I did not ‘be off,’ I replied that I did not know which was the ship in question. “Oh,” said he, looking over the gangway hammocks, “that ship with the top-gallant-masts struck.”

Now, I had not the remotest idea what the term ‘top-gallant-mast struck’ might mean; but as the officer seemed impatient, I hurried down the side. The bow-man shoved the boat off, and away we rowed, making a very zig-zag course; for, though I had the tiller in my hand, I knew very imperfectly how to use it. The strokesman of the boat at last laid his oar across, touched his hat, and said, “Which ship are we going to, sir?”

I answered, in the words of the first lieutenant, “the one with the top-gallant-masts struck.”

“Oh, sir,” exclaimed the fellow, smiling, “we have past her some time—there she lies,” pointing astern.

Round we pulled—and I was much inclined to ask the man to steer the boat; for, although my old associates, the fishermen on the coast of Scotland, had edified me a little on this matter, I found it quite a different affair to take a boat alongside a man-of-war at Spithead, in a tide’s way, from what it had been to run a cobble on the beach. Accordingly, I first ran the jolly-boat stem on, and, in trying to remedy this lubberly blunder, gave orders which had the effect of bringing the boat head and stern—which is about as wrong in seamanship, as it would be in a horseman to put his right foot into the stirrup in mounting, which, of course, would bring him with his face to the tail.

Nevertheless, I crawled up the side, gave my message, and returned to report the answer. The only salutation I received from the first lieutenant was in the following words—uttered in a sharp, angry tone:—

“Where the deuce have you been, youngster, all this time? and what possessed you to go cruising about amongst the whole fleet at such a rate?”

“I hope I shall learn to do better, sir,” I stammered out.

“There is much room for improvement, I am sure,” he cried.

I was made painfully sensible, by the tartness of this reproach, that there was no very extraordinary degree of professional sagacity in what I had recently done about the fire near the magazine. I had been taking some credit to myself for not bawling out ‘fire! fire!’ and especially for having thought of the pots of beer—but this brilliant piece of service seemed now all forgotten!

Officers, and other persons in authority, should therefore be careful how they strike young folks with their tongues; for, although the wounds made do not shew upon the skin like those caused by steel or lead, they often sink deeper into the feelings, and frequently remain rankling there much longer than was intended, or than is useful.

Of course, I was excessively mortified; but the justice of the officer’s censure was so obvious, and the ridicule of the seamen in the boat, even subdued as it was, so fair, that I soon saw I had nothing to do but to set about learning to steer forthwith, and to lose no time in finding out what ‘striking top-gallant-masts’ could possibly mean.

CHAPTER III.
SPECIMENS OF COCK-PIT DISCIPLINE.

I skip over many other anecdotes at Portsmouth, in order to get fairly out to sea; for I never felt completely disengaged from the thraldom of school, and fully adrift on the wide world of independent life, till we had left the white cliffs of old England many leagues astern. The following brief despatch was penned just before starting; and I can remember the mixture of exultation, and undefined dread of something that was to come which I experienced, while I was writing it:—

“H. M. S. Leander, Spithead, July 11, 1802.

“Yesterday the captain received his sailing orders, and we have now got up a Blue Peter at the fore-top, which is a signal for immediate sailing. We are just going to unmoor ship, and shall sail for Halifax immediately. So, farewell to England!”

Off we set, accordingly; and it may be interesting, and perhaps useful, for youngsters in similar circumstances, to know, that all the pleasurable anticipations came to pass sooner than any of those which were gloomy in their promise. Yet it is curious, that, since those days, when I was first launched upon blue water, I have very rarely set out upon a voyage without experiencing many misgivings, often amounting almost to a wish that some accidental incident might arise to check the expedition altogether. This is the more strange, as I have seldom, if ever, failed to find the reality more delightful than was expected, the difficulties more easily overcome, and the harvest of amusement and instruction more fertile, than any previous reading or conversation, had led me to suppose the jog-trot course of a professional life could possibly afford.

I don’t deny that I had sometimes a plaguy tough job of it to keep my spirits up to this mark; and though I never quite lost heart, I was often very low in the scale of resolution. So much so, that, on looking back to those times, I fear I can discover moments when, had good opportunities offered, I might perhaps have been tempted to cut and run. Fortunately for me, however, there never was the least choice left between perseverance and poverty; and I had been long taught to consider, that the bread of idleness, however supplied, was the most degrading food a gentleman could eat. It is true I was not then so strongly convinced as I am now, that many of the essential advantages of the primogeniture law, lie on the side of the younger sons, yet I always felt, that it was my duty, as well as my interest, to illustrate, practically, the truth of this seeming paradox.

The first damper to this magnanimous resolution, of making myself useful in the world, was caused by a speech of our excellent captain, who, calling all the youngsters into his cabin, a few days after we were out of sight of land, addressed us in the following words:—

“Now, younkers, I have sent for you all, to tell you that you are not of the smallest use on board the ship; in fact, if any thing, you are rather in the way: but since you are here, I have no objection to your learning your business, if you have a mind to do so. You shall, therefore, have your choice, either to keep watch or not, exactly as you please; only, recollect this,—if any of you decide to do your duty in the way proposed, you shall be made to perform it in earnest. So, mind what you are about, and give me an answer to-morrow morning. Now, little fellows, be off with you!”

Out of about a dozen, I think there was only one other besides myself who decided upon keeping watch. Most of this party had been a cruise or two at sea before, and knew that pacing up and down the deck for four hours in the night, over and above the tasks of the day, was no joke; and they rather chuckled at the prospect of being let off so easily. For my part, I was so grievously annoyed at the contemptuous official assurance of being of no use, that I never hesitated an instant, but caught eagerly at any opening which promised me the means of belying this disparaging assertion. Of course, I knew little or nothing of the duties which would be required; but I had a pretty distinct notion, that, provided any person has a specific course chalked out for him to follow, no matter how humble that path may be, there must be a better and a worse way of going over it; and, if so, that there will be a certain amount of distinction due to him who, in the first instance, resolves to do his business properly, and has afterwards perseverance enough to make good his pledge.

To a lad who has health and spirits, keeping watch is rather agreeable than otherwise. I speak from about twelve years of almost uninterrupted experience of the practice, when I say that, upon the whole, its pleasures outweigh its annoyances. There is no opiate, that ever was devised, which gives such hearty relish to sleep, as a good four hours’ night-watch. Without refining or philosophising too deeply, every one, I am sure, who has tried the experiment, will recollect the sort of complete self-satisfaction with which he has ‘turned in,’ after having gone through his work, and stripped off his dripping clothes. Still less will he forget the delighted kind of hug, which he has bestowed upon himself, when fairly under the blankets. All the world is then forgotten; the gale may be rising; the ship in no great safety; the labours of the night just beginning—no matter, his watch is out—his task is done. “I’ll go to sleep,” he says; and, sure enough, a young middy, after the weary watch is out, lies down as perfect a personification of Shakspeare’s ship-boy as imagination could desire. Though not literally perched on the high and giddy mast, he is pretty nearly as soundly rocked; for, after being bagged up in a hammock, and hoisted close to the beams, in the cable tier, with only a foot and a half of space above, and not half a foot below him, he is banged, at every roll, against the stanchions, or driven by the motion of the ship against the deck overhead. In spite of all this, added to the loud creaking of the lower-deck guns, and the hundred-and-fifty other noises above and below him, he sleeps through all, and sleeps soundly; or, as the Spaniards say, ‘Rienda suelta,’—at full gallop.

There is another very satisfactory result of keeping watch, besides the certainty of insuring good sleep. It not only defines the duty to be performed, but the period in which it is to be done, so exactly, that all the rest of the time is free for us to make use of, in the way that most suits our own pleasure. To a person disposed to turn his spare moments to account, such privilege is a great affair, independently of the moral advantage of having a precise task to execute at stated hours. This obligation of working periodically seems, indeed, to act as a sort of hone, on which our intellects, as well as our industry, may be sharpened. Some reasoners and refiners on this matter go so far as to say, that a man of talents and fancy will often be able to turn his gifts to greater account, if forced to give up a considerable portion of his day to dull, or even disagreeable drudgery, than if he had the whole twenty-four hours to himself. It has even been said, that the most successful and imaginative writer of our times, considers himself indebted, for some of his happiest flights, to the necessity of plodding round and round the dull routine of a court of law, for many hours of every day; for, when he takes wing to the country, in the vacation, the spring of his energies is vastly more elastic, than if he had not been chained to a desk for many months before.

Be this as it may, I, for my own part, certainly took great delight in keeping watch, and even rejoiced, now and then, in catching a good sound ducking, as it tended to assure me that there was no play, but real earnest, in what I was about. During these early times, my chief apprehension seems to have been that I should be considered useless.

In some other respects, likewise, keeping watch possesses its advantages. Nothing else produces such punctual habits, or contributes more directly, to cast both mind and body, into those trains of thought and of action which lead to certainty of purpose, by teaching us how much we may accomplish when we set about things regularly. The practice, also, of early trust is extremely salutary; and although the youngster of a watch has but a small charge, what little he has soon makes him acquainted with the meaning of the word responsibility, and he is thus gradually brought up to court, rather than to shrink from, the exercise of high duties. He learns that the first object of his professional life is to perform what is required by the rules of the service in a proper manner, careless of the consequences. He is likewise taught the wholesome lesson, that any praise for so doing is not only quite a secondary affair, but that such commendation essentially belongs only to those grand efforts of exertion, when an officer of enterprise and resource, in the midst of difficulties, adopts that particular line of conduct which the result proves to be best calculated to accomplish some high purpose.

At the same time, although praise is not an article much used in naval discipline, I know few things which tend more directly to stimulate exertion, and confirm the best resolutions of a young officer, as some mark, no matter how small, of well-timed approbation. There is hardly any man so dull or so wicked, so old or so young, who is not keenly alive to the influence of such commendation at the right moment. It is both interesting and practically important, also, to observe, that praise, like charity—of which it may be called a branch—can be dispensed by every man. There is no person so low in station, who, if he be inclined, may not do works of kindness to some of his shipmates. In fact, a ship’s crew are so isolated from the rest of the world, and thrown so constantly together, that they can influence one another’s happiness even more effectually than neighbours on shore have it in their power to do. Accordingly, there is no officer, man, or boy, in a ship of war, so circumstanced, who, in the exercise of his ordinary duties, and without departing from strict truth, may not give much pleasure to those under him or about him, and thus essentially tend to advance the best interests of the service, by making the motives to action spring from a desire to do well. This, after all, is the great secret of discipline.

In large ships especially, if they be destined, as the Leander was, to bear an admiral’s flag, there are always many more midshipmen on board than are absolutely necessary for performing the duty. These young gentlemen, therefore, are divided into three watches, and the individuals of each set are stationed on different parts of the deck. The mate of the watch, who is the principal person amongst them, with two or three youngsters, walk on the quarter-deck, always, of course, on the lee side. Another midshipman, generally the second in seniority, has the honour of being posted on the forecastle; while a third, stationed abaft, walks on the poop. To these is added, sometimes, a signal-mid, whose business, as will be understood without minute explanation, is to watch the communications made by other ships in company, or to convey orders to them, by means of flags, which are generally hoisted from the poop.

After a certain probation, I was promoted from youngster on the quarter-deck to have charge of the poop; and in the hope of being advanced, in due time, to the dignity of forecastle-midshipman, became extremely assiduous—rather too much so, as it would appear.

It was a positive order, and a very proper one, that no clothes should be hung up to dry except on the clothes’ lines, or in the weather rigging, and even there only by permission of the officer in charge of that part of the ship. Every one, of course, is aware that nothing is considered so sluttish as hanging clothes below the gunwale, and especially on the davits or guys of the quarter boats. But all poop middies who have tried to keep these ropes clear of shirts and jackets, know that it is not very easy to exact obedience to these orders. In all well-regulated ships, however, these apparently small matters are found to contribute to the maintenance of uniformity and good order. They form the tracery or fringe, as it were—the ornamental parts of discipline—which, if properly attended to, generally imply that the more substantial requisites are not neglected. At all events, our first lieutenant was most particular on this subject; and when any shirt or pair of trousers was detected by his piercing eye, which had escaped the vigilance of the midshipman of the poop, the young gentleman was sure to fall under his biting censure, or, in the slang of the cock-pit, was certain to ‘catch it.’

I had constitutionally from my infancy—and doubly so from the first day I went afloat—a great horror at being reproached, or ‘wigged,’ as we called it; and therefore laboured at all times with prodigious ardour to escape the torture of that direct, cutting, merciless sort of censure, which so many persons consider the only proper vehicle of instruction when reproving the rising generation. Of course, therefore, as soon as I was placed in command of the poop, I waged fierce war against the wet shirts of the sailors, or the still more frequent abomination of the well-pipe-clayed trousers of the marines, who naturally affect that part of the ship, and are seldom seen forward amongst the seamen. All experience shews, however, that there is no due proportion between the difficulty of getting a trifling order obeyed, and that of accomplishing a great affair. People are apt to forget, that the obligation of obedience does not always turn upon the greater or less importance of the measure commanded, but upon the distinctness of the injunction. At all events, the unhappy poop-mids of my day were in hot water, almost every morning, about this petty affair, which the men, to our great plague, were exceedingly slow to take up, without more severe punishments than the first lieutenant was generally disposed to inflict. “It is entirely owing to your negligence, young gentlemen,” said he to us one day, “that these wet things are so continually hung up, to the disgrace of the poop. If you would only contrive to keep your sleepy eyes open, and look about you, during your watch, instead of snoosing in the hammock netting, with the fly of the ensign wrapped about you, the men would never think of hanging up their clothes in such improper places.”

We used to marvel much how he managed to point his sarcastic censure so exactly as to hit the precise fault we had been guilty of, and we resolved in future to keep out of its reach, as far as these eternal wet things went. Yet, in spite of all sorts of attention, the day seldom broke without some provoking article of dress making its fluttering appearance—though how on earth it got there, often baffled conjecture. Upon one occasion, my juvenile bile was fairly capsised, and having given warning, as I declared, for the hundred-and-fiftieth time, and all to no effect, I pulled out my knife, and cut the stops which tied a shirt to the jolly-boat’s tackle-fall. Had I proceeded no further, all would have been right and proper; but, in my zealous rage, I leaped beyond the lines of my duty, and fairly threw the offending garment overboard!

Just as the sun peeped above the horizon, our most systematic of first lieutenants made his periodical appearance. I watched his eye as it glanced towards my department, and I chuckled a good deal, when I saw that my activity had baffled every attempt to detect a square inch of the forbidden drapery.

The decks, however, were hardly swabbed up before I saw a scamp of a mizen-top-man, with his hat in one hand, and smoothing down the hair in front of his head with the other, while he shifted his balance from leg to leg, address himself to the first lieutenant, evidently in the act of lodging a complaint. In the next minute I was called down, and interrogated as to my proceedings. The fact of my having thrown the lad’s shirt overboard being admitted, I was desired to recompense him for his loss, by paying him the value in money—while he, in like manner, was punished for disobedience in hanging it up in so improper a situation.

A common-place person would have stopped short there; but this judicious officer was of a different stamp—and I have often lamented, since those days, that he did not live to receive the grateful acknowledgments experience has taught me were his due, for this and many other lessons which at that time I could not justly appreciate.

It was his practice every evening, just before going to bed, to give to the mate of the watch a written order of what he wished executed in the course of the night, or early in the morning; and many an injunction, it may be supposed, his little neatly-bound order-book contained against the particular kind of delinquency above noticed. On the present occasion, however, the night orders consisted of these words only:—

“Mr. Hall is the only gentleman who attends to his duty on the poop.”

It was needless to point more distinctly, even to the youngest squeaker amongst us, how adroitly the scales of justice and good sense were balanced in this case. On my side, it was quite clear I had no business wantonly to cast away another man’s property, merely because that property was not in its right place; and accordingly I was compelled to make full restitution. This, of itself, was a considerable censure. But as the fault really arose from disinterested zeal, in furthering the objects of the service, the first lieutenant, by one of those well-timed notes of approbation, which bind inferiors to their duty far more strongly than punishments ever deter them from neglecting it, took care to improve the lesson to my advantage, by putting his official sense of that zeal upon record. Small as the incident was, there are few things which have since happened, that have given me more permanent satisfaction than this slight, passing notice. From the strong manner, also, in which it disposed me to esteem the person who thus distinguished me, I can understand the secret by which great commanders rivet the affections and secure the best services of the people about them. The opposite course, it should not be forgotten, holds still more true. While half a dozen words, such as these, written at the proper time, may fix the gratitude of a whole life, a single careless word, spoken at the wrong season, or in the wrong tone of voice, though perhaps void of hurtful intention, will often rankle for years, and permanently estrange men from one another, who might otherwise be truly attached.

The excellent officer above alluded to, I am grieved to say, was lost to the service a few years afterwards. When lieutenant of the Conqueror in 1808, on her passage to Lisbon, he, and about half the ship’s company, were seized with ophthalmia. He never fully recovered his sight, and, though eventually promoted to the rank of commander, he was not able to serve long, and finally became stone-blind. He still, however, expected his post promotion with so much anxiety, that when he found the Admiralty passed him over, the disappointment preyed so deeply on his mind, once so vigorous, that it broke to pieces! His intellects were literally destroyed, by the mere denial of an honour which must have been purely nominal, as he never could have gone afloat. Had he but retained his sight, however, he would, in all probability, have now been one of the most valuable officers in his majesty’s service. But his fate was different, and he died blind, insane, and broken-hearted!

I have already mentioned, I think, that I was very little for my age, and somewhat impatient in disposition, and, further, that I spoke the hideous patois of Edinburgh, with the delectable accompaniment of the burr of Berwick. These circumstances, which ought, perhaps, to have excited pity, acted and reacted upon one another somewhat to my disadvantage, and in no very agreeable style.

In addition to other sources of annoyance, I was more than usually subject to sea-sickness whenever there was the least breeze of wind, and about once a-week was pestered with the toothache. In the midst of these mortifications, I reckoned with confidence on the support of my own countrymen, of whom there were several amongst the elder mids—an error into which I was led by having often heard of the way in which Scotchmen hang together in foreign parts. But these wicked fellows, though very truly my friends, were not always disposed to aid and assist me in the precise way I wished; and young folks, as well as their seniors, do not like to be obliged except on their own terms. I had also unluckily taken it into my head that I spoke English with remarkable purity—a sad mistake! Upon one occasion I missed some money; and a brother-mid seeing me in distress, asked what was the matter.

“Oh,” said I, “I have tint a half-guinea.”

“Tint!” cried the other, “what’s that?”

At this moment one of my quizzing countrymen happening to pass, and hearing the question, burst into a laugh, and explained, that ‘tint,’ being interpreted, meant ‘lost;’ adding, “none but Sawney from the north” would have used such a barbarous word, unknown in England.

“Eh, Saunders, where are ye gawin?” and many other taunting expressions to the disparagement of my country, which will hardly bear the press, were flung at me from the English portion of the circle now assembled to hear this confusion of tongues. If the Scotch, in its purity, be bad enough, it is truly savage in the mouth of a pretender; and I was doubly provoked to hear its Doric beauties marred by southern lips. I made play, therefore, for some time, but presently became quite angry, which was exactly what the rogues desired. Then, suddenly seized with a bright thought, I turned short round on the original framer of the mischief, whose interpretation of my native word ‘tint’ had brought the laugh upon me, and said, in a rage, “I dare say it was you that stole the half-guinea!”

For one moment, and no more, I had the laugh with me; but, in the next instant, a shower of thumps from the accused party vindicated the freedom of cock-pit justice, and set the whole posse of us small fry to the right and left, like a shoal of flying fish sprung upon by a dolphin.

This affair had scarcely blown by, when I got into a second scrape, also with a countryman, who was then, and still is, one of the best friends I have, but whose fate it was, at that early period, to inspire me with many doubts as to the value of his good offices, albeit they were every way kind and disinterested.

There is no class of persons in His Majesty’s naval service who have such ravenous appetites as the younger class of middies—indeed their plates and platters leave the birth, generally, as clean as they were before the dinner entered. What may be the cause of this voracity it is needless to inquire—the fact of their prodigious appetites is universal. And it will easily be imagined that, in such a community, the Esquimaux maxim of first come, first served, would sometimes introduce itself into the practice of those polished young gentlemen. One day, after keeping the forenoon watch, I went down at half-past twelve to dinner, but found nothing left on the board but a morsel of the ship’s beef which we generally called salt junk, and sometimes believed to be salt horse, resembling very much a piece of mahogany, and often quite as sapless. To this was added a very small portion of suet pudding, called in our lingo, dough, or duff, and differing but little in aspect and weight from good honest pipe-clay. It has been very properly observed of a young midshipman, that, ‘although God may turn his heart, the devil cannot turn his stomach;’ and certainly, upon this occasion, I made no sort of objection to the victuals set before me—except as to the quantity. In five minutes, the dish and the plate had returned to that habitual state of purity, which would have rendered the office of scullion a complete sinecure, had we been honoured with such an attendant.

While I was ruminating upon this meagre fare, one of the oldsters bawled out to me, “Come, youngster, you have done your dinner—march off! I want your place at the table to write my log up—so scull away with you!” And, in spite of Lord Chesterfield, which he was constantly reading, he instantly shovelled me right into the cock-pit. What with the indignity of my exit, which I cannot more particularly describe, without a greater breach of the graces than I choose to risk even at this long interval of time, and what with the empty state of my stomach, I mounted upon deck again, of course, in a precious bad humour, not a quarter of an hour from the time I had dived.

“Hollo! Maister Saunders,” cried one of my Scotch friends, “what’s the matter with you? You look as black as your countryman when he was caught half-way through a hole in the orchard wall.”

“Why,” said I, glad to find some vent for my disappointment, “to tell you the truth, I have not got my share of the pudding to-day.”

“Oh! ho! that’s it—is it? Capital! Your share of the pudding?—excellent!” And away he shot down the ladder, to pass the joke amongst the rest below; so that, by and by, I was assailed at every turn with inquiries touching my ‘share of the pudding;’ and my unfortunate speech, translated into various dialects of what they all thought Scotch, merely because it was not like English, was sung out like a ballad, for the amusement of the whole fraternity, for the next week.

This, like the half-guinea story, would soon have passed off for something else, had not one of the mess been reading Sir Launcelot Greaves, in which book one Justice Gobble is described as a great glutton. The malicious young reader no sooner came to the place than he roared out that he had found a name for me! and I was dubbed forthwith Mr. Justice Gobble, which title I retained till another, somewhat more to my taste, and more appropriate, I hoped, was given in exchange.

I had heard or read somewhere, that if a bottle, well corked, were let down into the sea for a hundred fathoms or so, and then drawn up again, it would be found full of fresh water. Like most modern discoverers, I took upon me to suppose that this experiment had not been properly tried before. So, one fine, calm morning, I borrowed a couple of cod lines, which were then in grand preparation for the banks of Newfoundland, and having stowed myself out of sight, under the breast of one of the lower deck guns, I plunged my apparatus overboard. Some one detected me when I was just beginning to haul in the apparatus; and, before it reached the surface, half-a-dozen of my less scientific messmates were perched on the neighbouring guns and chests, cracking their jokes upon my proceedings. A huge horse-laugh was got ready to explode upon me as I examined the bottle, and found the cork in its place, but inverted, and the contents as salt as need be.

“Well, now,” said one of the party, “this is funny enough—Justice Gobble is turned Experimental Philosopher; who would have thought it?” and off they scattered to laugh at something else—light-hearted, and careless of all things about them—up to any mischief or any business, and gradually forming themselves, by an involuntary process, for the right performance of those varied duties which belong to their calling, and which, like the elements they have to deal with, are scarcely ever two days alike.

Some of these lads had a turn for mechanics, some for navigation; others devoted much of their time to rigging, and different branches of seamanship—their hands being constantly in the tar-bucket. A few applied themselves to reading and drawing; several desperate hands stuck resolutely to the flute; one or two thought of nothing but dress; and a few swore a pretty steady friendship to the grog-bottle; while every now and then a sentimental youth deemed himself inspired, and wrote execrable verses which we thought capital. By far the greater number of these promising young men have found graves, some on land—some in the deep sea!

On crossing the banks of Newfoundland the ship was hove to, for the purpose of sounding; and the quarter-master having tied a baited hook to the deep-sea lead, a noble cod was drawn to the surface, from the depth of ninety fathoms. Upon this hint, the captain, very considerately, agreed to lie by for an hour or two; and some fifty lines being put over, the decks were soon covered, fore and aft, with such a display of fish as Bilingsgate has rarely witnessed.

People who know nothing of a sea life fancy that fish is not a rarity with us; but there is nothing of which we taste so little; so that the greatest treat by far, when we come into port, is a dish of fresh soles or mackerel; and even the commonest fish that swims is looked upon as a treasure. It is only in soundings that any are to be met with; for, in the open and bottomless ocean, we meet with nothing but whales, porpoises, dolphins, sharks, bonitas, and flying fish. I shall, perhaps, have occasion to describe the mode of catching, dressing, and eating, all of these: for we demolish them all, excepting only the shark, between which and the sailors there rages an interminable war—something not unlike that which exists, from age to age, between the Indians and the Esquimaux—in which the sharks may be compared to the Indians, who eat their prisoners, and we to the Esquimaux, who only kill their captives, but prefer eating something else.

I never could conceive, or even form a probable conjecture, how it is that some persons manage to catch fish, and others none. It is easy to understand, that in angling, a certain degree of skill, or choice of situation, may determine the probable amount of success. But when a line is let down to the depth of eighty or a hundred fathoms, or even to twenty or thirty feet, quite out of sight, what has skill to do there? And yet, in a ship, on the banks of Newfoundland, or in a boat on the Thrumcap shoals in Halifax harbour, I have seen one man hauling in cods or haddocks as fast as he could bait his hooks; while others, similarly circumstanced in all apparent respects, might fret and fidget for half a day without getting more than a nibble.

There can be no doubt, of course, that intellectual power must be in operation at one end of the line, otherwise no fish will come to the other; but the puzzle is, by what mysterious process can human intelligence manage to find its way, like electricity, down the line to the bottom of the sea? I have often asked successful fishermen what they did to make the fish bite; but they could seldom give any available answer. Sometimes they said it depended on the bait. “Well, then,” I have answered, “let me take your line, and do you take mine.” But in two minutes after we had changed places, my companion was pulling in his fish as fast as before, while not a twitch was given to my new line, though, just before, the fish appeared to be jostling one another for the honour of my friend’s hook, to the total neglect of that which had been mine, now in high vogue amongst them.

There is some trick, or sleight of hand, I suppose, by which a certain kind of motion is given to the bait, so as to assimilate it to that of the worms which the fishes most affect in their ordinary researches for food. But, probably, this art is no more to be taught by description, or to be learnt without the drudgery of practice, than the dexterity with which an artist represents nature, or a dancer performs pirouettes. Uninstructed persons, therefore, who, like myself, lose patience because they cannot catch fish at the first cast of the line, had better turn their attention to something else.

Almost the only one I ever caught was during this first voyage across the Atlantic, when, after my line had been down a whole weary hour, I drew it up in despair. It felt so light, that I imagined the line must have been accidentally broken; but presently, and greatly to my astonishment, I beheld a huge cod float to the top, swollen to twice the usual dimensions by the expansion of its sound, as the air-bag is called, which lies along the back-bone. At the depth of eighty or ninety fathoms, this singular apparatus is compressed by the enormous addition of fifteen or sixteen atmospheres. But when the air is relieved of this weight, by approaching the surface, the strength of the muscles proves inadequate to retain it in its condensed form; and its consequent expansion not only kills the fish, but often bursts it open as completely as if it had been blown up with gunpowder.

After a passage of about six weeks, we reached Halifax, in Nova Scotia; and I can perfectly recollect the feelings with which I first put my foot on shore in the New World. “At last,” I said to myself, “I am decidedly abroad; and it shall go hard with me but this round globe shall be well tramped over by these feet before I rest!” This resolution has been tolerably well kept; but it is perhaps worthy of remark, that almost the whole of the journeys alluded to have been accomplished in the jog-trot routine of professional avocations, and generally without any express design on my part. It is true I once took a hasty scamper over Europe, and, more lately, a deliberate jaunt in North America; but with these exceptions, and a small trip to Prince Edward’s Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to which I shall possibly advert again,—every league of my voyaging and travelling has been at the expense of His Majesty, that is to say, in the exercise of purely professional duties.

I have mentioned this, merely because I think it furnishes a sort of encouragement to naval officers, of all ranks and ages, who, unless they be very stupid, or very unfortunate, or both, may, in the course of their lives, probably have nearly as ample means of observation in foreign parts, as if they had been born to fortunes, and spent them in the sole occupation of travelling. It is surely a pleasant affair to be carried about from place to place free of cost; and perhaps there is also some advantage in our being thus tossed about without any free choice of our own. There is often bitter disappointment, it is true, in being hurried away before our remarks are half made, with our curiosity only half satisfied, to be plunged into new scenes, piping hot from those we have left. But by this means the attention is kept briskly alive; and the powers of observation, being forced to act on the instant, are certainly rendered more acute. From so much, and such varied practice, also, the mind becomes more decided and clear, as well as more prompt, in its conclusions. And in consequence of this accumulation of knowledge, every new country visited appears to be more fertile than the last in objects of interest, till at length the field of view seems so thickly crowded, that the naval traveller, instead of having to search for materials, is generally overpowered by their abundance, and scarcely knows which to lay his hand upon, in order to describe the effect produced.

It is the curious property of well-directed inquiry into any branch of natural knowledge, that the thirst for such investigations generally goes on increasing with the indulgence; and what is equally or more to the purpose, the motives to perseverance are proportionably augmented. I believe there are few exceptions to this rule; and I think it may be observed, that, in the navy, precisely as an officer rises in the service, so his means of travelling to good purpose are improved likewise. As he advances in rank, his introductions to society become more easy and extensive, and his facilities for seeing strange things are multiplied at every step, till at length, when he arrives at the command of a ship, he finds himself in one of the most agreeable situations, perhaps, that the nature of things admits of, for viewing the world to advantage.

It must be recollected, too, that the chief interest of most countries, and especially of new countries, lies on their sea-coasts, where the first towns are naturally erected. In those cases where this rule does not hold good, naval officers often contrive to visit the interior: and wherever they go, they are sure of a hearty welcome, and a ready access to all that is worthy of investigation. Their best passport, in fact, is their uniform—their best letters of introduction, the columns of the navy list; and if in any case they fail to profit by the opportunities thus placed within their reach, the fault lies with the dull nature of the particular parties themselves, and not with their glorious profession. In all probability, the very same persons who, as officers, can turn their naval life to no account in the way of travelling, would have done no better in any other situation in life.

This reminds me of a tailor at Halifax, who, on being sadly provoked by some of the scampish band amongst us, for not paying his abominably long bills, said, in a rage, in the cock-pit before us all, that after having tried his son in half a dozen professions, without any chance of success, he was now resolved, as a last resource, to make a midshipman of him! This sarcasm was uttered during the short peace of Amiens, when we first visited Halifax,—a period when the mids had so little real business to attend to, that they seized eagerly upon any opening for a joke. As soon, therefore, as the tailor had quitted the ship, it was resolved to punish him for his uncourteous speech.

It had not escaped the notice of his tormentors, that this vulgar fraction of his species prided himself, in a most especial degree, on the dignity of a very enormous tail or queue, which reached half-way down his back; and it was resolved in secret council, that this appendage should be forthwith docked.

Nothing, I must fairly own, could be more treacherous than the means devised to lower the honour and glory of the poor tailor. He was formally invited to dinner with us; and, being well plied with grog, mixed according to the formidable rule for making what is called a North-wester, which prescribes that one half of each glass shall consist of rum, and the other half of rum and water, our poor guest was soon brought under the table. Being then quite incapable of moving, he was lifted in noisy triumph out of the birth, and placed in the tier, across the bends of the small bower cable, where, after many a grunt and groan at the rugged nature of his couch, he at length fell asleep.

His beautiful tail, the pride of his life! was presently glued by means of a lump of pitch to the strands of the cable; and such was the tenacity of the substance, that in the morning, when, on the daylight gun being fired directly over his head, poor snip awoke, he could no more detach himself from the spot on which he lay, than could Lemuel Gulliver in like circumstances. His noddle was still so confused, that he knew not where he lay, nor what held him down. After tugging at his hair for a minute or two, he roared out lustily for help. One of the mids, seized with the brilliant idea of making the tailor the finisher of his own fate, hurried to his assistance, and, handing him a knife, roared out, “by all means to make haste, as the devil had got hold of him by the tail!”

The poor tradesman, terrified out of his wits, and in great horror at his mysterious situation, instantly did as he was desired, and cut away lustily, little dreaming that his own rash hand was shearing the highest and most cherished honours of his house! On turning round, he beheld with dismay the ravished locks, which, for half a century and more, had been the joint delight of himself and his tender partner Rebecca. As the thought of returning tail-less to his home crossed his half-bewildered brain, he exclaimed, in agony of spirit, to his malicious tormentors—“Oh Lord! oh Lord! I am a lost man to my Becky!”

The revenge of the malicious middies was now complete; and this expression of being a ‘lost man to one’s Becky’ became a byword in the ship, for many years afterwards, to denote the predicament of any one who got into a scrape, and came out of it with loss.

CHAPTER IV.
BERMUDA IN THE PEACE.

The Leander was a fifty-gun ship, and well known to the profession, as having formed one of the line of battle in the action of the Nile, though not strictly of that class, and for having afterwards maintained a glorious, though unsuccessful fight with a large French seventy-four, the Généreux, by which she was taken when on her way to England with Nelson’s despatches. She was a pretty ship of her class, and became permanently endeared to the memory of all who sailed on board, especially to those who first went to sea in her, and there found a practical illustration of the beautiful thought—that our ‘march is on the mountain wave, our home is on the deep.’

This character, indeed, gives the navy of England its peculiar distinction, and mainly contributes to its success. We do truly make the ship our home; we have no other thoughts of professional duty or of happiness but what are connected with the vessel in which we swim; we take a pride in her very looks, as we might in those of a daughter; and bring up her crew to honourable deeds, as we should wish to instruct our sons. The rate of sailing of each ship in a fleet, is a subject of never-ending discussion amongst all classes of the officers, midshipmen, and crews, every one of whom considers his own individual honour involved in all that his ship does, or is capable of doing. This is true, almost universally; but it is most striking, no doubt, in our first ship, which, like our first love, is supposed to drink up, from the opening flower of our young feelings, the richest drops of sentiment, never to be outdone, or even equalled, by future attachments! I owe, indeed, much good companionship and many sincere obligations to other vessels; yet I am sure that, if I live to be Lord High Admiral, the old Leander must still remain nearest and dearest to my nautical heart. I remember every corner about her—every beam—every cabin—every gun. I even look back to the strict school on board of her, with much of that affectionate sort of interest with which I observe Eton men regard the place of their education. Whenever any of the old set meet, who were shipmates together at the happy time I speak of, every other topic is swept from the board, and, for hours together, the boyish adventures, and even the most ordinary events of the dear old ship, form, out of all sight, the most delightful subject of conversation. It signifies nothing, that every one of the party has gone over the same round of stories and jokes, in the same company, fifty times; they invariably come back again, recommended by increasing interest, and by that genuine freshness of spirits, so ‘redolent of joy and youth, it breathes a second spring.’

Most of the survivors, indeed, have experienced, that the summer of life which succeeded to this opening season of our professional existence in the Leander, has been as full of enjoyment as we had hoped for, and that life has gone on to furnish us only with more extensive views and higher motives to action. It has also taught us, to discover that the real and permanent pleasures of life lie close alongside of its duties, and that as very much of our success certainly depends upon ourselves, so does very nearly all our happiness likewise.

On the 6th of December, we sailed from Halifax, with a fresh north-westerly wind, in a bitter cold day, so that the harbour was covered with a vapour called ‘the barber,’ a sort of low fog, which clings to the surface of the water, and sweeps along with these biting winter blasts, in such a manner as to cut one to the very bone. It is evidently caused by the condensation of the moisture close to the water in the severe cold. The thermometer, when we sailed, was eleven degrees below zero; and nothing but the violence of the wind, which broke the surface into a sheet of foam, prevented our being frozen in, like the north-western voyagers at Melville Island.

As we shot past one of the lower wharfs of the town of Halifax, just before coming to the narrow passage between George’s Island and the main land, on the south side of this magnificent harbour, a boat put off with a gentleman, who, by some accident, had missed his passage. They succeeded in getting alongside the ship; but, in seizing hold of a rope which was thrown to them from the main-chains, the boatmen, in their hurry, caught a turn with it round the after-thwart, instead of making it fast somewhere in the bow of the boat. The inevitable consequence of this proceeding was, to raise the stern of the boat out of the water, and, of course, to plunge her nose under the surface. Even a landsman will comprehend how this happened, when it is mentioned that the ship was running past at the rate of ten knots. In the twinkling of an eye, the whole party, officer, boatmen, and all, were seen floating about, grasping at the oars or striking out for the land, distant, fortunately, only a few yards from them; for the water thereabouts is so deep, that a ship, in sailing out or in, may safely graze the shore.

As the intensity of the cold was great, we were quite astonished to see the people swimming away so easily; but we afterwards learned from one of the party, that, owing to the water being between forty and fifty degrees warmer than the air, he felt, when plunged into it, as if he had been soused into a hot bath. The instant, however, he reached the pier, and was lugged out, like a half-drowned rat, he was literally enclosed in a firm case of ice from head to foot! This very awkward coat of mail was not removed without considerable difficulty; nor was it till he had been laid for some hours in a well-warmed bed, between two other persons, that he could move at all, and, for several months afterwards, he was not well enough to leave his room.

For us to stop, at such a time and place, was impossible; so away we shot like a spear—past Chebucto Head, Cape Sambro, and sundry other fierce-looking black capes of naked rock, smoothed off, apparently, by the attrition of some huge deluge, that must, I think, have submerged all that part of America, as far as I have examined it, between the shores of Lake Erie on the west, and Boston and New York on the south and east.

But we had no time, on the day I speak of, for any such speculations. The breeze rapidly rose to a hard gale, which split our main-topsail to threads, and sent the fragments thundering to leeward in the storm, in such grand style, that, to this hour, I can almost fancy I hear the noise in my ears. I know few things more impressive than the deep-toned sounds caused by the flapping of a wet sail, in such a fierce squall as this, when the sheets are carried away, and the unconfined sail is tugging and tearing to get clear of the yard, which bends and cracks so fearfully, that even the lower mast sometimes wags about like a reed. I certainly have heard thunder far louder than the sounds alluded to; but have seldom known it more effective or startling than those of a sail going to pieces in such a tempest of wind and rain.

I was standing, where I had no business to be, on the weather side of the quarter-deck, holding on stoutly by one of the belaying pins, and wondering where this novel scene was to end, but having an obscure idea that the ship was going to the bottom. The admiral was looking up at the splitting sail as composedly as possible, after desiring that the main-top-men, whose exertions were quite useless, should be called down, out of the way of the ropes, which were cracking about their heads. Every now and then I could see the weather-wise glance of the veteran’s eye directed to windward, in hopes that matters would mend. But they only became worse; and at last, when the foremast seemed to be really in danger, for it was bending like a cane, though the foresail had been reefed, he waited not to run through the usual round of etiquettes by which an admiral’s commands generally reach the executive on board ship, but exclaimed, with a voice so loud, that it made me start over to the lee side of the deck:—

“Man the fore-clue garnets!”

In the next minute the sail rose gradually to the yard, and the groaning old ship, by this time sorely strained to her innermost timber, seemed to be at once relieved from the pressure of the canvass which had borne her headlong, right into the seas, and made her tremble from stem to stern, almost as if she were going to pieces.

The next thing to be done was to get in the jib-boom, in order to ease the bowsprit. In effecting this rather troublesome operation, one of the primest seamen we had fell overboard. He was second captain of the forecastle, the steadiness of whose admirable skill as a steersman had, one day, elicited the complimentary remark from the captain, that he must surely have nailed the compass card to the binnacle. On this, and other accounts, he was so much esteemed in the ship, that more than the usual degree of regret was felt for his melancholy fate. I saw the poor fellow pitch into the water, and watched him as he floated past, buoyant as a cork, and breasting the waves most gallantly, with an imploring look towards us, which I shall never forget. In less than a minute he was out of sight. A boat could hardly have lived in such weather, and no further attempt was made, or could have been made, to save him, than to throw over ropes, which all fell short of their mark. Although we soon lost all traces of him, it is probable he may have kept sight of us, as we drifted quickly to leeward under our bare poles, long after we had ceased to distinguish his figure in the yest of waves.

This gale, the first I ever saw, was also, I can recollect, one of the fiercest. It lasted for three days, totally dispersed our little squadron, well nigh foundered one of them, the Cambrian, and sent her hobbling into Bermuda some days after us, with the loss of her main-mast and all three top-masts.

Bermuda seemed to us mids a very barren place, as it produced few articles of any great utility—at least such as we required. There were then so few bullocks or sheep reared on the island, that I remember it was rather a wonder to see fresh meat on any table; and amongst the lower classes such a luxury was never known in those days. What may be the case now, I know not. The ships did get fresh meat now and then, but only very seldom; whereas in all other places, we were supplied regularly with fresh grub, as we called it, every day.

The Bermudas consist of upwards of a hundred little islands, clustered round two or three large ones. The seat of government is in St. George’s Island, which is about four or five miles long, by two broad, and very low. The town is built on the south-east side, on a gentle and very pretty declivity which fronts the harbour. None of the houses have more than two stories, and they are all built of the soft freestone, of which all these islands are composed. Most of these dwellings have but one chimney. In walking through the streets in hot days, such is the extreme whiteness of the walls, that the glare is most painful to the eyes. But as many of the buildings are surrounded by bananas, calabashes, orange trees, and by various members of the palm tribe, the disagreeable effect of the light is not felt, except in the open streets. This pretty town is about half a mile each way, and is mostly inhabited by blacks; but a great many of these possess houses, and have gained their freedom by some means or other. What is curious enough, all these manumitted negroes hold slaves as black as themselves; of course the whites own them in still greater numbers. The slaves are never allowed to have firearms in their hands, for fear of revolt; indeed it is said they are considerably more numerous than the freemen in the island; and no slave is allowed to go about the streets after nine o’clock at night.

We found the black people, generally speaking, gentle, docile, and kind. If we entered any of their houses, though they had but little to offer us, that little was always given with much simple hospitality. To say the truth, we saw much less reserve amongst the blacks than amongst those of our own colour. It is true, the means of entertaining strangers are but scanty; for the inhabitants, even of the better class, we were told, live mostly upon salt meat, brought from America in vessels which pass, like market boats, backwards and forwards during all the year.

We had read somewhere in fanciful tales, of countries in which the forests were of cedar; but, until we visited Bermuda, we hardly believed in such stories. At that fairy island, however, this tree constitutes the chief wood; so that every ship and boat built there is made of cedar: the beams also, and the furniture of the houses, are likewise constructed out of this fragrant timber. It is not the cedar of Lebanon, but resembles in appearance the yew of England, though it seldom grows to the same height. It has an agreeable smell, and bears a little blue berry, about the size of a pea, which, though sweet to the taste, is very dry. The wood, after it is cut up and planed, looks well for a little while, but it soon turns pale and chalky; nor is it capable of receiving a good polish. For ship-building, it is much esteemed on account of its durability. We saw orange and lemon-trees growing, also, in such abundance, that at first we were enchanted to see the fruit thickly clustered upon all the branches. But when we climbed up and picked them off, in hopes of a grand feast, we found them all of that bitter kind which, though very excellent for making marmalade, are good for nothing else.

Except a few wild pigeons, hardly any birds are to be seen, the most common being of blue and red colours, about the size of a fieldfare. The blue kind is pretty enough, but they do not sing any more than the red birds; so that, in the midshipman’s birth, we had no scruple of conscience about baking many a score of them in our pies.

Besides St. George’s, there are numerous lesser islands, and a large district, called the Continent, from its being by far the most extensive in the cluster, no less, I believe, than twelve or fifteen miles from end to end! At the north-western end of the group lies Ireland Island, on which an extensive naval establishment has of late years been erected; close to that spot is now the anchorage for ships of war. The population of those islands was calculated, at the time I speak of, at near twenty thousand, the greater part of whom were blacks, and principally slaves.

The rock of the islands of Bermuda is of a very soft coarse freestone, full of pores; so soft, indeed, that if it be required to make an additional window in a house, there is nothing to be done, we were told, but to hire a black fellow, who, with a saw, could speedily cut an opening in any part of the wall.

How far this sketch of Bermuda, taken from old scanty notes and faint recollections, may now be true, I cannot say. The cedar-trees and oranges, the blue birds, the rocks, the negroes, and the islands, I dare say, all remain just as before; but I think I have heard that the seat of government has been changed to the western end of the island; and now the men-of-war, instead of lying in Murray’s anchorage, on the north side of St. George’s, find, as I have said before, a far more secure roadstead.

There is nothing more remarkable in this singular cluster of islands than the extensive coral reefs which fend off the sea on the northern side, and stretch out in a semicircular belt, at the distance of two or three leagues from the land. If I recollect rightly, only one of these ledges, called the North Rock, shews its head above water. All the others lie out of sight below the surface, and consequently form one of the most dangerous traps that nature has ever set in the path of mariners. On these treacherous reefs we saw many a poor vessel bilged, at moments when, from seeing the land at such a distance, they fancied themselves in perfect security.

Dangerous though they be, however, there are few things more beautiful to look at than these corallines when viewed through two or three fathoms of clear and still water. It is hardly an exaggeration to assert, that the colours of the rainbow are put to shame on a bright sunny day, by what meets the view on looking into the sea in those fairy regions. On the other hand, there are not many things, in the anxious range of navigation, more truly terrific, or, in fact, more dangerous, than these same beautiful submarine flower beds, raising their treacherous heads, like the fascinating sirens of old, or the fair and false mermaids of a later epoch. If, by sad fortune, the sailor once gets entangled amongst them, it is too well known that his chance of escape is but small.

They tell a story at Bermuda—‘the still vexed Bermoothes,’—of a boatman who, it was said, lived by these disasters, once going off to an unlucky vessel, fairly caught amongst the coral reefs, like a fly in a cobweb, not far from the North Rock. The wrecker, as he was called, having boarded the bewildered ship, said to the master,

“What will you give me, now, to get you out of this place?”

“Oh, any thing you like—name your sum.”

“Five hundred dollars?”

“Agreed! agreed!” cried the other. Upon which this treacherous pilot ‘kept his promise truly to the ear, but broke it to the hope,’ by taking the vessel out of an abominably bad place, only to fix her in one a great deal more intricate and perilous.

“Now,” said the wrecker to the perplexed and doubly-cheated stranger, “there never was a vessel in this scrape, that was known to get out again; and, indeed, there is but one man alive who knows the passages, or could, by any possibility, extricate you—and that’s me!”

“I suppose,” drily remarked the captain, “that ‘for a consideration’ you would be the man to do me that good service. What say you to another five hundred dollars to put me into clear water, beyond your infernal reefs?”

This hard bargain was soon made; and a winding passage, unseen before, being found, just wide enough, and barely deep enough, for the vessel to pass through, with only six inches to spare under her keel, in half an hour she was once more in blue water, out of soundings, and out of danger.

“Now, master rascallion of a wrecker,” cried the disentangled mariner, “tit for tat is fair play all the world over; and, unless you hand me back again my thousand dollars, I’ll cut the tow rope of your thievish-looking boat, and then, instead of returning evil for evil, as I ought by rights to do, I’ll be more of a Christian, and do you a very great service, by carrying you away from one of the most infamous places in the world, to the finest country imaginable—I mean America. And as you seem to have a certain touch of black blood in your veins, I may chance to get good interest for my loan of these thousand dollars, by selling you as a slave in Charleston negro market! What say you, my gay Mudian?”

We lay, moored in Murray’s anchorage at Bermuda, for the greater part of the winters both of 1802 and of 1803. The war had not yet broken out, and, in the absence of active service, we were fain to catch hold of any thing to amuse and occupy ourselves. The master, and a gang of youngsters who were fond of navigation, set about surveying the coral reefs already mentioned. This party of philosophers, as they were of course dubbed, landed on St. David’s Head, and other conspicuous points of land, to ascertain the longitude with more care; to observe the latitude and the variation of the compass; or to measure the perpendicular rise and fall of the tides; or, lastly, and much the most frequently, to have a good hour’s swim in the deliciously-warm sea. It will be easily understood, that all and each of these inquiries furnished to those persons, whose duty and pleasure it was to attend to them, an inexhaustible field of occupation, and of interest likewise.

At first sight, many of these pursuits may appear trivial; but it ought to be recollected, that, although it be easy enough to make the observations enumerated, and many others of the same nature, in a rough sort of way, there is hardly any one of them which, if it be required to be done in the best possible style, does not demand much attention and labour. For example, it seems a very simple affair to draw a base or straight line on the ground; but if this line is required to be, very exactly, of a particular length, so as to be neither more nor less, the problem is one of the utmost difficulty, which has fully exercised, and still employs, the talents of some of the ablest engineers of the day. In fact, these refinements in surveying and in observing, are pretty much like the pound of flesh question in the Merchant of Venice; with one comfortable difference, that the philosopher’s neck is not in such danger, even if, in a base of half-a-dozen miles, he should happen to err in the estimation of half-a-dozen hairs-breadths! It is well for young officers to recollect, however, that there is still a tolerably formidable professional tribunal, before which a man who undertakes such tasks is apt to be arraigned, and, if found wanting, pretty severely dealt with.

Sailors, like the element upon which they are tossed about, are scarcely ever at rest, and are seldom satisfied with what has been done before them. Consequently, the moment a ship arrives at a port, the navigators straightway erect their observatory, fix up their instruments, set their clocks a-going, and commence an attack, like the giants of old, upon the very heavens themselves,—and all for what? They say to themselves, that this is done for the benefit of science, for the advancement of geographical or astronomical knowledge—and so it is. But, along with these pure and lofty motives, there may enter some others, not quite so sublime, but perhaps equally operative in producing diligence. We have a lurking kind of malicious expectation of discovering that our predecessors have not made out their latitudes, or longitudes, or whatever the observations be, with the precision we ourselves hope to attain. It does not much matter whether the superior accuracy we expect to reach arises from our having better instruments in our hands, or from having more leisure, or better opportunities at command. So long as we contrive to do the required job better than it has been done before, so long do we count upon getting the credit due to superiority. These honours, it is true, are worn only till somebody coming later shall jostle us out of our seats, by substituting still better work. The desire to avoid being thrust on one side in this way, and forgotten, is a strong motive to vigorous application on the occasions alluded to, and helps essentially to quicken that delightful interest which almost always attends an investigation of the properties of natural objects.

It is probably requisite to this enjoyment, that the pursuit followed should have some specific purpose in view;—if professional, so much the better. If a man, quite uninstructed, shall start up and say, in the abstract, “I mean to study botany—or astronomy”—or whatever else his fancy may select, he will, in all probability, find the pursuit as great a bore to himself as it will inevitably prove to those friends whom he endeavours to persuade that it is the most delightful thing in the world to be a savant. Still, young folks, in any situation, and most of all in the navy, need not be afraid; for they can hardly ever be cast into situations where, if their minds have been properly trained, first at school, and then on board ship, they may not hit upon ample materials to keep their heads and hands in motion, and at the same time to advance their professional objects.

One of our party of mids, who has since turned out a valuable and enterprising officer, took it in his head to make a trip in one of the whale-boats of the Bermuda fishery. Having ascertained the time of starting, he obtained leave to go on shore, and completely succeeded in his object by being present at the capture of a whale. The monster, however, led them a considerable dance off to sea, and it was long after the time appointed for his return, when the youth made his appearance, delightfully perfumed with blubber, and with a glorious tale to tell of his day’s adventures.

This was voted by acclamation to be ‘something like an expedition;’ and the youngster, of course, gained great credit for his spirit. I was one of another party who, I suppose, being a little jealous of our companion’s laurels, took the earliest opportunity of trying to signalise ourselves in a similar way. A monstrous whale was seen one morning playing about the Leander, in Murray’s anchorage, and, of course, far within the belt of reefs already described as fringing the roadstead on its eastern and northern sides. How this great fellow had got into such a scrape, we could not conjecture. Possibly, in placing himself alongside of the rugged coral ledges, to scrub off the incrustations of shell-fish which torment these monsters of the deep, he had gradually advanced too far;—or, more probably, he may have set out in pursuit of some small fry, and, before he was aware of it, have threaded his way amongst this labyrinth of rocks, till escape was impossible. At all events, he now found himself in comparatively deep water, from eight to ten fathoms, without any visible means of retreat from his coral trap. All hands crowded into the rigging to see the whale floundering about; till at length some one proposed—rashly enough, certainly,—to pay him a visit in one of the ship’s boats, with no better implements, offensive or defensive, than the ordinary boat-hooks. These are light poles, with a spike, not unlike a shepherd’s crook, at the end of them, and not bad things for fishing up a turtle when caught napping, but slender reeds, in all conscience, against a fish forty or fifty feet long!

Away we went, however, in our wild-goose, whale chase, without any precise idea as to what we were to do if we should come up with the game. When we got near the great leviathan, his aspect became more and more formidable; and it was necessary to think of some regular plan of attack, if any were to be made. As to defence, it may easily be imagined that was out of the question; for one whisk of his tail would have sent the cutter and her crew, boat-hooks and all, spinning over the fore and yard arm of the flag-ship. All eyes were now upon us, and, after a pause, it was agreed unanimously, that we should run right on board of him, and take our chance. So we rowed forward; but the whale, whose back was then shewing just above the water, like a ship keel upwards, perhaps not approving of our looks, or possibly not seeing us, slipped down, clean out of sight, leaving only a monstrous whirlpool of oily-looking water, in the vortex of which we continued whirling round for some time, like great ninnies as we were, and gaping about us. At this time, we were not above half a ship’s length from the Leander; so that our disappointment caused considerable amusement on board, and the people came laughing down from the rigging, where they had been perched, to see the grand fight between the whale and the young gentlemen!

As we were lying on our oars, and somewhat puzzled what to do next, we beheld one of the most extraordinary sights in the world;—at least I do not remember to have seen many things which have surprised me so much, or made a deeper impression on my memory. Our friend the whale, probably finding the water disagreeably shallow—for, as I have said, it was not above fifty or sixty feet deep—or perhaps provoked at not being able to disentangle himself from the sharp coral reefs, or for some other reason of pleasure or of pain,—suddenly made a spring out of the water.

So complete was this enormous leap, that for an instant we saw him fairly up in the air, in a horizontal position, at a distance from the water not much short, I should think, of half his own breadth! His back, therefore, must have been at least twenty feet, in perpendicular height, over our heads! While in his progress upwards, there was in his spring some touch of the vivacity with which a trout or a salmon shoots out of the water; but he fell back again on the sea, like a huge log thrown on its broadside; and with such a thundering crash, as made all hands stare in astonishment, and the ‘boldest held his breath for a time.’ Total demolition, indeed, must have been the inevitable fate of our party, had the whale taken his leap one minute sooner, for he would then have fallen plump on the boat! The waves caused by the explosion spread over half the anchorage; nor, if the Leander herself had blown up, could the effects have extended much further. As we rolled about in the cutter from side to side, we had time to balance the expediency of further proceedings, against the tolerable chance of being smashed to atoms under the whale’s belly at his next leap.

All idea of capturing him was now, of course, given up; if, indeed, any such frantic notion could ever seriously have entered our heads. But our curiosity was vehemently roused to witness such another feat; and, after lying on our oars for some time, we once more detected the whale’s back at a little distance from us.

“Let us poke him up again!” cried one of the party.

“Agreed! agreed!” roared out the others; and away we dashed, in hopes of producing a repetition of this singular exploit. The whale, however, did not choose to exhibit any more, though we were often near him. At last he fairly bolted, and took the direction of the North Rock, hoping, perhaps, to make his escape by the narrow passage known only to the most experienced pilots of those intricate regions.

It was not until after we had entirely lost sight of the chase, and when we had rowed so far, that we could just see the top of St. George’s Island astern of us, that we had leisure to remark the change of weather, which had taken place during this absurd pursuit. The sky had become overcast, and the wind risen to such a smart breeze from the south-west, that, when we again put the boat’s head towards the island, it was quite as much as we could do to make any headway at all, and sometimes we hardly held our own. Had the wind increased only a little more, we must inevitably have been blown to sea—and even as it was, it cost us many hours of severe tugging at the oars to regain the anchorage, just before night-fall, completely worn out.

I have not related this story of the whale’s leap without considerable hesitation, the source of which distrust will be found, better than I can express it for myself, in the following anecdote, related to me by Sir Walter Scott; which I recommend to the attention of travellers who have any thoughts of communicating to the public, what they have seen in distant lands.

It appears that Mungo Park, the first, and still, perhaps, the most interesting of African travellers, was in the habit of relating, in a quiet way, to his most confidential friends, sundry curious and highly amusing incidents, that had occurred to him during his celebrated journey in search of the Niger. Of these anecdotes, however, no mention is to be found in his printed statements—while many others are inserted, not nearly so interesting as these rejected stories.

“How is this?” asked his friends. “Why did not you put these things also into your book?”

“Oh,” replied Park, “the case is simply this:—I was sent to Africa for certain public purposes, and expressly required to investigate particular points. Now, it seemed to me of consequence not only that these inquiries should be carefully made, but that a credible, as well as a faithful account, should be rendered to the world.”

“Very true,” resumed his friends; “but as there is nothing which you have now told us, in addition to what you have printed, which is not strictly true, while it is certainly very entertaining, why should you wantonly deprive your book of so much that would recommend it still more to general favour?”

“There is nothing wanton in the matter,” answered the traveller; “indeed, it is precisely because I believed it would have had no such good effect as you suppose, that I have kept out the matter alluded to. It might, indeed, have gained for the work a little more temporary popularity; but that was not what I desired. At all events, I had, as I conceived, a still higher duty to perform. Being sent to execute a given service, I performed my task to the best of my ability. But on returning, I felt I had another obligation to attend to, not less binding, which was, to give such an account as, over and above being strictly true, should carry with it such evidence of its own good faith, as should insure every part of my story being credited. These anecdotes, however, which I only venture to tell you because you have known me all my life, I have shrunk from repeating to the world, whose knowledge of my character is drawn from this book alone. In short, I did not feel that I was at liberty to shake my own credit, or even to risk its being shaken, by relating anecdotes so much out of the ordinary line of events as some of these stories are. As a servant of the public in the great field of discovery, I considered my character for veracity as part of their property, which was not to be trifled with, merely for the sake of making idle people laugh or stare a little more. And I feared, that even one doubtful point in such a work, no matter how small, or how true, might have weakened the authority of the whole, and this I did not choose to hazard.”

After Park’s death, and when a biographical sketch of this most amiable and persevering of travellers was in the course of preparation, one of this circle of friends, whose memory for such things was known to be very retentive, was applied to for these suppressed anecdotes, the existence of which had, somehow or other, leaked out. After a moment’s reflection, he said—

“No!—I won’t tell you one word of them. If my friend Park, in his soberest and most reflecting moments, considered it proper to keep these things out of his book, and only betrayed them even to his intimates, over a glass of toddy, I don’t see that we should be acting a generous part by his memory to publish them after he is gone, however true we are convinced they must be.”

After preparing the above adventure of the whale’s leap for the press, I felt, on Park’s principle, a certain hesitation as to trusting it before the public; but in order to fortify myself by an authority of the highest rank in whaling matters, I sat down and wrote the following letter to my friend Captain Scoresby:—

“More than twenty-eight years ago, I saw a whale leap right out of the sea, in Murray’s anchorage at Bermuda. The depth of water, if I recollect right, was about ten fathoms, and he had, somehow or other, got inside the barrier of coral reefs which gird these islands on the north. When the whale was at his greatest elevation, his back may have been twenty or thirty feet above the surface of the water, and at that moment he was in a horizontal position. His length could not have been less, I should imagine, than fifty or sixty feet. As I never saw such a thing before or since, I am a little afraid of relating it, and have no mind to risk my credit by telling a story too big to be swallowed by the average run of gullets, however true in point of fact. You will oblige me, therefore, very much, by telling me whether, in the course of your extensive experience, you have seen one or more such incidents. If not, I fear my story of the whale’s jump at Bermuda must be kept out of a little work I am now preparing for the use of young folks. But if I have your authority to back me, the anecdote shall stand, and so take its chance for being valuable in the way of information.”

To this I received the following reply from Captain Scoresby, who, as all the world will admit, is the highest authority on such questions:—

“Liverpool, 25th August, 1830.

---

“And now having come to the subject, which, I allow, is one of magnitude, I have much pleasure in being able to speak to the point, in attestation of the not infrequency of the exhibition of the huge leaps which you witnessed, however ignorance might charge it as ‘very like a whale.’ Whilst engaged in the northern whale fishery, I witnessed many similar exploits of the whales in their frisks. Generally, they were of a middle size; but I think I have seen instances of full-grown fish, of forty or fifty feet in length, forgetting their usual gravity, and making out these odd exhibitions of their whole form from head to tail. Certainly, I have several times seen whales leap so high out of the water as to be completely in air, which, reckoning from the surface of the back (the real extent of the leap), could scarcely be less than twenty feet, and possibly might be more. I have, at different times, gone in pursuit of these frolicsome fish; but in all cases they avoided either catastrophe—the leaping upon the boat, or allowing the boat to pull upon them.

“By the way, whilst the breathing of the whale has been magnified into a resemblance of water-works, to the abuse of the credulous, the frolic feats of the leaping whales have been neglected as a source of interest. In referring to my account of the arctic regions, I perceive the fact is named, but with little commentary for general amusement.”[1]