Our experience of gales include a north-east gale off Cape Finisterre, on the outward voyage; a northerly gale between Rio and the River Plate, a westerly gale off the east coast of Patagonia, short but severe gales on each of the four days preceding our arrival at Yokohama, a severe gale from the north-west in the Inland Sea, a north-east gale in the Formosa Channel, a northerly gale in the Straits of Jubal, a westerly gale off Port Said, and an easterly gale on the south coast of Candia. On the passage homewards from Gibraltar we met strong northerly winds on the coast of Portugal, and a north-east gale off Cape Finisterre.
The navigation has presented few difficulties. All the coasts that we have visited have been surveyed. Lighthouses are now as numerous and efficient on the coasts of China and Japan as on the shores of Europe. Such is the perfection of the modern chronometer, that lunar observations, the only difficult work in ocean navigation, are no longer necessary; and the wind charts published by the Admiralty supply to the amateur navigator accumulated information and valuable hints for every stage of his voyage.
How infinitely easy is the task of the modern circumnavigator compared with the hazardous explorations of Magelhaens and Captain Cook, when the chronometer was an instrument of rude and untrustworthy quality, when there were no charts, and the roaring of the breakers in the dead of night was the mariner's first warning that a coral reef was near!
Our comprehensive and varied cruise has strengthened my former convictions that the disasters due to negligence bear a large proportion to the number of inevitable losses. Every coast is dangerous to the careless commander; but there are no frequented seas where, with the exercise of caution and reasonable skill, the dangers cannot be avoided. These remarks do not, of course, apply to cases of disaster from stress of weather. In fogs there must be delay, though not necessarily danger.
In these days of lamentation over the degeneracy of the British seaman, my experience may be accepted as a contribution to the mass of evidence on this vexed question. I have not been surrounded by such smart seamen as can only be found on a man-of-war, but I have no ground for general or serious complaint. Many of my crew have done their duty most faithfully. In emergencies everybody has risen to the occasion, and has done best when his skill or endurance was most severely tried—
'My mariners,
Souls that have toiled and wrought and thought with me,
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine.'
It is always in stormy weather that the good qualities of the British seaman are displayed to the greatest advantage. The difficulty is to keep up his interest and energies in long intervals of fine weather, when nothing occurs to rouse him to an effort, and the faculties of the seaman before the mast, no less than those of his officer, are benumbed by the monotony and isolation from mankind, which are the gravest drawbacks of a sailor's life. It is in these dull moments that men are tempted to drink and quarrel, that officers become tyrannical, and their crews insubordinate, or even mutinous. Lest it should be thought that my impressions of the average sailor are derived from an exceptional crew or picked men, I have only to add that the manning of the 'Sunbeam' was a family job. The sailing master was related by blood or marriage to the majority of his subordinates—fishermen from the coast of Essex, who had received their early training among the banks and shoals at the mouth of the Thames.
In this connection I tender my sincere tribute of praise to the officers of the Navy for their success in maintaining the efficiency and spirit of their crews through long commissions on foreign stations, much time being necessarily spent in harbour, in many cases in the most enervating climates. The discipline of the service seems to be admirable, and the seamen are reconciled to it by tradition, by early training, and perhaps by an instinctive perception of its necessity.
I am equally bound to commend the efficiency of our consular service in the remotest outposts of civilisation which we have visited; and evidences of good colonial administration are abundantly manifest in Hongkong, Singapore, Penang, Ceylon, and Aden, in the prosperity and contentment of the people.
It is scarcely necessary to observe, in conclusion, that experiences may be gathered in a voyage of circumnavigation which are not to be gleaned from Blue-books or from shorter cruises in European waters. A more vivid impression is formed of the sailor's daily life, of his privations at sea, and his temptations on shore. The services required of the Navy are more clearly appreciated after a visit to distant foreign stations.