The memory of the continuous hard work of the daily routine, makes the sober and pleasant background to the more lively recollection of events, which were after all but the natural reaction from the long monotony of sea life.
It was my duty to preserve order in the gun-room; and a lively lot I had in charge. One of the midshipmen, a big fellow, was something of a bully. He used to persecute a youngster smaller than himself, and one day the boy came to me and asked what he could do to end the tyranny. I thought that this particular bully was also a coward—by no means an inevitable combination—and I advised his victim, next time he was bullied, to hit the bully on the point of the nose as hard as he could, and I promised that I would support him in whatever came afterwards. He did as he was told; whereupon the bully came to me with a complaint that a junior midshipman had struck him. I formed a ring and put the two to settle the matter with their fists. The little boy was a plucky youngster, and clever with his fists. He knocked out his enemy, and had peace thereafter.
I crossed the Line for the first time. In going through the usual ceremonies, being ducked and held under in the big tank, I was as nearly drowned as ever in my life, being hauled out insensible. We towed out the Turtle, a Government vessel, bound for Ascension with stores. While towing, it is necessary to wear instead of tacking, for fear of coming on top of the tow. But the first lieutenant thought he would tack; so he tried to go about. There was a gale of wind; the ship missed stays, and came right on top of the unfortunate Turtle, dismasting and nearly sinking her. I was sent on board her to give assistance; and I made excellent use of the opportunity to collect from the Turtle's stores many useful little ship's fittings of which the Clio was in need. We took the Turtle into Ascension, where the midshipmen landed, collected the eggs of the "wideawake" gulls, and bottled them for future consumption.
We put in at the Falkland Islands in November. The population consisted of ex-Royal Marines and their families. It was considered necessary to populate the Islands; and we always send for the Royal Marines in any difficulty. There were also South American guachos and ranchers. The governor came on board to ask for the captain's help. The governor wanted a man to be hanged, and his trouble was that he was afraid to hang him. The prisoner was a guacho, who had murdered a rancher, whom he had cast into the river and then shot to death. The governor was afraid that if he executed the murderer, the other guachos would rise in rebellion. So he wanted the captain to bring the murderer on board and hang him to the yard-arm. The captain refused this request; but he offered to hang him on shore, a proposal to which the governor agreed. The boatswain's mate piped: "Volunteers for a hangman—fall in." To my surprise, half the ship's company fell in. The sergeant of Marines was chosen to be executioner. He took a party on shore, and they constructed a curious kind of box, like a wardrobe, having a trap-door in the top, above which projected the beam. The man dropped through the trap door into the box and was no more seen, until the body was taken out under cover of night and buried.
The shooting on that island was naturally an intense delight to a boy of my age. We midshipmen used to go away shooting the upland geese. I managed to bring aboard more than the others, because I cut off the wings, heads and necks, cleaned the birds, and secured them by toggling the legs together, so that I was able to sling four birds over each shoulder. The whole island being clothed in high pampas grass, it was impossible to see one's way. Officers used to be lost in the Falklands. The body of a paymaster who was thus lost was not discovered for eight years. The cold induced sleep, and a sleeping man might freeze to death.
Admiral Penrose Fitzgerald, in his Memories of the Sea, relating his experience as a midshipman in the Falkland Islands, says, "Everybody has heard of the Falkland Island geese, and they may be seen to-day in St. James's Park. The upland geese—as they are generally called—are excellent eating; but there are also immense numbers and different varieties of other geese and these are known as 'kelp geese.' Alas! our ornithological education had been so sadly neglected that we did not know the difference with the feathers on, though we soon found it out, when we came to cook and eat them. All the birds we shot were kelp geese, about as fishy as cormorants; but they were not wasted, for we gave them to our Marine servants, who ate them all and declared them to be excellent. 'Some flavour about them,' as they said."
While we lay at the Falkland Islands a merchant ship came in whose whole company was down with scurvy. When I joined the Navy, lime-juice, the prophylactic, was served out under the regulation; but in the mercantile marine scurvy was still prevalent. It is a most repulsive disease. The sufferer rots into putrid decay while he is yet alive. If you pressed a finger upon his flesh the dent would remain. He is so sunk in lethargy that if he were told the ship was sinking he would decline to move. His teeth drop out and his hair falls off. It is worthy of remembrance that the use of lime-juice as a prophylactic was discovered, or at least largely introduced, by Captain James Cook the navigator; whose statue, erected at Whitby, I had the privilege of unveiling in 1912. Historically, I believe that Captain Lancaster, commanding the Dragon, in the service of the Honourable East India Company in the time of James I, was the first to cure scurvy by administering three spoonfuls of lemon to each patient, with his breakfast.
From the Falkland Islands we proceeded to the Straits of Magellan, where the natives of Terra del Fuego came off to us in boats. They were totally naked, and were smeared all over with grease. It was snowing, and they had made a fire in the boats; and when the sea splashed upon the fire and put it out, they beat the sea in anger with their paddles.
At the convict settlement there used to be a box to hold mails fixed on the top of a pole. The letters were taken on board the next ship passing homeward bound. I posted a letter addressed to my mother, who received it in due time.