“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.