Thus closes the first act in the political drama now in performance on the banks of the Plata.
CHAPTER XXII.
Rio de Janeiro.
December 10th.—The Congress has been a month at moorings here. Nothing worthy of special notice has occurred on shore in the interval. The court and church, by the customary pageants on gala and fête days, have furnished the chief objects for sight-seeing, and varied walks by the water side and on the mountains, my principal sources of recreation. Our return to the metropolis was welcomed, socially, by Mr. Schenck, the new minister, and by Gov. Kent, the Consul, in elegant hospitalities to the officers of the Congress; and Admiral Reynolds, relieved after long service by Admiral Henderson, in the steam frigate Centaur, gave proof of his continued friendship by a farewell dinner to us before putting to sea, “homeward bound.”
The unity of my record, however, requires the brief notice of one or two events on board ship. On the evening of the 25th ult. an outrage was perpetrated by two or three of the crew, calculated to bring a reproach upon our good name for order and discipline. I was on shore with Commodore McKeever, when it was reported to him, that a policeman of the city, who had taken a deserter on board, had been knocked down on the deck when crossing the gangway, and, it was feared, had been fatally injured. This seemed a daring outbreak against the discipline of the service, and a serious offence against the municipal authority of the city. Great excitement was produced by it, and an investigation of the affair at once instituted. Two chief offenders were discovered and confined in irons, in dark cells, till a formal trial of the case should take place. At first, the assault seemed so wanton, as to be inexplicable; and could only be resolved into an act of unmitigated villainy. I was not long, however, in gaining a clue to its solution, which, though it did not excuse, explained the grounds of provocation, and very greatly palliated the offence. The person attacked, instead of being a policeman, was only one of those who are too well known among sailors as land-sharks—a runner to a sailor boarding-house, who had been in the habit of entrapping the men on shore, and imposing upon them in various ways. On a recent occasion, he had decoyed one of our crew—under peculiarly aggravating circumstances, and with pretensions of kindness and friendship—into the hands of the police; and had been guilty of a cowardly and abusive attack upon him personally, afterwards, when he had no power to resent it. Great indignation against him had thus been excited; and his unexpected appearance on the deck of the Congress, led to a speedy determination among a few, to seize what might be their only opportunity for revenge. A crowd was quickly gathered at the gangway, as if in mere curiosity, by which the opportunity of tripping him up would be afforded, as he should leave the ship. This purpose was successfully accomplished, and so quickly, that there was no time for any one to interfere. The chief injury he sustained was from striking his head upon the combings of a hatchway; but nothing serious to him is likely to ensue; and the crew at least, much as they regret the reflection upon the character of the ship in connection with the affair, think he received only that which, according to the sailor’s code of honor, was justly his due.
But this is a very trivial matter, in comparison with the chief event which has happened: the loss to us of Captain McIntosh, as commander of the Congress. The U. S. ship Falmouth, Captain Pearson, of the Pacific squadron, came into port recently, homeward bound. An exchange of commands took place; and Captain McIntosh left in the Falmouth, on the 6th inst. To part with him thus unexpectedly, was to others of the Congress, as well as to me, a severe trial. Every officer felt it; and there was a general lamentation among all hands of the crew. His reputation in the service is of the highest merit, not only as an accomplished officer, but as a finished gentleman; and, favored with his confidence—especially on the most important of all subjects—and intimately associated with him, I deeply feel his absence. Indeed, when his return to the United States was first announced, I could scarcely be reconciled to it. All things, however, are now going on promisingly under our new commander, who comes to us with favorable antecedents, and high professional character. The ship is in beautiful order; and general harmony and contentment prevail, with every promise of a continuance of the happy auspices which have hitherto marked our cruise.
One thing is very certain—that to me time flies with the velocity of the wind. Each day is too short for its allotted routine of duty; and Sabbath crowds upon Sabbath, as if the week were reduced to half its length of days. Do you ask how this can be in such long and distant exile? I answer, because I find varied occupation to interest and keep me employed from morning till night. I will give you the outline of a day on board. To begin at the beginning: while every thing is still enshrouded in darkness, three loud and measured beats upon a bass drum fall on the dead silence of the ship at the hour, like the heavy tread—according to romance writers of old—of a ghost in a haunted castle, at midnight. They are the signal for the firing of the morning gun of thirty-two pounds, which occurs simultaneously with the last stroke on the drum, and is followed by the beating of the reveillé. This, however, is not intended, and, in general has not the effect to waken the hundreds of sleepers on board from their repose, but only to proclaim the first approaches of the dawn in the east, or, in nautical phraseology, “to make daylight.” It is not till half an hour afterwards that the boatswain’s pipe, followed and joined by those of his mates, is heard to echo shrilly round the decks, preparatory to the clear and stentorian cry by him, “Up, all hands!” caught also by his mates and bawled by them about the ship, in varied tones of voice, but all very considerably above concert pitch. Then again in like manner, “Up all hammocks!” and should it be a washing-day, of which there are two or three each week, a third cry is heard, “All hands wash clothes!” or “All hands wash hammocks!” as the case may be. Every one springs at once from his hammock; all on board is bustle and activity; and, for an hour or more, there is heard a universal rubbing, and scrubbing, and scouring on deck, till the clothes are all washed and hoisted fore and aft on lines in the rigging. Then comes a dashing and splashing of water, and a thumping and bumping, a pounding and grating of “holystones” over the sanded decks, that would effectually break the slumber of any one but a naval officer. By the inexperienced, all this would be thought an effectual substitute for the gong, in rousing one from his slumbers, and in hastening him to the deck to enjoy the balmy land-breeze, and the glorious coloring of the morning on the landscape. As to the morning gun and the reveillé, I neither heed nor hear the sound of either of them once in a month; and as to the beauty of the morning, and the fresh air of the deck, woe to him who seeks them, unless prepared to receive a shower-bath of dirty water, by the bucketfull, at every hatchway he attempts to ascend, and to wade ankle-deep, in search of some spot where he can stand for a moment, without being tripped up by a “squill-gee,” or knocked off his feet by the thrashing about of huge “swabs.”
This general ship-cleaning is not ordinarily finished till near 8 o’clock—the breakfast hour on board; when our flags are thrown to the wind with a salute to them by “Hail Columbia,” or the “Star-spangled Banner,” from the band. Breakfast is followed by a change of dress in the crew; and the ship thus in the nicest order, and the men in uniform clothes of pure white, with cuffs and collars of blue, we are ready for both the duty and the pleasure that the day may bring forth. Denied the fresh air and bright scenery of the early day, by the comfortless state of the deck, I give the first hour after breakfast to the enjoyment of these, and the rest of the morning to study.
The arrival of the long-expected library for the crew has given quite a literary aspect to their hours of leisure. I have voluntarily undertaken the office of librarian; and a half-day twice a week, is necessarily given to the record of the issue and return of the books. Evening classes, to which I also voluntarily give a general superintendence, have been formed among the adults for improvement in reading, writing, and arithmetic; and six or eight of the more ambitious and promising, receive occasionally from me in my room, lessons of an hour or two, in the higher branches of arithmetic and in navigation. Thus, with a couple of hours on shore for exercise, and daily visits to the sick and imprisoned on board, I find my time fully occupied. I say visits to the imprisoned; for, since the abolition of the lash by act of Congress, it has been found necessary to erect cells—as remote as can be from the ordinary resorts of the crew about the decks—for solitary confinement. The interviews which I am permitted to have with those under such punishment have proved to be salutary in their effect in the discipline of the ship; and I claim the liberty of access to them, as a privilege of my office.