Summer Cruising in the South Seas

by Charles Warren Stoddard

She did look pretty as we swam up under her. She looked like a great silhouette against the steel-grey sky; but within was the sound of revelry, and I hastened on board to find our little cabin blue with smoke, which, however, was scarcely dense enough to muffle the martial strains of the Marseillaise, as shouted by the whole mess.

Thanaron—my Thanaron—was in the centre of the table, with his curly head out of the transom,—not that he was by any means a giant, but we were all a little cramped between-decks,—and he was leading the chorus with a sabre in one hand and the head of the Doctor in the other. Without the support of the faculty, he would probably not have ended his song of triumph as successfully as he ultimately did, when Nature herself had fainted from exhaustion. It was the last night in port, a few friends from shore had come to dine, and black coffee and cognac at a late hour had finished the business.

If there is one thing in this world that astonishes me more than another, it is the rapidity with which some people talk in French. Thanaron's French, when he once got started, sounded to me like the well-executed trill of a prima-donna, and quite as intelligible. The joke of it was, that Frenchmen seemed to find no difficulty in understanding him at his highest speed. On the whole, perhaps, this fact astonishes me more than the other.

Dinner was as far over as it could get without beginning again and calling itself breakfast; so the party broke up in a whirlwind of patriotic songs, and, one by one, we dropped our guests over the side of the vessel until there was none left, and then we waved them a thousand adieus, and kept up the last words as long as we could catch the faintest syllable of a reply. There were streaks of dull red in the east by this time, and the outlines of the city were again becoming visible. This I dreaded a little; and, when our boat had returned and everything was put in shipshape, I deliberately dropped a tear in the presence of my messmates, who were overcome with emotion at the spectacle; and, having all embraced, we went below, where I threw myself, with some caution, into my hammock, and slept until broad daylight.

I did not venture on deck again until after our first breakfast,—an informal one, that set uneasily on the table, and seemed inclined to make its escape from one side or the other. Of course, we were well under way by this time. I was assured of the fact by the reckless rolling of the vessel and the strange and unfamiliar feeling in my stomach, as though it were some other fellow's stomach, and not my own. My legs were a trifle uncertain; my head was queer. Everybody was rushing everywhere, and doing things that had to be undone or done over again in the course of the next ten minutes. I resolved to pace the deck, which is probably the best thing for a man to do when he goes down to the sea in ships, and does business—you could hardly call it pleasure—on great waters.

I went up the steep companion-way, and found a deck-load of ropes, and the entire crew—dressed in blue flannel, with broad collars—skipping about in the most fantastic manner. It was like a ballet scene in L'Africaine, and highly diverting—for a few minutes! From my stronghold on the top stair of the companion-way, I cast my eye shoreward. The long coast ran down the horizon under a broadside of breakers that threatened to engulf the continent; the air was grey with scattering mist; the sea was much disturbed, and of that ugly yellowish-green tint that signifies soundings. Overhead, a few sea-birds whirled in disorder, shrieking as though their hearts would break. It looked ominous, yet I felt it my duty, as an American under the shadow of the tricolour, to keep a stiff upper lip,—and I flatter myself that I did so. Figuratively speaking, I balanced myself in the mouth of the companion-way, with a bottle of claret in one pocket and a French roll in the other, while I brushed the fog from my eyes with the sleeve of my monkey-jacket, and exclaimed with the bard, "My native land, good-night."

It was morning at the time, but I did not seem to care much. In fact, time is not of the slightest consequence on shipboard. So I withdrew to my hammock, and having climbed into it in safety ended the day after a miserable fashion that I have deplored a thousand times since, during the prouder moments of my life.

A week passed by—I suppose it was a week, for I could reckon only seven days, and seven nights of about twice the length of the days—- during that interval; yet I should, in the innocence of my heart, have called it a month, without a moment's hesitation. We arose late in the morning,—those of us who had a watch below; ate a delightfully long and narrow breakfast, consisting of an interminable procession of dishes in single file; paced the deck and canvassed the weather; went below to read, but talked instead; dined as we had breakfasted, only in a far more elaborate and protracted manner, while a gentle undercurrent of side-dishes lent interest to the occasion. There was a perpetual stream of conversation playing over the table, from the moment that heralded the soup until the last drop of black coffee was sopped up with a bit of dry bread. By the time we had come to cheese, everybody felt called upon to say his say, in the face of everybody else. I alone kept my place, and held it because the heaviest English I knew fell feebly to the floor before the thunders of those five prime Frenchmen, who were flushed with enthusiasm and good wine. I dreamed of home over my cigarette, and tried to look as though I were still interested in life, when, Heaven knows, my face was more like a half-obliterated cameo of despair than anything human. Thanaron, my foreign affinity, now and then threw me a semi-English nut to crack, but by the time I had recovered myself,—it is rather embarrassing to be assaulted even in the most friendly manner with a batch of broken English,—by the time I had framed an intelligible response, Thanaron was in the heat of a fresh argument, and keeping up a running fire of small shot that nearly floored the mess.

But there is an end even to a French dinner, and we ultimately adjourned to the deck, where, about sunset, everybody took his station while the Angelus was said. Then twilight, with a subdued kind of skylarking in the forecastle, and genteel merriment amidships, while Monsieur le Capitaine paced the high quarter-deck with the shadow of a smile crouching between the fierce jungles of his intensely black side-whiskers. Ah, sir, it was something to be at sea in a French transport with the tricolour flaunting at the peak; to have four guns with their mouths gagged, and oilcloth capes lashed snugly over them; to see everybody in uniform, each having the profoundest respect for those who ranked a notch above him, and having, also, an ill-disguised contempt for the unlucky fellow beneath him! This spirit was observable from one end of the ship to the other, and, sirs, we had a little world of our own revolving on a wabbling axis between the staunch ribs of the old transport "Chevert."

We were bound for Tahiti, God willing and the winds favourable; and the common hope of ultimately finding port in that paradise was all that held us together through thick and thin. We might wrangle at dinner, and come to breakfast next morning with bitterness in our hearts; we might sink into the bottomless pit of despond; we might revile Monsieur le Capitaine and Monsieur le Cuisinier, including in our anathemas the elements and some other things; they (the Frenchmen) might laugh to scorn the great American people,—and they did it, two or three times—and I, in my turn, might feel a secret contempt for Paris, without having the power to express the same in tolerable French, so I felt it, and held my tongue. Even Thanaron gave me a French shrug now and then that sent the cold shivers through me; but there was sure to come a sunset like a sea of fire, at which golden hour we were marshalled amidships, and stood with uncovered heads and the soft light playing over us, while the littlest French boy in the crew said the evening prayer with exceeding sweetness,—being the youngest, he was the most worthy of saying it,—and then we all crossed ourselves, and our hearts melted within us.