–Seemed listening to the earth,
Their ancient mother, for some comfort yet.
Among the many harmless little pieces representing vases of flowers, woodland melody, and other conventions, I caught sight of a portrait of a young girl (“My lady at her casement” type) drawn with mild ability. The signature, very large and clear, was
On referring to the minute brass plate beneath so innocent a vanity, we learned that Charles Chaplin, 1825-1891, was a painter of the “French School.” Pictures must run in the family.
The first afternoon, Hosea and myself could find no specimen of an English artist among the multitude: but returning another day to make certain (and once again we had the gallery more or less to ourselves) we found a small and typical study by Wilkie, and a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence. Before this last, a work of the loftiest morality–in its subject I mean–and of a colouring delicately fine, Hosea stood in enthusiasm. “I’m not sure,” he said, and once again drew an impression before proceeding, “that that isn’t the finest thing we’ve seen.” The spectacle of King Arthur in his bronze near the exit, in his bronze but somehow devoid of his grandeur, ended our artistic adventures. The business of criticism, no doubt, is to keep cool: but this we had scarcely been able to do. I should have given up early, but for the determination of Hosea; and even he began to feel the scorching heat above the æsthetic calm.
The ship’s football was brought out in the evening, and on a patch of waste ground alongside, flanked by thickets of rank weed, and ankle-deep in sand and coal-dust, we enjoyed ourselves most strenuously. There were one or two real drawbacks. A vigorous and unwary kick was apt to send the ball into the river, and to recover it meant clambering up and down the slanting wall of the wharf, which was coated with black grease, fishing with a pole, anxiously watching the currents, and quickly becoming as black and greasy as the masonry. And on the other hand, there was here a depôt of large drain-pipes, which might equally receive the erratic ball; then arose the questions: Whereabouts in the pipes had it bounced? Would the drain-pipe on which you were standing really roll from under you and bring down a dozen others? Meanwhile the watchman of the depôt would be there uttering untranslated dissatisfaction with the whole affair.
We had not been in the South Basin many minutes when the chaplain of The Missions to Seamen was among us with his witty stories and, I believe, his put-and-take teetotum. At any rate, the latter became as well recognized a part of his equipment as his quips. At his invitation, I went several times to the Mission, which was quite the rendezvous for the crews of British ships in the port. Its concert room, its billiard room and other comfortable places were generally very lively, the two chaplains apparently possessing an inexhaustible reserve of cheerfulness. English ladies too came there to brighten the evenings, to sing and join in at cards and conversation; their generosity, I believe, furnished the other refreshments of these evenings.
Next door to the Mission, a dingy annexe to a sort of grocery, labelled the “British Bar,” was not neglected. Talk and beer and smoke prevailed here until midnight and afterwards: indeed, I had scarcely sat down before a vast mate from some other ship had challenged me to name a better Test Match captain than Mr. Fender. Other patrons of the Oval soon took up the cry, but I resisted for the rest of the session.
The discharge of coal began, a monotonous process however considered; down in the hold one saw through the busy dust a small but growing mine-crater done in coal, at the foot of which were lying, stooping, chattering, the nearly naked figures of the labourers. Negroes they looked down there, but were white unofficially. They shovelled now from this side, now from that into a great iron bucket: above, at a sign, the man with his lever set the winch working and the derrick hoisted the bucket up and over, then down into the lighter that lay alongside. And so with intervals through the day. Then at night, the dock’s aboriginal mosquitoes came forth; as the mate said, like a German band, all the most agonizing shades of musical audacity emanating from them. They drove not only me but old hands out on deck at night, where a chilly autumn wind was blowing, which drove us indoors again. But as the light grew, our tormentors lessened. The sun ariseth, and they get them away together, and lay them down in their dens.