So, too, with the navigation of the Bay of Bengal. While not so severe in any sense as that of Cape Horn, it is difficult, teasing, and calling for constant watchfulness. Men who go that way only occasionally will make a good passage of, say, from eighty to a hundred days on one voyage, and then with the same ship, a year or two after, make a passage that causes the owner to gnash his teeth as he cons the portage bill. But to the men who used to sail there regularly how nearly an exact science did their navigation of that baffling bay become! One especially comes to my mind—Thomas Potts, of Messrs. Brocklebank's famous old East-India line. Dozens of that old worthy's log-books have passed through my hands, with their fair, unblotted entries of business-like procedure from day to day. And so regular seemed the rate of sailing that I once took the trouble to compile an average of his passages out and between Liverpool and Calcutta for six years, and I found it to be eighty-five days; a perfectly marvellous achievement in the eyes of a seaman.
Of course, such splendid work as this presupposes a speedy ship. While it is perfectly true that seamanship and diligence on the part of the master can do great things in the way of passage-making even with a sluggish vessel, yet it is heart-breaking work. And when, tired of the never-ending struggle against adverse circumstances, the master becomes listless and slack in his attentions, the result in such a vessel is that she becomes overdue, and underwriters gamble feverishly on the prospects of her non-arrival. Such vessels are still to be met with in goodly numbers, not all obsolete ships either. One, for instance, that I have in mind at the present moment, a huge steel ship not a dozen years old, whose last few passages have been the cause of immense sums changing hands among underwriters owing to her being continually overdue. Another smart-looking barque that I saw in Auckland, New Zealand, once, was actually eight months on the passage from Liverpool thither, having apparently been taken into regions of almost perpetual calm, whence it was a miracle that she ever emerged.
Between these two extremes of swiftness and slowness come all the host of mediocrities, making passages of average length, speedy enough to prevent owners grumbling, yet not sufficiently smart to call for any praise. As in all other professions, these are the vast majority; and the masters who thus quietly perform their duty without hope of honourable mention are none the less worthy because they do not, cannot, do anything that shall cause their names to be remembered among seamen as the élite of the profession.
THE MASTER (SAILING SHIPS)—continued.
Hitherto I have endeavoured to pass lightly over the sailing ship master's work in making passages, only showing the superior side of these responsible men's characters. But if I were to go no farther in this direction, many masters would rightly feel much aggrieved. They would not feel satisfied that the public should imagine that they were all alike excellent, and that the training and experience necessary for the command of a ship always succeeded in turning out a man who was really fit for the post he is called upon to occupy. Besides, the picture would be a false one. Far too many masters, having once obtained command, instead of utilizing their extended opportunities of showing their fitness for such a post, just settle down on their lees and become indolent, careless, and consequently worthless. It must be granted that the temptation is great to a man not naturally energetic. Once freed from the oversight and control of his owners or their agents, and out upon the sea, he is in the position of an almost absolute monarch. His officers are anxious to gain his good word, since upon it depends their future.
This statement needs some explanation. By a rule of the Board of Trade, every officer coming up for examination in order to take a certificate of a higher grade must produce written testimonials from the master he has served with. Wanting these, he is not allowed to enter for the examination at all. Now, as by the common law no master is bound to give his servant a character, it follows that a shipmaster need only withhold that essential scrap of paper from an aspiring officer to put an effectual bar before his rising any higher. I do not profess to criticize the wisdom of this enactment, I merely state the facts as they are. And as an instance of how this power is regarded by shipmasters, I may mention that, recently writing upon the subject in the press, I received an indignant letter from a shipmaster, who said that if all shipmasters did their duty there would be far fewer officers obtain certificates than there are now. Also that no good officer need fear such treatment at the hands of any shipmaster—which was manifestly absurd, since among shipmasters, as amongst all other classes of men, there must be both bad and good, and the temptation to use arbitrary power like that is far too great to be resisted by a bad man.