Chapter Eleven.
An Unlucky Ship. The Days when we went Gipsying. Inambane. Quilp the pilot and Lamoo.
It might have been that our vessel was launched on a Friday, or sailed on a Friday; or whether it was owing to our carrying the devil on board of us in shape of a big jet-black cat, and for whom the lifebuoy was thrice let go, and boats lowered in order to save his infernal majesty from a watery grave; but whatever was the reason, she was certainly a most unlucky ship from first to last; for during a cruise of eighteen months, four times did we run aground on dangerous reefs, twice were we on fire—once having had to scuttle the decks—once we sprung a bad leak and were nearly foundering, several times we narrowly escaped the same speedy termination to our cruise by being taken aback, while, compared to our smaller dangers or lesser perils, Saint Paul’s adventures—as a Yankee would express it—wern’t a circumstance.
On the other hand, we were amply repaid by the many beautiful spots we visited; the lovely wooded creeks where the slave-dhows played at hide and seek with us, and the natural harbours, at times surrounded by scenery so sweetly beautiful and so charmingly solitary, that, if fairies still linger on this earth, one must think they would choose just such places as these for their moonlight revels. Then there were so many little towns—Portuguese settlements—to be visited, for the Portuguese have spread themselves, after the manner of wild strawberries, all round the coast of Africa, from Sierra Leone on the west to Zanzibar on the east. There was as much sameness about these settlements as about our visits to them: a few houses—more like tents—built on the sand (it does seem funny to see sofas, chairs, and the piano itself standing among the deep soft sand); a fort, the guns of which, if fired, would bring down the walls; a few white-jacketed swarthy-looking soldiers; a very polite governor, brimful of hospitality and broken English; and a good dinner, winding up with punch of schnapps.
Memorable too are the pleasant boating excursions we had on the calm bosom of the Indian Ocean. Armed boats used to be detached to cruise for three or four weeks at a time in quest of prizes, at the end of which time they were picked up at some place of rendezvous. By day we sailed about the coast and around the small wooded islets, where dhows might lurk, only landing in sheltered nooks to cook and eat our food. Our provisions were ship’s, but at times we drove great bargains with the naked natives for fowls and eggs and goats; then would we make delicious soups, rich ragouts, and curries fit for the king of the Cannibal Islands. Fruit too we had in plenty, and the best of oysters for the gathering, with iguana most succulent of lizards, occasionally fried flying-fish, or delicate morsels of shark, skip-jack, or devilled dolphin, with a glass of prime rum to wash the whole down, and three grains of quinine to charm away the fever. There was, too, about these expeditions, an air of gipsying that was quite pleasant. To be sure our beds were a little hard, but we did not mind that; while clad in our blanket-suits, and covered with a boat-sail, we could defy the dew. Sleep, or rather the want of sleep, we seldom had to complain of, for the blue star-lit sky above us, the gentle rising and falling of the anchored boat, the lip-lipping of the water, and the sighing sound of the wind through the great forest near us—all tended to woo us to sweetest slumber.
Sometimes we would make long excursions up the rivers of Africa, combining business with pleasure, enjoying the trip, and at the same time gleaning some useful information regarding slave or slave-ship. The following sketch concerning one or two of these may tend to show, that a man does not take leave of all enjoyment, when his ship leaves the chalky cliffs of old England.
Our anchor was dropped outside the bar of Inambane river; the grating noise of the chain as it rattled through the hawse-hole awoke me, and I soon after went on deck. It was just six o’clock and a beautiful clear morning, with the sun rising red and rosy—like a portly gentleman getting up from his wine—and smiling over the sea in quite a pleasant sort of way. So, as both Neptune and Sol seemed propitious, the commander, our second-master, and myself made up our minds to visit the little town and fort of Inambane, about forty—we thought fifteen—miles up the river. But breakfast had to be prepared and eaten, the magazine and arms got into the boat, besides a day’s provisions, with rum and quinine to be stowed away, so that the sun had got a good way up the sky, and now looked more like a portly gentleman whose dinner had disagreed, before we had got fairly under way and left the ship’s side. Never was forenoon brighter or fairer, only one or two snowy banks of cloud interrupting the blue of the sky, while the river, miles broad, stole silently seaward, unruffled by wave or wavelet, so that the hearts of both men and officers were light as the air they breathed was pure. The men, bending cheerfully on their oars, sang snatches of Dibdin—Neptune’s poet laureate; and we, tired of talking, reclined astern, gazing with half-shut eyes on the round undulating hills, that, covered with low mangrove-trees and large exotics, formed the banks of the river. We passed numerous small wooded islands and elevated sandbanks, on the edges of which whole regiments of long-legged birds waded about in search of food, or, starting at our approach, flew over our heads in Indian file, their bright scarlet-and-white plumage showing prettily against the blue of the sky. Shoals of turtle floated past, and hundreds of rainbow-coloured jelly-fishes, while, farther off, many large black bodies—the backs of hippopotami—moved on the surface of the water, or anon disappeared with a sullen plash. Saving these sounds and the dip of our own oars, all was still, the silence of the desert reigned around us, the quiet of a newly created world.
The forenoon wore away, the river got narrower, but, though we could see a distance of ten miles before us, neither life nor sign of life could be perceived. At one o’clock we landed among a few cocoa-nut trees to eat our meagre dinner, a little salt pork, raw, and a bit of biscuit. No sooner had we “shoved off” again than the sky became overcast; we were caught in, and had to pull against, a blinding white-squall that would have laid a line-of-battle on her beam ends. The rain poured down as if from a water-spout, almost filling the boat and drenching us to the skin, and, not being able to see a yard ahead, our boat ran aground and stuck fast. It took us a good hour after the squall was over to drag her into deep water; nor were our misfortunes then at an end, for squall succeeded squall, and, having a journey of uncertain length still before us, we began to feel very miserable indeed.