So saying, my strange acquaintance led the way to a narrow gang plank stretching from the wharf to the ship’s poop. Laughingly declining my proffered assistance, she tripped lightly along it, and as lightly sprang down upon the deck of narrow planking paid with white-lead instead of the more usual pitch.
Allowing me a few moments to look round, my companion presently led me forward to the break of the poop, where, standing at the head of one of the ladders leading down to the main-deck, I obtained a view of the whole length of the ship. The first thing to attract my attention was the wheelhouse, a teak structure raised upon massive steel standards, lofty enough to allow the helmsman a clear view ahead and astern.
Some ten feet ahead of it was the after hatchway, the coamings of which stood about eighteen inches high, and, like those aboard a man-o’-war, were protected by rails and stanchions. The hatchway was open, and there was a ladder leading down through it. Just beyond this was the mainmast; a little way forward of which was the main-hatch, also open, and, like the other, protected by rails and stanchions. Beyond this hatchway there stood, in chocks, a fine powerful screw launch, about forty feet long by ten feet beam; and just ahead of her rose the foremast. Before the foremast gaped the fore-hatchway, also open; then came a handsome capstan; and ahead of it, leaving just comfortable room to work, rose the bulkhead of the turtle-back topgallant forecastle. In addition to the launch, the vessel carried four other boats in davits, namely, two cutters, some thirty-five feet long, and two whaler gigs, each about twenty-five feet long.
My companion—or hostess, rather, I suppose I ought to call her—allowed me to stand about five minutes at the break of the poop, as I ran my eye over the deck and noted, with many approving comments, the various items that especially appealed to me. Then she invited me to accompany her below.
I will spare the reader a detailed description of the apartments—I cannot call them cabins—to which I was now conducted; suffice it to say that, in their several ways, they were a combination of magnificence, luxury, and comfort that seemed to me almost incredible, remembering that I was aboard a ship.
Having duly expressed my admiration for these truly beautiful and luxurious apartments, I was shown two other but much smaller rooms, one on either side of the companion stairway. These two rooms occupied the extreme fore end of the poop, and could be entered from the main-deck as well as from the vestibule. The one on the starboard side was the chart-room, and was fitted up with a bookshelf crammed with nautical works of various descriptions, a table large enough to spread a good big chart upon, a cabinet in which reposed a complete set of the most recently published charts, a case containing no less than four chronometers, and a cupboard wherein were securely packed a whole battery of sextants and other instruments. The corresponding room on the port side was fitted up as a writing room, and here the log slate was kept and the logbook written up from time to time. Here also the ship’s clock and a very fine aneroid barometer were securely bolted to the bulkhead, side by side, in such a position that they could be seen from outside by merely glancing through the window. And near them, hung in gimbals from a long bracket, was a very fine Fitzroy mercurial barometer.
My hostess seemed genuinely gratified at the admiration which I freely expressed, especially for the noble array of charts and nautical instruments; these, to be quite candid, appealing to me even more strongly than the sumptuous elegance of the drawing and dining-rooms. She smiled brightly as I expatiated with enthusiasm upon these matters, and when at length I paused, she said:
“Now let us go below, and I will show you the officers’ and men’s quarters.”
We descended from the vestibule by way of a staircase at the back of the main companion, and presently entered the wardroom, which adjoined the dining-room, but was only about half its size. This was the living-room of the executive officers of the ship, and was a very fine, comfortable room, although, of course, its fittings and furnishings were much less sumptuous than those belonging exclusively to the owner.
On the side of the ship opposite the wardroom, and with a good wide passage between the two, was the block of officers’ cabins, the comfort and convenience of which left nothing to be desired. Next came the petty officers’ berthage, of which the same may be said, although, as was to be expected, the space here was rather more restricted, and the fittings somewhat plainer than in those of the other officers.