Their walk is peculiar. They go barefoot, and strut, rather than walk, without bending the knee, with chest and stomach pompously projected. From this gait results a certain balancing of the body and a movement to the hips, which gives to the women a bold, and to the men a pretentious air. Most of the women hide their faces when a stranger heaves in sight; but it must not be supposed from this that they are either modest or retiring, on the contrary, for young girls and women yield their persons indiscriminately to men until they are married: before that they are at liberty to do as they please, and do not, in consequence, lose the respect of their fellows. In fact, I am given to understand, most strangers find the advances of the fair sex rather embarrassing.
At the landing place, and thronging the fine bronze statute of Admiral Genouilly, the hero of Saigon, an immense crowd had gathered to witness the embarkation of the governor, on a visit to our admiral. His barge is a splendidly got up affair. A large boat of native build, painted and gilded till one could scarcely look on it, and rowed by fourteen French seamen standing, clothed in spotless white, with broad crimson sashes around their waists. This equipage had such a holiday look about it, that one of our fellows irreverently asked if "Sanger's circus was coming!"
Only a day at Saigon, and off again. Instead of shaping course direct for Hong Kong we hugged the coast of Cochin China, thinking thus to cheat the monsoon. In this we were mistaken, for the wind and sea proved so strong that lower yards and topmasts had to be struck. Thus it was not until the 25th, and after hard steaming, that we reached Hong Kong.
April 16th.—To-day, William Edwards, second captain of the main top, died in hospital of a complication of debilitating complaints.
April 21st—Started on our yearly trip. Between Hong Kong and Amoy we encountered a series of baffling fogs, compelling us to anchor for days at a stretch. One clear day the "Lapwing" passed, bound for Hong Kong. She had recently been in collision with a Chinese merchant steamer, and inflicted such telling damage on the latter that now her bones lie rotting at the bottom of the Formosa channel.
At Amoy we found the first division of the cruising squadron at anchor, under the command of Captain East, of the "Comus." From Hong Kong here they had been under the convoy of the admiral, who had, to use an expression of one of the interested, given them a thorough "shaking up," especially in the night watches.
Before sailing the "kit" of our late deceased shipmate was disposed of at a public auction, and realised the sum of £25. This, together with a general subscription, allowed us to send the comfortable sum of £100 to his widow. It is at these sales that one sees the sailor come out in—what shall I say, a new character? Well, in a way, yes; for he certainly exhibits a carefulness of thought and an enlargement of the organ of feeling, for which the world would scarce give him credit perhaps. I have often thought it the most beautiful trait in an otherwise rough and crude nature. Let it but be known that a poor woman is left helpless to struggle through a hard and selfish world, may-be children to add to her difficulties, then you shall see that the sailor's heart is in the right place; then all private animosity against the deceased is swallowed up in the "charity which is kind." The ancient Romans were not more eager to obtain a memento of dead Cæsar than they for some article of the deceased's clothing; not so much for the sake of the thing itself, but simply that, by the purchase of it, they may exercise their generosity, by giving for it, perhaps, four times its value.
We have orders to cruise to Chefoo under sail. Fancy an iron-clad making a passage under canvas! With the "Iron Duke's" usual luck we encountered either boisterous head winds or flat calms all the way, compelling us to reef our canvas or to endure the tantalizing and provoking agony of witnessing our sails hang in picturesque, but useless, festoons up and down the masts.
For ten days we scarce saw the sun; for ten days the sextants lay idle. When at length the sun did condescend to slash the sky with his hopeful beams, we found we had made the satisfactory average of ten miles a day. Our potatoes, too,—that self-provided esculent upon which sailors depend so much, and without which the admiralty allowance assumes such skeleton proportions—now began to fail us. As it was useless to attempt to reach Chefoo under sail alone, steam was got up, and we managed to make the harbour on June 6th.
Here again we picked up the squadron and the admiral, the former of whom had been lying idle for fourteen days, eating of the fat of the land, whilst we, like certain ruminants, have been consuming our own fat, for want of more natural food.