The actual substratum, or raft proper, seemed to be strong and substantial, but the sails and gear were miserably contrived, and worse executed, in preparation for a long dreary voyage of six weeks, drifting in wet and weariness, which I could not but contrast with the pleasant six weeks just passed in the Rob Roy.
The most interesting thing on the raft was a passenger, who had come on board her when about a thousand miles away in the sea. This was an old hen, given to the crew by a passing vessel. It was a common brown, dowdy, grandmother-looking hen, and in this prosaic state it was very odd and incongruous, tethered to the deck by a bit of tarred lanyard, and pecking away till you looked hard at it, then it cocked up one eye with an air that said, “Why are you staring at me?”
Among the visitors to the raft was a wealthy gentleman, who surveyed the whole with interest, and at last fixed his eye upon the barn-door fowl, and asked if it was to be sold. “Yes, sir, for a hundred guineas,” was the answer; but he deferred any immediate purchase by saying, “If I thought that eating that hen’s eggs would make me as plucky as you are, I might buy it.” As for being “plucky” in the matter, what will not men risk for money? The risks run by many sailors in the rotten coffins that bring our scuttles of coals round Yarmouth Sands are quite as great as the hazard on this raft, and their forecastles are about as comfortable as the tent upon it. If it were not on such a serious subject as risk to human life, one might well be amused to hear the wrong estimates of the dangers in various sorts of voyages which are so hastily expressed by benevolent people who are ignorant of the whole matter.
I advised the raft-men to take her to Berlin, for exhibition as “the German raft from America,” for such she is; but they persisted in their scheme for showing her in London, where folks are already tired of “flotsam and jetsam” from the West. Their enterprise failed; and the poor Germans had to depart from England deep in debt instead of laden with money, and their raft was left for sale.
Since the ‘Nonpareil,’ there has come to England from America another floating monstrosity, a boat called the ‘John T. Ford,’ worse “found” in every sense than the others, and which had three men drowned on the passage, and one nearly starved—a sad finale to the failures of the ‘Henrietta,’ ‘Red, White, and Blue,’ and ‘Nonpariel,’ as speculations. Another craft came in with man and wife as crew. Finally in July, the two Andrews came in the ‘Nautilus.’
Every day at Cowes the yawl Rob Roy was under way for a sail, and sometimes in good breezes she would thread in and out among thickly clustered yachts, so as to show her handiness. Certainly, without previous practice, it would be highly improper to attempt this sort of cruising; for the yachts, with bowsprits run out, and jiggers and mizen-booms projecting, are at anchor here on the implied understanding that no one will wantonly endanger a collision by sailing about in the crowd, merely for fun. After practice, however, for weeks in the same craft, the operation of guiding her safely through a maze of boats, and on a strong cross-tide, becomes like the unnoticed and nearly involuntary muscular efforts of the body which carry us safely through a crowd on shore. I recollect once seeing some very dignified Arab Chiefs, who for the first time in their lives had to go up-stairs, and their awkward stumbling, even in the ascent of a few steps, showed how much our nerves and limbs have to learn before we can do so ordinary a thing without even a thought.
One day the Rob Roy sailed to Portsmouth, and into all the creeks and crannies, and through all the channels and guts she could find in that complicated waterway, and then anchored near the ‘Duke of Wellington,’ with the old ‘Victory’ close beside. There also was the ‘Serapis,’ one of the magnificent troop-ships, of a size and build found to be the best success of our last naval efforts. By the quay was the ‘Warrior,’ the first sea-going iron-clad, and of beauty indisputable, and the celebrated ‘Wyvern,’ with its tripod masts. Others later made, and always more and more stumpy and square, need a strong pressure of utilitarian conviction to restrain us from pronouncing that they are downright ugly. But we shall soon become reconciled, and then enamoured, of forms that are associated with proved utility, and the grand three-decker of our youth will look as clumsy then as the ships of Queen Elizabeth do now, which seem to have carried, each of them, a lot of toy guns, and a country mansion on its deck.
The church service on board old ‘Victory’ was most interesting to take part in when Sunday came round, and next day her captain came to visit us in his well-manned gig, which, indeed, was longer than our boat, and he said that the Rob Roy “fulfilled a dream of his youth.” This from a “swell of the ocean” was a high compliment to our little yawl.
A boat full of boys, from the Portsmouth Ragged School, sang hymns on the water in the lovely evening.
Among the other remarkable visitors to the yawl was a pleasant young lady, who sat in a very pretty boat, rowed by a trusty man. She had hovered round and round the Rob Roy with a cautious propriety, which, however, could not conceal a certain wistful gaze as the narrowing spiral of her course brought her nearer at each turn. My little dingey was the attraction, and the lady confessed boldly that she “would so like to have a boat like that to row in.” Next she consented to see dinner cooked on the Rob Roy, and—just because she was a lady—she complied with the request not to fly away when I began to eat. Finally, as curiosity increases by gratifying it, the good-humoured girl (with the full consent of the trusty guardian) accepted one mouthful of the newly cooked rations, stewed steak, on Rob Roy’s fork, and then suddenly it had become “very late, and time to join papa.”