I must not omit two incidents which even now I recall with a certain amount of amusement. It seems but yesterday that in order to seal for ever the truce my friends the middies had granted on my return from the first visit to the admiral, I invited our mess—nine young, hairbrained, jolly fellows—to dine with me on shore at Faroux’s hotel, the crack place in Rio in those days. I had still in my bag a few hundred francs left from the small store of pocket money given to me at the start. This—the largest amount of cash I had ever been blessed with—gave me sufficient aplomb to order a first-rate dinner, a variety of choice wines—even that forbidden luxury to our mess, champagne—liqueurs, coffee, and cigars!
This grand feast was a decided success—until the head waiter placed before me “the Bill,” with a total showing FIVE figures in its first column! If ever a poor boy’s digestion after a good dinner received a disturbing shock, it did on that occasion. I sat in a perfect state of amazement! As the dinner progressed I had gradually risen in the estimation of my guests, until I had with the “pop” of the last bottle of “fizz,” reached the apogee of glory. What could be done? Appeal to my guests to pay for the feast?—there was no other alternative. I put on as bold a front as I could, and went through with it. My appeal in forma pauperis was received with apparent good grace. It was proposed, seconded and carried that I should order a bedroom to be prepared and a breakfast for say five next morning, when four of the middies would attend, bringing with them the necessary funds to pay all expenses.
Relieved of my first monetary embarrassment, I retired to my solitary chamber to meditate on the extravagance of a fast life. After a long night of mature cogitations—and many grateful mental thanks to my generously-disposed messmates—the four young rascals made their appearance to share the delicate breakfast prepared at their instigation. When coffee was served, the youngest, E. Dubois (now a hoary-headed old professor of mathematics at the Naval School at Toulon) rose, and in—to them—a most amusing speech, gave me to understand that mil reis represented only 2f. 75c. (£0 2s. 3d.), so that the dinner, the bed, and the breakfast we had just despatched with true midshipman’s appetite, only absorbed a portion of my pocket-money (£6)! But, as he said in conclusion, “Dear boy, you can still face the world boldly. Though ignorant of the value of foreign coins—which proves that your mathematical education has been sadly neglected—you can pay all your creditors twenty shillings in the pound; and you have the satisfaction to think that you have treated your mess royally.” This, and the amount of “chaff” I was met with on board, had to be got over. It was soon done in the turmoil of festivities I have already mentioned.
My young madcap friends, however, having once tasted of the forbidden fruit—a dinner at a swell hotel—decided upon calling a meeting of all the middies in harbour to get up an “International Farewell Dinner.” Alas! my last coin had to be parted with. But had I not to keep up an appearance? If you can imagine a large banquet hall—between sixty-five and seventy young scapegraces, ranging from 14 to 17 years of age, promiscuously sitting around a handsomely decorated table—English, French, Germans, Americans, Dutch, Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, Egyptians—all mixed up together, not two out of the lot able to understand a word of his neighbour’s language on either side of him. For the first half hour it was very much like a Quaker’s meeting. Nothing was heard beyond the clatter of knives and forks, broken by occasional calls from one to another across the board. But what a strange power champagne has on the human intellect! We sat down at 7 sharp; at 8.30 we were all talking to one another; at 11 I was strolling down the Rua del Ovidor arm-in-arm with a Russian on the right and a Dutchman on the left, exchanging ideas on the most knotty points of international naval legislation; and next morning woke up in the swing cot of a Dutch frigate, whilst my Russian friend had somehow got into my hammock on board the Heroine.
We all suffered from intense headaches—owing, no doubt, to the great pressure on the brain caused by the “polyglot” experiment of the previous night.
The two incidents have, however, had a beneficial effect. I have learned the comparative value of the various foreign coins, and have never since attempted to understand more than one foreign language at one time, even with the assistance of Moet’s champagne.
Our stay in this lovely Brazilian capital at last came to and end. A few days after our international “spree” we were coursing for the Cape of Good Hope, where we made a stay of only three days—just enough to visit the Table Mountain and spend a night at Mr. Cloetê’s celebrated vineyard. From Cape Town to Madagascar we had it about as rough as they make it. I often thought the poor old Heroine would be swallowed up in the trough of the mountainous seas we met with, but the good old boat made pretty good weather of it on the whole.
Madagascar, being the first real “nigger” country I had seen, was a source of great interest to me; and I have often regretted that time did not admit of visiting the interior or hilly portion of that magnificent island. Unfortunately, a man-of-war’s route is mapped out in the offices of the Ministre de la Marine, and when the hour sounded for us to weigh anchor and up with the “jib” there was no “jibbing” against it; and a few days later we sighted the twin islands—Mauritius and Bourbon—and visited both.
Strange to say it struck me even then, and more so on the several visits I have paid to the two countries, the former, which has been a British possession for nearly half-a-century, is to this day more French at heart than the latter. Both charming islands, for scenery and the free-handed hospitality of their inhabitants. I doubt if they can possibly be out-done in any part of the globe.