“All kinds of knotting are also required. But there would be, absolutely, no end to things of this sort if I were to attempt to describe them. There is a very useful instrument on board ship besides the compass, and that is a quadrant, a mathematical instrument used in navigation to take latitudes. The altitude of the sun and stars is ascertained by it, as well as the height and distance of other objects.”
“What a deal must be known on board ship!”
“Much knowledge is required to make a complete seaman,—but more on this subject another time. Before I leave you I will relate a singular anecdote of an Indian, which I read in the newspapers; it falls in very well with the subject of soldiers and sailors.”
“Let us have it directly.”
“In order to assist the officers of the Indian department in their arduous duty of persuading remote tribes to quit their lands, it has been found advisable to incur the expense of inviting one or two of their chiefs three thousand or four thousand miles, to Washington, in order that they should see with their own eyes, and report to their tribes, the irresistible power of the nation with whom they are arguing. This speculation has, it is said, in all instances, more or less effected its object. For the reasons and for the object we have stated, it was deemed advisable that a certain chief should be invited from his remote country to Washington; and, accordingly, in due time, he appeared there. After the troops had been made to manœuvre before him; after thundering volleys of artillery had almost deafened him; and after every department had displayed to him all that was likely to add to the terror and astonishment he had already experienced, the President, in lieu of the Indian’s clothes, presented him with a colonel’s uniform; in which, and with many other presents, the bewildered chief took his departure. In a pair of white kid gloves, tight blue coat, with gilt buttons, gold epaulettes, and red sash, cloth trowsers with straps, high-heeled boots, cocked hat, and scarlet feather, with a cigar in his mouth, a green umbrella in one hand, and a yellow fan in the other, and with the neck of a whiskey-bottle protruding out of each of the two tail pockets of his regimental coat, this ‘monkey that had seen the world’ suddenly appeared before the chiefs and warriors of his tribe; and as he stood before them, straight as a ramrod, in a high state of perspiration, caused by the tightness of his finery, while the cool fresh air of heaven blew over the naked unrestrained limbs of his spectators, it might, perhaps, not unjustly, be said of the costumes, ‘Which is the savage?’ In return for the presents he had received, and with a desire to impart as much real information as possible to his tribe, the poor jaded traveller undertook to deliver to them a course of lectures; in which he graphically described all that he had witnessed. For a while he was listened to with attention; but as soon as the minds of his audience had received as much as they could hold, they began to disbelieve him. Nothing daunted, however, the traveller still proceeded. He told them about wigwams, in which a thousand people could at one time pray to the Great Spirit; of other wigwams, five stories high, built in lines, facing each other, and extending over an enormous space; he told them of war canoes that would hold twelve hundred warriors. Such tales to the Indian mind seemed an insult to common sense. For some time he was treated merely with ridicule and contempt,—but when resolutely continuing to recount his adventures, he told them that he had seen white people who, by attaching a great ball to a canoe, could rise in it into the clouds, and travel through the heavens. The Medicine, Mystery, or learned men of his tribe, pronounced him to be an impostor; and the multitude vociferously declaring that he was too great a liar to live, a young warrior, in a paroxysm of anger, levelled a rifle at his head, and blew his brains out. A portrait of this Indian is now to be seen in Mr. Catlin’s gallery of pictures in London.”
CHAPTER IX.
An engineer.—Mining.—Sappers.—Gunners.—The Surveillante.—Loss in the British army.—Furlough.—Muster-roll.—Punishment.—Poor Jack sent aloft.—Captain Hall on naval punishments.—Instance of injustice to a seaman.—The captain proved to be in the wrong.—Tribute to the brave.—Letter of a private soldier.—The Tenth and the Imperial guards.
“Now, uncle, you will please to tell us what an engineer is?”
“An engineer, boys, is one who has a knowledge of warlike engines, and who directs the attack or defence of a fortification, building or repairing according to the circumstances of the case, such works as have been injured by the enemy. It takes a wise man, and one of quick apprehension, to make a good engineer; he should have resources always, as we say, ‘at his finger ends.’ He ought to possess much practical knowledge, and a readiness and ability to apply it instantaneously. When Buonaparte made his attack on Jean D’Acre, the handful of brave fellows under Sir Sidney Smith never would have been able to withstand him had they not been ably assisted by the talents of Phillipeaux, the engineer. A good engineer will make a weak place strong; enable a few to withstand many, and obtain a victory where nothing is expected but defeat.”