Still, we had many vacant, listless hours. To fill them, we resorted to the demoralizing practice of gambling. A game with balls, called shake-bag, loo, venture, all-fours, &c. occupied our evening hours, and sometimes the whole night. It was not uncommon for the game to be protracted beyond the midnight hour of Saturday, into the sacred moments of the holy Sabbath. On one of these guilty mornings, some of us, on retiring to a shed, found the dead body of a black slave, hanging by the rope, with which, in a moment of unpardonable despair, he had committed the horrid crime of suicide. The hour, the scene, the place, our recent guilty profanation of God’s holy day, conspired to fill many of us with profound dread. In my own mind it led to a few transient purposes of amendment. Alas! when the bright sun arose, these purposes had vanished. The influence of vice triumphed. I grew more and more hardened in wickedness.
Cape Town contained a large slave population. These poor wretches had been extremely degraded under the rule of the Dutch. It was said that their condition had been essentially improved since the conquest of the place by the English. Still, as the suicide just mentioned demonstrated, slavery was a bitter draught. The British have done wisely since then in granting freedom to the slaves in all their colonies. May the whole world imitate the noble example!
We were subjected to frequent and violent gales of wind while here. The approach of these storms was always faithfully proclaimed by the mountain that towered up behind us; a large white cloud, resting on its summit, like a tablecloth, was a certain indication of the elemental warfare. Whenever this phenomenon appeared, our men used to remark, “Look out for a blow, the cloth is beginning to spread.” Very soon the vessels in the bay could be seen striking their top-gallant masts and yards, and sometimes even housing their top-masts. In a few minutes the ocean would give signs of the coming commotion; the waves became crested with clouds of foam, and the spirit of the storm was seen careering in triumph over the liquid mountains of the angry deep.
Besides Table mountain, there was another near it, called the Lion’s Rump, from its similarity to that noble animal in a sitting posture. On the summit of this mountain was a telegraph, which informed us, in common with the people of the Cape, of the approach of shipping to the harbor.
At the town, the British had a hospital for the accommodation of their army and navy. The advantages of this institution were humanely and properly offered to us, whenever we were sick. Happening to be quite unwell one day, my shipmates advised me to go thither. Now, on board the Siren, when in a similar state, the surgeon had administered an ounce of Glauber salts. The dose caused such nausea, that from that time I held salts in profound abhorrence. When the hospital was suggested to me, I associated it with the idea of salts, and, shuddering, remarked that “I would go if I thought they would not give me salts.” My shipmates all said they thought I should not have salts prescribed: so, under the guard of a sentry, I sallied forth to the hospital. “Well, my boy,” said the doctor, “what’s the matter with you?”
With many wry faces, I told him my symptoms; when, to my inconceivable mortification and disgust, he spoke to a sort of lob-lolly boy, who waited upon him, and said, “Doctor Jack! bring this boy six ounces of salts.”
This was intolerable. One ounce had sickened me for months at the bare mention of salts, and now I was to swallow six! It seemed impossible. The remedy was worse than the disease. I wished myself back at my quarters. This was, however, in vain, unless I took a dangerous leap from the window. I must submit. The salts were brought, but they were not so bad, either in quality or quantity, as my dose in the Siren. The reason I found to consist in the fact, that they were Epsom instead of Glauber, and that the six ounces included the weight of the water in which they were dissolved. So well was I pleased with my visit to the hospital, and especially with the privilege afforded me of walking about the streets of Cape Town, that I afterwards feigned illness to gain another admission. I was willing to take the salts for the sake of the liberty of jaunting about the streets. Of the sin of lying I thought nothing. I was a sailor, caring little for aught but present gratification. The beauty of truth I had never seen; the hatefulness of a lie I had never learned. Most gratefully do I acknowledge that Divine goodness, which has since effectually taught me both the one and the other.
At Cape Town there was a small prison, called the “Trunk.” To this place those of our number, who were disorderly, were sent, to be closely confined, on no other diet than bread and water, for as many days as the commandant might designate. We always quietly permitted any offender among us to be sent thither without resistance: but when, on one occasion, an attempt was made to confine two of our shipmates unjustly, we gave them a demonstration, which saved us afterwards from any similar attempt.
Two of our men had hung out some clothes, they had just washed, in our yard, near their own shed. Now, it happened that the doctor to the military stationed at the Cape, had an entrance to his office through our yard. The clothes were undesignedly hung across his path, compelling him either to stoop a little in passing, or to ask their removal. He was too proud to adopt either of these peaceful methods, but, with manifest spitefulness, he took out his knife and cut the line, so that the clothes fell into the dirt. The owners, seeing their wet clothing in this condition, broke out into passionate inquiries after the offender. “It was the English doctor,” replied one of our shipmates, who had witnessed the whole affair. This brought forth a volley of sailors’ oaths from the offended parties. The enraged doctor overheard their wrathful ebullitions, and, without further ceremony, ordered the two men to be carried to the “Trunk.”
Here, then, was a manifest case of injustice. We resolved not to submit to it, let the consequences be what they might. When the sergeant came in for the doctor’s victims, we all turned out in a body, declaring we would all go to the “Trunk” together. The sergeant, seeing us in this state of rebellion, called out the whole guard, and ordered them to load and fire upon us. We were not however so easily scared. We shouted, “Fire away! You will have but one fire, and then it will be our turn.” At the same time we picked up all the broken glass, sticks, stones, &c., which were within our reach, and stood waiting for their firing as the signal for a general mêlée. The sergeant, seeing our resolution, and wisely considering that our superiority in numbers, might secure us a victory over the handful composing his guard, ordered the soldiers to retire. We never heard any more of the little doctor’s indignation: it probably evaporated, like the moisture from the clothes his petty indignation had thrown to the ground. How insignificant such acts appear, in men professing to be gentlemen!