We had now arrived somewhat near the “horse” latitudes, and in calm weather, and with no work to kill the time, we began some horseplay with the monkeys on board. The name given to these latitudes arose from the number of horses the Spaniards used to throw overboard when becalmed—sometimes for weeks—in these regions, passing to and fro between their South American possessions and Europe. The chief object of our fun on board was a large, greenish, long-tailed monkey, who, with Darwinian forethought, had pitched upon young C—— as the fittest selection Providence had placed within his reach on the high seas. The competition as to natural fitness was so close between the two, that it was often a cause of serious dispute as to which should have his way.
One day, after a sharp bout of this kind, a real quarrel ensued, as will occur sometimes in the best-regulated families; and young C——, who prided himself much on ancestral descent, as, no doubt, did also his still more anciently descended rival, came to a regular stand-up fight with the monkey. Strength was on the side of C——, whilst cunning and skill were on the side of the old un; but at last the upstart gave his ancient confrère such a tremendous upper cut, as he was holding on to the ratlines, near the bulwark, that he was knocked out of time into the bosom of the impenetrable deep, and poor young Ben (that was the name of our monkey) had to swim for it.
As this typical representative of lost nationality and universal brotherhood breasted the waves like a corker, we tried to lower a boat; but although the apparatus always acts at home, it never does at sea, so the boat stuck up in the air on its davits. We then threw a life-belt towards the now nearly exhausted Ben; but although he had enough instinct to grasp it, he had not enough sense to pass it over his head and under his arms. So we saw his efforts getting slowly weaker and weaker as he clasped and clutched at the slippery buoy, and at length he sank beneath the waves, down, down among the dead men, to be found again, no doubt, one day by some yet undreamt-of ethno-geologist, who will perhaps deduce from his bones that the aborigines of the Atlantic were very little men, with long caudal appendages, and descant learnedly upon every link in that long tail, until he comes to the end of his own, and finds out his mistake.
In commemoration of this sad event we proposed a sort of Irish wake, to be held as we passed the line.
From Ascension we reached away so far to the west that nothing but the most abstract calculation could give our captain any idea as to the latitude and longitude in which we really were, and our little bark seemed to be dancing about on the line like an amateur rope-dancer. This is a rather metaphysical metaphor; but I am talking learnedly now, influenced, no doubt, by our skipper’s tuition. Time hanging heavily on my hands in this dead calm, when even the green waves assumed the lifeless heaviness of molten lead, I had taught myself navigation, and held such lengthy discussions with our captain as to the position and value of stars, planets, and constellations, as to appear to the somewhat astonished listeners around as though I were a Newton and a Pascal rolled into one.
The captain and I, over our glasses (telescopes I mean, of course), had become so awfully knowing, that my only doubts were as to which knew the least of the two; and it was only for the sake of the respect due to seniority in this happy ignorance that I allowed him to navigate the ship. One day, however, nettled by some critical observations of mine, in a sudden fit of displeasure he threw up his commission as skipper, and I took his place; but as it happened to be a dead calm at the time, I had no means of showing my superior seamanship. Thus time passed on, while I still retained a certain happy-go-lucky faith in my own star quite as strong as the captain’s in his. In this I was fully justified, as the sequel will show.
On passing over the supposed line, which our captain, after dinner, had kindly chalked out before us in a very zigzag manner on the mahogany, in the prelude to the in memoriam wake for poor Ben, whom, as I previously stated, we had left deep down in the phosphorescent waters of the southern hemisphere. While others were singing song after song in happy oblivion of past warfare at the Cape, I was thinking that we had entered into British waters. This was somewhat a stretch of imagination, but nothing is too big for me when I dream of Old England—like Ben, I dive into futurity. Thus human nature seeks for pleasure and enjoyment in many and varied channels, according to its own appreciation of wherein these consist.
The bottle was circling freely, and the hot, stifling atmosphere of the mess-cabin below made us feel delightfully dry every time it neared us, as one after another we passed the Rubicon between self-possession and being possessed. Notwithstanding all this joviality, an uncomfortable feeling was slowly creeping over me, and at last became so unbearable that I ran upon deck to breathe the fresh air. How grand all appeared under that mighty dome, compared to the rafters of the cabin below! The night was glorious in its starry splendour; the sea slept gently heaving, as though with loving dreams surging, while soft breezes rippled its face with smiles.
The boisterous mirth arising from the cabin below seemed strangely out of place. I turned to the man at the helm; the idiot seemed as screwed as the wheel that rolled in his slackened grasp. “Holloa, mate!” I said, “what is that light on the water you are steering for?” pointing to a flame I saw gleaming there. “A tar-barrel,” he said, “some chaps passing the line have chucked overboard.” “But it is nearing us too fast for that—look out, man! Good God! its a ship!—luff, luff!” and suiting the action to the word, I jumped to the wheel and jammed the helm down; then swiftly glided by a huge black hull, its deck crowded with dusky figures, shouting and gesticulating to us like demons, its stern grazing our quarter, as the good ship Arethusa, like a form endowed with life, sprang up into the wind, and saved herself from destruction. One second more and we had been down, down amongst the dead men, not far from poor Ben.
Up rushed the startled convivialists from below, some with their glasses still in hand, and I crept ’neath the bulwarks, and kneeling, felt a mother’s prayer had been heard that night on my behalf. This vessel proved to be the Mauritius, a large iron screw, then bound on her first voyage to India round the Cape. She was afterwards one of the fleet of transports placed under my orders for the conveyance of troops to the Crimea, an account of which will shortly appear in my military correspondence concerning that war. This narrow squeak sobered us for a few days, but our spirits revived as the western winds now began to blow.