The sailors on the corvette were robust and powerful fellows, with appetites to frighten a hotel keeper. Russian sailors from the interior of the empire are very liable to scurvy. Those from Finland are the best for long voyages. Captain Lund once told me the experience of a Russian expedition of five ships upon a long cruise. One ship was manned by Finlanders, and the others carried sailors from the interior. The Finlanders were not attacked with scurvy, but the rest suffered severely.
“All the Russians,” said the captain, “make good sailors, but those from the maritime provinces are the best seamen.”
Early in the voyage it was interesting to see the men at dinner. Their table utensils were wooden spoons and tubs, at the rate of ten spoons and one tub to every ten men. A piece of canvas upon the deck received the tub, which generally contained soup. With their hats off, the men dined leisurely and amicably. Soup and bread were the staple articles of food. Cabbage soup (schee) is the national diet of Russia, from the peasant up to the autocrat. Several times on the voyage we had soup on the captain’s table from the supply prepared for the crew, and I can testify to its excellence. The food of the sailors was carefully inspected before being served. When the soup was ready, the cook took a bowl of it, with a slice of bread and a clean spoon, and delivered the whole to the boatswain. From the boatswain it went to the officer of the deck, and from him to the chief officer, who delivered it to the captain. The captain carefully examined and tasted the soup. If unobjectionable, the bowl was returned to the galley and the dinner served at once.
A sailor’s ration in the Russian navy is more than sufficient for an ordinary appetite and digestion. The grog ration is allowed, and the boatswain’s call to liquid refreshment is longer and shriller than for any other duty. At the grog tub the sailor stands with uncovered head while performing the ceremonial abhorred of Good Templars. As of old in our navy, grog is stopped as a punishment. The drink ration can be entirely commuted and the food ration one half, but not more. Many sailors on the Variag practiced total abstinence at sea, and as the grog had been purchased in Japan at very high cost, the commutation money was considerable. Commutation is regulated according to the price of the articles where the ship was last supplied.
I was told that the sailor’s pay, including ordinary allowances, is about a hundred roubles a year. The sum is not munificent, but probably the Muscovite mariner is no more economical than the American one. In his liberty on shore he will get as drunk as the oft quoted ‘boiled owl.’ En passant I protest against the comparison, as it is a slander upon the owl.
At Petropavlovsk there was an amusing fraternization between the crews of the Variag and the Wright. The American sailors were scattered among the Russians in the proportion of one to six. Neither understood a word of the other’s language, and the mouth and eye were obliged to perform the duties of the ear. The flowing bowl was the manual of conversation between the Russians and their new friends. The Americans attempted to drink against fearful odds, and the result was unfortunate. They returned sadly intoxicated and were unfit for social or nautical duties until the next day.
When the Variag was at New York in 1863, many of her sailors were entrapped by bounty-brokers. When sailors were missing after liberty on shore, a search through the proper channels revealed them converted into American soldiers, much against their will. Usually they were found at New York, but occasionally a man reached the front before he was rescued. Some returned to the ship dressed as zouaves, others as artillerists; some in the yellow of cavalry, and so on through our various uniforms. Of course they were greatly jeered by their comrades.
Everyone conversant with Russian history knows that Peter the Great went to England, and afterward to Holland, to study ship building. He introduced naval construction from those countries, and brought from Holland the men to manage his first ships and teach his subjects the art of navigation. As a result of his enterprise, the principal parts of a Russian ship have English or Dutch names, some words being changed a little to adapt them to Russian pronunciation. The Dutch navigators exerted great influence upon the nautical language of Russia. To illustrate this Captain Lund said: “A Dutch pilot or captain could come on my ship and his orders in his own language would be understood by my crew. I mean simply the words of command, without explanations. On the other hand, a Dutch crew could understand my orders without suspecting they were Russian.”
Sitting among the officers in the ward-room, I endeavored to accustom my ear to the sound of the Russian language and learn to repeat the most needed phrases. I soon acquired the alphabet, and could count up to any extent; I could spell Russian words much as a schoolboy goes through his ‘first reader’ exercise, but was unable to attain rapid enunciation. I could never get over the impression that the Muscovite type had been set up by a drunken printer who couldn’t read. The R’s looked the wrong way, the L’s stood bottom upward, H’s became N’s, and C’s were S’s, and lower case and small caps were generally mixed up. The perplexities of Russian youth must be greater than ours, as they have thirty-six letters in their alphabet and every one of them must be learned. A brief study of Slavonic verbs and nouns convinced me they could never be acquired grammatically in the short time I proposed remaining in Russia, and so I gave them up.
What a hindrance to a traveler and literal man of the world is this confusion of tongues! There is no human being who can make himself verbally understood everywhere on this little globe. In the Russian empire alone there are more than a hundred spoken languages and dialects. The emperor, with all his erudition, has many subjects with whom he is unable to converse. What a misfortune to mankind that the Tower of Babel was ever commenced! The architect who planned it should receive the execration of all posterity.