It has often been a matter of surprise that we should owe so little of the contents of our treasury of literature to officers of the navy while actually employed at sea. The abundant leisure at their disposal, the endless variety of places visited, of events witnessed, of perils shared in, which their noble and important profession forces upon them, would appear to give every facility to those who are gifted with descriptive or imaginative powers, and to be almost capable of creating such where they do not originally exist.
But any one who has himself been for a long time on the desert of waters can no longer regard this with astonishment; he will have felt the difficulty of bringing the mind into active and continued exertion in pursuits unconnected with passing events. Though the physical functions may be stimulated into unusual vigour by the bracing air and healthful life on board, the power and energy of the mind are far from being proportionately increased.
Having just landed from a long and tedious voyage, I feel in my own experience a reproachful confirmation of this accusation of idleness against a life at sea. All the admirable resolutions of study and self-improvement, formed with the firmness of a Brutus on the shore, melted away with the weakness of an Antony when I trusted myself to the faithless bosom of the deep.
But there is no place where the stores of memory are more brought into use in the way of narration, than on board ship; perhaps it is that those who are at all inclined to garrulity find patient and idle listeners more readily than under any other circumstances.
My fellow-passengers, though not very numerous, were men of sundry countries, characters, and pursuits, and their manners and conversation made up in their odd and discordant variety, for what they lacked in refinement and intellectuality. It appears to me always the wisest plan for a traveller to join in the society of his fellow-passengers, whoever or whatever they may be. It is our own fault if we ever meet any one so dull as to be incapable of affording us some amusement, or so ignorant that we can derive no instruction from their conversation. The fact is, that we are sure to be thrown into communication with many men who have travelled much, who have seen many countries, and tried many pursuits, of which we have known but little, and of which it must be always desirable that our information should be increased.
During our voyage, we usually assembled, in the fine calm evenings of a southern latitude, on the poop of the vessel, guarded from the evils of the dewy air by a tent-like tarpaulin attached to the mizen-mast overhead, with the friendly glass and the pipe or cigar to aid our social chat. After a little time our conversation often lapsed into narrative. As the thread of our discourse twisted through the various textures of our different minds, a subject would at times strike on the strong point or favourite idea of some one of our party, and with a half passive, half interested attention, we would hear him to the end.
A few of these men had lived active and adventurous lives, and witnessed stirring scenes; indeed, there was hardly one of them who had not some experience of interest, wherewith to contribute to the armoury with which we waged war against time, that enemy whose strength becomes almost a tyranny on board ship. Frequently, on the following morning, I used to endeavour to record the most striking of these narratives in the best manner my memory permitted—but I fear in a way which will prove but a too strong evidence of the soundness of the assertion I commenced by putting forth, as to the difficulty of any literary effort while at sea. The first narrative which I find noted in my manuscript was related to us by the agent of an English mining company in Peru: he was then on his way to London on business connected with his calling, and seemed a man of quick intelligence, information, and kindly feelings. His description of the golden and beautiful region whence he had come, and the adventurous and prosperous labours of our own countrymen in that distant land, were highly interesting; but a simple story of the noble conduct of one of his miners—a rude and illiterate Cornish man—caught my attention far more than any thing else, and added another strong link to the chain of sympathy which binds my heart in love and kindly feeling to my fellow beings. I give you his tale as I best can.
EVENING FIRST.—THE MINER.
In the spring of the year 1838 a vessel sailed from Falmouth, with thirty-two Cornish miners and artisans on board, engaged by different companies for Peru. They were principally young and adventurous men, who were readily induced to change the certainty of hard work and indifferent remuneration at home for the chances of a strange land. Some of them took their families to share their fate, others left them behind, to await their return if unsuccessful, or to follow the next year if fortune should befriend the emigrants.
Among these latter was John Short, a man of about four-and-thirty years of age; his brother-in-law, William Wakeham, five or three years his junior, accompanied him: both were skilled and experienced miners. Mary Short, the, wife of the former, remained with old Wakeham, her father, who was a small farmer, living in the neighbourhood of Penzance. She had been married some twelve years before this separation from her husband, and had two surviving children, both of them young and helpless.