The fore and aft canvas carried by the Union ships was peculiar to those vessels. I never saw anything quite like it, though I believe the P. & O. Company at one time had something very similar. The trysails were set on very large booms, and the gaffs were hoisted by the steam winches. They were quite easily handled if once people knew the way to do it, but at first it required a good deal of faith to see a steam winch tearing away with throat and peak halliards. I can’t say I ever saw an accident, but years afterwards in the same ship with the same spars and sails, it was sad to see how the old skill had departed from the hands that worked them. They seemed to have lost the knowledge that to work big fore-and-afters, the throat should always be higher than the peak in hoisting, but that principle takes a lot of driving into the heads of people. There was also another peculiarity in the rig of these ships, the lower yards were fitted to lower across the rails when steaming against a head wind. The Jeer falls were always kept rove, and I have on occasion, when dealing with baffling winds about the line, seen royal, topgallant and lower yards up and down three times in a day. It took about twenty minutes to complete the job.
Nothing of special importance occurred on the way down-Channel on this voyage, but it was a novel experience to be left in charge of a steamer’s bridge for the first time. It was frequently the custom to double the watches in narrow waters, but on this particular occasion the captain did not do so. He left me entirely to myself, although I had the impression that he kept a very careful eye on all that transpired in that first watch. It was an excellent way to let a new man feel his feet, but on no occasion did the captain interfere with me when carrying on the duty of officer of the watch.
We did a thing leaving Plymouth that is not often done, we ran well into Cawsand Bay to pick up a gentleman and his wife as passengers from a shore boat. He had formerly been one of the Company’s captains, and report, rightly or not, said that he being an old friend, Warleigh had taken him away in this fashion to save him from his creditors. I dare say it was likely enough, for there was no breach of the law in doing as we did. The ex-captain afterwards made a fortune on the diamond fields. Needless to say we were fairly filled with passengers, but it is one of the difficulties in writing this story to know just how much or how little one should say on that particular subject. There was every inducement for passengers and officers to be on friendly terms. We messed with them, and they were always treated as though they were guests. There was a lot of spare time to get through, and it was expected that the officers would take the lead in devising amusement to pass the time. The contract speed for the mails was seven and a half knots and the passage was seldom made under thirty-five days, and gave one ample opportunity to acquire a very fair knowledge of whether one’s fellows were amiable or otherwise.
The Cape Colony in those days was a small place, and I soon began to discover that almost every one of our own nationality took an interest in the officering of the mail steamers, and to do bare justice to the hospitality universally extended to us on shore, we were generally welcome guests wherever we went. Therefore, there was a great amount of good feeling on all sides, and disagreeables were rare.
Particularly fortunate in this respect were we on the occasion of my first voyage in steam. We had a most agreeable set of passengers, and at our first port of call, Madeira, we were put into quarantine. We found the Company’s ship Northam there, and as she was in a similar plight, homeward bound, we foregathered with her officers and passengers. I was greatly struck by the good tone that seemed to pervade the Company’s ships, and was immensely pleased at my good fortune in being able to take a share in it.
When Cape Town was reached, it was customary to fire two guns as an announcement that the English mail had arrived. These were answered by two fired from the castle, for in those days this was an event. Upon this particular occasion we carried out the news of the outbreak of the Franco-German War. This, however, did not seem to greatly interest our visiting officials, who were then full of the discovery of the diamond fields, and it may be said that we on our side did not realise the vast importance of this new discovery. There was no cable in those days, and the near interior of South Africa was an unexplored country. We landed our Natal passengers, who were sent up the coast in a smaller vessel called the Natal, and said good-bye with regret to one of the best of fellows, a sugar-planter called Tom Milner, whose memory is still green to old Natalians.
Cape Town docks were at that time open for sailing-ships and small vessels, but we discharged our cargo in Table Bay to sailing lighters. Little more than the commencement of the present magnificent breakwater had been made, and it was not an infrequent occurrence for vessels to drive on shore when it blew hard from the north-west. The Table Bay boatmen were very splendid seamen. In the worst weather a well-fitted anchor boat would keep the sea, and if a vessel was driving, or had parted her cable, they were very clever at passing on board the end of a big coir cable, the other end of which was fast to an anchor they had let go to windward.
Before we left Table Bay, the homeward-bound mail steamer came in—the Briton, afterwards H.M.S. Dromedary. She looked a small but beautiful little ship, as she came in with yards squared to a nicety, sail covers on, nicely painted, and generally speaking spick and span. She looked thoroughly workmanlike and typical of her captain, by name George Rawlinson Vyvyan, of whom more anon. On a preceding voyage the Briton had lost her propeller and had run into Vigo at the rate of three hundred miles in a day under canvas only, which was plain proof that sail was not carried in those ships for ornament only.
In due course we completed our trip to Algoa Bay, discharged our cargo and loaded wool for home, calling at Table Bay on the way back to fill up with cargo and passengers. We had amongst our passengers one very accomplished man named Woollaston, who took great pains both to teach me écarté and indicate the sort of reading that would be useful to me; I retain grateful memories of him. On the passage home the S.E. trades blew strongly. The Roman on that voyage had a two-bladed propeller; this we fixed up and down when the engines were stopped, and for two days we ran over ten knots with no steam at all. As that was well over contract speed it was thought desirable to save coal, but the pursuance of that policy brought about the opposition which in time absorbed the original line of mail steamers.
Captain Warleigh was naturally anxious to make the most of the sailing powers of the ship, and as I was last out of a sailing-ship, I was pleased to find that one and all permitted me to trim canvas to my heart’s content, and I was encouraged to do so by every one except the boatswain, who did not like the officer of the watch to interfere with details. He was told, however, by the chief, that if other officers left the work to him, that was no reason why every one should, and after that there was no trouble, for he was a decent sailor man. This business of canvas helped me materially with the captain, who told me one evening he would do all he could to retain me in the Company’s service, for which I was grateful. My advice to any young fellow joining a new service would be to try how much they will let you do even to the usurpation of what may be the work of other people—do the work, and do it well—it pays.