We gave one beautiful dance on board, to which the directors issued invitations. It was a great success and brought together a great number of charming people. When we were ready to start for home I do not think that anything had been left undone that could have increased the popularity of the ship.
The question of the route to be followed homeward was one that gave me considerable difficulty to decide. I was not in the least degree shy of accepting advice, in fact I sought it, but having had little experience in navigating southern latitudes, and bearing in mind all the tales I had heard about ice and kindred subjects, I was naturally anxious to do the right thing. I knew, moreover, that our two new ships had made excellent passages to Rio. By chance I met my old friend, Captain Gibbs, and from him I got the advice, “Hear what they all say, and when you get out, act as you think fit,” which left me exactly where I was. But the general impression left upon me was, get down to Lat. 50° S. by the great circle track and then run the Easting down on that parallel. I duly carried out the plan as far as human endurance permitted me to do so (for I had not then the practical knowledge of great circle sailing I afterwards acquired) when I attempted it. Let me explain. Lat. 50° S. was reached three days out from Lyttleton, and from there to Cape Horn by a Mercator line was a stated distance. But there are two sides to this line—one the polar side, or the great circle, which shortens the distance immensely, the other the equatorial side which very considerably lengthens it. Now to run the Easting down in Lat. 50 was to do so on the equatorial side of the Mercator line, and flesh and blood was not strong enough to do that. I tried for three days with something like the following result—A run of say 320 miles, and nearing my port only say 280. That would not do, so ice or no ice I took to the Mercator track, and having succeeded in spoiling my run to Rio saw not a scrap of ice, nor did I have the least trouble in any way. It must, however, be admitted that for a stranger to look at the ice chart he would think that bergs were as plentiful as potatoes in their patch, and might be inclined to disregard his knowledge that hundreds and thousands of voyages had been safely made by sailing-ships in high latitudes, and that what one man had done could be accomplished by another. However, both I and the Company paid for my lack of experience, though we both profited by it in the long run. It should also be said that upon this trip there was little help from canvas. The passage home was made by dint of sheer hard steaming, greatly assisted by the fact that we had not to provide steam to keep the freezing engine going. We left Lyttleton for the homeward passage full of passengers, and it would not be difficult to give the full details of the life on board if it were desirable to quote from the pages of the Ruapehu Satirist, a weekly journal that was read with considerable interest. Its editor was decidedly a free-lance, and spared no one. It may be stated, however, that it would be hard to exaggerate the mischief that can be made by a few sheets of paper, a little ink, and lively imagination. I think I can say that summary suppression was the fate of most on-board-ship newspapers with which I came in contact.
I was rather anxious about making the land near the Horn, for as the days went by it was evident that only by fine weather should we be enabled to see anything before dark. This may seem absurd to-day, but to run on a close course, as I was doing in darkness, for a land I had never seen, was not a very pleasant job. It had to be done, however, and this specially emphasises my former remarks as to the desirability of never losing a mile or a minute when making a passage. As luck would have it on this occasion we made Ildefonso, looking like a streak of smoke from a steamer funnel, just as darkness was setting in. After that there was no more trouble and we passed one mile south of Cape Horn about midnight. There was no difficulty in recognising its shape from the rough sketches on charts and in sailing directions. We ran through the straits of Le Maire, and arrived at Rio without incident.
Sydney may be beautiful, Auckland is acknowledged to be, but to my imagination Rio is unsurpassed in loveliness by any place I have seen. There is no intention of attempting to describe it here, that is beyond the power of any ordinary mortal, but until one has seen the sun rise in Rio Harbour the most beautiful sight in the world had yet to be experienced.
Naturally all our passengers went on shore, for the coaling was to take twenty-four hours, and I have a very keen remembrance of bringing a very lively crowd off with me in the small hours of the morning. I had picked them up in a cafe at the top of the Rua D’Orviedor, where every one appeared to be in a good temper and Englishmen exceedingly popular. Repentance, I doubt not, was the predominant feeling next day, for mixed drinks with strange and strong tobacco are apt to make the ordinary hat feel a little heavy in the morning.
The remainder of the passage was not such as to call for special comment. My attempt to dodge the N.E. trade was not the success I hoped it would have been; we ran through the anchorage at Santa Cruz at midnight, making noise enough to wake the dead, and leaving particulars behind us in a sort of pyrotechnic washing-tub, so that we might be reported home by cablegram, and finally arrived at Plymouth after a passage the steaming time of which was 38 days 8 hours and 37 minutes. I find that both Plymouth papers call this the fastest passage on record, and for some reason it made a stir in London, for when we got to town I met my old friend Mr. Trapp, and his words were, “Is that your ship that we are all talking about?” I said “Yes.” “I suppose,” he remarked, “you ran all night and did not shorten sail in the hours of darkness.” The old gentleman was back in his thoughts to the usages and customs that had obtained in the days of the Napoleonic wars when he had been privateering.
However that may be, the passage was a success; my chief had brought her into London looking spic and span in the most approved Southampton fashion. Both the chairman and the manager were waiting to meet the ship at the docks, and they were so pleased with her appearance that they altered the paint of all the other ships to the fashion we had set. In the Daily Telegraph of June 17, Clark Russell had an article on the passage. It was to all intents and purposes a good performance, but to the day of my death I shall always look back to it with regret, for had I taken a better course to Cape Horn than I did, it might have been a passage that would have held the record for years yet to come. I think, however, that at the finish I had the record for passages both ways.
On the next voyage I had with me the chairman of the company, Mr. J. L. Coster, who was in his way a type of the coming New Zealander. He was a keen, clever man, determined that whatever he had to do with should be the best procurable, daring and ambitious to the last degree. He stuck to his friends, and loathed his enemies with a deadly enmity. He had formerly been, I believe, manager of the Bank of New Zealand, but was now certainly the leading spirit of the shipping company and determined that no one should wrest from them their supremacy. I had seen a good deal of my chairman and others connected with the Company in London, and looked forward to a very pleasant passage, for Coster and I got on very well indeed.
About the time that we were to sail the Shaw Savill Company were sending out the White Star steamer Coptic, having on board her as passenger Sir Henry Loch, the governor of Victoria, who was to be landed at Hobart. It was the first run of the Coptic on this route, and to us she was an unknown quantity, but this I knew, that although she sailed three days before us it was my business to get to Hobart first, and I intended to spare no effort to do so. The fates seemed adverse to us, however, and gave the worst weather I ever saw. The run out to Madeira was a good one, but we lost nine hours there coaling. We spent the time very pleasantly on a ride inland, and enjoyed the proverbial hospitality of the Blandy family at their beautiful villa. We left filled up with coal and in the cheeriest spirits.
I should mention that I now had as chief engineer my old chief from the African, and knew that though stubborn as a mule he was a first-class man, and not likely to indulge me with unpleasant surprises. In fact he was rather safe than brilliant, and under the particular circumstances I could not have done better, for on this occasion I had not taken special pains in the selection of my crew, having left it to be done in the ordinary manner. When we were one day to the south of Cape Verde, it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, we sighted a steamer coming towards us, and by her rig and the position she was in, I knew that it was the Athenian homeward bound, Warleigh being her captain. Coster, who was with me at the time, asked me to speak her and ask if she had seen the Coptic. And if so where; for if we had that information we should be able to judge fairly well what our relative speeds were. Accordingly we hoisted a signal, asking the Athenian to close as she was on our port side, but instead of doing so she sheered further off. Not to disappoint my chairman I steered across her stern and came up on her starboard side, when I found, much to my surprise, that Warleigh had stopped his engines, and his manœuvre brought us a good deal closer that I intended. No harm was done, however, and we got the information that the Coptic had been spoken 150 miles to the southward of the Western Breaker. This gave us the information we wanted, and thanking Warleigh I put on full speed and resumed my course. But there was something about the business I did not like, we had been too near an accident to please me, and meeting Warleigh some voyages after in Cape Town I asked him why he had stopped his engines. There had been, I may say, a little coolness between us for some time over some misunderstanding that ought never to have occurred. He replied, “I thought that you intended to steam round me, to show your superior speed, and determined that I would stop to let you do it.” I was rather hurt to think he could have thought me capable of such a piece of rudeness, and told him so, upon which we buried the hatchet for good and all.