My First Voyage to Southern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“We shall have fever break out among these poor people before long,” observed Dr Cuff to the second mate. “I must represent the state of the case to the captain, and advise him to put back to Plymouth.”

“I am glad to hear you say so, as I have thought the same,” said Mr Henley. “The cargo, too, which I have to think about, will be damaged, if not destroyed; and the ship, from being overloaded, steers so badly, that it is a work to get her about, and if she was caught on a lee shore with a heavy sea, so that we could not tack, but had to wear, the chances are that we should run aground before we could do it. It would require two or three miles to wear this ship with any sea on in her present state.”

This was unpleasant information. I had learned enough seamanship by this time fully to comprehend what Mr Henley meant. Tacking and wearing are both manoeuvres to get a ship’s head round so as to have the wind on the side opposite to what it was at first. In tacking, the helm is put down, and the head comes up close to the wind, and then is forced round by it till it strikes the sails on the opposite side. Wearing, on the contrary, is performed by putting the helm up and keeping the ship’s head away from the wind, gradually squaring the yards till she is directly before it. Then the helm is put down, and the yards are braced up till she is once more brought as close to the wind as she will lie. As she must be kept moving all this time, and as, in a gale, the ship moves very rapidly, it may be conceived that a great extent of ground must be run over before the whole manoeuvre can be completed. I thought to myself, I hope that we shall not have to tack or wear ship on a lee shore in a dark night,—for although a shipwreck is a very interesting incident to read about, it is a thoroughly disagreeable one to suffer.

When Dr Cuff made his report, the captain was highly indignant. “He would sooner see the ship go down, or all the people rot with fever, than put back,—that was not his way,” was the answer he was reported to have made.

“Awful is the responsibility that man has taken on his shoulders!” observed Dr Cuff to Mr Henley.

I have scarcely spoken of Waller, our third mate. He was a rough, uneducated young man; not much, even, of a practical sailor; and Mr Grimes soon made a complete, though not a willing tool of him. He was like Caliban under Prospero,—he grumbled, but could not help himself. After knocking about with heavy, contrary winds, somewhere in the latitude of Cape Ushant, and running a great risk of being driven up either the Irish Channel or on to the English coast, we at length shaped a course across the Bay of Biscay. That bay, famed for turbulent seas, did not lose its character with us. What a dark mass of troubled waters were around us! how gloomy the sky overhead! I could not help fancying that disasters were about to overtake us; and, indeed, the aspect of affairs on board was sufficiently discouraging. I never, indeed, had before felt so low-spirited. The second mate predicted shipwreck; the doctor, pestilence and death. What else was to happen I could not tell. Several sharp showers fell, then suddenly the sun burst forth from behind some dark clouds with resplendent beauty, spreading over, with a sheet of silver, a wide extent of the raging sea, along which flitted the sombre shadows from masses of clouds, casting an occasional gloom, but leaving the ocean once more to roll on in glorious brightness.

After all, I thought to myself, the evil anticipated may pass away like the clouds; I was wrong to have desponded.

“You admire this, my lad,” said Dr Cuff, in a kind way, as he came up to take a short turn on deck after attending to his laborious duties below. “The sea presents changeful scenes and extraordinary beauties, of which those who live always on shore have little conception. You will find yourself, I hope, amply repaid in the life you have chosen, by the numberless objects of interest you will meet with in your voyages. It is a grievous pity that lads are so often sent to sea with so small an amount of education that they cannot appreciate the advantages they enjoy, or make use of the opportunities which are presented to them of acquiring information. A sailor—an officer, I mean—unless he is content not to be superior to a waggoner who drives his team up and down between London and his native town, should have a fuller and more varied style of education than men of any other profession. He should know the history of every country he visits, the character of its people, and their institutions and language, its natural productions and natural history,—indeed, no knowledge will come amiss to him.”

As may be seen, I was more fortunate in my associates than I might have expected. I had often read of waves running mountains high in books of poetry and other works, and I fully expected to see them as high, as the mast-heads. I was surprised, therefore, to find our big ship tumbled about so much by those over which we sailed, and which seldom rose very much higher than the bulwarks. I told Mr Henley what I had expected to see. He laughed very much, and said that it was fortunate they did not run to the height I had supposed. He then told me that those we were watching were generally not rising more than twenty feet, though, occasionally, some attained an elevation of from twenty-two to twenty-four feet. He calculated the height of the wave by first estimating the height of our eyes above the water, and then the height of the crest which intercepted the horizon.

A fortnight after leaving London the gale passed away, and the next morning we sighted a high land to the south, which was announced to be the island of Madeira. Latterly, we had made a good run of it. The captain was for giving it a wide berth, but Dr Cuff made such strong representations as to the condition of the passengers, that, with a very bad grace, he stood towards it. Brightly the sun shone forth, and, with a light breeze, we soon found ourselves enjoying a summer climate.