My First Voyage to Southern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Your old friend here told me to expect you, as you were come out in search of poor Alfred. What has become of him I cannot tell. You heard nothing of him at the Mauritius, I fear?”

“No, sir,” I answered, much agitated and grieved. “Cannot you tell me where he is?”

“No, indeed, I cannot, my boy,” replied Mr Coventry; “I would give much to discover. I have kept him actively employed ever since he found me out. He has been twice at the Mauritius, once I sent him off to Singapore, and the last time I despatched him on a mission of importance to Mozambique, after which, before returning here, he was again to go to the Mauritius. This was many months ago. Not a line have I had from him, nor can I obtain the slightest information as to what has become of him. He is not a good correspondent, as I daresay you have discovered. After he left his ship, he took it into his head that his family would consider that he had disgraced them, and begged that I would allow him to call himself by a different name, hoping if he did not write home that he might be considered dead, and be soon forgotten. I did not oppose his fancy, because I hoped that he would soon reason himself out of it. This will account for your not having heard of him, as also for your father’s not receiving any information when he wrote about him. Had he written to me, poor man, I would have replied, and might have perhaps induced the lad to return home. However, let bygones be bygones. I am pleased with you, Ralph. I like your notion of coming out to look for poor Alfred, and your way of proceeding, and I will help you by all the means in my power.”

“Thank you, sir; thank you for all you say of me and promise to do,” I replied, taking my grandfather’s hand. “Now that I find you do not know where Alfred is, the necessity of my searching for him is greater than ever. I feel that I hitherto have not been as diligent in carrying out my object as I ought to have been. I was always buoyed up with the idea that you knew where Alfred was to be found, and was much less anxious than I should have been had I known the true state of the case.”

“It is happy for you that you did not know the true state of the case; it is better for all of us that we do not know what the future may bring forth,” observed my grandfather. “When you were at the Mauritius, it appears Alfred had not reached the island, and I shall hear on our arrival at Trincomalee whether he has since got there. I expect also to receive replies to various inquiries I have instituted in different places, from Aden down the whole of the eastern coast of Africa. I have traced him as far as Aden, but I do not know the name of the vessel in which he left that place. I feel confident that he did not go up the Red Sea, nor is he likely to have come eastward again. You have thus, then, a definite direction in which to search for him. Rather a wide region, certainly, and difficult of access, but by perseverance you may in time succeed in your object.”

My grandfather’s remarks again raised my hopes of finding my brother. At first when I discovered that he was not with him, I felt my heart sink within me.

“I will continue my search for him in spite of pestiferous climates, or savages, or any other difficulties which I may have to encounter,” I exclaimed, half speaking to myself.

“That is the spirit which will enable you to succeed, my lad,” said my grandfather, putting his hand on my back. “And now I want to know all about your family at home. You have not yet told me.”

I briefly told him all that had occurred, of my father’s death, and of the poverty in which my mother was left. He looked very grave and sad as I spoke.

“This should not have been,” he muttered to himself. “I have been an unfeeling, unnatural father; wild, reckless, thinking only of myself, and of gratifying my own roving propensities.”