The Three Commanders

by William Henry Giles Kingston

While the frigate stood to the northward, and the Busy Bee buzzed across to Madagascar, the Opal stood for Mozambique, where Murray had to obtain an interpreter, to pick up all possible information regarding the movements of slavers. Two days afterwards the corvette came to an anchor off the chief settlement of the Portuguese on that coast.

The town stands on an island, about a mile and a half in length, situated on a deep inlet of the sea, into which several small rivers fall. The harbour is of considerable size, its entrance guarded by a fort, beyond which appeared an avenue of trees on a gentle slope, then a collection of flat-roofed whitewashed houses, then the palace of the Portuguese governor, with pink walls, and a considerably dilapidated cathedral, below which a stone pier, with buttresses of a sugar-loaf form, runs out into the sea.

“Not a very attractive-looking place,” observed Terence to his brother lieutenant, as they viewed it from the ship.

“Yet it speaks of the bygone magnificence of the once proud Lusitanian,” answered the poet. “I must write some lines on the subject. The place is not without interest.”

“Those dhows, and low, dark, piratical-looking schooners, have considerably more interest to us, however,” said Adair; “they are not employed in any honest calling, depend on that; and there lie two Spaniards and a Yankee. If they have no slaves on board, they will have before long, and we must do our best to catch them. We must depend on our own wits, though, for it’s impossible to get any correct information from the Portuguese officers—they are most of them as arrant slave-dealers as the Arabs themselves. That man-of-war schooner, for instance, is much more likely to help the slavers to escape than to assist us in catching them, and is very likely often employed in bringing off a cargo of ebony from the shore.”

The schooner he pointed at was a handsome vessel, with a thoroughly piratical look about her. However, she formed a strong contrast to the Arab dhows by which she was surrounded. They were of all sizes, the largest measuring, perhaps, three hundred and fifty tons.

“If I had to describe a dhow, I should say that her shape was like half a well-formed pear, cut longitudinally,” observed Adair, looking towards the large craft over the quarter, which lay at some little distance, and was preparing apparently to put to sea. “See, her bow sinks deeply in the water, while the stern floats lightly upon it. Large as that craft is, she is only partially decked. She has cross-beams, however, to preserve her shape, and on them are laid flat strips of bamboo, which enable the crew to make their way from one end to the other. At the afterpart she has a large house, lightly built, the roof of which forms a poop, while the interior serves, I have no doubt, for the cabin of the skipper, and probably for his wives and children, as well as his passengers and the whole of his crew. She has a heavy, rough spar for a mast, tapering towards the head and raking forward. The sail which they are now just hoisting is, in shape, like a right-angled triangle, with a parallelogram below its base; the hypothenuse or head of the sail is secured to a yard, like an enormous fishing-rod; the halyards are secured to it about a third of the way from the butt-end, and it is hoisted close up to the head of the mast. A tackle brings down the lower end of the yard to the deck, and serves to balance the lofty tapering point, while the sheet is secured to the lower after-corner of the sail. Though many of the smaller dhows have only one mast, that big fellow has two, with a sail of the same shape as the first, but more diminutive. The larger sail is of preposterous proportions, and it seems wonderful that she can carry it without being capsized. It appears to be formed of a strong soft cotton canvas, of extreme whiteness. Those vessels don’t tack, but when beating to windward wear by putting up the helm and taking the sheet round before the yard and bringing it aft again on the other side; the deepest part of the dhow being, as you see, under the foremast, it forms a pivot round which the shallow stern, obeying the helm, rapidly turns. Clumsy as they look, I hear that these craft are wonderfully fast, and, with the wind free, will put us on our mettle to overhaul them.”

“I should like to judge for myself on that point,” observed Mildmay. “Fellows who have allowed prizes to escape them always declare that the craft they have chased is faster than anything afloat.”

“I hope we shall have the chance before long,” said Adair; “we must keep a bright lookout from the ship and try to do what we can. The commander intends running down the coast, and then despatching all the boats which can be spared to look into the creeks and harbours, and other hiding-places in which any slavers are likely to take shelter. I should like to go on such an expedition myself, if the commander can spare me, shouldn’t you?”

“No, thank you,” answered Mildmay; “I’ve no fancy for going away and sleeping in an open boat, without a change of linen or any of the necessaries of life.”