Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849

"I have seldom seen the Stream so distinct hereabouts," said Captain Collins to his first officer, who stood near, having charge of the watch. "Nor I, sir," replied the chief mate; "but it no doubt narrows with different seasons. There goes a flap of the fore-topsail, though! The wind fails, sir." "'Tis only drawing ahead, I think," said the captain; "the stream sucks the wind with its heat, and we shall have it pretty near from due nor'-west immediately." "Shall we round in on the starboard hand, then, sir, and keep both wind and current aft?" "I think not, Mr Wood," said the captain. "'Twould give us a good three knots more every hour of the next twenty-four, sir," persisted the first officer eagerly – and chief mates generally confine their theories to mere immediate progress. "Yes," rejoined the captain, "but we should lose hold of the 'trade' on getting out of the stream again. I intend driving her across, with the nor'wester on her starboard beam, so as to lie well up afterwards. Get the yards braced to larboard as you catch the breeze, Mr Wood, and make her course south-west by west." "Very well, sir." "Ladies," said the captain, "will you allow me to hand you below, where I fear Jacobs will be impatient with the tea?" "What a pity, Captain Collins," remarked the romantic Miss Alicia, looking up as they descended the companion – "what a pity that you cannot have that delicious moonlight to shine in at your cabin windows just now; the sailors yonder have it all to themselves." "There is no favour in these things at sea, Miss Alicia," said the captain, smiling. "Jack shares the chance there, at least, with his betters; but I can promise those who honour my poor suite this evening both fine moonshine and a steadier floor." On reaching the snug little after-cabin, with its swinging lamp and barometer, its side "state-room," seven feet long, and its two stern-windows showing a dark glimpse of the rolling waters, they found the tea-things set, nautical style, on the hard-a-weather, boxed-up table – the surgeon and one or two elderly gentlemen waiting, and old Jacobs still trimming up the sperm-oil light. Mrs St Clair, presiding in virtue of relationship to their host, was still cautiously pouring out the requisite half-cups, when, above all the bustle and clatter in the cuddy, could be heard the sounds of ropes thrown down on deck, of the trampling watch, and the stentorian voice of the first officer. "Jacobs!" said the captain, a minute or two afterwards; and that worthy factotum instantly appeared from his pantry alongside of the door – from whence, by the way, the old seaman might be privy to the whole conversation – "stand by to dowse the lamp when she heels," an order purposely mysterious to all else but the doctor. Every one soon felt a change in the movement of their wave-borne habitation; the rolling lift of her stern ceased; those who were looking into their cups saw the tea apparently take a decided inclination to larboard – as the facetious doctor observed, a "tendency to port." The floor gradually sloped down to the same hand, and a long, wild, gurgling wash was suddenly heard to run careering past the timbers of the starboard side. "Dear me!" fervently exclaimed every lady at once; when the very next moment the lamp went out, and all was darkness. Captain Collins felt a little hand clutch his arm in nervous terror, but the fair owner of it said nothing; until, with still more startling effect than before, in a few seconds there shot through both stern-windows the full rays of the moon, pouring their radiance into the cabin, shining on the backs of the books in the hanging shelves by the bulkhead, on the faces of the party, and the bald forehead of old Jacobs "standing by" the lamp, – lastly, too, revealing the pretty little Alicia with her hand on the captain's arm, and her pale terrified face. "Don't be alarmed, ladies!" said the surgeon, "she's only hauled on the starboard tack!" "And her counter to the east," said the captain.

"But who the dev – old gentleman, I mean – put out the lamp?" rejoined the doctor. "Ah, – I see sir! – 'But when the moon, refulgent lamp of night.'" "Such a surprise!" exclaimed the ladies, laughing, although as much frightened for a moment by the magical illumination as by the previous circumstances. "You see," said the captain, "we are not like a house, – we can bring round our scenery to any window we choose." "Very prettily imagined it was, too, I declare!" observed a stout old Bombay officer, "and a fine compliment to the ladies, by Jove, sir!" "If we had any of your pompous Bengal 'Quy hies' here though, colonel," said the doctor, "they wouldn't stand being choused so unceremoniously out of the weather-side, I suspect." "As to the agreeable little surprise I meant for the ladies," said Captain Collins, "I fear it was done awkwardly, never having commanded an Indiaman before, and laid up ashore this half-a-dozen years. But one's old feelings get freshened up, and without knowing the old Gloucester's points, I can't help reckoning her as a lady too, – a very particular old 'Begum,' that won't let any one else be humoured before herself, – especially as I took charge of her to oblige a friend." "How easily she goes now!" said the doctor, "and a gallant sight at this moment, I assure you, to any one who chooses to put his head up the companion." "Ah, mamma!" said one of the girls, "couldn't you almost think this was our own little parlour at home, with the moonlight coming through the window on both sides of the old elm, where we were sitting a month ago hearing about India and papa?"

"Ah!" responded her cousin, standing up, "but there was no track of moonshine dancing beyond the track of the ship yonder! How blue the water is, and how much warmer it has grown of a sudden!"

"We are crossing the great Gulf Stream!" said the captain, – "Jacobs! open one of the stern-ports." "'Tis the very place and time, this is," remarked a good-humoured cotton-grower from the Deckan, "for one of the colonel's tiger-hunts, now!" "Sir!" answered the old officer, rather testily, "I am not accustomed to thrust my tiger-hunts, as you choose to call my humble experiences, under people's noses!" "Certainly not, my dear sir," said the planter, – "but what do you say, ladies, to one of the captain's sea-yarns, then? Nothing better, I'm sure, here and now, sir – eh?" Captain Collins smiled, and said he had never spun a yarn in his life, except when a boy, out of matter-of-fact old junk and tar. "Here is my steward, however," continued he, "who is the best hand at it I know, – and I daresay he'll give you one." "Charming!" exclaimed the young ladies; and "What was that adventure, Mr Jacobs," said Miss Alicia, "with a beauty and a Nabob in it, that you alluded to a short time ago?" "I didn't to say disactly include upon it, your ladyship," replied old Jacobs, with a tug of his hair, and a bow not just à la maître; "but the captain can give you it better nor I can, seeing as his honur were the Nero on it, as one may say." "Oh!" said the surgeon, rubbing his hands "a lady and a rupee-eater in the case!" "Curious stories, there are, too," remarked the colonel, "of those serpents of nautch-girls, and rich fools they've managed to entangle. As for beauty, sir, they have the devil's, and they'd melt the 'Honourable John's' own revenue! I know a very sensible man, – shan't mention his name, – but made of rupees, and a regular beebee-hater, – saw one of these – " "Hush, hush, my dear sir!" interrupted the planter, winking and gesticulating; "very good for the weather poop, – but presence of ladies!" – "For which I'm not fit, you'd say, sir?" inquired the colonel, firing up again. "Oh! oh! you know, colonel!" said the unlucky planter, deprecatingly. "But a godown7 of best 'Banda' to a cowrie now, the sailor makes his beauty a complete Nourmahal, with rose-lips and moon-eyes, – and his Nabob a jehan punneh,8 with a crore, besides diamonds. 'Twould be worth hearing, especially from a lascar. For, 'twixt you and I, colonel, we know how rare it is to hear of a man who saves his lac, now-a-days, with Yankees in the market, no Nawaubs to fight, and reform in cutcheries9!" "There seems something curious about this said adventure of yours, my dear captain," said Mrs St Clair, archly, – "and a Beauty too! It makes me positively inquisitive, but I hope your fair lady has heard the story?" "Why, not exactly, ma'am," replied Captain Collins, laughing as he caught the doctor looking preternaturally solemn, after a sly lee-wink to the colonel; who, having his back to the moonlight, stretched out his legs and indulged in a grim, silent chuckle, until his royal-tiger countenance was unhappily brought so far flush10 in the rays as to betray a singular daguerreotype, resembling one of those cut-paper phantasmagoria thrown on a drawing-room wall, unmistakably black and white, and in the character of Malicious Watchfulness. The rubicund, fidgety little cotton-grower twiddled his thumbs, and looked modestly down on the deck, with half-shut eyes, as if expecting some bold revelation of nautical depravity; while the romantic Miss Alicia coloured and was silent. "However," said the captain, coolly, "it is no matrimonial secret, at any rate! We both think of it when we read the Church Service of a Sunday night at home, with Jacobs for the clerk." "Do, Mr Jacobs, oblige us!" requested the younger of the girls. "Well, Miss," said he, smoothing down his hair in the doorway, and hemming, "'Tan't neither for the likes o' me to refuse a lady, nor accordin' to rules for to give such a yarn in presence of a supperior officer, much less the captain, – with a midship helm, ye know marm, ye carn't haul upon one tack nor the other. Not to say but next forenoon watch – " "I see, Jacobs, my man," interrupted Captain Collins, "there's nothing for it but to fore-reach upon you, or else you'll be 'Green-Handing' me aft as well as forward; so I must just make the best of it, and take the winch in my own fashion at once!" "Ay, ay, sir – ay, ay, your honour!" said Old Jack demurely, and concealing his gratification as he turned off into the pantry, with the idea of for the first time hearing the captain relate the incidents in question. "My old shipmate," said the latter, "is so fond of having trained his future captain, that it is his utmost delight to spin out everything we ever met with together into one endless yarn, which would go on from our first acquaintance to the present day, although no ship's company ever heard the last of it. Without falling knowingly to leeward of the truth, he makes out every lucky coincidence, almost, to have been a feat of mine, and puts in little fancies of his own, so as to give the whole thing more and more of a marvellous air, the farther it goes. The most amusing thing is, that he almost always begins each time, I believe, at the very beginning, like a capstan without a paul – sticking in one thing he had forgot before, and forgetting another; sometimes dwelling longer on one part – a good deal like a ship making the same voyages over again. I knew, now, this evening, when I heard the men laughing, and saw Old Jack on the forecastle, what must be in the wind. However, we have shared so many chances, and I respect the old man so much, not to speak of his having dandled my little girls on his knee, and being butler, steward, and flower-gardener at home, that I can't really be angry at him, in spite of the sort of every man's rope he makes of me!" "How very amusing a character he is!" said one young lady. "A thought too tarry, perhaps?" suggested the surgeon. "So very original and like a – seaman!" remarked Miss Alicia, quietly, but as if some other word that crossed her mind had been rejected, as descriptive of a different variety, probably higher. "Original, by Jove!" exclaimed the colonel; "if my Khansa-man, or my Abdar,11 were to make such a dancing dervish and tumasha12 of me behind back, by the holy Vishnu, sir, I'd rattan him myself within an inch of his life!" "Not an unlikely thing, colonel," put in the planter; "I've caught the scoundrels at that trick before now." "What did you do?" inquired the colonel, speculatively. "Couldn't help laughing, for my soul, sir; the puckree bund13 rascals did it so well, and so funnily!" The irascible East-Indian almost started up in his imaginative fury, to call for his palkee, and chastise his whole verandah, when the doctor reminded him it was a long way there. "Glorious East!" exclaimed the medico, looking out astern, "where we may cane our footmen, and whence, meanwhile, we can derive such Sanscrit-sounding adjurations, with such fine moonlight!"

The presence of the first officer was now added to the party, who came down for a cup of tea, fresh from duty, and flavouring strongly of a pilot cheroot. "How does she head, Mr Wood?" asked the captain. "Sou'-west by west, sir, – a splendid night, under everything that will draw, – spray up to the starboard cat-head!"

"But as to this story, again, Captain Collins?" said Mrs St Clair, as soon as she had poured out the chief mate's cup. "Well," said the captain, "if you choose to listen till bedtime to a plain draught of the affair, why I suppose I must tell it you; and what remains then may stand over till next fine night. It may look a little romantic, being in the days when most people are such themselves; but at any rate, we sailors – or else we should never have been at sea, you know: and so you'll allow for that, and a spice to boot of what we used to call at sea 'love-making;' happily there were no soft speeches in it, like those in books, for then I shouldn't tell it at all.

By the time I was twenty-four, I had been nine years at sea, and, at the end of the war, was third lieutenant of a crack twenty-eight, the saucy Iris – as perfect a sloop-model, though over-sparred certainly, as ever was cased off the ways at Chatham, or careened to a north-easter. The Admiralty had learnt to build by that day, and a glorious ship she was, made for going after the small fry of privateers, pirates, and slavers, that swarmed about the time. Though I had roughed it in all sorts of craft, from a first-rate to a dirty French lugger prize, and had been eastward, so as to see the sea in its pride at the Pacific, yet the feeling you have depends on the kind of ship you are in. I never knew so well what it was to be fond of a ship and the sea; and when I heard of the poor Iris, that had never been used to anything but blue water on three parts of the horizon at least, laying her bones not long after near Wicklow Head, I couldn't help a gulp in the throat. I once dreamt I had gone down in her, and risen again to the surface with the loss of something in my brain; while, at the same moment, there I was, still sitting below on a locker in the wardroom, with the arms of her beautiful figure-head round me, and her mermaid's tail like the best-bower cable, with an anchor at the end of it far away out of soundings, over which I bobbed and dipped for years and years, in all weathers, like a buoy. We had no Mediterranean time of it, though, in the Iris, off the Guinea coast, from Cape Palmas to Cape Negro: looking out to windward for white squalls, and to leeward for black ones, and inshore for Spanish cattle-dealers, as we called them, had made us all as sharp as so many marlin-spikes; and our captain was a man that taught us seamanship, with a trick or two beyond. The slavers had not got to be so clever then, either, with their schooners and clippers; they built for stowage, and took the chance, so that we sent in bale after bale to the West India Admiral, made money, and enjoyed ourselves now and then at the Cape de Verds. However, this kind of thing was so popular at home, as pickings after the great haul was over, that the Iris had to give up her station to a post-frigate, and be paid off. The war was over, and nobody could expect to be promoted without a friend near the blue table-cloth, although a quiet hint to a secretary's palm would work wonders, if strong enough. But most of such lucky fellows as ourselves dissipated their funds in blazing away at balls and parties, where the gold band was everything, and the ladies wore blue ribbons and anchor brooches in honour of the navy. The men spent everything in a fortnight, even to their clothes, and had little more chance of eating the king's biscuit with hopes of prize-money; I used to see knots of them, in red shirts and dirty slops, amongst the fore-mast Jacks in outwardbound ships, dropping past Greenwich, and waving their hats to the Hospital. You knew them at once by one of them giving the song for the topsail halliards, instead of the merchantmen's bull's chorus: indeed, I could always pick off the dashing man-o'-war's men, by face and eye alone, out from among the others, who looked as sober and solitary, with their serious faces and way of going about a thing, as if every one of them was the whole crew. I once read a bit of poetry called the "Ancient Mariner," to old Jacobs, who by the bye is something of a breed betwixt the two kinds, and his remark was – "That old chap warn't used to hoisting all together with a run, your honour! By his looks, I'd say he was bred where there was few in a watch, and the watch-tackle laid out pretty often for an eke to drag down the fore-tack."

As I was riding down to Croydon in Surrey, where my mother and sister had gone to live, I fell in with a sample of the hard shifts the men-o-war's-men were put to in getting across from harbour to some merchant port, when all their earnings were chucked away. It was at a little town called Bromley, where I brought to by the door of a tavern and had a drink for the horse, with a bottle of cider for myself at the open window, the afternoon being hot. There was a crowd of townspeople at the other end of the street, country bumpkins and boys – women looking out at the windows, dogs barking, and children shouting – the whole concern bearing down upon us.

"What's all this?" said I to the ostler.

"Don't know, sir," said he, scratching his head; "'tis very hodd, sir! That corner is rather a sharp turn for the coach, sir, and she do sometimes run over a child there, or somethink. But 'taint her time yet! Nothink else hever 'appens 'ere, sir."

As soon as I could hear or see distinctly for the confusion, I observed the magnet of it to be a party of five or six regular blue-jackets, a good deal battered in their rig, who were roaring out sea-songs in grand style as they came along, leading what I thought at first was a bear. The chief words I heard were what I knew well. "We'll disregard their tommy-hawks, likewise their scalping-knifes – and fight alongside of our mates to save our precious lives – like British tars and souldiers in the North Americay!"

On getting abreast of the inn-door, and finding an offing with good holding-ground, I suppose, they hove to and struck up the "Buffalo," that finest of chaunts for the weather forecastle with a spanking breeze, outward bound, and the pilot lately dropped —

"Come all you young men and maidens, that wishes for to sail,And I will let you hear of where you must a-roam!We'll embark into a ship which her taups'ls is let fall,And all unto an ileyand where we never will go home!Especiallye you ladies that's inclined for to rove —There's fishes in the sea, my love – likewise the buck an' doe,We'll lie down – on the banks– of yon pleasant shadye gro-ove,Through the wild woods we'll wander and we'll chase the Buffalo – ho – ho – we'llChase the BuffalO!"

I really couldn't help laughing to see the slapping big-bearded fellows, like so many foretopmen, showing off in this manner – one mahogany-faced thorough-bred leading, the rest thundering in at the chorus, with tremendous stress on the 'Lo-ho-ho,' that made the good Bromley folks gape. As to singing for money, however, I knew no true tar with his members whole would do it; and I supposed it to be merely some 'spree ashore,' until the curious-looking object from behind was lugged forward by a couple of ropes, proving to be a human figure about six feet high, with a rough canvass cover as far as the knees. What with three holes at the face, and the strange colour of the legs, which were bare – with the pair of turned-up India shoes, and the whole shape like a walking smoke-funnel over a ship's caboose – I was puzzled what they would be at. The leading tar immediately took off his hat, waved it round for a clear space, and gave a hem while he pointed to the mysterious creature. "Now, my lads!" said he, "this here wonderful bein' is a savitch we brought aboard of us from the Andyman Isles, where he was caught one mornin' paddling round the ship in a canoe made out of the bark of a sartain tree. Bein' the ownly spice of the sort brought to this country as yet is, and we havin' run short of the needful to take us to the next port, we expects every lady and gemman as has the wherewithal, will give us a lift, by consideration of this same cur'ous sight, and doesn't – " "Heave ahead, Tom, lad!" said another encouragingly, as the sailor brought up fairly out of breath – "Doesn't want no man's money for nou't d'ye see, but all fair an' above board. We're not agoin' to show this here sight excep' you makes up half-a-guinea amongst ye – arter that, all hands may see shot-free – them's the articles!" "Ay, ay, Tom, well said, old ship!" observed the rest; and, after a considerable clinking of coin amongst the crowd, the required sum was poured, in pence and sixpences, into Tom's hat. "All right!" said he, as soon as he had counted it, – "hoist away the tarpaulin, mates!" For my part, I was rather surprised at the rare appearance of this said savage, when his cover was off – his legs and arms naked, his face streaked with yellow, and both parts the colour of red boom-varnish; his red hair done up in a tuft, with feathers all round it, and a bright feather-tippet over his shoulders, as he stood, six feet in his yellow slippers, and looking sulkily enough at the people. "Bobbery puckalow!" said the nautical head-showman, and all at once up jumped the Andaman islander, dancing furiously, holding a little Indian punkah over his head, and flourishing with the other hand what reminded me strongly of a ship's top-maul – shouting "Goor – goor – gooree!" while two of the sailors held on by the ropes. The crowd made plenty of room, and Tom proceeded to explain to them very civilly, that "in them parts 'twas so hot the natives wouldn't fight, save under a portable awning." Having exhibited the points of their extraordinary savage, he was calmed again by another uncouth word of command, when the man-o'-war's-man attempted a further traverse on the good Bromley folks, for which I gave him great credit. "Now, my lads and lasses," said he, taking off his hat again, "I s'pose you're all British subjects and Englishmen!" at which there was a murmur of applause. "Very good, mates all!" continued the foretopman approvingly. – "Then, in course, ye knows as how whatsomever touches British ground is free!" "Britons never, never shall be slaves!" sung out a boy, and the screaming and hurrahing was universal. Tom stuck his tongue in his cheek to his messmates, and went on, – "Though we was all pressed ourselves, and has knocked about in sarvice of our king and country, an' bein' poor men, we honours the flag, my lads!" "Hoorah! hoorah! hoorr-ray!" "So you see, gemmen, my shipmates an' me has come to the resolve of lettin' this here wild savidge go free into the woods, – though, bein' poor men, d'ye see, we hopes ye'll make it up to us a bit first! What d'ye say, all hands? – slump together for the other guinea, will ye, and off he goes this minute, – and d – the odds! Eh? what d'ye say, shipmates?" "Ay, ay, Tom, sink the damage too!" said his comrades; "we'll always get a berth at Blackwall, again!"

"Stand by to ease off his tow-lines, then," said Tom, – "now look sharp with the shiners there, my lads – ownly a guinea!" "No! no!" murmured the townspeople, – "send for the constable! – we'll all be scalped and murdered in our beds! – no, no, for God's sake, mister sailors!" A grocer ran out of his door to beg the tars wouldn't think of such a thing, and the village constable came shoving himself in, with the beadle. "Come, come," said the constable in a soothing style, while the beadle tried to look big and blustering, "you musn't do it, my good men, – not on no desideration, here, – in his majesty's name! Take un on to the next parish! – I horder all good subjects to resist me!" "What!" growled the foretopman, with an air of supreme disgust, "han't ye no feelin's for liberty hereaway? Parish be blowed! Bill, my lad, let go his moorings, and give the poor devil his nat'ral freedom!" "I'm right down ashamed on my country," said Bill. "Hullo, shipmates, cast off at once, an' never mind the loss, – I hasn't slept easy myself sin' he wor cotched!" "Nor me either," said another, "but I'm feared he'll play the devil when he's loose, mate."