From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life

At the season of our stay, May and June, the anchorage at Cape Town itself, being open to the northward, is exposed to heavy gales from that quarter, often fatal to shipping. I believe this defect has now been remedied by a breakwater, which in 1867 either had not been begun or was not far enough advanced to give security. Vessels therefore commonly betook themselves to Simon's Bay, on the other side of the Cape, where these winds blew off shore. Thither the Iroquois went; and as communication with Cape Town, some twenty miles away, was by stage, the opportunity for ordinary visiting was indifferent. We went up by detachments, each staying several days. The great local natural feature of interest, Table Mountain, has since become familiar in general outline by the illustrations of the Boer War; from which I have inferred that similar formations are common in South Africa, just as I remember at the head of Rio Bay, on the road to Petropolis, a reproduction in miniature, both in form and color, of the huge red-brown Sugar-Loaf Rock that dominates the entrance from the sea. Seen as a novelty, Table Mountain was most impressive; but it seems to me that Altar Mountain would more correctly convey its appearance. With rocky sides, which rose precipitate as the Palisades of the Hudson, the sky-line was horizontal, and straight as though drawn by a ruler. At times a white cloud descends, covering its top and creeping like loose drapery down the sides, resembling a table-cloth; which name is given it. I believe that is reckoned a sign of bad weather.

I recall many things connected with our stay there, but chiefly trivialities. Most amusing, because so embarrassing to the unprepared, was an unlooked-for and startling attention received from the British soldiery, whom I now met for the first time: for the war at home had hitherto prevented the men of my date from having much foreign cruising. I was in uniform in the streets, confining myself severely to my own business, when I saw approaching a squad of redcoats under a non-commissioned officer. Being used to soldiers, I was observing them only casually, but still with the interest of novelty, when wholly unexpectedly I heard, "Eyes right!" and the entire group, as one man, without moving their heads, slewed their eyes quickly round and fastened them steadily on me; the corporal also holding me with his glittering eye, while carrying his hand to his cap. Of course, in all salutes, from a civilian lifting his hat to a lady, to a military passing in review, the person saluting looks at the one saluted; but to find one's self without warning the undivided recipient of the steady stare of some half-dozen men, transfixed by what Mr. Snodgrass called "the mild gaze of intelligence beaming from the eyes of the defenders of their country," was, however flattering, somewhat disturbing to one not naturally obtrusive. With us the salute would have been given, of course; but only by the non-commissioned officer, touching his cap. Afterwards I was on the lookout for this, and dodged it when I could.

Both in Rio and at the Cape the necessity for repairs occasioned delays which militated somewhat against the full development of our cruise. Through this, I believe, we missed a stop at Siam, which, consequently, I have never visited; and I know that towards the end our captain felt pressed to get along. Our next destination was Madagascar; to reach which, under sail, it was necessary to run well to the eastward, in a latitude farther south than that of Cape Town, before heading north. We left somewhat too soon the westerly winds there prevailing, and in consequence did not go to Tamatave, the principal port, on the east side of the great island, but passed instead through the Mozambique Channel. It was in attempting this same passage that the British frigate Aurora, in which was serving the poet Falconer, the author of "The Shipwreck," disappeared with all on board; by what nautical fate overtaken has never been known. His first shipwreck, which he celebrated in verse, was on the coast of Greece, off Cape Colonna; the second in these far southern seas.

The French occupation of Madagascar postdates our visit to it. The harbor we entered, St. Augustine's Bay, on the west side, was only nominally under control of the native dynasty at Antananarivo, in the centre of the island; and the local inhabitants were little, if at all, above barbarism. Though dark in color, they had not the flat negro features. Wandering with a companion through a jungle, having lost our way, we came unexpectedly upon a group of brown people, scantily dressed, the most conspicuous member of which was a woman carrying a spear a little taller than herself, the head of which was burnished till it shone like silver; whether a weapon, or simply a badge of rank, I do not know. They rose to meet us in friendly enough fashion, and had English sufficient to set us on our way. The place was frequented by whalers, who occasionally shipped hands from among the natives; one such came on board the Iroquois, and within a limited range spoke English fluently. Our chief acquaintance was known to us as Prince George, and I presume had some personal importance in the neighborhood. He was of use in obtaining supplies, hanging about the deck all day, obligingly ready at any moment to take a glass of wine or a cigar, and seemingly even a little sulky that he was not asked to table. The men dressed their hair in peculiar fashion, gathered together in little globes about the size of a golf ball, distributed somewhat symmetrically over the skull, and plastered with a substance which looked like blue mud. As I refrained from close inspection, I cannot pronounce certainly what it was.

From St. Augustine's Bay we went on to the Comoro Islands, between the north end of Madagascar and the African main-land. I do not know what was then the precise political status of this pleasant-looking group, except that one of them had for some years been under French control. Johanna, at which we stopped, possessed at the least a qualified self-government. We had a good sight of its surface, approaching from the south and skirting at moderate distance westward, to reach the principal anchorage, Johanna Town, on the north. The island is lofty—five thousand feet—and of volcanic origin; bearing the family likeness which I have found in all such that I have seen. On a bright day, which we had, they are very picturesque to look on from the sea, with their deep gullies, ragged precipices, and varied hues; especially striking from the effects of light and shadow produced by the exaggerated inequalities of the ground. It is hard to say which are the more attractive, these or the totally different low coral islands of the tropics, with their brilliant white sand, encircled by which, as by a setting of silver, the deep-green brush glows like an emerald. It is hard, however, to make other than a pleasing picture with a combination of blue water and land. Like flowers, they may be more or less tastefully arranged, but scarcely can be less than beautiful.

In the way of landscape effect, Johanna had a special feature of its own. Up to a height of about fifteen hundred feet from the sea-level, the slopes were of a tawny hue, the color of grass when burned up by drought. Except scattered waving cocoanut palms which grew even on these hill-sides, no green thing was apparent, save in the ravines, where trees seemed to thrive, and so broke the monotony of tint with streaks of sombre verdure. Farther up, the peaks were thickly covered with a forest, which looked impenetrable. The abrupt contrast of the yellow lower land with this cap of tanglewood, itself at times covered, at times only dotted, with fleecy clouds, was singularly vivid.

The inhabitants of the island were Arabs, mixed with some negro blood, and wore the Oriental costume now so familiar to us all in this age of illustration. The ship was besieged by them at once, and throughout our stay, at all hours that they were permitted to come on board. They were cleanly in person, as their religion prescribes, and applied no offensive substance to their hair; on the contrary, some pleasant perfume was perceptible about their clothing. The coloring generally was dark, although some, among whom was the ruler, called the sultan, have olive skins; but the features were clear and prominent, the stature and form good, the bearing manly; nor did they seem other than intelligent. The teeth, too, were fine, when not disfigured by the chewing of the betel nut, which, when long continued, stains them a displeasing dark red. Like all barbarians, they talked, talked, talked, till one was nearly deafened. On one occasion, a group of them favored us with a theological exposition, marked by somewhat elementary conceptions. The ship was a perfect Babel at meal-times, when the intermission of work allowed the freest visiting. Every man who came brought at least a half-dozen fowl, with sweet potatoes, fruit, and eggs, to match; and as, in addition to our own crew bargaining, there were on the deck some fifty or sixty natives, all vociferating, bartering, beseeching, or yelling to the fifty others in canoes alongside, the tumult and noise may be conceived. The chickens, too, both cocks and hens, present by the hundred in basket-work cages, made no small contribution to the general uproar. Chickens, indeed, numerous though not large, are among the chief food commodities of that region; the usual price, as I recollect, being a dollar the dozen. When we left Johanna, we must have had on board several hundred as sea-stock. Not infrequently one would get out of its cage, and if pursued would often end by flapping overboard, so by drowning anticipating its appointed doom; but it was a pathetic sight to see the poor creature, upborne by its feathers so long as dry, floating on the waste of waters in the wake of the ship which seemed almost heartlessly to forsake it.

The faith of the island being Mohammedan, we found it safe to give a large liberty to the crew. Especially, if I rightly recall, I availed myself of the circumstance to let go certain ne'er-do-wells whose conduct under temptation was not to be depended on. We had the unprecedented experience that they all came back on time and sober; thus avouching that the precepts of the Prophet concerning rum were obeyed in Johanna. Exemplary in this, it would be difficult to say, otherwise, on what precise rung of the ladder stretching from barbarism to civilization these people stood. In manner towards us they were pleasant and smiling; not averse to the arts of diplomacy, but perhaps a little transparent in their approaches to a desired object. I went on shore one Friday, their Sunday, which was inadvertent on my part, for their religious duties interfered with customary routine; one and another excused themselves to me on the plea that they must go to pray. I was known, however, to be in authority on board, which produced for me some simple hospitality, principally not very inviting lemonade—attentions that I soon found to be not wholly disinterested. Next day one of my hosts came on board and interviewed me with many bows. "The Iroquois very fine ship, much better than English ship. Captain English very good man; and first lieutenant [myself] he very good man;" and the complimenter would like certain articles within the gift of the said very good man, together with a note to bearer, permitting him to come aboard at any time.

Being by this some weeks away from Cape Town, we sent our wash ashore; a resort of desperation. It came back clean enough, but for ironing—well; and as to starch, much in the predicament of Boatswain Chuck's frilled shirts after the gale, upon which, while flying in the breeze, he looked with a degree of professional philosophy that could express itself only by thrashing the cooper. Crumpled would be a mild expression for our linen. We remonstrated, but were met with a shrug of the shoulders and a deprecatory but imperturbable smile—"Yes; Johanna wash!" And "Johanna" we found we were expected to receive as a sufficient explanation for any deficiencies in any line. If not satisfactory to us, it was at least modest in them.

Grave courtesies, ceremonious in conception, if rather rudimentary in execution, were exchanged between us and the authorities of Johanna. Our captain returned the visit of the official in charge of the place, and subsequently called upon the sultan, who came to the town while we were there. I went along on the first occasion. Upon reaching the beach we found a guard of some forty negro soldiers, whose equipment, as to shoes, resembled that of the Barbadian company immortalized in Peter Simple; but in this instance there was no attempt at that decorous regard for externals which ordered those with both shoes and stockings to fall in in the front rank, and those with neither to keep in the rear. They were commanded by a young Arab, who seemed very anxious to do all in style, rising on tiptoe at the several orders, which he jerked out with vim, and to my surprise in English. When duly pointed, we marched off to the sound of a drum, accompanied by a peculiar monotonous wail on a kind of trumpet; the order of the procession being, 1, music; 2, the soldiers, led by an old sergeant in a high state of excitement and coat-collar, which held the poor fellow's head like a vise; and, 3, our captain and his attendants. The visit to the sultan, two days later, was marked by additional features, indicative, I presume, of the greater dignity of the event; the captain being now carried in a chair with a red silk umbrella over his head.

Between three and four years before our visit, the Confederate steamer Alabama had stopped at Johanna, and, so at least our friends told us, Semmes had promised them a Yankee whaler or two. Whether he found the whalers or not I cannot say; but to the Johannese it was a Barmecide feast, or like the anticipation of Sisera's ladies—"to every man a damsel or two." To use their own quaint English, the next thing they heard of the Alabama, "he go down."

We left Johanna with the southwest monsoon, which in the Indian Ocean and China Sea blows from June to September with the regularity of the trade-winds of the Atlantic, both in direction and force. There the favorable resemblance ends; for, in the region through which we were passing, this monsoon is overcast, usually gloomy, and excessively damp. The northeast monsoon, which prevails during the winter months, is clear and dry. The consequent struggle with shoe-leather, and the deterioration of the same, is disheartening. But, though surcharged with moisture, rain does not fall to any great extent in the open sea, nor until the atmospheric current impinges on land, when it seems to be squeezed, like a sponge by the hand, with resultant precipitation. Our conditions were therefore pleasant enough. Being under sail only, the wind went faster than we, giving a cooling breeze as it passed over; and it was as steady and moderate as it was fair for our next destination, Aden, to reach which we were now pointing for Cape Guardafui. The Iroquois ran along steadily northward, six to eight knots, followed by a big sea, but so regular that she rolled only with a slow, steady swing, not disagreeable. The veiled sun showed sufficiently for sights, without burning heat, and by the same token we passed that luminary on our course; that is, he was north of us while at Johanna, and one day on this run we got north of him. This must have been after we had crossed the equator; for, being August, the sun was still north of the "Line."

This reminds me that, the day we thus passed the sun, our navigator, usually very exact, applied his declination wrong at noon, which gave us a wrong latitude. For a few minutes the discrepancy between the observation and the log caused a shaking of heads; the log doubtless fell under an unmerited suspicion, or else we had encountered a current not hitherto noted in the books, the usual solvent in such perplexities. I may explain for the unlearned in navigation that declination of a heavenly body corresponds in the celestial sphere to the latitude of an object on the terrestrial. The sun, being a leisurely celestial globe-trotter, continually varies his latitude—declination—within a zone bounded by the two tropics; and the rule runs that when his declination is of the same name (north or south) as his direction from the ship at noon, the declination is added or subtracted, I now forget which, in the computation that ascertains the vessel's precise position. This has to be remembered when he is passed overhead, in the zenith; for then the bearing changes, while his declination remains of the same name. If the resulting error is large, of course the mistake is detected immediately; a slight difference might pass unnoted with dangerous consequences.

At Johanna, or possibly at St. Augustine's, some of our officers and men, moved by that queer propensity of mankind to acquire strange objects, however useless, had bought animals of the kind called mongoos. There were perhaps a half-dozen of these in all. The result was that most of them, one way or another, escaped and took refuge aloft in the rigging, where it was as hopeless to attempt recapture as for a man to pursue a gray squirrel in a tree. The poor beggars had achieved their liberty, however, without the proverbial crust of bread or cup of water; and in consequence, after fasting all day, gave themselves to predatory nocturnal forays, which were rather startling when unexpectedly aroused by them from sleep. The ward-room pantry was near my berth, and I remember being awaked by a great commotion and scuffling, as one or more utensils were upset and knocked about in the unhappy beast's attempt to get at water kept there in a little cask. No reconcilement between them and man was effected, and one by one they dropped overboard, the victims of accident or suicide, noted or unnoted, to their deliverance and our relief. While they lasted it was pathetic to watch their furtive movements and unrelaxed vigilance, jealously guarding the freedom which was held under such hopeless surroundings and must cost them so dear at last.

When the ship had rounded Cape Guardafui and fairly entered the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, the alteration of weather conditions was immediate and startling. The heat became all at once intense and dry. From the latter circumstance the relief was great. I remember that many years afterwards, having spent a month or more determining a site for a navy-yard in Puget Sound, where the temperature is delightful but the atmosphere saturated, I experienced a similar sense of bodily comfort, when we reached Arizona, returning by the Southern Pacific Railroad. One morning I got up from the sleeper and walked out into the rare, crisp air of a way station, delighted to find myself literally as dry as a bone, and a very old bone, too; tertiary period, let us say. The sudden change in the strait proved fatal to one of our officers. He had been ailing for a few days, but on the night after we doubled the cape woke up from a calm sleep in wild delirium, and in a brief period died from the bursting of an aneurism; an effect which the surgeon attributed to the abrupt increase of heat. I may add that, though dry, the air was felt by us to be debilitating. During the ten days passed in the gulf, young as I then was, I was indisposed to any unusual bodily or mental effort. What breeze reached us, coming over desert from every direction, was like the blast of a furnace, although the height of the thermometer was not excessive.

It was scarcely fair to Aden to visit it in midsummer, but our voyage had not been timed with reference to seasons or our comfort. I shall not weary a reader with any attempt at description of the treeless surroundings and barren lava crags that constitute the scenery; which, moreover, many may have seen for themselves. What chiefly interested me were the Jews and the camels. Like Gibraltar, and in less measure Key West, Aden is a place where meet many and divers peoples from Asia, from Africa, and from Europe. Furthermore, it has had a long and checkered history; and this, at an important centre on a commercial route, tends to the gathering of incongruous elements. English, Arabs, Parsees from India, Somâlese from Africa,—across the gulf,—sepoy soldiers, and Jews, all were to be met; and in varieties of costume for which we had not been prepared by our narrow experience of Oriental dress in Johanna. The Jews most attracted my attention—an attraction of repulsion to the type there exhibited, though I am without anti-Semitic feeling. That Jesus Christ was a Jew covers His race for me. These were reported to have enjoyed in earlier times a period of much prosperity, which had been destroyed in one of the dramatic political reverses frequent in Eastern annals. Since then they had remained a degraded and abject class. Certainly, they were externally a very peculiar and unprepossessing people. The physiognomy commonly associated with the name Jew was very evident, though the cast of feature had been brutalized by ages of oppression and servility. A singular distinctive mark was the wearing on both sides of the forehead long curls falling to the shoulders. Cringing and subservient in manner, and as traders, there was yet apparent behind the Uriah Heap exterior a fierce cruelty of expression which would make a mob hideous, if once let loose. A mob, indeed, is ever terrible; but these men reconstituted for me, with added vividness, the scene and the cry of "Crucify Him!"

Although I was new to the East, camels in their uncouth form and shambling gait had been made familiar by menageries; but in Aden I first saw them in the circumstances which give the sense of appropriateness necessary to the completeness of an impression, and, indeed, to its enjoyment. Environment is assuredly more essential to appreciation than is commonly recognized. Does beer taste as good in America as in England? I think not, unless perhaps in Newport, Rhode Island. Climatic, doubtless. I have been told by Englishmen that the very best pineapples to be had are raised in England under glass. Very good; but where is your tropical heat to supply the appreciative palate? I remember, in a railway train in Guatemala, some women came along with pineapples. I gave five cents, expecting one fruit; she, unwilling to make change, forced upon me three. Small, yes; pygmies doubtless to the hot-house aristocrats; but at a dinner-table with artificial heat could one possibly want them as much, or enjoy them as keenly, as under the burning southern sun, eaten like an apple, the juice streaming to the ground? A camel sauntering down Broadway would be odd only; a camel in an Eastern street has the additional setting needed to fix him accurately in your gallery of mental pictures; though, for the matter of that, I suppose a desert would be a still more fitting surrounding. Aden has no natural water supply for daily use; one of the sights are the great tanks for storing it, constructed by some bygone dynasty. When we were there the place relied for emergencies upon the more modern expedient of condensers, but for ordinary consumption was mainly dependent upon that brought in skins from the adjacent country on the backs of camels, which returned charged with merchandise. I watched one of these ships of the desert being laden for the homeward voyage. He was on his knees, placidly chewing the cud of his last meal, but with a watchful eye behind him upon his master's movements. Eternal vigilance the price of liberty, or at least the safeguard against oppression, was clearly his conviction; nor did he believe in that outworn proverb not to yell before you are hurt. As each additional package, small or big, was laid on the accumulating burden, he stretched out his long neck, craned it round to the rear, opening his mouth as though to bite, to which he seemed full fain, at the same time emitting a succession of cries more wrathful even than dolorous, though this also they were. But the wail of the sufferer went unheeded, and deservedly; for when the load was complete to the last pound he rose, obedient to signal, and stepped off quietly, evidently at ease. He had had his grumble, and was satisfied.

An impression which accumulates upon the attentive traveller following the main roads of maritime commerce is the continual outcropping of the British soldier. It is not that there is so much of him, but that he is so manywhere. In our single voyage, at places so apart as Cape Town, Aden, Bombay, Singapore, Hong Kong. Although not on our route, nevertheless linked to the four last named by the great ocean highway between East and West, consecutive even in those distant days before the Suez Canal, he was already in force in Gibraltar and Malta; since which he is to be found in Cypress also and in Egypt. He is no chance phenomenon, but an obvious effect of a noteworthy cause; an incident of current history, the exponent, unconsciously to himself, of many great events. In our country we have wisely learned to scrutinize with distrust arguments for manifest destiny; but it is, nevertheless, well to note and ponder a manifest present, which speaks to a manifest past.