From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life

From Aden the Iroquois ran along the southern coast of Arabia to Muscat, within the entrance of the Persian Gulf. Here, after leaving the open sea, we met a recurrence of the heat, and, in general features, of the scenery we had left at Aden; the whole confirming the association of the name Arabia with scorching and desert. The Cove of Muscat, though a mere indentation of the shore-line, furnishes an excellent harbor, being sheltered by a rocky island which constitutes a natural breakwater. There is considerable trade, and the position is naturally strong for defence, with encircling cliffs upon which forts have been built; but from our experience, told below, it is probable that their readiness did not correspond to their formidable aspect. From the anchorage of the Iroquois the town was hardly to be descried, the gray color of the stone used in construction blending with the background of the mountains, from which probably it had been quarried; but nearer it is imposing in appearance, there being several minarets, and some massive buildings, among which the ruins of a Portuguese cathedral bear their mute testimony to a transitory era in the long history of the East. During our stay there was some disturbance in the place. Our information was that the reigning sovereign had killed his father two years before; and that in consequence, either through revenge or jealousy, his father's brother kept him constantly stirred up by invasion, or threats of invasion, from the inner country. Such an alarm postponed for the moment a ceremonious visit which our captain was to pay, but it took place next day. As it called for full uniform, I begged off. Those who went returned with unfavorable reports, both of the town and of the sultan.

A rather funny incident here attended our exchange of civilities. In ports where there is cause to think that the expenditure of powder may be inconvenient to your hosts, or that for any reason they may not return a salute, it is customary first to inquire whether the usual national honors "to the flag" will be acceptable and duly answered, gun for gun. In Aden, being British, of course no questions were asked; but in Muscat I presume they were, for failure to give full measure creates a diplomatic incident and correspondence. At all events, we saluted—twenty-one guns; to which the castle replied. When the tale was but half complete there came from one of its cannon a huge puff of smoke, but no accompanying report. "Shall I count that?" shouted the quartermaster, whose special duty was to keep tally that we got our full pound of flesh. A general laugh followed; the impression had resembled that produced by an impassioned orator, the waving of whose arms you see, without hearing the words which give point to his gesticulations, and the quartermaster's query drove home the absurdity. It was solemnly decided, however, that that should be reckoned a gun. The intention was good, if result was imperfect. We had been done out of our noise, but we had had our smoke; and, in these days of smokeless powder, it is hopeful to record an instance of noiseless.

In those few indolent days which we drowsed away in the heat of Muscat, one thing I noticed was the vivid green of the water, especially in patches near the shore, and in the crevices of the rocky basin. I wonder did Moore have a hint of this, or draw upon his imagination? Certainly it was there—a green more brilliant than any I have ever seen elsewhere, and of different shade.

"No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water,More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee."

After the comparatively sequestered series of St. Augustine's Bay, the Comoros, Aden, and Muscat, our next port, Bombay, seemed like returning to city hubbub and accustomed ways. True, Indian life was strange to most of our officers, if not to all; but there was about Bombay that which made you feel you had got back into the world, albeit in many particulars as different from that you had hitherto known as Rip Van Winkle found after his long slumber. Then, a decade only after the great mutiny, travel to India for travel's sake was much more rare than now. The railway system, that great promoter of journeyings, was not complete. Two years later, when returning from China, I found opportunity to go overland from Calcutta to Bombay; but in the interior had to make a long stage by carriage between Jubbulpore and Nagpore. Since that time many have visited and many have written. I shall therefore spare myself and my possible readers the poor portrayal of that which has been already and better described. Johnson's advice to Boswell, "Tell what you have observed yourself," I take to mean something different from those externals the sight of which is common to all; unless, as in the Corsica of Boswell, few go to see them. What you see is that which you personally have the faculty of perceiving; depends upon you as much as upon the object itself. It may not be worth reporting, but it is all you have. I do not think I remember of Bombay anything thus peculiarly my own. I do recall the big snakes we saw lying apparently asleep on the sea, fifty or sixty miles from land. Perhaps readers who have not visited the East may not know that such modified sea-serpents are to be seen there, as is a smaller variety in the Strait of Malacca.

From Bombay we made a long leg to Singapore. We had sailed in early February; it was now late September, and our captain, as I have said before, began to feel anxious to reach the station. Owing to this haste, we omitted Ceylon and Calcutta, which did not correspond to the expectation or the wishes of the admiral; and we missed—as I think—orders sent us to take in Siam before coming to Hong Kong. It is very doubtful whether, had we received them, we should have seen more of interest than awaited us shortly after our arrival in Japan. At all events, as in duty bound, I shall imitate my captain, and skip rapidly over this intervening period. There is in it nothing that would justify my formed intention not to enlarge upon that which others have seen and told.

We made the run to Singapore at the change of the monsoon, towards the end of September; and at that time a quiet passage is likely, unless you are so unlucky as to encounter one of the cyclones which frequently attend the break-up of the season at this transition period. There is a tendency nowadays to discredit the equinox as a storm-breeder. As regards the particular day, doubtless recognition of a general fact may have lapsed into superstition as to a date; but in considering the phenomena of the monsoons, the great fixed currents of air blowing alternately to or from the heated or cooled continent of Asia, it seems only reasonable, when the two are striving for predominance, to expect the uncertain and at times terrific weather which as a matter of experience does occur about the period of the autumnal equinox in the India and China seas. But after we had made our southing from Bombay our course lay nearly due east, with a fresh, fair, west wind, within five degrees of the equator, a zone wherein cyclonic disturbance seldom intrudes. One of the complaints made by residents against the climate of Singapore, so pleasant to a stranger, is the wearisome monotony. Close to the equator, it has too much sameness of characteristic; toujours perdrix. Winter doubtless adds to our appreciation of summer. For all that, I personally am ready to dispense with snow.

From Singapore, another commercial centre with variety of inhabitants, we carried the same smooth water up to Manila, where we stopped a few days for coal. This was the first of two visits paid while on the station to this port, which not our wildest imagination expected ever to see under our flag. Long as American eyes had been fixed upon Cuba, in the old days of negro slavery, it had occurred to none, I fancy, to connect possession of that island with these distant Spanish dependencies. Here our quiet environment was lost. The northeast monsoon had set in in full force when we started for Hong Kong, and the run across was made under steam and fore-and-aft canvas, which we were able to carry close on the wind; a wet passage, throwing a good deal of water about, but with a brilliant sky and delightful temperature. It would be hard to exaggerate the beauty of the weather which this wind brings. In the northern American states we have autumnal spells like it; but along the Chinese coast it continues in uninterrupted succession of magnificent days, with hardly a break for three or four months; an invigorating breeze always blowing, the thermometer ranging between 50° and 60°, a cloudless sky, the air perfectly dry, so that furniture and wood fittings shrink, and crack audibly. As rain does not fall during this favored season, the dust becomes objectionable; but that drawback does not extend to shipboard. The man must be unreasonable who doubts life being worth living during the northeast monsoon. Hong Kong is just within the tropics, and experiences probably the coolest weather of any tropical port. Key West, in the same latitude, is well enough in a Gulf of Mexico norther; that is, if you too are well. The last time I ever saw General Winfield Scott, once our national military hero, was there, during a norther. I had called, and found him in misery; his gigantic frame swathed in heavy clothing, his face pallid with cold. He explained that he liked always to be in a gentle perspiration, and had come to Key West in search of such conditions. These the place usually affords, but the houses are not built to shut out the chill Which accompanies a hard norther. The general was then eighty, and died within the year.

X

CHINA AND JAPAN

1867–1869

The Iroquois had been as nearly as possible nine months on her way from New York to Hong Kong. A ship of the same class, the Wachusett, which left the station as we reached it, had taken a year, following much the same route. Her first lieutenant, who during the recent Spanish War became familiarly known to the public as Jack Philip, told me that she was within easy distance of Hong Kong the day before the anniversary of leaving home. Her captain refused to get up steam; for, he urged, it would be such an interesting coincidence to arrive on the very date, month and day, that she sailed the year before. I fear that man would have had no scruple about contriving an opportunity.

As the anchor dropped, several Chinese boats clustered alongside, eager to obtain their share of the ship's custom. It is the habit in ships of war to allow one or more boatmen of a port the privilege of bringing off certain articles for private purchase; such as the various specialties of the place, and food not embraced in the ship's ration. From the number of consumers on board a vessel, even of moderate size, this business is profitable to the small traders who ply it, and who from time immemorial have been known as bumboatmen. A good name for fair dealing, and for never smuggling intoxicants, is invaluable to them; and when thus satisfactory they are passed on from ship to ship, through long years, by letters of recommendation from first lieutenants. Their dealings are chiefly with the crew, the officers' messes being provided by their stewards, who market on shore; but at times officers, too, will in this way buy something momentarily desired. I remember an amusing experience of a messmate of mine, who, being discontented with the regular breakfast set before him, got some eggs from the bumboat. Already on a growl, he was emphatic in directing that these should be cooked very soft, and great was his wrath when they came back hard as stones. Upon investigation it proved that they were already hard-boiled when bought. The cable was not yet secured when these applicants crowded to the gangway, brandishing their certificates, and seeking each to be first on deck. The captain, who had not left the bridge, leaned over the rail, watching the excited and shouting crowd scrambling one over another, and clambering from boat to boat, which were bobbing and chafing up and down, rubbing sides, and spattering the water that was squeezed and squirted between them. The scene was familiar to him, for he was an old China cruiser, only renewing his acquaintance. At length, turning to me, he commented, "There you have the regular China smell; you will find it wherever you go." And I did; but how describe it—and why should I?

At this time the Japanese had conceded two more treaty ports, in the Inland Sea—Osaka and Kobé; and as the formal opening was fixed for the beginning of the new year—1868—most of the squadron had already gone north. We therefore found in Hong Kong only a single vessel, the Monocacy, an iron double-ender; a class which had its beginning in the then recent War of Secession, and disappeared with it. Some six weeks before she had passed through a furious typhoon, running into the centre of it; or, more accurately, I fancy, having the centre pass over her. Perhaps it may not be a matter of knowledge to all readers that for these hurricanes, as for many other heavy gales, the term cyclone is exact; that the wind does actually blow round a circle, but one of so great circumference that at each several point it seems to follow a straight line. Vessels on opposite sides of the circle thus have the wind from opposite directions. In the centre there is usually a calm space, of diameter proportioned to that of the general disturbance. As the whole storm body has an onward movement, this centre, calm or gusty as to wind, but confused and tumultuous as to wave, progresses with it; and a vessel which is so unhappy as to be overtaken finds herself, after a period of helpless tossing by conflicting seas, again subjected to the full fury of the wind, but from the quarter opposite to that which has already tried her. Although at our arrival the Monocacy had been fully repaired, and was about to follow the other vessels, her officers naturally were still full of an adventure so exceptional to personal experience. She owed her safety mainly to the strength and rigidity of her iron hull. A wooden vessel of like construction would probably have gone to pieces; for the wooden double-enders had been run up in a hurry for a war emergency, and were often weak. As the capable commander of one of them said to me, they were "stuck together with spit." Battened down close, with the seas coming in deluges over both bows and both quarters at the same time, the Monocacy went through it like a tight-corked bottle, and came out, not all right, to be sure, but very much alive; so much so, indeed, that she was carried on the Navy Register for thirty years more. She never returned home, however, but remained on the China station, for which she was best suited by her particular qualities.

By the time the Iroquois, in turn, was ready to leave Hong Kong—November 26th—the northeast monsoon had made in full force, and dolorous were the prognostications to us by those who had had experience of butting against it in a northward passage. It is less severe than the "brave" west winds of our own North Atlantic; but to a small vessel like the Iroquois, with the machinery of the day, the monsoon, blowing at times a three-quarters gale, was not an adversary to be disregarded, for all the sunshiny, bluff heartiness with which it buffeted you, as a big boy at school breezily thrashes a smaller for his own good. To-day we have to stop and think, to realize the immense progress in size and power of steam-vessels since 1867. We forget facts, and judge doings of the past by standards of the present; an historical injustice in other realms than that of morals.

In our passage north, however, we escaped the predicted disagreeables by keeping close to the coast; for currents, whether of atmosphere or of water, for some reason slacken in force as they sweep along the land. I do not know why, unless it be the result of friction retarding their flow; the fact, however, remains. So, dodging the full brunt of the wind, we sneaked along inshore, having rarely more than a single-reef topsail breeze, and with little jar save the steady thud of the machinery. A constant view of the land was another advantage due to this mode of progression, and it was the more complete because we commonly anchored at night. Thus, as we slowly dragged north, a continuous panorama was unrolled before our eyes.

Another very entertaining feature was the flight of fishing-boats, which at each daybreak put out to sea, literally in flocks; so numerous were they. As I was every morning on deck at that hour, attending the weighing of the anchor, the sight became fixed upon my memory. The wind being on their beam, and so fresh, they came lurching along in merry mood, leaping livelily from wave to wave, dashing the water to either hand. Besides the poetry of motion, their peculiar shape, their hulls with the natural color of the wood,—because oiled, not painted,—their bamboo mat sails, which set so much flatter than our own canvas, were all picturesque, as well as striking by novelty. Most characteristic, and strangely diversified in effect, as they bowled saucily by, were the successive impressions produced by the custom of painting an eye on each side of the bow. An alleged proverb is in pigeon English: "No have eye, how can see? no can see, how can sail?" When heading towards you, they really convey to an imagination of ordinary quickness the semblance of some unknown sea monster, full of life and purpose. Now you see a fellow charging along, having the vicious look of a horse with his ears back. Anon comes another, the quiet gaze of which suggests some meditative fish, lazily gliding, enjoying a siesta, with his belly full of good dinner. Yet a third has a hungry air, as though his meal was yet to seek, and in passing turns on you a voracious side glance, measuring your availability as a morsel, should nothing better offer. The boat life of China, indeed, is a study by itself. In very many cases in the ports and rivers, the family is born, bred, fed, and lives in the boat. In moving her, the man and his wife and two of the elder children will handle the oars; while a little one, sometimes hardly more than an infant, will take the helm, to which his tiny strength and cunning skill are sufficient. Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived in the bottom. Those sedate Chinese children, with their tiny pigtails and their old faces, but who at times assert their common humanity by a wholesome cry; how funny two of them looked, lying in the street fighting, fury in each face, teeth set and showing, nostrils distended with rage, and a hand of each gripping fast the other's pigtail, which he seemed to be trying to drag out by the roots; at the moment not "Celestials," unless after the pattern of Virgil's Juno.

The habit of whole families living together in a boat, though sufficiently known to me, was on one occasion realized in a manner at once mortifying and ludicrous. The eagerness for trade among the bumboatmen, actual and expectant, sometimes becomes a nuisance; in their efforts to be first they form a mob quite beyond the control of the ship, the gangways and channels of which they none the less surround and grab, deaf to all remonstrance by words, however forcible. This is particularly the case the first day of arrival, before the privilege has been determined. In one such instance my patience gave way; the din alongside was indescribable, the confusion worse confounded, and they could not be moved. There was working at the moment one of those small movable hand-pumps significantly named "Handy Billy," and I told the nozzle-man to turn the stream on the crowd. Of course, nothing could please a seaman more; it was done with a will, and the full force of impact struck between the shoulders of a portly individual standing up, back towards the ship. A prompt upset revealed that it was a middle-aged woman, a fact which the pump-man had not taken in, owing to the misleading similarity of dress between the two sexes. I was disconcerted and ashamed, but the remedy was for the moment complete; the boats scattered as if dynamite had burst among them. The mere showing of the nozzle was thereafter enough.

The Iroquois was about a week in the monsoon, a day or so having been expended in running into Fuchau for coal. She certainly seemed to have lost the speed credited to her in former cruises; the cause for which was plausibly thought to be the decreased rigidity of her hull, owing to the wear and tear of service. In the days of sailing-ships there was a common professional belief that lessened stiffness of frame tended to speed; and a chased vessel sometimes resorted to sawing her beams and loosening her fastenings to increase the desired play. But, however this may have been, the thrust of the screw tells best when none of its effect is lost in a structural yielding of the ship's body; when this responds as a solid whole to the forward impulse. In this respect the Iroquois was already out of date, though otherwise serviceable.

On the eleventh day, December 7th, we reached Nagasaki, whence we sailed again about the middle of the month for Hiogo, or Kobé, where the squadrons of the various nations were to assemble for the formal opening. With abundant time before us, we passed in leisurely fashion through the Inland Sea, at the eastern end of which lay the newly opened ports. Anchoring each night, we missed no part of the scenery, with its alternating breadths and narrows, its lofty slopes, terraced here and wooded there, the occasional smiling lowlands, the varied and vivid greens, contrasting with the neutral tints of the Japanese dwellings; all which combine to the general effect of that singular and entrancing sheet of water. The Japanese junks added their contribution to the novelty with their single huge bellying sail, adapted apparently only to sailing with a free wind, the fairer the better.

Hiogo and Kobé, as I understood, are separate names of two continuous villages; Kobé, the more eastern, being the destined port of entry. They are separated by a watercourse, broad but not deep, often dry, the which is to memory dear; for following along it one day, and so up the hills, I struck at length, well within the outer range, an exquisite Japanese valley, profound, semicircular, and terraced, dosed at either end by a passage so narrow that it might well be called a defile. The suddenness with which it burst upon me, like the South Sea upon Balboa, the feeling of remoteness inspired by its isolation, and its own intrinsic beauty, struck home so forcible a prepossession that it remained a favorite resort, to which I guided several others; for it must be borne in mind that up to our coming the hill tracks of Kobé knew not the feet of foreigners, and there was still such a thing as first discovery. Some time afterwards, when I had long returned home, a naval officer told me that the place was known to him and others as Mahan's Valley; but I have never heard it has been so entered on the maps. Shall I describe it? Certainly not. When description is tried, one soon realizes that the general sameness of details is so great as quite to defy convincing presentation, in words, of the particular combination which constitutes any one bit of scenery. Scenery in this resembles a collection of Chinese puzzles, where a few elementary pieces, through their varied assemblings, yield most diverging forms. Given a river, some mountains, a few clumps of trees, a little sloping field under cultivation, an expanse of marsh—in Japan the universal terrace—and with them many picturesque effects can be produced; but description, mental realization, being a matter of analysis and synthesis, is a process which each man performs for himself. The writer does his part, and thinks he has done well. Could he see the picture which his words call up in the mind of another, the particular Chinese figure put together out of the author's data, he might be less satisfied. And should the reader rashly become the visitor, he will have to meet Wordsworth's disappointment. "And is this—Yarrow? this the scene?" "Although 'tis fair, 'twill be another Yarrow." Should any reader of mine go hereafter to Kobé, and so wish, let him see for himself; he shall go with no preconceptions from me. If the march of improvement has changed that valley, Japan deserves to be beaten in her next war.

As I recall attending a Christmas service on board the British flag-ship Rodney at Kobé, we must have anchored there a few days before that fixed for the formal opening; but, unless my memory much deceive me, visiting the shore after the usual fashion was permitted without awaiting the New Year ceremony. At this time Kobé and Hiogo were in high festival; and that, combined with the fact that the inhabitants had as yet seen few foreigners, gave unusual animation to the conditions. We were followed by curious crowds, to whom we were newer even than they to us; for the latest comers among us had seen Nagasaki, but strangers from other lands had been rare to these villagers. In explanation of the rejoicings, it was told us that slips of paper, with the names of Japanese deities written on them, had recently fallen in the streets, supposed by the people to come from the skies; and that different men had found in their houses pieces of gold, also bearing the name of some divinity. These tokens were assumed to indicate great good luck about to light upon those places or houses. By an easy association of ideas, the approaching opening of the port might seem to have some connection with the expected benefits, and inclines one to suspect human instrumentality in creating impressions which might counteract the long-nurtured jealousy of foreign intrusion. Whatever the truth, the external rollicking celebrations were as apparent as was the general smiling courtesy so noticeable in the Japanese, and which in this case was common to both the throng in ordinary dress and the masqueraders. Men and women, young and old, in gay, fantastic costumes, faces so heavily painted as to have the effect of masks, were running about in groups, sometimes as many as forty or fifty together, dancing and mumming. They addressed us frequently with a phrase, the frequent repetition of which impressed it upon our ears, but, in our ignorance of the language, not upon our understandings. At times, if one laughed, liberties were taken. These the customs of the occasion probably justified, as in the carnivals of other peoples, which this somewhat resembled; but there was no general concourse, as in the Corso at Rome, which I afterwards saw—merely numerous detachments moving with no apparent relation to one another. Once only a companion and myself met several married women, known as such by their blackened teeth, who bore long poles with feathers at one end, much like dusters, with which they tapped us on the head. These seemed quite beside themselves with excitement, but all in the best of humor.