Page images
PDF
EPUB

pints of usquebaugh, and, as he used to think, without any ill consequence. His intemperance, however, in this respect at length brought on an incurable disorder, and when just at the point of death, he called for a cup of his beloved liquor. Those who were standing round him, surprised at the demand, endeavoured to persuade him not to have it; but he persisted, and when the bowl was brought, he endeavoured to drink, but could not; wherefore giving away the bowl, he observed, with a smile, that it would be hard if two such friends as he and the cup should part at least without kissing, and then expired."

to Him who had bestowed upon him gifts so rare and so distinguished.

Surely we may believe that some Christian woman, among all those whose beauty or good qualities he had celebrated, knelt beside his bed and spoke with him of that eternity upon which he was about to enter; that some true minister of God's mercy to man was present, to remind him of the Saviour who had purchased Salvation for him with His own Divine blood; and that Carolan, after all, died, not with a cup, but a prayer upon the lips which had so often poured forth the exquisite inspirations of his genius.

He survived his wife about five years, and Surely we may hope there is more of the expired at the house of a Mrs. McDermott, in Ben Trovato than of the true, in this account of the county Roscommon, in March 1738, in his the last moments of the last Irish bard and sixty-eighth year. He lies buried in Killronan minstrel, and hope that, whatever may have been churchyard, in the diocese of Ardagh; but, to the faults and follies of his life, at least his the shame of his countrymen be it spoken, death found him with his whole poor weak way."not a stone tells where he lies." ward, yet ever warm and generous heart, turned

IN PERIL, ALONGSIDE.

It was in the year 1857, that I, a youngster, prevailed upon my guardian to permit me to go to sea. I had read so many of Marryatt's novels that I had gone sea-mad; and, notwithstanding the excellent mercantile opening of which I could have availed myself in London, I embarked upon a career with which I became heartily sick -to wit, I entered the Mercantile Marine.

It was quite a mistake on my part. I had devoted my attention, while at school, to the study of ancient Greek and Latin historians and dramatic writers; and although the knowledge I had acquired from the study of their works was in itself valuable, it was not exactly of the kind I should have obtained had I sooner determined to turn my abilities to the navigation and management of ships upon great waters. Neither quadratic nor simple equation did me any good service in the daily problem of finding the latitude; and I regret to say that in finding the longitude I was grossly ignorant of logabut "Nories Epitome" rendered this part of the science extremely easy. In the course of my chequered life, I have sometimes-nay, in fact, very often wished that Ihad devoted more attention to simple arithmetic than I did to quadratic and simple equations; the former would have been of infinitely more use to me. Speaking confidentially, since I was seventeen years of age I do not think I have done a single problem in algebra or solved one in Euclid. Yes, once I did. I tried to prove by algebra that 1=2. It is to be done, I believe, but I regret to say that I failed ignominiously,

rithms;

having totally forgotten the formula, and I rendered myself an object (abject) of contempt to a certain schoolboy, and barely retrieved my reputation by lamely hobbling over the forty-seventh proposition of the first book of the above-mentioned mathematician.

Notwithstanding, however, my disqualifications, I went to sea on the 26th of December, 1857. I remember the date but too well-the day after Christmas Day, of all days in the year! How very well I can remember that Christmas Day! Most of our family were at a Christmas party at the house of one of my uncles (I have several). I should remember the day, if it was only from the fact that on the evening of it I, for the first time, beheld my brother in a tailcoat. I myself was attired in the uniform of a midshipman in the Mercantile Marine, and looked, I am afraid, rather superciliously at my brother. I thought that he appeared awkward in his manly garment, but I have subsequently remarked that nearly every one else appears the same on the first donning of the dress-coat of the period.

The very excellent dinner to which we sat down both he and I, however, did ample justice to; and, after the banquet, we, I am glad to say, felt more at our ease. That plum pudding I shall never forget it! It was a plum pudding, and no mistake! A bit of it-the last bit as regards myself I finished on the mizen-topsailyard of the Bhima, in latitude-well, never mind

-off Madeira. Cursorily I may remark that I was sent up to the aforesaid mizen-topsail-yard

by the chief mate for encouraging two pugna-
cious cocks to fight on the quarterdeck. I
firmly believed that the chief mate would not be
on deck until eight bells, whereas he appeared
on the brake of the poop at seven bells; and as
at that time I ought to have been writing up his
log, my neglect of duty was not to be overlooked,
and I was forthwith ordered to the mast-head;
to which point of observation I ascended, and,
notwithstanding the apparently uncomfortable
situation, made myself quite contented; and
a brother midshipman, through the medinm
of a mizentop man, sent me up the piece of plum
pudding I have spoken of the last piece of
plum pudding which graced the last dinner-
table I sat down to in England. It had hitherto
been kept in the till of my chest, and now,
although hungry, I felt loth to eat it: this piece
of plum pudding was a kind of last link to the
chain which bound me to England. But, I
reasoned, if I do not eat it the cockroaches will,
and am I not better than a cockroach? Of
course I am, and therefore eat it; and paren-
thetically I may here remark that it was the last
piece of English plum pudding that ever I ate.
I have not tasted that truly national dish from
that day to this.

On the 26th of December, then, I left my home for sea, and in the brougham which took me to the docks travelled with me my dear guardian, who at that last moment even urged me to stay ashore and become a decent member of society. Those confounded novels, however, were too heavy in the scales. I would not be persuaded.

We arrived at the docks, and my dear guardian's eyes lit up with pleasure as, upon inquiry, we found the ship had hauled out an hour before, and was now in tow of a steamer. It was a dreadfully foggy day, and a drizzling rain had set in, and everything looked so woefully miserable, that at this moment I cannot conceive how I could have been fool enough to refuse those earnest entreaties, expressed with such fervency, too, that I would change my mind and come home. No-I urged that it would be unmanly to turn back; that I should be laughed at. Nothing could persuade the egregious fool who is writing these lines, and reaping as uncomfortably as possible the fruits of his folly

"There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which taken at the flood leads on to Fortune❞—

or Fame, I forget which, and have not got a Shakspeare by me. I believe that at the moment, when my guardian for the last time urged upon me to stay at home, and dilated upon the general discomfort I should experience on board ship. I believe that was the turning-point of my life; and instead of taking it at the flood and being led on to fortune-i.e., a very comfortable retirement, after some years of daily journeying to and from the City on an omnibus, Sundays excepted-I went swiftly and surely out to sea, in two senses: with an ebb tide, and where that ebb has taken me !- Well, that has

nothing to do with the subject of this paper. Suffice it to say that William Shakspeare was undoubtedly a man of the world.

My farewell was spoken; and the last thing I saw as the brougham turned the corner of the street was the kind face of my guardian looking I believe something did sorrowfully at me.

strike me then that I was making a fool of myself, and a sudden impulse, which I rejected, to jump into a Hansom and pursue the homewardbound carriage, took possession of me. I did jump into a Hansom, and my voice was not very firm as I told the man to drive like the deuce to Blackwall.

Two hours after this I was on board the Bhima, which I had overtaken at Blackwall, though I had to wait in a wherry in the middle of the stream for a good half hour before she hovein sight, and nearly got swamped in coming alongside. I found the deck of the Bhima in an awfully dirty state, and I was sniffing all kinds of nasty smells; and about the same time I calculated that my uncle was seated before the fire in the snug dining-room, talking to my aunt probably-I repeat the words of the egregious fool who is writing these lines, with very different aromas from those which nearly made me sick issuing from the covers on the table.

I myself did not partake of lunch on that day.

Over the incidents of the voyage I will pass very lightly. The routine of an emigrant ship to the colonies has been described times out of number. I call to mind that my good genius in the person of the chief mate, the same officer who subsequently mastheaded me on such a trifling occasion, advised me to go ashore at Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, off which town the pilot left us; and I, with that idiotic fear of being ridiculed, refused this my last chance of proving myself a sensible being. And as I watched that old sailor, or rather the boat in which that old sailor embarked, by degrees grow small and beautifully less, tossing on the waves, which were now rising fast, my last hope of becoming a respectable citizen of London vanished; and upon the hands being piped to grog, before setting the topgallant sails, which had been lowered, when the ship was hove to, to enable the pilot-boat to come alongside, I, with my chum Baxter, adjourned to the captain's cabin. He had sent for us, had this worthy captain to give us some good advice, having known us since those happy days in which we crawled; and he also gave us something stronger than water, and told us, which was the ne plus ultra of generosity on his part, that we should not be called that night, and we might sleep as nicely as we should have done in our beds at home.

Did we sleep as nicely as we should have done in our beds at home? We did not.-By no means. That night it blew as lusty a gale of wind as ever it has been my lot to experience; and next morning, upon going on deck, we found we were in the chops of the Channel, with the wind on our quarter, with close-reefed fore and maintopsails

and foretopmast-stay sail and mizen topsail furled; and I considered myself extremely lucky in not having had to assist in the operation of furling it. On no subsequent occasion did I escape that duty.

The usual flirtations, the inevitable quarrels, duly occurred during the passage, and the monotony was only broken by a row with the hands for ard about some grievance, which they could not properly understand themselves. The scrimmage was short, but sharp. The ringleader, a blasphemous and useless apology for an A.B., was at last secured, handcuffed, and deposited down the after-hold, where his threats and vile language insulted the rats only. But this was not effected before I had been within an ace of being flung into the cook's coppers, and had received a contusion on the right eye; while I may modestly mention that I had made my mark on more than one of the disaffected, the private lessons in the noble art of self-defence which I had taken standing me in good stead at this crisis.

Then there was the crossing the line. I have crossed the line many times since then; but never, except upon this occasion, have I seen the time-honoured mummery of Mr. and Mrs. Neptune carried out as on this particular one. They were all there, Mr. and Mrs. and Master Neptune, who stood six feet two, barber, doctor, bears (ye gods!), and policemen (I wish we had had a few of the real article); and I was, with my usual luck, one of the first victims, and was half smothered and half drowned, and ought, ergo, to be dead. I recovered, however, to undergo a few more little discomforts in this vale of tears.

I remember, also, that on the 14th of February some of the passengers received Valentines, not of a very complimentary character.

Our passage was, on the whole, a very stormy one. In fact, in the last gale but one, before arriving at Port Wellington, our starboard bulwarks were washed away. However, we arrived safely off the banks of Peninsular, and a lovelier sight I never witnessed than that which they presented as we tacked under them in the evening, the rays of the setting sun blazoning the snow-capped mountains wonderfully. It was off here that we overhauled a brigantine, and boarded her for potatoes: she had none, but I firmly believe that if she had had them and had refused to part with any, we should have committed an act of piracy on the high seas.

We had a last gale of wind the night before we entered the harbour, but the next morning it cleared, and we fired a gun, and were soon boarded by a pilot, and sailed in. It was like looking at a diorama as we passed between the picturesque lines of coast. So easy did we sail that it seemed as if the land on each side of us was in motion instead of the ship. A glorious sight, and everything so strange to some of us. We passed a canoe, with tatooed Maories fishing. How interesting! It was what Baxter and I had read of, and here were we actually gazing at the thing itself. Baxter and I were

[blocks in formation]

Bang went the gun, and the ensign was hoisted at the gaff, and the house flag at the main, as we passed under the Montgomery's stern, sufficient time having elapsed for the officer in charge of the deck to get ammunition up from the lazarete; and bang goes her gun, and the ensign and house-flag of the Montgomery are floating in the breeze. We dip ensigns to each other courteously, though everything is in great confusion.

"Let fly your royal halyards! Clew down there! Square the royal yards! Well, the weather main royal brace! Aloft there, you boys, and furl the sails! Down with the jib there for❜ard! Clap on the downhaul there, fo'castle men. Lay out and furl it."

"Haul the courses up! (This done with an immense amount of yeo-ho-hing.) To'gallant halyards let fly! Clew down with a will, boys!" Stea-dier, starboard you

Port; port!

may!"

[ocr errors]

86

B-y ther d-e-e-e-e-p fi-i-i-ve." Topsail halyards all clear there?" "All clear, Sir!"

66 A-a-a-a-nd a 'arf fi-i-i-ve." "Starboard!"

[ocr errors]

'Starboard it is, Sir!"

"Cable all clear there for'ard ?"

"All clear!"

66

'Stand by the anchor!"

"Let fly your topsail halyards."

"Man the clewlines and buntlines. Now with a will, boys!"

"So; well there the main." "Belay!"

"B-y ther m-a-a-a-r-k, six."

"Steady, bo, steady. Let go the anchor!" Splash goes the starboard anchor, and all hands and the cook are lighting the chain along, which every now and again surges round the windlass with a clank, c-r-r-r-a-a-nk, clank, crank!

"Give it her, boys!" halloos the pilot, and they all give it her, with the exception of Baxter and myself. We have had our share of hard work during the voyage, and our good captain gives us a holiday to-day; and we might have been seen in all the glories of gold bands and brass buttons gazing through our glasses (nautical word for telescope) at the town. How jolly!

Baxter is very excited, as he looks through his glass. Cause instantly explained.

"I say, old fellow," he cried, "look thereto the left of that public-house."

I look. Good heavens! is it possible? It is! There is a pastrycook's shop.

Baxter seizes my hand, and shakes it heartily.

M

His heart is too full for words. I am in a simi- | hostess dined with us. We were quite a jolly party.

lar state of excitement.

"Oh, Mr. -, whatever your name was, can you call to mind our first visit-the first visit of my friend Baxter and myself to your shop? You can't, I suppose? Baxter and I have not forgotten it I can assure you. I never ate so many what we called wide-awake tarts, they bearing somewhat the appearance of a wideawake hat, in my life; and Baxter assured me that he never ate so many open raspberry tarts in his life. I am afraid we indulged too freely in Mr. Whatever-his-name-was' pastry. I can distinctly call to mind that Baxter was particularly disagreeable after we returned on board. He said that it was I that was disagreeable. It was no such thing.

The Bhima was moored with 90 fathoms of chain on our anchor, and some other amount of chain on the other. We were boarded by all sorts of people, and some kind of a police officer made himself especially conspicuous. It was he that, taking the skipper confidentially on one side, intimated to him "that if any of yer men gits hobstopelous, as they're sure to do in a day or two, all you 'as to do is to hist the ensign at the main, and I'll be aboard yer before yer can say knife." The astute officer was right; before we had discharged our cargo we had lost half our crew; and notwithstanding the histing of the ensign at the main, and the appearance of the police officer before we could say knife," we did not succeed in capturing the runaways; and the writer ventured into some queer places in search of them, accompanied by the zealous officer.

[ocr errors]

A very pleasant time we spent in Wellington, New Zealand-shooting, fishing, and going out for rides and excursions. Notably one, in which a Mr. Biggins (a passenger, of whom more anon), the chief mate, Baxter, and myself enjoyed ourselves excessively at a kind of road side inn (it was called a hotel) near the HaRiver, about eight miles from the town. We rode there on horseback through a most lovely country; and upon sighting the "pub," as Mr. Biggins fondly called it, he agreed to race in, and the winner was not to be called upon for his

share of the bill.

After two or three false starts, we got away, and the writer came in first, closely followed by Baxter, who was a featherweight, Biggins a bad third, chief mate nowhere. He came in at last, not ths least out of humour, and immediately proposed shandygaff in preference to cyder, which Mr. Biggins had proposed. Shandygaff carried the day; and after having ordered dinner, we drew our chairs round the fire, and lighting our cigars, talked about the voyage, and the never-failing theme-home, sweet home; and a very happy hour we spent before dinner. With a little stretch of imagination we might have thought ourselves in a village hostelry in he old country. It was only upon looking out at the scenery that things seemed different.

Dinner duly came to table, and our host and

Our host, a most agreeable chatty man, told us some queer stories of the country and its settlers. His wife, a very kind motherly person was most attentive to Baxter and myself, more especially to Baxter, whom she apparently considered to have just been let loose from mamma's apron-strings; and very demure Master Baxter looked during that meal, and it was with the utmost difficulty that our kind hostess could prevail upon the young hypocrite to take a second edition of the pudding.

The cloth having been removed, and our hostess retired, the conversation turned upon the frequency of cases of desertion from ships in the harbour. Our host said, that so long as there were men ashore who would shelter these runaways we could not be surprised at the men deserting in such a country, where the price of labour was suspicious character came to his house, his inso high. For his part, if ever a variable practice was to keep him engaged in conversation (and probably something else) until he had ascertained from the town whether

he was a deserter or not; and he also modestly informed us, as he puffed at his pipe and sipped his grog, that he had been the instrument of restoring many men to their ships. mate, "for a public-house in this country. I "You're the sort of man," said the chief wish they were all like you."

66

lieve most of 'em take a pride in stowing a Why, bless your soul," he added, "I berunaway.'

[ocr errors]

We all agreed with him; and as it was now growing late, and we had eight miles to ride back, we payed our bill, and thanked our host for our entertainment, and jolly hostess evincing an inclination to salute Master Baxter; then we rode off, and after about an hour's ride clatter into Wellington; but before going aboard we honoured the Lyceum Theatre with our presence, and finished up with an oyster supperthe oysters the most delicious I have ever tasted.

And now, as I shall not have another oppor

tunity, let me briefly state a fact of which I subsequently became apprised.

During the time we were at dinner at the public-house, the whole of the deserters from the good ship Bhima, with the exception of one (the steward) were in an adjoining room. Confound them, they must have nearly split their sides with laughing on hearing our mutual host holding forth upon his practice of dealing with deserters; and I was creditably informed an ill-conditioned youth, known as "Ned," who had during the voyage acted as our servant (Baxter's and mine), amused himself and confréres by making grimaces at us through a little window in the wall of the room in which we sat; and, if I am to believe my informant, so ludicrously comic were they, that his com panions were obliged to drag him away; as it was with difficulty they could withhold the roars of laughter this little villain excited.

The chief mate was not so amused as Baxter and I were on hearing of this.

In due course our cargo for Wellington was discharged; and one morning early we hove the anchor up, and stood across the harbour, and then anchored ready for a clear stretch out in the morning. This was to be our last day in Wellington harbour.

As we lay now, there was a tongue of land stretching out into the harbour, between us and the town, and we were in comparatively smooth water. I say comparatively, as while we were at Wellington five days out of the seven, it was always blowing from the N.E. or S.W., and generally half a gale from either quarter. Where we lay we got the full benefit of the wind either way, but we lay in a bight of the land, and there was never a heavy sea on here; but still sufficient to cause the ship to pitch somewhat heavily. A boat, however, putting out from the bight would not feel the full force of the wind and sea until it was nearly abreast of the ship. And now I will proceed to relate the incident which is the main subject of this paper.

The good ship Bhima, then, was riding at anchor on the evening of the of May: the next day she was to spread her wings and coast down to Port Nelson.

The wind was rising fast, and already it was blowing a stiff breeze from the nor❜ard and feastward. The captain was ashore spending his arewell evening with some friends, and the chief mate was also on shore with Mr. Biggins, nd a boat had been dispatched to a landingplace, in the bay off which we lay, to bring them off.

When the second mate, Mr. Coster, ordered the boat away, there was no appearance of a stormy night coming on; in fact, it was quite clear, and only blowing a fresh breeze, and through our glasses we watched the boat safely ashore, and saw it hauled upon the beach. It was about seven o'clock that the wind freshened, and as it grew dark the water was sparkling with phosphoric light. Never since have I seen such a sight. It was indeed glorious to watch the waves break, and witness the myriad rays of light flash beneath the surface; now mingling in a luminous sheet, and anon flitting in all directions with glancing rays. But the second mate, who had been hard at work all day, and moreover was by no means a romantic sailor, suggested that we should adjourn into the cuddy, and beguile the time until the arrival of the boat with a rubber; and as there was nothing to say to the contrary, below we went, and were soon interested in our game.

Coster brewed a capital bowl of punch, and as it was very cold, we closed the doors, and

made ourselves as comfortable as could be.

That everlasting roll of the ship tends greatly to make one feel sleepy after a hard day's work; so when we had played a few games, the cards were discarded, and we leaned dreamily back on the setees, now and then dropping a word to show we were not asleep, and occasionally

puffing a high cloud of smoke with a deep sigh of enjoyment.

It must have been about two bells (nine o'clock) when the motion of the vessel increased, and through the skylight I heard the whistle and moan of the wind now and again sweeping through the rigging in strong gusts; and at length the ship lurched over to port, and, starting up, it was with difficulty I succeeded in saving the jug containing the punch, which was on the table instead of in the swinging tray.

"I say, Coster, listen; it's coming on to blow harder."

"It is indeed," he replied; "let us go on deck."

The moment we opened the cuddy door it was apparent it was coming on to blow a gale. The white fleecy clouds were scudding overhead, and the sea was rising fast, and looked like a broken sheet of fire; the foam even was alive with phosphorus.

Besides ourselves, and the man on the lookout, no one was on deck, and we ascended the poop, and looked anxiously towards the shore for any signs of the boat; and although it was moonlight, and we could see a long way, in fact, we could see the shore, no boat was in view.

"Of course not," said Coster, "Pilcher (the chief mate) would not put off such a night as this. Depend upon it he has got into snug quarters, and will come off in the morning. He knows there is no particular occasion for him to come on board. We will go for'ard, and see how she is riding, and then you youngsters can turn in, and I will lie down in the cuddy."

We went forward and looked over the bows, and satisfied ourselves the old Bhima was curtseying gracefully and easily to her anchor, and then turned back into the cuddy; and as it was bitterly cold, warmed up the punch on the stove, and lighting our pipes, we found, to our surprise, that sleep was rather farther off than when we went on deck. And so we sat and yarned, and some very stiff yarns Coster spun; indeed, one was so very hard to digest that on some future occasion, if I am allowed, I shall narrate it to the best of my recollection.

Meantime it came on to blow harder and harder. There was nothing we had to fear for the ship, for we were as snug as snug could be. Our royal and topgallant yards were on deck, and the topgallant masts housed. We had plenty of cable out, and good holding ground. But a feeling of uneasiness came over us all

nevertheless.

Pilcher would put off tonight, do you?" "Coster," said Baxter, "you don't think

66

"No," replied Coster, musingly. "Of course not," he added, more confidently; "I am sure he would not. Listen to that!”

The wind was roaring through the rigging: if we had been at sea we should have been double-reefed.

« PreviousContinue »