The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford. Baron Charles William De la Poer Beresford Beresford
Japan we proceeded to China, touching at Chefoo, Shanghai and Hongkong. Nothing could exceed the princely hospitality of the great British mercantile firms in China. It was then that I learned, what subsequent experience confirmed, the remarkable integrity of the business dealings of the Chinese. The head of the Chinese Bank told me that he never had a bad account with a Chinaman. The Chinese keeps agreements to the letter, quite irrespective of documentary contracts.
From China we proceeded to Manila, then a Spanish possession. My principal recollection of Manila is the extraordinary prevalence of cock-fighting. There was a cockpit in every street; and the sole occupation of the inhabitants appeared to consist of betting upon their birds. One used constantly to meet men walking in the street with their birds under their arms. The cocks were armed with steel spurs shaped like a scythe, and sharpened to a razor edge. I have seen a bird spring up and slice the head of its adversary clean off, and I have seen the chest of a bird slashed open, almost cutting its body in two. The use of the artificial spurs affected the betting, making the fight very much more uncertain and therefore more exciting. For, whereas if a cock uses its natural spurs, the best bird probably wins, an inferior bird armed artificially might gain the victory.
From Manila we proceeded to Calcutta. Upon landing, I met my brother, Lord Marcus, and with him I rode up, together with the staff, to Government House. It is a singular coincidence that when I landed at Calcutta, six years afterwards, on the corresponding date, when I was a member of the staff of the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII), I met my other brother, Lord William, and rode up with him to Government House.
The Galatea lay alongside the wharf. It was necessary to take the most stringent precautions against cholera. Only one boy in the ship's company was taken ill during our stay. He died inside an hour. But in the merchant ships lying in the port there were many deaths. Men were employed in working parties to push off with long bamboos the corpses that were continually floating down from the Hooghli, lest they should foul the moorings. The bodies used to come floating down with the birds perching and feeding upon them.
We went up country, and enjoyed a great deal of excellent sport. We went out pig-sticking, which is the finest sport in the world; we went out tiger-shooting upon elephants; and riding upon elephants, we shot partridges—a form of sport by no means easy. I remember an irascible old colonel of artillery, who became very hot, and who missed a good many partridges, saying indignantly to the Duke:
"This is all d——d rot. I could shoot more partridges on Woolwich Common."
It was the same peppery soldier who, when one of the members of the staff had fallen ill, went with me upon a visitation to the sick. We found the invalid in a state of extreme agitation, and surrounded with books of a religious nature.
"I think—I hope—" he kept saying, "that I shall be forgiven. I think I shall—I hope so."
"What's he saying? What's he saying?" cried the colonel, who, as often happens to people in hot weather, had become rather deaf.
"He thinks he's dying," I shouted.
Whereupon the colonel, turning angrily to the invalid, shouted,
"You d——d fool, you have only over-eaten yourself!"
The sick man was so infuriated that he hurled his books of religion at the colonel, and sprang out of bed. Next day he was quite well.
Another member of the staff was mounted one day upon a red horse (they paint their horses in India), a wild, half-broken Arab steed, which was giving its rider a deal of trouble. I advised my friend to dismount, and left him. Presently I rode back to find him on foot and alone. I asked him, where was his horse?
"Gone," said he. "Whenever that d——d horse saw a mosquito, it sat down and cried like a child. So I kicked it in the belly and it ran away into the jungle."
We visited Trincomalee, where the elephants built the dockyard. They carried the timber and they carried the stones, and they lifted the stones into position and adjusted them with their feet. The remarkable thing about the climate of Ceylon is its intermittent showers of tropical violence, followed by bursts of sunshine. In the result, you actually see the foliage growing. I remember the extraordinary beauty of the native decorations, which are fabricated of palms and leaves and flowers.
From Colombo we went to Mauritius, arriving there in May, 1870. Here I climbed the famous mountain called Pieter Botte, or, more correctly, Pieter Both.
The mountain is so named after Pieter Both, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies in the early part of the seventeenth century, and the founder of Dutch power in that region. On his homeward voyage he was wrecked in the bay overlooked by the mountain, which thereafter bore his name. Previous ascents are recorded in the archives at Mauritius, from which it appears that mine was the fourteenth. Admiral Sir William Kennedy ascended Pieter Botte in 1861; he gives an account of his climb in his interesting book, Hurrah for the Life of a Sailor (London, Nash). Kennedy started with a party of fourteen persons, of whom five reached the summit.
At nine o'clock in the morning I started, together with the captain of the maintop, Edward Hele. We took with us ropes, a rope ladder, cod-line, and a small lead. These were all our appliances. We drove to the foot of the mountain and began the ascent at 11.5 a.m. Now the mountain of Pieter Botte is shaped like a church with a steep roof, from one end of which rises a spire. This pinnacle of rock is crowned with a huge, rounded, overhanging boulder.
Part of the ridge was so sharp that we were forced to sit on it and to proceed astride. Then we came to the pinnacle. The ascent was so sharp and difficult that we were obliged to take off both shoes and socks. At one point, I lost my balance, and was only saved from falling backwards by Hele's ready hand. Climbing the pinnacle was far more difficult than scaling the overhanging boulder at the top. At the top of the pinnacle there was just room to stand beneath the overhanging boulder. The only possible method of climbing the boulder was to get the rope ladder over the top of it. Accordingly, one end of the rope ladder was attached to the lead-line. In order to swing the lead, one of us was roped with a round turn round his body, while the other, lying on his back, held the rope while the leadsman, leaning right backwards and outwards over the sheer precipice of some 3000 feet fall, swung the lead. We took it in turns to swing the lead; as we leaned outwards, the rock spread over our heads like an umbrella; and it was an hour and a half before we succeeded in casting it over the boulder. Then we hauled the rope ladder over and made all fast. It was too short, and the last few yards we hauled ourselves up hand over hand. So we climbed to the top, which is a platform of about 20 feet square. It was then 1.59 p.m. We took off our shirts, and waved them to the warships lying far below in the bay, from which we were plainly to be distinguished with the aid of a telescope. The ships each saluted us with one gun. We planted on the summit a flag upon whose staff were carved our names and the names of our ships. When we returned, my brother officers gave us a dinner to celebrate the event.
Hele was eventually promoted to warrant officer. When Hele died, I was able to help his son to gain his education, and he did very well. It was in Mauritius that we went out shooting with the native population; one of the most dangerous amusements in which I have ever taken part, for the bullets used to whistle in the air all round us.
From Mauritius we proceeded to Cape Town. Here, on the 12th July, 1870, the Duke inaugurated the new harbour, breakwater and docks. I kept a team on shore, and used to drive up from Simon's Bay to Cape Town. Every now and then we stuck in a quicksand. On one such occasion I had a brother officer with me; and as he was afflicted with a cold, I took him on my back to save him from wet feet. But I fell with him, and we were both soaked to the skin. Upon another day, when we stuck, I put two of my messmates on the leaders, and they pulled the coach right through. If you want horses to pull a weight out of a tight place, put weight on their backs.
The Colonial Secretary at Cape Town was Mr.