In Eastern Seas. J. J. Smith
Young Moxey was soon amongst us again, none the worse for his involuntary immersion, although his bath was more than an ordinary risky one, owing to the proximity of sharks.
From that exalted observatory, the mast head, we noticed the red colour from which the sea derives its name. The surface has not a general ruddy tinge, as we most of us thought it had—only here and there blood-red patches appear, mottling the vivid blue surface.
September 11th.—My "journal" is a blank for three whole days, owing to the intense heat, which is simply unbearable. I can only give our friends a faint idea of what it was like, by asking them to imagine themselves strapped down over a heated oven whilst somebody has built a fire on top of them, to ensure a judicious "browning" on both sides alike. Sleep is out of the question, "prickly heat" is careful of that. As may be supposed, the sufferings of the deck hands—bad enough as in all conscience it was—were not to be compared with the tortures endured by the poor fellows in the stoke-hole, who had to be hoisted up in buckets that they might gasp in the scarcely less hot air on deck. From bad, this state of things came to worse—men succumbed to its influence, the sick list swelled, and, finally, death stalked insidiously in our midst.
September 13th.—The first victim was John Bayley, a marine, who died to-day after an illness of only a few short hours. One curious thing about this sickness is that those attacked by it exhibit, more or less, symptoms of madness. One of my own messmates, for instance, whose life was preserved by a miracle, almost went entirely out of his mind. I will not dwell too long upon these sufferings, nor rekindle the harrowing scenes in your minds.
At sunset on the 14th the bell tolled for a funeral, as, with half-masted flag, and officers and men assembled, we prepared to do the last that ever poor Bayley would require from man. Funerals are solemn things at any time, but a funeral at sea is more than this—it is impressive and awe-inspiring, especially if there be others so near death's door that one does not know whose turn it may be next. Decently and in order the hammock-clad form is brought to the gangway, whilst the chaplain's voice, clear and distinct—more distinct than ordinary it seems—reads the beautiful service for the Church of England's dead. A hollow plunge, a few eddying circles, at the words—"we commit his body to the deep"—and he is gone for ever.
Almost simultaneously with departure of one, another of our shipmates, Mr. Easton, the gunner, died.
Providentially for all of us, a squall of wind struck us at this point of our voyage—a squall of such violence, whilst it lasted, that the air was thoroughly purged of its baneful qualities, and restored again to its elasticity.
But what a God-send it was! The iron hull of our ship, always unpleasantly hot in these latitudes, was rapidly cooled by the deluge of rain which came with the wind. Renewed life and vigour entered into our emaciated frames, and revivified men marked for death; and was it not delicious to rush about naked in the puddles of rain on the upper deck!
Well, all things mundane have an end, even the most unpleasant—though it must be confessed their finality is generally lingering. Thus our desolate voyage through that seething cauldron, known to geographers and schoolboys as the Red Sea, at length approached its termination.
Our grim shipmate, death, did not go over the side till he had marked yet another victim for his insatiate grasp; for, to-day, Mr. Scoble, one of our engineers, died. He, too, was buried at sea, though we were only a few hours from port. On the morn of this day, September 17th, we passed the strait of Bab-el-mandeb—Arabic for "Gate of Tears"—an extremely appropriate name, too, I should think.
Aden, which we reached the same evening, has a very bleak and barren appearance, and is, seemingly, nothing better than a volcanic rock. Its apparent sterility does not, as a matter of fact, exist; for it produces an abundance of vegetables of all kinds, splendid corn with stalks above the ordinary height, fruits, roses, and other delightful and highly-scented flowers, in rank abundance. There is something thriving and go-a-head about the place, in spite of unkindly nature. It has one terrible drawback, for rain falls only at intervals of years, sometimes taking a holiday for three or even more years. The people are busy and bustling—troops of camels, donkeys, and ostriches continually stream in and out the town, testifying to an extensive trade with the neighbouring states. A peculiar race of people is found here, the Soumali—tall, gaunt-looking fellows, with a mass of moppy hair dyed a brilliant red. This head-gear, surmounting a small black face, is laughable in the extreme. Plenty of ostrich feathers may be obtained of the Arabian Jews; and though, of course, you pay sailors' prices for them, yet even then the sums given are not nearly so much as would be charged in England for a far inferior feather.
On the eve of departure we were visited by a novel shower, composed of sand and locusts, from the African desert. These things, unpleasant as they seem to us, are, we are told, of as common occurrence here as rain showers at home.
CHAPTER V.
| "As slow our ship her foamy track Against the wind was cleaving, Her trembling pennant still look'd back To that dear isle 'twas leaving." |
ACROSS THE INDIAN OCEAN.—CEYLON.—SINGAPORE.—A CRUISE IN THE STRAITS OF MALACCA.
September 21st.—Having, as it were, given the go-by to two continents, we commence on an extended acquaintance with a third.
With sails spread to a S.W. monsoon we rapidly speed over that glorious expanse of luminous sea where it is ever summer, and in whose pearly depths living things innumerable revel in the very joy of existence.
Though hot, this part of the voyage is not unpleasant, for a cooling breeze is constantly setting down the hatchways from the sails. What one would rather be without, though, is that tropical tinting known as the "prickly heat," which now begins to get troublesome; for, like boils, its spots generally select those parts of the epidermis where they are likely to become of the greatest nuisance, making the friction of garments almost intolerable; but there, one can't have everything.
When the sails are trimmed with the same regularity day after day, with never a tack nor sheet started, existence does not offer much of variety, so that, like Columbus' sailors, we were glad to welcome even a gale of wind. Now, a rolling and pitching ship is capital fun if you can manage to stay the surgings of a revolutionary stomach; but it sometimes happens that you can't, when, to vary a line in "In Memoriam," "you heave responsive to the heaving deep." Then, too, we are as hungry as "sea dogs." Ten or twelve days on sea rations are not to be envied, especially as there is plenty of room for improvement in the dietary. It is all very nice, nay, pleasant even, to feel hungry when there is a prospect of a good "feed" in the tin dish; but how frequently do we find a "southerly wind" prevailing in that receptacle for "panem;" and what is there, I ask, in "Fanny Adams" alternated with "salt junk?" In the one, nausea; in the other, mahogany.
Friday, October 14th.—Just at our breakfast hour we sighted that oriental fairy garden, Ceylon's isle; and though we must be from fifteen to twenty miles off, a curiously-constructed native vessel, with perhaps a dozen persons on board, has just put out to welcome and pilot us to land. A boat so different to all other boats that I must say a word about it. It is a sort of double canoe, constructed of the hollowed out trunk of a cocoanut tree, to which is attached a couple of outriggers, with a second canoe-shaped structure at their extremities, but of lesser dimensions than the boat proper, and differing from it, too, in not being hollowed out—in fact the latter is used only as a balance for the other. When it comes on to blow with any force, the Singalese boatmen may be observed standing out on their outriggers, to counteract the force of the wind on the high sails. The stronger the breeze the further out the men go. Their mode of expressing the intensity of a breeze is significant. The Singalese don't say as we do, it is blowing stiff, or half a gale, or a gale; but that it is a "one-man wind," or "two," or "three-man wind," as the case may be. I believe a similar idiom is used by the natives of the Sandwich isles.
On nearing the land we could see how really delightful this ocean gem is. One mass of