The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). Frederick Whymper
its achievements! I cannot but believe that, if the English ironclad fleet were now to be engaged in a general action with an enemy’s fleet, the very variety of our ships—those very improvements which have occasioned that variety—would be at once the cause of the greatest possible embarrassment to the enemy, and the means of the most vigorous and diversified attack upon the hostile fleet. This is peculiarly true of all those varieties which result from increase in handiness, in bow-fire, in height of port, and so forth; and unless I have mis-read our naval history, and misappreciate the character of our naval officers of the present day, the nation will, in the day of trial, obtain the full benefit of these advantages.”
SECTION OF A FIRST-CLASS MAN-OF-WAR.
It needs no argument to convince the reader that the aim of a naval architect should be to combine in the best manner available, strength and lightness. The dimensions and outside form of the ship in great part determine her displacement; and her capacity to carry weights depends largely on the actual weight of her own hull; while the room within partly depends on the thinness or thickness of her walls. Now, we have seen that in wooden ships the hull weighs more than in iron ships of equal size; and it will be apparent that what is gained in the latter case can be applied to carrying so much the more iron armour. Hence, distinguished authorities do not believe in the wood-built ship carrying heavy armour, nearly so much as in the ironclad, iron-built ship.63 The durability and strength are greater. The authority of such a man as Mr. J. Scott Russell, the eminent shipbuilder, will be conclusive. In a pamphlet,64 published in 1862, he noted the following ten points: 1, That iron steam ships-of-war may be built as strong as wooden ships of greater weight, and stronger than wooden ships of equal weight. 2, That iron ships of equal strength can go on less draught of water than wooden ships. 3, That iron ships can carry much heavier weights than wooden ships [hence they can carry heavier armour]. 4, That they are more durable. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, That they are safer against the sea, against fire, explosive shots, red-hot shots, molten metal; and 10, That they can be made impregnable even against solid shot.
THE “WARRIOR.”
The last point, alas! is one which Mr. Scott Russell himself would hardly insist upon to-day. When he wrote his pamphlet, five or six inches of armour, with a wood backing, withstood anything that could be fired against it. When the armour of the Warrior, our first real ironclad, had to be tested, a target, twenty feet by ten feet surface, composed of four and a half inch iron and eighteen inches of teak backing—the exact counterpart of a slice out of the ship’s side—was employed. The shot from 68-pounders—the same as composed her original armament—fired at 200 yards, only made small dents in the target and rebounded. 200-pounders had no more effect; the shot flew off in ragged splinters, the iron plates became almost red-hot under the tremendous strokes, and rung like a huge gong; but that was all. Now we have 6½-ton guns that would pierce her side at 500 yards; 12-ton guns that would put a hole through her armour at over a mile, and 25-ton guns that would probably penetrate the armour of any ironclad whatever. Why, some of the ships themselves are now carrying 30-ton guns! It is needless to go on and speak of monster 81 and 100-ton guns after recording these facts. But their consideration explains why the thickness of armour has kept on increasing, albeit it could not possibly do so in an equal ratio.
Mr. Reed tells us: “This strange contest between attack and defence, however wasteful, however melancholy, must still go on.”65 Sir W. G. Armstrong (inventor of the famous guns), on the other hand, says, “In my opinion, armour should be wholly abandoned for the defence of the guns, and, except to a very limited extent, I doubt the expediency of using it even for the security of the ship. Where armour can be applied for deflecting projectiles, as at the bow of a ship, it would afford great protection, without requiring to be very heavy.”66 Sir William recommends very swift iron vessels, divided into numerous compartments, with boilers and machinery below the water-line, and only very partially protected by armour; considering that victory in the contest as regards strength is entirely on the side of the artillery. Sir Joseph Whitworth (also an inventor of great guns) offered practically to make guns to penetrate any thickness of armour. The bewildered Parliamentary committee says mournfully in its report: “A perfect ship of war is a desideratum which has never yet been attained, and is now farther than ever removed from our reach;”67 while Mr. Reed68 again cuts the gordian knot by professing his belief that in the end, “guns will themselves be superseded as a means of attack, and the ship itself, viewed as a steam projectile—possessing all the force of the most powerful shot, combined with the power of striking in various directions—will be deemed the most formidable weapon of attack that man’s ingenuity has devised.” The contest between professed ship and gun makers would be amusing but for the serious side—the immense expense, and the important interests involved.
THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR: FROM THE MAINLAND.
CHAPTER VI.
Round the World on a Man-of-War.
The Mediterranean—White, blue, green, purple Waters—Gibraltar—Its History—Its first Inhabitants the Monkeys—The Moors—The Great Siege preceded by thirteen others—The Voyage of Sigurd to the Holy Land—The Third Siege—Starvation—The Fourth Siege—Red-hot balls used before ordinary Cannon-balls—The Great Plague—Gibraltar finally in Christian hands—A Naval Action between the Dutch and Spaniards—How England won the Rock—An Unrewarded Hero—Spain’s attempts to regain It—The Great Siege—The Rock itself and its Surroundings—The Straits—Ceuta, Gibraltar’s Rival—The Saltness of the Mediterranean—“Going aloft”—On to Malta.
In this and following chapters, we will ask the reader to accompany us in imagination round the world, on board a ship of the Royal Navy, visiting en route the principal British naval stations and possessions, and a few of those friendly foreign ports which, as on the Pacific station, stand in lieu of them. We cannot do better than commence with the Mediterranean, to which the young sailor will, in all probability, be sent for a cruise after he has been thoroughly “broken in” to the mysteries of life on board ship, and where he has an opportunity of visiting many ports of ancient renown and of great historical interest.
The modern title applied to the sea “between the lands” is not that of the ancients, nor indeed that of some peoples now. The Greeks had no special name for it. Herodotus calls it “this sea;” and Strabo the “sea within the columns,” that is, within Calpe and Abyla—the fabled pillars of Hercules—to-day represented by Gibraltar and Ceuta. The Romans called it variously Mare Internum and Mare Nostrum, while the Arabians termed it Bahr Rüm—the Roman Sea. The modern Greeks call it Aspri Thalassa—the White Sea; it might as appropriately be called blue, that being its general colour, or green, as in the Adriatic, or purple, as at its eastern end: but they use it to distinguish it from the “Sea of Storms”—the Black Sea. The Straits—“the Gate of the Narrow Passage,” as the Arabians poetically describe it, or the Gut, as it is termed by our prosaic sailors and pilots—is the narrow portal to a great inland sea with an area of 800,000 miles, whose shores are as varied in character as are the peoples who own them. The Mediterranean is salter than the ocean, in spite of the great rivers which enter it—the Rhone, Po, Ebro, and Nile—and the innumerable smaller streams and torrents.69 It has other physical and special characteristics, to be hereafter considered.
The political and social events which have been mingled with its history are interwoven with those of almost every people on the face of the globe. We shall see how much our own has been shaped and involved. It was with the memory of the glorious deeds of British seamen and soldiers that Browning wrote, when sailing through the Straits:—
“Nobly, nobly, Cape St. Vincent to the north-west died away;