Enchained by the innumerable complexities of modern city existence, how strangely, how sweetly, do the dreams of roaming amid isles of perpetual summer come to the pale slave of civilisation. Leaning back in his office chair, the pen drops idly from his relaxed fingers, while the remorseless hum from the human hive without loses its distinctive note and becomes by some strange transmutation the slumberous murmur of snowy surf upon far-off coral shores. The dim ceiling, that so often has seemed to press upon his brain like the load of Atlas, melts upward into a celestial canopy of a blue so deep and pure that it is the last expression of the Infinite.
On the wings of fancy, swifter and more easeful than those of the albatross, he is wafted to those fairy shores where Nature smiles in changeless youth and winterless glow. Through every weary sinew thrills the bright message of life, the unconscious outcome of perfect health absorbed from perfect surroundings. He is back again in the days of the world’s infancy, feeling his mid-millennial vigour bounding in every pulse, flooding every artery. In cunningly-fashioned canoe, with grass-woven sails, he floats upon the radiant sea, so like to the heaven[72] above that his gliding shallop seems to swing through the boundless ether, a sprite, a fay of the fruitful brain.
Then as the flood-tide of living bubbles over the brim of restraint he lifts a mighty voice, a full-throated cry of joy wherein is no speech nor language, only exultant music welling up from deeps of fathomless satisfaction. He springs erect, with flashing eyes, and rolling muscles heaving under his shining skin, such a figure as, made in His own glorious image, the Master gazed upon—and, behold, it was very good. Far below him swim the gorgeous sea-folk, each ablaze with colour, living jewels enhanced by their setting. In mazy evolutions full of grace they woo him to join in their play, to explore with them the splendours of the coral groves, to wreath about his majestic form the tender festoons of sea-flowers and deck himself with glowing shells.
Like a dolphin he dives, deeper and deeper as with grasping hands he overcomes the resisting waters. Deeper and deeper yet until the fervent sunshine is suffused into a milder, tenderer light, and everything around is enwrapped in a beauty-mist, a glamorous illusion that melts all angles into curves of loveliness. He enters into the palaces of the deep, and all the skill of Titanic builders on earth becomes to his mind a thing of naught. Interminable rows of columns, all symmetrical, each perfect in beauty, yet none alike, are arrayed before him; massy architraves, domes light-springing from their piers as bubbles, yet in circumference so vast that their limits are lost in shadow, slender spires of pearl, soaring[73] upward like vapour-wreaths: and all interwoven with the wondrous design a fairy tracery of stone, appearing light and luminous as sea foam. The happy living things troop forth to meet him and sweep in many a delicate whirl around until, recalled by the need of upper air, he waves them farewell and ascends.
Oh! the fierce delight of that swift upward rush, the culminating ecstasy as he bounds into the palpitating air above and lies, so softly cradled, upon the limpid wave! There for a season he floats, drinking deep of the brine-laden air, every touch of the sea a caress, every heart-beat a well-spring of pleasure. Then with a shout he hurls himself forward as if he too were a free citizen of the ocean, emulating with almost equal grace the sinuous spring of the porpoise and the marvellous succession of curves presented by the overwhelming whale. He claims kindred with them all, embraces them; clinging lovingly to their smooth sides he frolics with them, rejoicing in the plenitude of their untainted strength.
Before him rise the islands, mounds of emerald cresting bases of silver sand. Willowy palm-trees dip their roots in the warm wavelets and rear their tufted coronets on high. Darker-leaved, the orange-trees droop their branches shot with golden gleams where the fruit hangs heavily, filling the gentle air with fragrance. Bright-plumaged birds flash amongst the verdure; along the glittering shores rest placidly the sea-fowl returned from their harvesting and comforting their fluffy broods. With huge steps he strides shorewards, and springing lightly from the sand, he reaches in a dozen bounds the crown of the loftiest[74] palm, whose thickly-clustering fruit bids him drink and drink again.
The island folk dread him not; fear has not yet visited those sunny shores. And as he was with the sea-people so is he with their compeers on land, a trusted playfellow, a creature perfect in glory and beauty, able to vie with them in their superb activities, their amazing play of vigour, their abounding joy in the plentiful gifts of Nature.
After those sunny gambols, how sweet the rest on yielding couch of leaves, fanned by sweet zephyrs laden with the subtle scents of luxuriant flowers, and lulled by the slumber-song of the friendly sea. Around him, with drooping wing, nestle the birds; the bejewelled insects hush their busy songs into tenderest murmurs, the green leaves hang in unrustling shade, noiselessly waving over him a cool breath. There is peace and sleep.
“Awake, O laggard!” cry the birds; “awake and live! Joy comes anew. Love and life and strength are calling us, and every sense answers triumphantly. Sweet is the dawn when the splendid sun springs skyward and the quiet night steals away; sweet is the strength of noonday, when downward he sends his shafts of life-giving flame, and we lie in the shade renewing from his exhaustless stores of energy our well-spent strength. But sweetest of all the time when, his majestic ascension accomplished, our sun sweeps westward to his ocean-bed, and all his children hasten to revel in his tempered beams until he hides his glorious face for a season, and night brings her solemn pleasures.”
Swift upspringing the man answers gladly to the call. And forth to meet him come a joyous band of his fellows, their dancing feet scarce touching the earth. Not a weakling among them. Men and women and children alike clean-limbed and strong, with sparkling eyes and perfect gestures. Their nude shapes shine like burnished bronze with natural unguents, their white and well-set teeth glitter as they laugh whole-heartedly, their black, abundant hair is entwined with scarlet hibiscus, and their voices ring musical and full. They do not walk—they bound, they spring, and toss their arms in wildest glee.
Surrounding him, they bear him away to where a crystal river rushes headlong down through a valley of velvet green to cast itself tumultuously over a cliff-lip forty feet into the sea. As it approaches its leap the translucent waters whirl faster and faster in rising wreaths and ridges of dazzling white, until in one snowy mass, crowned with a pearly mist, it hurls itself into the smooth blue depths below. With one accord the wildly gambolling band hurl themselves into those limpid waters some hundreds of yards above the fall. As on softest couch they glide swiftly along, their peals of laughter echoing multitudinously from the green bosoms of the adjacent hills.
Faster and faster still they are borne onward until, singly and in groups, they flash out into the sunshine and plunge into the awaiting ocean. So swiftly do they pass that it seems but a breathing space since, far inland, they sprang from the banks into the river, and they now lie in blissful content upon the quiet[76] sea, every nerve tingling from that frantic, headlong flight. Then, like the care-free children of Nature that they are, they abandon themselves to their wild sea-sports, outdoing the fabled Nereids. Around them gather in sympathy the gorgeous dolphins, the leisurely sharks, the fun-loving porpoises, while over their heads dart incessantly in arrowy flight glittering squadrons of flying-fish.
So they frolic untiringly until, by one impulse moved, they all dash off to where, outside the enormous headland of black rock which shelters the little bay, the vast and solemn ocean swell comes rolling shoreward, towering higher as it comes, until, meeting the bright beach, it raises itself superbly in one magnificent curve of white, and dashes against the firm-set earth with a deep note as of far-off thunder.
The merry players range themselves in line and swim seaward to meet the next wave as it comes. Diving beneath it they reappear upon its creaming shoulders, and by sheer skill balance there, elated almost beyond bearing by the pace of their mighty steed. Higher and higher they rise, clothed by the hissing foam, until from its summit they spring to land and race to the woods.
Only a breathing space passes, and again they come rushing shoreward to where a mimic fleet of light canoes lies covered with boughs to shield them from the sun. As if time were all important, they fling the leaves aside and rush the frail craft into the water, springing in as they glide afloat. Two by two they sail away, an occasional persuasive touch of the paddles sufficing to guide and propel them whithersoever they will.
The sun is nearing the western edge of their world, and his slanting beams are spreading lavishly over the silken waters broad bands of rich and swiftly changing colour. A hush that is holy is stealing over all things, a stillness so profound that the light splash of a flying-fish tinkles clear as a tiny bell. The happy people float along in a delicious languor, feasting their eyes upon the doubled beauty of the landscape near the shore, where the line dividing the reality from its reflection cannot be discerned.
Beneath them are constantly changing pictures no less lovely, the marvellous surfaces of the living coral with all its wealth of tinted anemones and brilliantly-decked fish of all shapes and all hues. Carried by the imperceptible current, they pass swiftly, silently, from scene to scene, over depths so profound that the waters are almost blue-black, and as suddenly coming upon a submarine grove of rigid coral trees, whose topmost branches nearly break through the placid surface.
Presently the sun is gone, and the tender veil of night comes creeping up from the East. Already the Evening Star, like a minute moon, is sending a long thread of silver over the purpling sea. Beneath the waters the sea-folk have begun their nightly illumination, and overhead are peeping out, one by one, the vedettes of the night. Bird and beast and fish have ceased their play, and a gentle wind arises. The canoes glide shoreward noiselessly, and the voyagers seek through scented pathways their leafy homes.
“Poor fellow, you look a bit stale and overworked! You ought to run down to the seaside for a week!”
And the suddenly-awakened clerk starts up, muttering a half-intelligible apology to his employer, who stands regarding him with a look of pity. But for a few fleeting moments he has been perfectly happy.
In one of the most charming chapters of that truly charming book, Gilbert White’s “Natural History of Selborne,” the gentle author tells of some strange instances of sociability among the denizens of the farmyard, a craving for companionship that brought into intimate acquaintanceship such widely differing animals as a horse and a hen, a doe and some cattle. This, as a proof that loneliness is an abnormal condition of life even among the lesser intelligences of creation, “gives to think,” as our neighbours say; but probably few people would imagine that the same desire for society obtains even among the inhabitants of the deep and wide sea.
I do not now speak of such gregarious fish as compose the great shoals that beneficently visit the shallower waters washing populous countries, from whose innumerable multitudes whole nations may be fed without making any appreciable diminution in their apparently infinite numbers; but of those more varied and widely scattered species that are to be found near the sea-surface all over the ocean. In the ordinary routine of modern passenger traffic no observation of these truly deep-sea fish is possible, for, in the first place, the breathless panting of the propeller fills them with dread of the swiftly-gliding monster whose approach it heralds; and in the next,[80] the would-be observer has no time to catch even a glimpse of the inhabitants of that teeming world beneath him with, perhaps, the exception of a rapidly-passing school of porpoises or the hurried vision of a sea-shouldering whale.
No, for the deliberate observation necessary in order to know something of the sea-people a sailing-ship must be chosen, the slower the better, one wherein may be felt to its fullest extent by the mindless, sightless passenger the “intolerable tedium of a long voyage.” In such a ship as this the student of marine natural history, provided he be not responsible to stern owners for the length of his passage, will welcome with great delight the solemn hush of the calm, when the windless dome above him is filled with perfect peace, and the shining circle upon which he floats is like the pupil of God’s eye. Then, leaning over the taffrail, looking earnestly down into the crystalline blue, you may see the bottom of the ship without visible support as if poised in a sky of deeper blue and more limpid atmosphere. The parasitic life that has already attached itself to the vessel is all busy living. Barnacles with their long, glutinous feet-stalks waving in imperceptible motion, are expanding from between their shells delicate fringes of brown, that, all eyes to see and hands to hold, allow nothing that can feed them to pass them by. And as they flex themselves inward with the supplies they have drawn from the apparently barren water, you can fancy that the pearly whiteness of the shells gleams with a brighter lustre as of satisfaction. The dull-hued[81] limpets, like pustules breaking out upon the ship’s sheathing, may also be discerned, but less easily, because they have such a neutral tint, and love to nestle amongst a tangle of dank, deep-green sea-moss, that, except where the light from above breaks obliquely down upon it, looks almost black.
But a little patient watching will reveal a set of tiny arms forth-darting from the irregular opening in the apex of each limpet-cone. They, too, are busy continually, arresting every morsel, invisible to feeble human sight, that comes within their reach, and passing it within for the up-keep of the compact, self-contained residence. And there, can it be possible, at all this distance from land? It is not only possible but undeniable that there is a crab, an impudent, inquisitive little tangle of prying claws surrounding a disc about the size of a shilling. He strolls about in leisurely fashion, but making a track at all sorts of angles, among the living fixtures, skirting each barnacle or limpet with a ludicrous air of contempt, as it seems. You can almost imagine him saying: “I never saw such a lot of dead-an’-alive ornaments in my life. Say! how d’you like stoppin’ in the same old spot for ever an’ ever?” But, impervious to his rudeness, the busy creatures never cease their one set of movements, utterly ignoring his very existence. You cannot help but wonder what becomes of that little crab when the ship begins to move, for you know that he can’t possibly hold on against the tremendous brushing past of the water. He isn’t built for that.
The other parasites, whether animal or vegetable, have, you notice, been busy for who shall say how long adapting themselves to every condition of their dependent life, so that now, whatever motion be made by the ship, they present to the onrush of the water just the right angle of surface that will allow it to slip over them easily, while at the same time they are always in a position to levy contributions. There is a puzzling lead-coloured streak along the copper near the keel to which your eye returns again and again, for although it will persist in looking like a place whence a strip of sheathing has been torn, there is yet a suggestion of quivering life about it which is certainly not the tremulous outline given to every inanimate object under water. Suddenly your doubts are set at rest—the mystery is solved. The steward has cast over the side some fragments of food that settle slowly downwards, turning over and over as they sink and catching the diffused light at every point, so that they sparkle like gems. As they pass the almost motionless keel the leaden-looking streak suddenly detaches itself, and, almost startlingly revealed as a graceful fish, intercepts and swallows those morsels one after the other. You fetch a few more fragments, and, dropping them one by one, entice your new acquaintance nearer the surface, so that you may admire the easy grace of every movement, and study at your leisure the result of this creature’s development along certain lines of inventiveness.
It is a Remora, or “sucker,” a species of shark that never exceed a dozen pounds in weight. Having[83] all the shark’s usual qualities of slothfulness, voracity, and timorousness, it is prevented from becoming ferocious also by its limitations of size and the feebleness of its teeth. And as it would be hopeless for it to attempt to prey upon other fish while they are alive, from its lack of the requisite speed as well as from the scarcity of fish of sufficiently small size in the deep waters which are its abiding-place, it has developed a parasitic habit, which saves it a whole world of trouble by insuring its protection, economising exertion, and keeping it in the midst of a plentiful food-supply. All these objects are attained in the simplest manner possible, aided by an unfailing instinct guiding the creature in its selection of an involuntary host.
On the top of its head, which is perfectly flat, it has developed an arrangement which has, perhaps, the most artificial appearance of anything found in animated Nature. It is in plan an oblong oval, with a line running along its middle, to which other diagonal lines, perfectly parallel to each other, extend from the outer edge. The whole thing is curiously like the non-slipping tread moulded upon the soles of many lawn-tennis shoes. This strangely patterned contrivance is really an adhesive attachment of such strength that, when by its means the fish is holding on to any plane surface, it is impossible to drag the body away, except by almost tearing the fish in half. Yet by the flexing of some simple muscles the fish can release its body instantly, or as instantly re-attach itself. Of course, it always adheres to its host with its head pointing in the same direction as the host[84] usually travels, because in that manner the pressure of the water assists the grip of the sucker and keeps the whole body lying flatly close to whatever is carrying it along. In this position it can perform all the natural functions. Its wide mouth gapes; its eyes, set one on either side of its flattened head, take in a most comprehensive view of the prospect, so that nothing having the appearance of edibility can pass that way without being seen and, if the speed of its host admits, immediately investigated. Thus its sociability is obviously of the most selfish kind. It sticketh closer than a brother, but affection for its protecting companion forms no part of its programme. Its number is, emphatically, One.
I have used the word “host” intentionally, because the remora does not by any means limit its company to ships. It is exceedingly fond of attaching itself to the body of a whale, and also to some of the larger sharks. Indeed, it goes a step further than mere outward attachment in the latter case, because well-authenticated instances are recorded where several suckers have been found clinging to a huge shark’s palate. This is another stage on the way to perfect parasitism, because under such circumstances these daring lodgers needed not to detach themselves any more. They had only to intercept sufficient food for their wants on its way from the front door to the interior departments. I have also seen them clinging to the jaw of a sperm whale, but that jaw was not in working order. It was bent outwards at right angles to the body, and afforded harbourage to a most comprehensive collection of parasites, barnacles especially, giving the front elevation of that whale an appearance utterly unlike anything with life.
But John Chinaman has outwitted the superlatively lazy remora. By what one must regard as a triumph of ingenuity he has succeeded in converting the very means whereby this born-tired fish usually escapes all necessity for energy into an instrument for obtaining gain for other people. The mode is as follows: First catch your remora. No difficulty here. A hook and line of the simplest, a bait of almost anything that looks eatable lowered by the side of a ship, and if there be a sucker hidden there he will be after the lure instantly. The only skill necessary is to haul him up swiftly when he bites, because if he be allowed to get hold of the ship again you may pull the hook out of his jaws, but you will not succeed in detaching him. Having caught a remora, the fisherman fastens a brass ring closely round its body, just at its smallest part before the spread of the tail. To this he attaches a long, fine, and strong line. He then departs for the turtle grounds with his prisoner. Arriving there he confines himself to keeping the remora away from the bottom of his boat by means of a bamboo. Of course the captive gets very tired, and no turtle can pass within range of him without his hanging on to that turtle for a rest. The moment he does so the turtle’s fate is sealed. Struggle how he may, he cannot shake loose the tenacious grip of the sucker, and the stolid yellow man in the sampan has only to haul in upon the line to bring that unwilling turtle within range of his hands and lift him into the boat. And this[86] ingenious utilisation of the sucker’s well-known peculiarity has also commended itself to the semi-barbarous fishermen of the East African littoral, who are not otherwise notable for either ingenuity or enterprise.
Before we dismiss the remora to his beloved rest again it is worthy of notice that he himself gives unwilling hospitality to another sociable creature. It is a little crustacean, rather like an exaggerated woodlouse, but without the same power of curling itself into a ball. It is of a pearly white colour, very sluggish in its movements, but with tenacious hooks upon its many legs it holds on securely to the inside of the sucker’s mouth near the gill-slits, being there provided with all the needs of its existence, without the slightest effort of its own. Its chief interest to naturalists lies in its strange likeness to the fossil trilobites so plentifully scattered among various geological strata.
But while you have been watching the remora a visitor from the vast openness around has arrived, as if glad of the society afforded by the ship. Yet in this case the idea seems a fond conceit, because the new-comer is only a “jelly-fish,” or “Medusa.” It is really an abuse of language to use the word “fish” in connection with such an almost impalpable entity as the Medusa, because while a fish is an animal high up the scale of the vertebrata, a Medusa is almost at the bottom of the list of created things. When floating in the sea it is an exceedingly pretty object, with its clear, mushroom-shaped disc uppermost, and long fringe of feathery filaments, sometimes delicately coloured, waving gracefully beneath with each pulsation of the whole mass. It has no power of independent locomotion, no—but, there, it is not easy to say what it has got, since if you haul one up in a bucket and lay it on deck in the sun, it will melt entirely away, leaving not a trace behind except two or three tiny morsels of foreign matter which did not belong to its organism at all. Yet if one of these masses of jelly comes into contact with your bare skin it stings like a nettle, for it secretes, in some mysterious way, an acrid fluid that serves it instead of many organs possessed by further advanced creatures. As the present subject passes beneath your gaze you notice quite a little cluster of tiny fish smaller even than full-grown tittlebats, perhaps a dozen or so, who look strangely forlorn in the middle of the ocean. It may be that this sense of loneliness leads them to seek the shelter of something larger than themselves, something which will be a sort of rallying-point in such a wide world of waters.
Perhaps the lovely streamers dangling have aroused their curiosity, but, whatever the motive, you see the little group, huddled round the Medusa, popping in and out from the edge of the disc, through which you can plainly see them as they pass beneath. It is quite pretty to watch those innocent games of the sportive little fish, but presently you notice that one of them doesn’t play any more. He is entangled among those elegant fringes and hangs like a little silver streak, brightening and fading as it is turned by the pulsatory movement of the Medusa. And if[88] you could watch it long enough you would see it gradually disappear, absorbed into the jelly-like substance by the solvent secreted by the Medusa for that purpose. Still unconscious of their companion’s fate, the other little victims continue to play in that treacherous neighbourhood, voluntarily supplying the needs of an organism immeasurably beneath them in the sum-total of all those details that go to make up conscious life.
Closely gathered about the rudder and stern-post is another group of larger fish, the several individuals being from 4 in. to 8 in. long, and most elegant in shape and colour. They evidently seek the ship for protection, for they scarcely ever leave her vicinity for more than 2 ft. or 3 ft. If one of them does dart away that distance after some, to you, imperceptible morsel of food, it is back again in a flash, sidling up to her sheathing closer than ever, as if dreadfully alarmed at its own temerity. A small hook baited with a fragment of meat will enable you to catch one if only you can get it to fall close enough to the rudder—no easy matter, because of the great overhang of the stern. In the old-fashioned ships, where the rudder-head moved in a huge cavity called the rudder-trunk, I have often caught them by dropping my hook down there, and very sweet-eating little fish they were. Sailors call them “rudder-fish,” a trivial name derived from their well-known habit, but they are really a species of “caranx,” and akin to the mackerel tribe, which has so many representatives among deep-water fish. They are, perhaps, the most sociable of all the fish that visit a ship far out at sea; but they present the same problem that the crab did a little while ago: What becomes of them when a breeze springs up and the vessel puts on speed?
I have often watched them at the beginning of a breeze, swimming steadily along by the side of the stern-post, so as to be clear of the eddies raised by the rudder; but it was always evident that a rate of over three knots would leave them astern very soon. Not less curious is the speculation as to whence they come so opportunely. There seems to be very few of them, yet an hour or two’s calm nearly always shows a little company of them cowering in their accustomed place. As you watch them wonderingly, a broad blaze of reflected light draws your attention to the splendid shape of a dolphin gliding past and exposing the silver shield of his side to the sun’s rays, which radiate from it with an almost unbearable glare. At that instant every one of the little fish beneath you gather into one compact bunch, so close to the stern-post that they look as if part of it. When they can no longer keep up with the ship’s protecting bulk how do they escape the jaws of such beautiful ravenous monsters as that which has just passed? The swift flying-fish cannot do so, even with the swallow-like speed that he possesses and the power of skimming through the air for a thousand yards at a flight. What chance, then, can our shrinking little companions possibly have, or how do they survive amidst so many enemies? It is an unsolvable mystery.
What is this cold grey shadow stealing along[90] through the bright blue water by the keel? A shark, and a big one too. No one doubts the reason for his sociability; in fact, he (or she) is credited by most sailors with a most uncanny knowledge of what is going on aboard any ship he chooses to honour with his company. We need not be so foolish as to believe any of these childish stories, especially when the obvious explanation lies so closely on the surface. Heredity accounts for a great many things that have long been credited with supernatural origins, and the shark’s attachment to the society of ships is so plainly hereditary that the slightest thought upon the subject will convince any unbiased person of the reasonableness of the explanation. For many generations the shark, born scavenger that he is, has learned to associate the huge shadow cast by a ship with food, not perhaps in such mountainous abundance as that provided by the carcass of a dead whale, but still scattering savoury morsels at fairly regular intervals. From its earliest days—when, darting in and out of its mother’s capacious jaws, it has shared in the spoil descending from passing ships—to the end of what is often a very long life, ships and food are inseparably associated in whatever answers to its mind in the shark. Man, alive or dead, always makes a welcome change of diet to a fish that, by reason of his build, is unable to prey upon other fish as do the rest of his neighbours.
As I have said elsewhere, the shark eats man because man is easy to catch, not because he likes man’s flesh better than any other form of food, as many landsmen and even sailors believe. But the shark is only able to gratify his sociable instincts in calms or very light airs. He is far too slothful, too constitutionally averse to exertion, to expend his energies in the endeavour to keep up with a ship going at even a moderate rate of speed. Let the wind drop, however, and in few parts of the sea will you be without a visit from a shark for many hours. In one vessel that I sailed in the skipper had such a delicate nose that he could not bear the stench of the water in which the day’s allowance of salt meat had been steeped to get some of the pickle out of it. So he ordered a strong net to be made of small rope, and into this the meat was put, the net secured to a stout line, and hung over the stern just low enough to dip every time the vessel curtsied. The plan answered admirably for some time, until one night the wind fell to a calm, and presently the man at the wheel heard a great splash behind him. He rushed to the taffrail and looked over, just in time to see the darkness beneath all aglow with phosphorescence, showing that some unusual agitation had recently taken place. He ran to the net-lanyard, and, taking a good pull, fell backward on deck, for there was nothing fast to it. Net and meat were gone. The skipper was much vexed, of course, that the net hadn’t been hauled up a little higher when it fell calm, for, as he told the mate, anybody ought to know that 30 lbs. of salt pork dangling overboard in a calm was enough to call a shark up from a hundred miles away.
As this particular shark, now sliding stealthily along the keel towards the stern, becomes more clearly visible, you notice what looks at first like a bright blue patch on top of his head. But, strange to say, it is not fixed; it shifts from side to side, backwards and forwards, until, as the big fish rises higher, you make it out to be the pretty little caranx that shares with the crocodile and buffalo birds the reputation of being the closest possible companion and chum of so strangely diverse an animal to himself. And now we are on debatable ground, for this question of the sociability of the pilot-fish with the shark has been most hotly argued. And perhaps, like the cognate question of the flight of flying-fish, it is too much to hope that any amount of first-hand testimony will avail to settle it now. Still, if a man will but honestly state what he has seen, not once, but many times repeated, his evidence ought to have some weight in the settlement of even the most vexed questions. Does the pilot-fish love the shark? Does it even know that the shark is a shark, a slow, short-sighted, undiscriminating creature whose chief characteristic is that of never-satisfied hunger? In short, does the pilot-fish attach itself to the shark as a pilot, with a definite object in view, or is the attachment merely the result of accident? Let us see.
Here is a big shark-hook, upon which we stick a mass of fat pork two or three pounds in weight. Fastening a stout rope to it, we drop it over the stern with a splash. The eddies have no sooner smoothed away than we see the brilliant little blue and gold[93] pilot-fish coming towards our bait at such speed that we can hardly detect the lateral vibrations of his tail. Round and round the bait he goes, evidently in a high state of excitement, and next moment he has darted off again as rapidly as he came. He reaches the shark, touches him with his head on the nose, and comes whizzing back again to the bait, followed sedately by the dull-coloured monster. As if impatient of his huge companion’s slowness he keeps oscillating between him and the bait until the shark has reached it and, without hesitation, has turned upon his back to seize it, if such a verb can be used to denote the deliberate way in which that gaping crescent of a mouth enfolds the lump of pork. Nothing, you think, can increase the excitement of the little attendant now. He seems ubiquitous, flashing all round the shark’s jaws as if there were twenty of him at least. But when half-a-dozen men, “tailing on” to the rope, drag the shark slowly upward out of the sea, the faithful little pilot seems to go frantic with—what shall we call it?—dread of losing his protector, affection, anger, who can tell?
The fact remains that during the whole time occupied in hauling the huge writhing carcass of the shark up out of the water the pilot-fish never ceases its distracted upward leaping against the body of its departing companion. And after the shark has been hauled quite clear of the water the bereaved pilot darts disconsolately to and fro about the rudder as if in utter bewilderment at its great loss. For as long as the calm continues, or until another shark makes his or her appearance, that faithful little fish will still hover around, every splash made in the water bringing it at top speed to the spot as if it thought that its friend had just returned.
No doubt there is a mutual benefit in the undoubted alliance between pilot-fish and shark, for I have seen a pilot-fish take refuge, along with a female shark’s tiny brood, within the parent’s mouth at the approach of a school of predatory fish, while it is only reasonable to suppose, what has often been proved to be the fact, that in guiding the shark to food the pilot also has its modest share of the feast. It is quite true that the pilot-fish will for a time attach itself to a boat when its companion has been killed. Again and again I have noticed this on a whaling voyage, where more sharks are killed in one day while cutting in a whale than many sailors see during their whole lives.
Hitherto we have only considered those inhabitants of the deep sea that forgather with a ship during a calm. Not that the enumeration of them is exhausted, by any means, for during long-persisting calms, as I have often recorded elsewhere, many queer denizens of the middle depths of ocean are tempted by the general stagnation to come gradually to the surface and visit the unfamiliar light. Considerations of space preclude my dealing with many of these infrequent visitors to the upper strata of the sea, but I cannot refrain from mention of one or two that have come under my notice at different times. One especially I tried for two days to inveigle by various means, for I thought (and still think) that a stranger fish was[95] never bottled in any museum than he was. He was sociable enough, too. I dare say his peculiar appearance was dead against his scraping an acquaintance with any ordinary-looking fish, who, in spite of their well-known curiosity, might well be excused from chumming up with any such “sport” as he undoubtedly was. He was about 18 in. long, with a head much like a gurnard and a tapering body resembling closely in its contour that of a cod. So that as far as his shape went there was nothing particularly outré in his appearance. But he was bright green in colour—at least, the ground of his colour-scheme was bright green. He was dotted profusely with glaring crimson spots about the size of a sixpence. And from the centre of each of these spots sprang a brilliant blue tassel upon a yellow stalk about an inch long. All his fins—and he had certainly double the usual allowance—were also fringed extensively with blue filaments, which kept fluttering and waving continually, even when he lay perfectly motionless, as if they were all nerves. His tail was a wonderful organ more than twice as large as his size warranted, and fringed, of course, as all his other fins were, only more so. His eyes were very large and inexpressive, dead-looking in fact, reminding me of eyes that had been boiled. But over each of them protruded a sort of horn of bright yellow colour for about two inches, at the end of which dangled a copious tassel of blue that seemed to obscure the uncanny creature’s vision completely.
To crown all, a dorsal ridge of crimson rose quite[96] two inches, the whole length of his back being finished off by a long spike that stuck out over his nose like a jibboom, and had the largest tassel of all depending from it. So curiously decorated a fish surely never greeted man’s eye before, and when he moved, which he did with dignified slowness, the effect of all those waving fringes and tassels was dazzling beyond expression. I think he must have been some distant relation of the angler-fish that frequents certain tidal rivers, but he had utilised his leisure for personal decoration upon original lines. This was in the Indian Ocean, near the Line; but some years after, in hauling up a mass of Gulf weed in the North Atlantic, I caught, quite by accident, a tiny fish, not two inches long, that strongly reminded me of my tasselled friend, and may have been one of the same species. I tried to preserve the little fellow in a bottle, but had no spirit, and he didn’t keep in salt water.
By far the most numerous class of sociable deep-sea fish, however, are those that delight to accompany a ship that is making good way through the water. They do not like a steamer—the propeller with its tremendous churning scares them effectually away—but the silent gliding motion of the sailing-ship seems just to their taste. As soon as the wind falls and the vessel stops they keep at a distance, only occasionally passing discontentedly, as if they wondered why their big companion was thus idling away the bright day. Foremost among these, both in numbers and the closeness with which they accompany a ship, is the “bonito,” a species of mackerel so named by the Spaniards from their beautiful appearance. They are a “chubby” fish, much more bulky in body in proportion to their length than our mackerel, for one 18 in. long will often tip the scale at 30 lbs. Their vigour is tremendous; there is no other word for it. A school of them numbering several hundreds will attach themselves to a ship travelling at the rate of six to eight knots an hour, and keep her company for a couple of days, swimming steadily with her, either alongside, ahead, or astern; but during the daytime continually making short excursions away after flying-fish or leaping-squid scared up or “flushed” by the approach of the ship. Not only so, but as if to work off their surplus energy they will occasionally take vertical leaps into the air to a height that, considering their stumpy proportions, is amazing.
The probable reason for their sociability is, I think, that they know how the passing of the ship’s deep keel through the silence immediately underlying the sea-surface startles upward their natural prey, the flying-fish and loligo (small cuttle-fish), and affords them ample opportunities for dashing among them unobserved. In any case, to the hungry sailor, this neighbourly habit of theirs is quite providential. For by such simple means as a piece of white rag attached to a hook, and let down from the jibboom end to flutter over the dancing wavelets like a flying-fish, a fine bonito is easily secured, although holding a twenty-pounder just out of the water in one’s arms is calculated to give the captor a profound respect for the energy of his prize. Unlike most other fish, they are warm-blooded. Their flesh is dark and coarse, but if it were ten times darker and coarser than it is it would be welcome as a change from the everlasting salt beef and pork.
The dolphin, about which so much confusion arises from the difference in nomenclature between the naturalist and the seaman, has long been celebrated by poetic writers for its dazzling beauty. But between the sailor’s dolphin, Coryphœna Hippuris (forgive me for the jargon), which is a fish, and the naturalist’s dolphin, Delphinus deductor, which is a mammal, there is far more difference than there is between a greyhound and a pig. Sailors call the latter a porpoise, and won’t recognise any distinction between the Delphinus and any other small sea mammal (except a seal), calling them all porpoises. But no sailor ever meant anything else by “dolphin” than the beautiful fish of which I must say a few words in the small remaining space at my disposal. For some reason best known to themselves the dolphin do not care to accompany a ship so closely as the bonito. They are by no means so constant in their attention, for when the ship is going at a moderate speed they cannot curb their impatience and swim soberly along with her, and when she goes faster they seem to dislike the noise she makes, and soon leave her. But, although they do not stick closely to a ship, they like her company, and in light winds will hang about her all day, showing off their glories to the best advantage, and often contributing a welcome mess to the short commons of the fo’c’s’le. Their average weight is about 15 lbs., but from their elegant shape they are a[99] far more imposing fish than the bonito. They are deepest at the head, which has a rounded forehead with a sharp front, and they taper gradually to the tail, which is of great size. A splendid dorsal fin runs the whole length of the back, which, when it is erected, adds greatly to their appearance of size.
No pen could possibly do justice to the magnificence of their colouring, for, like “shot” silk or the glowing tints of the humming-bird, it changes with every turn. And when the fish is disporting under a blazing sun its glories are almost too brilliant for the unshaded eye; one feels the need of smoked glass through which to view them. These wonderful tints begin to fade as soon as the fish is caught; and although there is a series of waves of colour that ebb and flow about the dying creature, the beauty of the living body is never even remotely approached again, in spite of what numberless writers have said to the contrary. To see the dolphin in full chase after a flying-fish, leaping like a glorious arrow forty feet at each lateral bound through the sunshine, is a vision worth remembering. I know of nothing more gorgeous under heaven.
The giant albacore, biggest mackerel of them all, reaching a weight of a quarter of a ton, does seek the society of a ship sometimes, but not nearly so often as bonito and dolphin. And although I have caught these monsters in the West Indies from boats, I never saw one hauled on board ship. It would not be treating the monarch of the finny tribe respectfully to attempt a description of him at the bare end of my article, so I must leave him, as well as the “skipjack,” yellow-tail, and barracouta, for some other occasion. Perhaps enough has now been said to show that sociability is not by any means confined to land animals, although the great subject of the sociability of sea-mammals has not even been touched upon.
Merchant seamen as a rule have very little acquaintance with the appalling alligator, whose unappeasable ferocity and diabolical cunning make him so terrible a neighbour. Had the alligator been a seafarer, it is in my mind that mankind would have heard little of the savagery of the shark, who, to tell the truth fairly, is a much maligned monster; incapable of seven-tenths of the crimes attributed to him, innocent of another two-tenths, and in the small balance of iniquity left, a criminal rather from accident than from design. But all the atrocities attributed by ignorance to the shark may truthfully be predicated of the alligator, and many more also, seeing that the great lizard is equally at home on land or in the water.
I speak feelingly, having had painful experience of the ways of the terrible saurian during my visits to one of the few places where sailors are brought into contact with him. Tonala River, which empties itself into the Gulf of Mexico, has a sinister notoriety, owing to the number of alligators with which it is infested; and through the proverbial carelessness of seamen and their ignorance of the language spoken by the people ashore, many an unrecorded tragedy has occurred there to members of the crews of vessels loading mahogany in the river. Like all the[102] streams which debouch into that Western Mediterranean, Tonala River has a bar across its mouth, but, unlike most of them, there is occasionally water upon the bar deep enough to permit vessels of twelve or thirteen feet draught to enter with safety. And as the embarkation of mahogany in the open roadstead is a series of hair-breadth escapes from death on the part of the crew and attended by much damage to the ship, it is easy to understand why the navigability of Tonala Bar is highly valued by shipmasters fortunate enough to be chartered thither, since it permits them to take in a goodly portion of their cargo in comparative comfort. Against this benefit, however, is to be set off a long list of disadvantages, not the least of which are the swarms of winged vermin that joyfully pass the short space between ship and river-bank, scenting fresh blood. The idea of there being any danger in the river itself, however, rarely occurs to a seaman until he sees, some day, as he listlessly gazes overside at the turbid current silently sweeping seaward, a dead log floating deep, just awash in fact. And as he watches it with unspeculating eyes, one end of it will slowly be upreared just a little and the hideous head of an alligator, with its cold, dead-looking eyes, sleepily half unclosed, is revealed. Just a ripple and the thing has gone, sunk stone-like, but with every faculty alert, that rugged ironclad exterior giving no hint to the uninitiated of the potentialities for mischief, swift and supple, therein contained.
In spite of having read much about these creatures[103] and their habits, I confess to having been very sceptical as to their agility until I was enlightened in such a startling manner that the memory of that scene is branded upon my mind. I was strolling along the smooth sandy bank of the river opposite the straggling rows of huts we called the town one lovely Sunday morning, all eyes and ears for anything interesting. After about an hour’s walk my legs, unaccustomed to such exercise, begged off for a little, and seeing a stranded tree-trunk lying on the beach some little distance ahead, I made towards it for a seat. As I neared it a young bullock came leisurely down towards the water from the bush, between me and the log. I, of course, took no notice of him, but held on my way until within, I should say, fifty yards of the log. Suddenly that dead tree sprang into life and spun round with a movement like the sweep of a scythe. It struck the bullock from his feet, throwing him upon his side in the water. What ensued was so rapid that the eye could not follow it, or make out anything definitely except a stirring up of the sand and a few ripples in the water. The big animal was carried off as noiselessly and easily as if he had been a lamb, nor, although I watched long, did I ever catch sight of him again. Notwithstanding the heat of the sun I felt a cold chill as I thought how easily the fate of the bullock might have been mine. And from thenceforth, until familiarity with the hateful reptiles bred a sort of contempt for their powers, I kept a very sharp look-out in every direction for stranded tree-trunks. This care on my part nearly proved fatal,[104] because I forgot that the alligators might possibly be lying hid in the jungly vegetation that flourished thickly just above high-water mark. So that it happened when I neared the spot where I was to hail the boat, as I nervously scanned the beach for any sign of a scaly log, I heard a rustling of dry leaves on my right, and down towards me glided one of the infernal things with a motion almost like that of a launching ship. I turned and tried to run—I suppose I did run—but to my fancy it seemed as if I had a 56-lb. weight upon each foot. Hardly necessary to say, perhaps, that I escaped, but my walk had lost all its charms for me, and I vowed never to come ashore again there alone.
But as if the performances of these ugly beasts were to be fully manifested before our eyes, on the very next day, a Greek trader came off to the ship accompanied by his son, a boy of about ten years old. Leaving the youngster in the canoe, the father came on board and tried to sell some fruit he had brought. We had a raft of mahogany alongside, about twenty huge logs, upon which a half-breed Spaniard was standing, ready to sling such as were pointed out to him by the stevedores. The boy must needs get out of the canoe and amuse himself by stepping from log to log, delighted hugely by the way they bobbed and tumbled about beneath him. Presently a yell from the slingsman brought all hands to the rail on the jump, and there, about fifty yards from the raft, was to be seen the white arm of the boy limply waving to and fro, while a greasy ripple beneath it showed only too plainly what horror[105] had overtaken him. The distracted father sprang into his canoe, four men from our ship manned our own boat, and away they went in chase, hopelessly enough to be sure. Yet, strange to say, the monster did not attempt to go down with his prey. He kept steadily breasting the strong current, easily keeping ahead of his pursuers, that pitiful arm still waving as if beckoning them onward to the rescue of its owner. Boat after boat from ships and shore joined in the pursuit, every man toiling as if possessed by an overmastering energy and impervious to broiling sun or deadening fatigue. For five miles the chase continued; one by one the boats and canoes gave up as their occupants lost their last ounce of energy, until only one canoe still held on, one man still plied his paddle with an arm that rose and fell like the piston-rod of a steam-engine. It was the bereaved father. At last the encouraging arm disappeared, as the alligator, having reached his lair, disappeared beneath the surface, leaving the river face unruffled above him. Quick as a wild duck the solitary pursuer swerved and made for the bank, where a score of his acquaintances met him tendering gourds of aguadiente, cigaritos, and such comfort as they could put into words. He took the nearest gourd and drank deeply of the fiery spirit, accepted a cigarette and lit it mechanically, but never spoke a word. All the while his eyes were roving restlessly around in search of something. At last they lit upon a coil of line hanging upon a low branch to dry. He rushed toward it, snatched it from its place, and taking his cuchillo from his belt felt its edge. Then[106] roughly brushing aside all who attempted to hinder him, he boarded his canoe again, taking no notice of one of his friends who got in after him. Under the pressure of the two paddles they rapidly neared the spot where the beast had sunk. As soon as they reached the place the silent avenger laid aside his paddle, took one end of the coil in his hand and flinging the other to his companion, slipped overside and vanished. In about two minutes he returned to the surface, ghastly, his eyes glaring, and taking a long, long breath disappeared again. This time he did not return. When the watcher above felt that all hope was gone he hauled upon the line as much as he dared, but could not move what it was secured to. Soon, however, boats came to his assistance, and presently extra help raised to the surface the huge armoured body of the man-eater, the line being fast round his hind legs. The bereaved father was clinging to the monster’s throat, one arm thrust between his horrid jaws and the other hand still clutching the haft of the bowie-knife, whose blade was buried deep in the leathery folds of the great neck. With bared heads and solemn faces the helpers towed the group ashore, and reverently removing the poor remains of father and son, buried them deep under a wide-spreading tree.
In the intervals (frequently occurring) between the shipment of one consignment of logs and the arrival of another, it was part of our duties to hunt along the river banks for ownerless log-ends or even logs of mahogany or cedar which we might saw and split up into convenient pieces for broken stowage or[107] filling up the many interstices between the logs in the hold. Naturally this led us into some queer places and not a few scrapes, but incidentally we were able to do some good service to the inhabitants by destroying many hundreds of embryo alligators. For wherever, in the course of our journeyings, we came across a swelling in the sand along the river bank, there we would delve, and we never failed of finding a deposit of ball-like stony-shelled eggs, which each contained a little devil of an alligator almost ready to begin his career of crime. Needless perhaps to say that none of those found by us in this manner ever did any harm. But while busy on one occasion destroying a clutch of these eggs, a huge specimen some sixteen feet long appeared from no one knew where, and actually succeeded in reaching with the horny tip of his tail, as it swept round, the legs of a West countryman, one of our finest seamen. Fortunately for him the bo’sun was carrying a loaded Snider rifle, and without stopping to think whether anybody else might be in the way he banged her “aloose.” The alligator was at the moment in a half circle, swinging himself round to reach the fallen man with his awful jaws wide spread and displaying all their jagged yellow fangs. The heavy bullet plunged right down that stinking throat and ploughed its way out through the creature’s belly into the sand. With a writhe like a snake the monster recoiled upon himself, snapping his jaws horribly and loading the air with a faint, sickening smell of musk. After two or three twists and turns he managed to slip into the water, but not before the bo’sun had[108] fired twice more at him and missed him by yards. Poor Harry, the man knocked down, was so badly scared that he sat on a log end and vomited, looking livid as a corpse and shaking like a man of ninety. We could do nothing for him, but watched him sympathetically, hoping for his recovery, when suddenly with a wild yell he sprang to his feet and began to tear his clothes off as if he were mad. Lord, how he did swear too! We were all scared, thinking the fright had turned his brain, but when he presently danced before us in his bare buff, picking frantically at his skin, our dismay was changed into shrieks of laughter. A colony of red ants, each about half an inch long, had been concealed in that log. They had walked up his trouser legs quietly enough and fastened upon his body, their nippers meeting through the soft skin. Hence his endeavours to get disrobed in haste. He said it was nothing to laugh at, but I don’t believe the man was yet born that could have seen him and not laughed. Happily it cured him of his fright.
Whether by good luck or good management I don’t presume to say, but in all our explorations we met with no accident either from snake or saurian, while the crew of a Norwegian brig lying close by us lost one of their number the second day after their arrival. They had been very short of water, and in consequence sent a boat up the river to one of the creeks for a supply. Four hands went on this errand, and, tempted by the refreshing coolness of the water, one of them waded out into the river until the water was up to his waist, and stood there[109] baling it up with the dipper he carried and pouring it over his head. The others were in the boat laughing at his antics, when suddenly, as they described it, a dark sickle-like shadow swept round him, and with one marrow-freezing shriek he fell. All the signs of a fearful struggle beneath the water were evident, but never again did they see their shipmate, nor was it until some time afterwards that they learned what the manner of his going really was. And when they did find out, nothing would tempt any of them to leave the ship again while she lay there. One of them told me that his shipmate’s last cry would be with him, reverberating through his mind, until his dying day. I am not naturally cruel, but I confess that when one day I caught one of these monsters with a hook and line while fishing for something else, I felt a real pleasure in taking the awful thing alongside, hoisting it on board, and ripping it lengthways from end to end. From its stomach we took quite a bushel basket-full of eggs, nearly all of them with shells, ready for laying, and we felt truly thankful that so vile a brood had been caught before they had begun their life of evil.
At first sight, any two things more difficult to bring into intimate relations than bucolic and nautical life would appear impossible to find. Those unfortunate people who, having followed the calm, well-ordered round of pastoral progress through the steadily-succeeding seasons of many years, suddenly find themselves, by some freakish twist of fortune’s wheel, transferred to the unstable bosom of the mutable deep, become terribly conscious of their helplessness in the face of conditions so utterly at variance with all their previous experience of settled, orderly life. The old order has changed with a vengeance, giving place to a bewildering seasonal disarrangement which seems to their shaken senses like a foretaste of some topsy-turvy world. Like sorrowful strangers in a strange land are they, wherein there is no sure foothold, and where, in place of the old familiar landmarks known and cherished so long, is a new element constant to nothing but change and—upon which they seem to be precariously poised—the centre of a marginless circle of invariable variability. This subversion of all precedent is of course no less disconcerting to the humbler denizens of the farmyard and meadow than it is to those who are ordinarily the august arbiters of their destinies. And a sudden change from the placid environment of the homestead, with all its large liberty and peaceful delights, to the cramped, comfortless quarters which, as a rule, are all that shipboard arrangements allow them, at once brings them to a state of disconsolate wretchedness wherein all their self-assertive individuality is reduced to a meek, voiceless protest against their hard and unmerited fate. Sea-sickness, too, that truly democratic leveller, does not spare animals, but inserts another set of totally new and unpleasant sensations into the already complicated disorganisation of their unfortunate position.
In spite of these admittedly difficult factors, I have the temerity to attempt the setting forth of certain phases of nautical life experienced by myself which have always appeared to me to bring into close contact two such widely differing spheres of existence as country life and sea life, principally in the management of farmyard animals at sea. Sailors are proverbially handy at most things, if their methods are unconventional, and I venture to hope that country readers will at least be amused by Jack’s antics when dealing with the familiar creatures of the countryside.
With that wonderful adaptability to circumstances which, while pre-eminently characteristic of mankind, is also a notable quality of domesticated animals, they soon recover from their stupor and malaise, arrange their locomotive powers to suit the mutations of their unsteady home, and learn (perhaps soonest of all) to[112] distinguish the very number of strokes upon the ship’s bell which announces the arrival of feeding-time. No doubt the attentions of the sailors have much to do with the rapidity of acclimatisation (if the term may be so employed) manifested by most of the animals, since sailors have justly earned a high reputation for taming and educating creatures of even the most ferocious and intractable dispositions. Nevertheless, this result is attained by some of the queerest and most ludicrous means (to a countryman) imaginable. But what does that matter, since the conditions of their existence then become, for the seaworthy animals, not only pleasant but undoubtedly profitable to their owners. And where they are presently allowed the run of the ship much fun ensues, fun, moreover, that has no parallel in country life as ordinarily understood. Perhaps my experiences have been more favourably enlarged than falls to the lot of most seafarers, for I have been in several ships where the live-stock were allowed free warren; and although the system had many inconveniences and entailed a great deal of extra labour upon the crew, there were also many compensations. But, like all things pertaining to the sea, the practice of carrying live-stock has been replaced by more modern methods. The custom of carrying fresh meat in refrigerators is rapidly gaining ground, and, in consequence, latter-day seamen find fewer and fewer opportunities for educating in seafaring behaviour the usual farmyard animals that supply us with food. By few seamen will this be regarded as a misfortune, since they find their labour quite sufficiently onerous without the inevitable and disagreeable concomitants of carrying live-stock.
By far the largest portion of my experience of farmyard operations on board ship has been connected with pigs. These profitable animals have always been noted for their adaptability to sea life, and I fully believe, what I have often heard asserted, that no pork is so delicious as that which has been reared on board ship. Be that as it may, pigs of every nation under heaven where swine are to be found have been shipmates with me, and a complete study of all their varied characteristics and their behaviour under all sea circumstances would occupy a far greater number of pages than I am ever likely to be able or willing to give. Already I have endeavoured to set forth, in a former article, a sketch of the brilliant, if erratic, career of one piggy shipmate whose life was full of interest and his death a blaze of lurid glory. But he was in nowise the most important member of our large and assorted collection of grunters in that ship. Our Scotch skipper was an enthusiastic farmer during the brief periods he spent at Cellardyke between his voyages to the East Indies, and consequently it was not strange that he should devote a portion of his ample leisure to pig-breeding when at sea. For some reason, probably economical, we carried no fowls or other animals destined for our meat, with the exception of the pigs, two large retriever dogs and two cats making up the total of our animal passengers, unless a large and active colony of rats that inhabited the recesses of the hold be taken into account. The day before sailing from[114] Liverpool a handsome young pair of porkers, boar and sow, were borne on board in one sack by the seller, making the welkin ring with their shrill protests. We already possessed a middle-aged black sow of Madras origin, whose temper was perfectly savage and unappeasable; in fact, she was the only animal I ever saw on board ship that could not be tamed. The first few days of our passage being stormy, the two young pigs suffered greatly from sea-sickness, and in their helpless, enfeebled state endured many things from the wrathful, long-snouted old Madrassee, who seemed to regard them both with peculiar aversion. She ate all their grub as well as her own, although, like the lean kine of Scripture, she was nothing benefited thereby. But the sailors, finding the youngsters amicably disposed, began to pet them, and in all possible ways to protect them from ill-usage not only by the savage Indian but by the black retriever Sailor, who had taken up his quarters in the fo’c’s’le and became furiously jealous of any attention shown to the pigs by his many masters. It should be noted that, contrary to the usual practice, those pigs had no settled abiding-place. At night they slept in some darksome corner beneath the top-gallant forecastle, wherever they could find a dry spot, but by day they roamed the deck whithersoever they listed, often getting as far aft as the sacred precincts of the quarter-deck, until Neptune, the brown retriever that guarded the after-end of the ship, espied them, and, leaping upon them, towed them forrard at full gallop by the ears, amid a hurly-burly of eldritch shrieks and rattling hoofs. I am not at all sure that the frolicsome young things did not enjoy these squally interludes in their otherwise peaceful lives. Certainly they often seemed to court rather than to avoid the dog’s onslaught, and would dodge him round the after-hatch for all the world like London Arabs guying a policeman. The only bitter drop in their brimming cup of delights came with distressing regularity each morning. As soon as the wash-deck tub was hauled forrard and the fore part of the ship was invaded by the barefooted scrubbers and water-slingers, two hands would grope beneath the fo’c’s’le, where, squeezed into the smallest imaginable space, Denis and Jenny were, or pretended to be, sleeping the dreamless slumbers of youthful innocence. Ruthlessly they were seized and hauled on deck, their frantic lamentations lacerating the bright air, and evoking fragments of the commination service from the disturbed watch below. While one man held each of them down, others scrubbed them vigorously, pouring a whole flood of sparkling brine over them meanwhile, until they were as rosy and sweet as any cherub of the nursery after its bath. This treatment, so mournfully and regularly resented by them, was doubtless one reason why they throve so amazingly, although the liberal rations of sea-biscuit and peasoup supplied to them probably suited them as well as any highly-advertised and costly provender would have done. Their tameness was wonderful and withal somewhat embarrassing, for it was no uncommon thing for them to slip into the men’s house unseen during the absence of the crew, and, climbing into a lower bunk, nestle cosily[116] down into the unfortunate owner’s blankets and snore peacefully until forcibly ejected by the wrathful lessee.
Our passage was long, very long, so that the old black sow littered off the Cape of Good Hope, choosing, with her usual saturnine perversity, a night when a howling gale was blowing, and destroying all her hapless offspring but one in her furious resentment at the whole thing. Jenny, like the amiable creature she always was, delayed her offering until we were lying peaceably in Bombay Harbour. There she placidly produced thirteen chubby little sucklings and reared every one of them. They were a never-failing source of amusement to the men, who, in the dog-watches, would sit for hours with pipes aglow sedately enjoying the screamingly-funny antics of the merry band. There is much controversy as to which of all tame animals are the most genuinely frolicsome in their youth, kittens, lambs, calves, pups, and colts all having their adherents; but I unhesitatingly give my vote for piglings, especially when they are systematically petted and encouraged in all their antics as were that happy family of ours. Generally, the fat and lazy parents passed the time of these evening gambols in poking about among the men, begging for stray midshipmen’s nuts (broken biscuit), or asking in well-understood pig-talk to be scratched behind their ears or along their bristly spines, but occasionally, as if unable to restrain themselves any longer, they would suddenly join their gyrating family, their elephantine gambols among the frisky youngsters causing roars of laughter. Usually they wound up the revels by a grand galop furieux aft of the whole troop squealing and grunting fortissimo, and returning accompanied by the two dogs in a hideous uproar of barks, growls, and squeals.
Our stay on the coast was sufficiently prolonged to admit of another litter being produced in Bimlia-patam, twelve more piglets being added to our already sizeable herd of seventeen. So far, these farming matters had met with the unqualified approval of all hands except the unfortunate boys who had to do the scavenging, but upon quitting the Coromandel coast for the homeward passage, the exceeding cheapness of live-stock tempted our prudent skipper to invest in a large number of fowls and ducks. Besides these, he bought a couple of milch goats, with some wild idea of milking them, while various members of the crew had gotten monkeys, musk-deer, and parrots. It needed no special gift of prescience to foresee serious trouble presently, for there was not a single coop or house of any kind on board for any of the motley crowd. As each crate of cackling birds was lowered on deck it was turned out, and by the time the last of the new-comers were free, never did a ship’s decks look more like a “barton” than ours. Forty or fifty cockfights were proceeding in as many corners, aided and abetted, I grieve to say, by the sailors, who did all they could to encourage the pugnacity of the fowls, although they were already as quarrelsome a lot as you would easily get together. The goats were right at home at once; in fact goats are, I believe, the single exception to the general rule of the discomfort of animals[118] when first they are brought on shipboard. The newcomers quietly browsed around, sampling everything they could get a purchase on with their teeth, and apparently finding all good alike. Especially did they favour the ends of the running gear. Now if there is one thing more than another that is sharply looked after at sea, it is the “whipping” or securing of ropes-ends to prevent them fraying out. But it was suddenly discovered that our ropes-ends needed continual attention, some of them being always found with disreputable tassels hanging to them. And when the mates realised that the goats apparently preferred a bit of tarry rope before anything else, their wrath was too great for words, and they meditated a terrible revenge. Another peculiarity of these strange-eyed animals was that they liked tobacco, and would eat a great deal of it, especially in the form of used-up quids. This peculiar taste in feeding had unexpected results. As before said, the raison d’être of the goats was milk, and after sundry ineffectual struggles the steward managed to extract a cupful from the unworthy pair. It was placed upon the cabin table with an air of triumph, and the eyes of the captain’s wife positively beamed when she saw it. Solemnly it was handed round, and poured into the coffee as if it had been a libation to a tutelary deity, but somebody soon raised a complaint that the coffee was not up to concert pitch by a considerable majority. A process of exhaustive reasoning led to the milk being tasted by the captain, who immediately spat it out with much violence, ejaculating, “Why, the dam’ stuff’s pwushioned!” The steward, all pale and agitated, looked on dumbly, until in answer[119] to the old man’s furious questions he falteringly denied all knowledge of any felonious addition to the milk. The storm that was raised by the affair was a serious one, and for a while things looked really awkward for the steward. Fortunately the mate had the common-sense to suggest that the malignant goat should be tapped once more, and the immediate result tasted. This was done, and the poor steward triumphantly vindicated. Then it was unanimously admitted that tarry hemp, painted canvas, and plug tobacco were not calculated to produce milk of a flavour that would be fancied by ordinary people.
For the first time that voyage an attempt was made to confine a portion of our farm-stock within a pen, instead of allowing them to roam at their own sweet will about the decks. For the skipper still cherished the idea that milk for tea and coffee might be obtained from the two goats that would be palatable, if only their habit of promiscuous grazing could be stopped. So the carpenter rigged up a tiny corral beneath the fo’c’s’le deck, and there, in penitential gloom, the goats were confined and fed, like all the rest of the animals, on last voyage’s biscuit and weevily pease. Under these depressing conditions there was, of course, only one thing left for self-respecting goats to do—refuse to secrete any more milk. They promptly did so; so promptly, in fact, that on the second morning the utmost energies of[120] the steward only sufficed to squeeze out from the sardonic pair about half-a-dozen teaspoonfuls of doubtful-looking fluid. This sealed their fate, for we had far too much stock on board to waste any portion of our provender upon non-producers, and the fiat went forth—the drones must die. Some suggestion was made by a member of the after guard as to the possibility of the crew not objecting to goat as a change of diet; but with all the skipper’s boldness, he did not venture to make the attempt. The goats were slain, their hides were saved for chafing gear, sheaths for knives, &c., but, with the exception of a portion that was boiled down with much disgust by the cook and given to the fowls, most of the flesh was flung overboard. Then general complaints arose that while musk was a pleasant perfume taken in moderation, a little of it went a very long way, and that two musk deer might be relied upon to provide as much scent in one day as would suffice all hands for a year. I do not know how it was done, but two days after the demise of the goats the deer also vanished. Still we could not be said to enjoy much room to move about on deck yet. We had 200 fowls and forty ducks roaming at large, and although many of the former idiotic birds tried their wings, with the result of finding the outside of the ship a brief and uncertain abiding-place, the state of the ship’s decks was still utterly abominable. A week of uninterrupted fine weather under the blazing sun of the Bay of Bengal had made every one but the skipper heartily sick of sea-farming, and consequently it was with many pleasurable anticipations[121] that we noted the first increase in the wind that necessitated a reduction of sail. It made the fellows quite gay to think of the clearance that would presently take place. The breeze freshened steadily all night, and in the morning it was blowing a moderate gale, with an ugly cross sea, which, with the Belle’s well-known clumsiness, she was allowing to break aboard in all directions. By four bells there were many gaps in our company of fowls. Such a state of affairs robbed them of the tiny modicum of gumption they had ever possessed, and every little breaking sea that lolloped inboard drove some of them, with strident outcry, to seek refuge overboard. Presently came what we had been expecting all the morning—one huge mass of water extending from the break of the poop to the forecastle, which filled the decks rail high, fore and aft. Proceedings were exceedingly animated for a time. The ducks took very kindly to the new arrangement at first, sailing joyously about, and tasting the bitter brine as if they rather liked the flavour. But they were vastly puzzled by the incomprehensible motions of the whole mass of water under them; it was a phenomenon transcending all their previous aquatic experiences. The fowls gave the whole thing up, floating languidly about like worn-out feather brooms upon the seething flood of water, and hardly retaining enough energy to struggle when the men, splashing about like a crack team in a water-polo match, snatched at them and conveyed them in heaps to a place of security under the forecastle. That day’s breeze got rid of quite two-thirds of our feathered[122] friends for us, what with the number that had flown or been washed overboard and those unfortunates who had died in wet heaps under the forecastle. The old man was much annoyed, and could by no means understand the unwonted cheerfulness of everybody else. But, economical to the last, he ordered the steward to slay as many of the survivors each day as would give every man one body apiece for dinner, in lieu of the usual rations of salt beef or pork. This royal command gave all hands great satisfaction, for it is a superstition on board ship that to feed upon chicken is the height of epicurean luxury. Dinner-time, therefore, was awaited with considerable impatience; in fact, a good deal of sleep was lost by the watch below over the prospect of such an unusual luxury. I went to the galley as usual, my mouth watering like the rest, but when I saw the dirty little Maltese cook harpooning the carcasses out of the coppers, my appetite began to fail me. He carefully counted into my kid one corpse to each man, and I silently bore them into the forecastle to the midst of the gaping crowd. Ah me! how was their joy turned into sorrow, their sorrow into rage, by the rapidest of transitions. She was a hungry ship at the best of times, but when things had been at their worst they had never quite reached the present sad level. It is hardly possible to imagine what that feast looked like. An East Indian jungle fowl is by no means a fleshy bird when at its best, but these poor wretches had been living upon what little flesh they wore when they came on board for about ten days, the scanty ration[123] of paddy and broken biscuit having been insufficient to keep them alive. And then they had been scalded wholesale, the feathers roughly wiped off them, and plunged into a copper of furiously bubbling seawater, where they had remained until the wooden-headed Maltese judged it time to fish them out and send them to be eaten. They were just like ladies’ bustles covered with old parchment, and I have serious doubts whether more than half of them were drawn. I dare not attempt to reproduce the comments of my starving shipmates, unless I gave a row of dashes which would be suggestive but not enlightening. Old Nat the Yankee, who was the doyen of the forecastle, was the first to recover sufficiently from the shock to formulate a definite plan of action. “In my ’pinion,” he said, “thishyer’s ’bout reached th’ bottom notch. I kin stan’ bein’ starved; in these yer limejuicers a feller’s got ter stan’ that, but I be ’tarnally dod-gasted ef I kin see bein’ starved ’n’ insulted at the same time by the notion ov bein’ bloated with lugsury. I’m goin’ ter take thishyer kid full o’ bramley-kites aft an’ ask th’ ole man ef he don’t think it’s ’bout time somethin’ wuz said an’ done by th’ croo ov this hooker.” There was no dissentient voice heard, and solemnly as a funeral procession, Nat leading the way with the corpuses delicti, the whole watch tramped aft. I need not dwell upon the interview. Sufficient that there was a good deal of animated conversation, and much jeering on the skipper’s part at the well-known cussedness of sailors, who, as everybody knows (or think they know), will growl if fed on all the delicacies of the season served[124] up on 18-carat plate. But we got no more poultry, thank Heaven. And I do not think the officers regretted the fact that before we got clear of the bay the last of that sad crowd of feathered bipeds had ceased to worry any of us, but had wisely given up the attempt to struggle against such a combination of trying circumstances.
The herd of swine, however, throve apace. To the manner born, nothing came amiss to them, and I believe they even enjoyed the many quaint tricks played upon them by the monkeys, and the ceaseless antagonism of the dogs. But the father of the family was a sore trial to our energetic carpenter. Chips had a sneaking regard for pigs, and knew more than anybody on board about them; but that big boar, he said, made him commit more sin with his tongue in one day than all the other trying details of his life put together. For Denis’s tusks grew amazingly, and his chief amusement consisted in rooting about until he found a splinter in the decks underneath which he could insert a tusk. Then he would lie down or crouch on his knees, and fidget away at that sliver of pine until he had succeeded in ripping a long streak up; and if left undisturbed for a few minutes, he would gouge quite a large hollow out of the deck. No ship’s decks that ever I saw were so full of patches as ours were, and despite all our watchfulness they were continually increasing. It became a regular part of the carpenter’s duties to capture Denis periodically by lassoing him, lash him up to the pin-rail by his snout, and with a huge pair of pincers snap off those fast-growing tusks as[125] close down to the jaw as possible. In spite of this heroic treatment, Denis always seemed to find enough of tusk left to rip up a sliver of deck if ever he could find a quiet corner; and the carpenter was often heard to declare that the cunning beast was a lineal descendant of a survivor of the demon-possessed herd of Gadara.
In the case of the pigs, though, there were compensations. By the time we arrived off Mauritius, a rumour went round that on Friday a pig was to be killed, and great was the excitement. The steward swelled with importance as, armed with the cabin carving-knife, he strode forward and selected two of the first litter of piglets, the Bombay born, for sacrifice. He had plenty of voluntary helpers from the watch below, who had no fears for the quality of this meat, and only trembled at the thought that perchance the old man might bear malice in the matter of the fowls and refuse to send any pork in our direction. Great was the uproar as the chosen ones were seized by violent hands, their legs tied with spun-yarn, and their throats exposed to the stern purpose of the steward. Unaware that the critical eye of Chips was upon him, he made a huge gash across the victim’s throat, and then plunged the knife in diagonally until the whole length of the blade disappeared. “Man alive,” said Chips, “ye’re sewerly daft. Thon’s nay wye to stick a pig. If ye haena shouldert the puir beastie A’am a hog mysel’.” “You mind your own business, Carpenter,” replied the steward, with dignity; “I don’t want anybody to show me how to do my work.” “Gie me nane o’[126] yer impidence, ye feckless loon,” shouted Chips. “A’am tellin’ ye thon’s spilin’ guide meat for want o’ juist a wee bit o’ knowin’ how. Hae! lat me show ye if ye’re thick heid’s able to tak’ onythin’ in ava.” And so speaking, he brushed the indignant steward aside, at the same time drawing his pocket-knife. The second pig was laid out, and Chips, as delicately as if performing tracheotomy, slit his weasand. The black puddings were not forgotten, but I got such a distaste for that particular delicacy from learning how they were made (I hadn’t the slightest idea before) that I have never been able to touch one since.
Chips now took upon himself the whole direction of affairs, and truly he was a past-master in the art and mystery of the pork-butcher. He knew just the temperature of the water, the happy medium between scalding the hair on and not scalding it off; knew, too, how to manipulate chitterlings and truss the carcass up till it looked just as if hanging in a first-class pork shop. But the steward was sore displeased. For it is a prime canon of sea etiquette not to interfere with another man’s work, and in the known incapacity of the cook, whose duty the pigkilling should ordinarily have been, the steward came next by prescriptive right. However, Chips, having undertaken the job, was not the man to give it up until it was finished, and by universal consent he had a right to be proud of his handiwork. That Sunday’s dinner was a landmark, a date to reckon from, although the smell from the galley at suppertime on Saturday and breakfast-time on Sunday made[127] us all quite faint and weak from desire, as well as fiercely resentful of the chaffy biscuit and filthy fragments of beef that were a miserable substitute for a meal with us.
But thenceforward the joy of good living was ours every Sunday until we reached home. Ten golden epochs, to be looked forward to with feverish longing over the six hungry days between each. And when off the Western Islands, Chips tackled the wicked old Madrassee sow single-handed, in the pride of his prowess allowing no one to help him although she was nearly as large as himself—ah! that was the culminating point. Such a feast was never known to any of us before, for in spite of her age she was succulent and sapid, and, as the Irish say, there was “lashins and lavins.” When we arrived in the East India Docks, we still had, besides the two progenitors of our stock, eight fine young porkers, such a company as would have been considered a most liberal allowance on leaving home for any ship I have ever sailed in before or since. As for Denis and Jenny, I am afraid to estimate their giant proportions. They were not grossly fat, but enormously large—quite the largest pigs I have ever seen—and when they were lifted ashore by the hydraulic crane, and landed in the railway truck for conveyance to Cellardyke, to taste the joys of country life on Captain Smith’s farm, there was a rush of spectators from all parts of the dock to gaze open-mouthed upon these splendid specimens of ship-bred swine. But few could be got to believe that, eleven months before, the pair of them had[128] been carried on board in one sack by an undersized man, and that their sole sustenance had been “hard-tack” and pea-soup.
Such an extensive collection of farm-stock as we carried in the Belle was, like the method of dealing with it, probably unique. Certainly so in my experience, and in that of all the shipmates with whom I have ever discussed the matter. For this reason, a dirty ship upon the high seas is an anomaly, something not to be imagined; that is, in the sense of loose dirt, of course, because sailors will call a ship dirty whose paint and varnish have been scrubbed or weathered off, and, through poverty or meanness, left unrenewed. The Belle would no doubt have looked clean to the average landsman, but to a sailor she was offensively filthy, and the language used at night when handling the running gear (i.e. the ropes which regulate the sails, &c., aloft, and are, when disused, coiled on pins or on deck) was very wicked and plentiful. In fact, as Old Nat remarked casually one Sunday afternoon, when the watch had been roused to tack ship, and all the inhabitants of the farmery, disturbed from their roosting places or lairs, were unmusically seeking fresh quarters, “Ef thishyer—— old mud-scow’s out much longer we sh’ll hev’ ’nother cargo aboard when we du arrive. People ’ll think we cum fr’m the Chinchees with gooanner.”
But, as I have said, the Belle was certainly an exception. I joined a magnificent steel clipper called the Harbinger in Adelaide as second mate, and, on taking my first walk round her, discovered that she too was well provided in the matter of farm-stock, besides, to my amazement, for I had thought the day for such things long past, carrying a cow. But all the arrangements for the housing, feeding, and general comfort of the live-stock on board were on a most elaborate scale, as, indeed, was the ship’s equipment generally. The cow-house, for instance, was a massive erection of solid teak with brass fittings and fastenings, large enough to take two cows comfortably, and varnished outside till it looked like a huge cabinet. Its place when at sea was on the main hatch, where it was nearly two feet off the deck, and by means of ring-bolts was lashed so firmly that only a perfectly disastrous sea breaking on board could possibly move it. Its solidly-built doors opened in halves, of which the lower half only was kept fastened by day, so that Poley stood at her window gazing meditatively out at the blue expanse of the sea with a mild, abstracted air, which immediately vanished if any one inadvertently came too near her premises. She had a way of suddenly dabbing her big soapy muzzle into the back of one’s neck while the victim’s attention was taken up elsewhere that was disconcerting. And one night, in the middle watch, she created a veritable sensation by walking into the forecastle unseen by anybody on deck. The watch below were all sound asleep, of course, but the unusual footsteps, and long inquisitive breaths, like escaping steam, emitted by the visitor,[130] soon roused them by their unfamiliarity. Voice called unto voice across the darkness (and a ship’s forecastle at night is a shade or so darker than a coal-cellar), “What is it? Light the lamp, somebody”; but with that vast mysterious monster floundering around, no one dared venture out of the present security of his bunk. It was really most alarming—waking up to such an invisible horror as that, and, as one of the fellows said to me afterwards, “All the creepy yarns I’d ever read in books come inter me head at once, until I was almost dotty with ’fraid.” This situation was relieved by one of the other watch, who, coming in to get something out of a chum’s chest, struck a match, and by its pale glimmer revealed the huge bulk of poor Poley, who, scared almost to drying up her milk, was endeavouring to bore her way through the bows in order to get out. The butcher was hurriedly roused from his quarters farther aft, and, muttering maledictions upon ships and all sailors, the sea and all cattle, slouched to the spot. His voice immediately reassured the wanderer, who turned round at its first angry words and deliberately marched out of the forecastle, leaving a lavish contribution in her wake as a memento of her visit.
Between the butcher and Poley a charming affection existed. She loved him most fondly, and the Cardigan jacket he wore was a proof thereof. For while engaged in grooming her, which he did most conscientiously every morning, she would reach round whenever possible and lick him wherever she could touch him. In consequence of this affectionate habit[131] of hers his Cardigan was an object of derision to all on board until upon our arrival in Cape Town one of our departing passengers divided a case of extra special Scotch whisky among the crew. The butcher being of an absorbent turn, shifted a goodly quantity of the seductive fluid, and presently, feeling very tired, left the revellers and disappeared. Next morning he was nowhere to be found. A prolonged search was made, and at last the missing man was discovered peacefully slumbering by the side of the cow, all unconscious of the fact that she had licked away at him until nothing remained of his Cardigan but the sleeves, and in addition a great deal of his shirt was missing. It is only fair to suppose that, given time enough, she would have removed all his clothing. It was a depraved appetite certainly, but as I have before noticed, that is not uncommon among animals at sea. It was her only lapse, however, from virtue in that direction. Truly her opportunities were small, being such a close prisoner, but the marvel to me was how, in the absence of what I should say was proper food, she kept up her supply of milk for practically the whole voyage. She never once set foot on shore from the time the vessel left London until she returned, and as green food was most difficult to obtain in Adelaide, she got a taste of it only about four times during our stay. Australian hay, too, is not what a dainty English cow would be likely to hanker after; yet with all these drawbacks it was not until we had crossed the Line on the homeward passage that her milk began to dwindle seriously in amount. Thenceforward[132] it decreased, until in the Channel the butcher handed in to the steward one morning a contribution of about a gill, saying, “If you want any more, sir, you’ll have to put the suction hose on to her. I sh’d say her milkin’ days was done.” But for long previous to this the ingenious butcher had been raiding the cargo (of wheat) for his pet, and each day would present her with two bucketfuls of boiled wheat, which she seemed to relish amazingly. Partly because of this splendid feeding, and partly owing to the regular washing and groomings she received, I imagine she was such a picture of an animal when she stepped out of the ship in London as I have only seen at cattle shows or on advertisement cards. You could not see a bone; her sides were like a wall of meat, and her skin had a sheen on it like satin. As she was led away, I said to the butcher, who had been assisting at her debarkation, “I suppose you’ll have her again next voyage, won’t you, butcher?” “No fear,” he answered sagely. “She’s gone to be butchered. She’ll be prime beef in a day or two.” I looked at him with something like consternation. He seemed to think it was a grand idea, although even now the mournful call of his old favourite was ringing in his ears. At last I said, “I wonder you can bear to part with her; you’ve been such chums all the voyage.” “I don’t know what you mean, sir,” he replied. “I looked after her ’cause it’s my bisness, but I’d jest as leave slaughter her myself as not.” With that he left me to resume his duty.
But in the fervour of my recollections of Poley, I have quite neglected another most important branch of the Harbinger’s family of animals, the sheep. Being such a large ship, she had an immense house on deck between the main hatch and the fore mast, in which were a donkey-engine and condenser, a second cabin to accommodate thirty passengers, petty officers’ quarters, carpenters’ shop, and galley. And still there was room between the fore end and the fore mast to admit of two massive pens, built of teak, with galvanised bars in front, being secured there one on top of the other. When I joined the ship these were empty, and their interiors scrubbed as clean as a kitchen table. That morning, looking up the quay, I saw a curious procession. First a tall man, with an air of quiet want of interest about him; by his side sedately marched a ram, a splendid fellow, who looked fully conscious that he was called upon to play an important part in the scheme of things. Behind this solemn pair came a small flock of some thirty sheep, and a wise old dog, keeping a good distance astern of the mob, fittingly brought up the rear. They were expected, for I saw some of the men, under the bo’sun’s directions, carefully laying a series of gangways for them. And, without noise, haste, or fuss, the man marched on board closely followed by the ram. He led the way to where a long plank was laid from the deck to the wide-open door of the upper pen. Then, stepping to the side of it, without a word or even a gesture, he stood quite still while the stately ram walked calmly[134] up that narrow way, followed by the sheep in single file. The leader walked into the pen and right round it, reaching the door just as the fifteenth sheep had entered. The others had been restrained from following as soon as fifteen had passed. Outside he stepped upon the plank with the same grave air of importance, and the moment he had done so the door was slid to in the face of the others who were still following his lead. Then the other pen was filled in the same easy manner, the ram quitting the second pen with the bearing of one whose sublime height of perfection is far above such paltry considerations as praise or blame, while the dog stood aloof somewhat dejectedly, as if conscious that his shining abilities were for the time completely overshadowed by the performances of a mere woolly thing, one of the creatures he had always regarded as being utterly destitute of a single gleam of reasonableness. The ram received a carrot from his master’s pocket with a gracious air, as of one who confers a favour, and together the trio left the ship. The embarkation had been effected in the quietest, most humane manner possible, and to my mind was an object-lesson in ingenuity.
We had no swine, but on top of this same house there was a fine range of teak-built coops of spacious capacity, and these were presently filled with quite a respectable company of fowls, ducks, and geese, all, of course, under the charge of the butcher. Happy are the animals who have no history on board ship, whose lives move steadily on in one well-fed procession unto their ordained end. Here[135] in this grand ship, had it not been for the geese, no one would have realised the presence of poultry at all, so little were they in evidence until they graced the glittering table in the saloon at 6 p.m. But the geese, as if bent upon anticipating the fate that was in store for them, waited with sardonic humour until deepest silence fell upon the night-watches. Then, as if by preconcerted signal, they raised their unmelodious voices, awaking sleepers fore and aft from deepest slumbers, and evoking the fiercest maledictions upon their raucous throats. Occasionally the shadowy form of some member of the crew, exasperated beyond endurance, would be dimly seen clambering up the end of the house, his heart filled with thoughts of vengeance. Armed with a wooden belaying-pin, he would poke and rattle among the noisy creatures, with much the same result as one finds who, having a slightly aching tooth, fiddles about with it until its anguish is really maddening. These angry men never succeeded in doing anything but augmenting the row tenfold, and they found their only solace in gloating over the last struggles of one of their enemies when the butcher was doing his part towards verifying the statement on the menu for the forthcoming dinner of “roast goose.”
But the chief interest of our farmyard, after all, lay in the sheep. How it came about that such a wasteful thing was done I do not know, but it very soon became manifest that some at least of our sheep were in an interesting condition, and one morning, at wash-deck time, when I was prowling around forrard to see that everything was as it should be, I[136] was considerably amused to see one of the sheep occupying a corner of the pen with a fine young lamb by her side. While I watched the pretty creature, the butcher came along to begin his day’s work. When he caught sight of the new-comer he looked silly. It appeared that he alone had been sufficiently unobservant of his charges to be unprepared for this dénouement, and it was some time before his sluggish wits worked up to the occasion. Suddenly he roused himself and made for the pen. “What are you going to do, butcher?” I asked. “Goin’ to do! W’y I’m agoin’ ter chuck that there thing overboard, a’course, afore any of them haristocrats aft gets wind of it. They won’t touch a bit o’ the mutton if they hear tell o’ this. I never see such a thing aboard ship afore.” But he got no further with his fell intent, for some of the sailors intervened on behalf of the lamb, vowing all sorts of vengeance upon the butcher if he dared to touch a lock of its wool; so he was obliged to beat a retreat, grumblingly, to await the chief steward’s appearance and lay the case before him. When that gentleman appeared, he was by no means unwilling to add a little to his popularity by effecting a compromise. It was agreed that the sailors should keep the new-comer as a pet, but all subsequent arrivals were to be dealt with by the butcher instanter, without any interference on their part. This, the steward explained, was not only fair, but merciful, as in the absence of green food there could only be a day or two’s milk forthcoming, and the poor little things would be starved. Of course, he couldn’t[137] spare any of Poley’s precious yield for nursing lambs, besides wishing to avoid the natural repugnance the passengers would have to eating mutton in such a condition. So the matter was amicably arranged.
Thereafter, whenever a lamb was dropped, and every one of those thirty ewes presented one or two, the butcher laid violent hands upon it, and dropped it overboard as soon as it was discovered. Owing to the promise of sundry tots of grog from the sailors, he always informed them of the fact, and pointed out the bereaved mother. Then she would be pounced upon, lifted out of the coop, and while one fellow held her another brought the favoured lamb. After the first time or two, that pampered young rascal needed no showing. As soon as he saw the sheep being held he would make a rush, and in a minute or two would completely drain her udder. Sometimes there were as many as three at a time for him to operate upon, but there never seemed to be too many for his voracious appetite. What wonder that like Jeshurun he waxed fat and kicked. He grew apace, and he profited amazingly by the tuition of his many masters. Anything less sheep-like, much less lamb-like, than his behaviour could hardly be imagined. A regimental goat might have matched him in iniquity, but I am strongly inclined to doubt it. One of the most successful tricks taught this pampered animal was on the lines of his natural tendency to butt at anything and everything. It was a joyful experience to see him engaged in mimic conflict with a burly sailor, who, pitted against this immature ram, usually came to grief at an unexpected[138] roll of the ship; for Billy, as our lamb was named by general consent, very early in his career gat unto himself sea-legs of a stability unattainable by any two-legged creature. I often laughed myself sore at these encounters, the funniest exhibitions I had seen for many a long day, until one night in my watch on deck, during a gale of wind, I descended from the poop on to the main deck to hunt for a flying-fish that I heard come on board. I was stooping down, the water on deck over my ankles, to feel under the spare spars lashed alongside the scuppers, when I heard a slight noise behind me. Before I had time to straighten myself, a concussion like a well-aimed, hearty kick smote me behind, and I fell flat in the water like a plaice. When I had scrambled to my feet, black rage in my heart against things in general, I heard a fiendish cackle of laughter which was suddenly suppressed; and there, with head lowered in readiness for another charge, stood Billy, only too anxious to renew his attentions as soon as he could see an opening. For one brief moment I contemplated a wild revenge, but I suddenly remembered that my place was on the poop, and I went that way, not perhaps with the dignified step of an officer, because that demoniacal sheep (no, lamb) was behind me manœuvring for another assault. I lost all interest in him after that. A lamb is all very well, but when he grows up he is apt to become an unmitigated calamity, especially if sailors have any hand in his education. So that it was with a chastened regret that I heard the order go forth for his conversion into dinner. We were[139] able to regale the pilot with roast lamb and mint sauce (made from the dried article), and the memory of my wrongs added quite a piquant flavour to my portion.