The great Lexicographer on Sailors-The Dangers of the Sea-How Boys become Sailors-Young Amyas Leigh-The Genuine Jack Tar-Training-Ships _versus_ the old Guard-Ships-"Sea-goers and Waisters"-The Training Undergone-Routine on Board-Never-ending Work-Ship like a Lady"s Watch-Watches and "Bells"-Old Grogram and Grog-The Sailor"s Sheet Anchor-Shadows in the Seaman"s Life-The Naval Cat-Testimony and Opinion of a Medical Officer-An Example-Boy Flogging in the Navy-Shakespeare and Herbert on Sailors and the Sea.
Dr. Johnson, whose personal weight seems to have had something to do with that carried by his opinion, considered going to sea a species of insanity.(30) "No man," said he, "will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail: for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." The great lexicographer knew Fleet Street better than he did the fleet, and his opinion, as expressed above, was hardly even decently patriotic or sensible. Had all men thought as he professed to do-probably for the pleasure of saying something ponderously brilliant for the moment-we should have had no naval or commercial superiority to-day-in short, no England.
The dangers of the sea are serious enough, but need not be exaggerated.
One writer(31) indeed, in serio-comic vein, makes his sailors sing in a gale-
"When you and I, Bill, on the deck Are comfortably lying, My eyes! what tiles and chimney-pots About their heads are flying!"
leading us to infer that the dangers of town-life are greater than those of the sea in a moderate gale. We might remind the reader that Mark Twain has conclusively shown, from statistics, that more people die in bed comfortably at home than are killed by all the railroad, steamship, or other accidents in the world, the inference being that going to bed is a dangerous habit! But the fact is, that wherever there is danger there will be brave men found to face it-even when it takes the desperate form just indicated! So that there is nothing surprising in the fact that in all times there have been men ready to go to sea.
Of those who have succeeded, the larger proportion have been carried thither by the spirit of adventure. It would be difficult to say whether it has been more strongly developed through actual "surroundings," as believed by one of England"s most intelligent and friendly critics,(32) who says, "The ocean draws them just as a pond attracts young ducks," or through the influence of literature bringing the knowledge of wonderful voyages and discoveries within the reach of all. The former are immensely strong influences. The boy who lives by, and loves the sea, and notes daily the ships of all nations pa.s.sing to and fro, or who, maybe, dwells in some naval or commercial port, and sees constantly great vessels arriving and departing, and hears the tales of sailors bold, concerning new lands and curious things, is very apt to become imbued with the spirit of adventure. How charmingly has Charles Kingsley written on the latter point!(33) How young Amyas Leigh, gentle born, and a mere stripling schoolboy, edged his way under the elbows of the sailor men on Bideford Quay to listen to Captain John Oxenham tell his stories of heaps-"seventy foot long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high"-of silver bars, and Spanish treasure, and far-off lands and peoples, and easy victories over the coward Dons! How Oxenham, on a recruiting bent, sang out, with good broad Devon accent, "Who "lists? who "lists? who"ll make his fortune?
""Oh, who will join, jolly mariners all?
And who will join, says he, O!
To fill his pockets with the good red goold, By sailing on the sea, O!""
And how young Leigh, fired with enthusiasm, made answer, boldly, "I want to go to sea; I want to see the Indies. I want to fight the Spaniards.
Though I"m a gentleman"s son, I"d a deal liever be a cabin-boy on board your ship." And how, although he did not go with swaggering John, he lived to first round the world with great Sir Francis Drake, and after fight against the "Invincible" Armada. The story had long before, and has many a time since, been enacted in various forms among all conditions of men. To some, however, the sea has been a last refuge, and many such have been converted into brave and hardy men, perforce themselves; while many others, in the good old days of press-gangs, appeared, as Marryat tells us, "to fight as hard not to be forced into the service as they did for the honour of the country after they were fairly embarked in it." It may not generally be known that the law which concerns impressing has never been abolished, although there is no fear that it will ever again be resorted to in these days of naval reserves, training-ships, and naval volunteers.
The altered circ.u.mstances of the age, arising from the introduction of steam, and the greatly increased inter-commercial relations of the whole world, have made the Jack Tar pure and simple comparatively rare in these days; not, we believe, so much from his disappearance off the scene as by the numbers of differently employed men on board by whom he is surrounded, and in a sense hidden. A few A.B."s and ordinary seamen are required on any steamship; but the whole tribe of mechanicians, from the important rank of chief engineer downwards, from a.s.sistants to stokers and coal-pa.s.sers, need not know one rope from another. On the other hand, the rapid increase of commerce has apparently outrun the natural increase of qualified seamen, and many a good ship nowadays, we are sorry to say, goes to sea with a very motley crew of "green" hands, landlubbers, and foreigners of all nationalities, including Lascars, Malays, and Kanakas, from the Sandwich Islands. A "confusion of tongues," not very desirable on board a vessel, reigns supreme, and renders the position of the officers by no means enviable. To obviate these difficulties, and furnish a supply of good material both to the Royal Navy and Mercantile Marine, training-ships have been organised, which have been, so far, highly successful. Let these embryo defenders of their country"s interests have the first place.
Of course, at all periods the boys, and others who entered to serve before the mast, received some training, and picked up the rest if they were reasonably clever. The brochure of "an old salt,"(34) which has recently appeared, gives a fair account of his own treatment and reception. Running away from London, as many another boy has done, with a few coppers in his pocket, he tramped to Sheerness, taking by the way a hearty supper of turnips with a family of sheep in a field. Arrived at his destination, he found a handsome flag-ship, surrounded by a number of large and small vessels. Selecting the very smallest-as best adapted to his own size-he went on board, and asked the first officer he met-one who wore but a single epaulet-whether his ship was "_manned__ with boys_?" He was answered, "No, I want men; and pray what may you want?" "I want to go to sea, sir, please." "You had better go home to your mother," was the answer. With the next officer-"a real captain, wearing grey hair, and as straight as a line"-he fared better, and was eventually entered as a third-cla.s.s boy, and sent on board a guard-ship. Here he was rather fortunate in being taken in charge by a petty officer, who had, as was often the case then, his wife living on board. The lady ruled supreme in the mess. She served out the grog, too, and, to prevent intoxication among the men, used to keep one finger inside the measure! This enabled her to the better take care of her husband. She is described as the best "man" in the mess, and irresistibly reminds us of Mrs. Trotter in "Peter Simple,"
who had such a horror of rum that she could not be induced to take it except when the water was bad. The water, however, always _was_ bad! But the former lady took good care of the new-comer, while, as we know, Mrs.
Trotter fleeced poor Peter out of three pounds sterling and twelve pairs of stockings before he had been an hour on board. Mr. Mindry tells the usual stories of the practical jokes he had to endure-about being sent to the doctor"s mate for mustard, for which he received a peppering; of the constant thrashings he received-in one case, with a number of others, receiving two dozen for _losing his dinner_. He was cook of the mess for the time, and having mixed his dough, had taken it to the galley-oven, from the door of which a sudden lurch of the ship had ejected it on the main deck, "the contents making a very good representation of the White Sea." The crime for which he and his companions suffered was for endeavouring to sc.r.a.pe it up again! But the gradual steps by which he was educated upwards, till he became a gunner of the first cla.s.s, prove that, all in all, he had cheerily taken the bull by the horns, determined to rise as far and fast as he might in an honourable profession. He was after a year or so transferred to a vessel fitting for the West Indies, and soon got a taste of active life. This was in 1837. Forty or fifty years before, the guard-ships were generally little better than floating pandemoniums.
They were used partly for breaking in raw hands, and were also the intermediate stopping-places for men waiting to join other ships. In a guard-ship of the period described, a most heterogeneous ma.s.s of humanity was a.s.sembled. Human invention could not scheme work for the whole, while skulking, impracticable in other vessels of the Royal Navy, was deemed highly meritorious there. A great body of men were thus very often a.s.sembled together, who resolved themselves into hostile cla.s.ses, separated as any two castes of the Hindoos. A clever writer in _Blackwood"s Magazine_, more than fifty years ago, describes them first as "sea-goers,"-_i.e._, sailors separated from their vessels by illness, or temporary causes, or ordered to other vessels, who looked on the guard-ship as a floating hotel, and, having what they were pleased to call _ships of their own_, were the aristocrats of the occasion, who would do no more work than they were obliged. The second, and by far the most numerous cla.s.s, were termed "waisters," and were the simple, the unfortunate, or the utterly abandoned, a body held on board in the utmost contempt, and most of whom, in regard to clothing, were wretched in the extreme. The "waister" had to do everything on board that was menial-swabbing, sweeping, and drudging generally. At night, in defiance of his hard and unceasing labour, he too often became a bandit, prowling about seeking what he might devour or appropriate. What a contrast to the clean orderly training-ships of to-day! Some little information on this subject, but imperfectly understood by the public, may perhaps be permitted here.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "CHICHESTER" TRAINING-SHIP.]
It is not generally known that our supply of seamen for the Royal Navy is nowadays almost entirely derived from the training-ships-first established about fourteen years ago. In a late blue-book it was stated that during a period of five years only 107 men had been entered from other sources, who had not previously served. Training-ships, accommodating about 3,000, are stationed at Devonport, Falmouth, Portsmouth, and Portland, where the lads remain for about a year previous to being sent on sea-going ships. The age of entry has varied at different periods; it is now fifteen to sixteen and a half years. The recruiting statistics show whence a large proportion come-from the men of Devon, who contribute, as they did in the days of Drake and Hawkins, Gilbert and Raleigh, the largest quota of men willing to make their "heritage the sea."
Dr. Peter Comrie, R.N., a gentleman who has made this matter a study, informs the writer that on board these ships, as regards cleanliness, few gentlemen"s sons are better attended to, while their education is not neglected, as they have a good schoolmaster on all ships of any size. He says that boys brought up in the service not merely make the best seamen, but generally like the navy, and stick to it. The order, cleanliness, and tidy ways obligatory on board a man-of-war, make, in many cases, the ill-regulated fo"castle of most merchant ships very distasteful to them.
Their drilling is just sufficient to keep them in healthy condition. No one can well imagine the difference wrought in the appearance of the street arab, or the Irish peasant boy, by a short residence on board one of these ships. He fills out, becomes plump, loses his gaunt, haggard, hunted look; is natty in his appearance, and a.s.sumes that jaunty, rolling gait that a person gifted with what is called "sea-legs" is supposed to exhibit. Still, "we," writes the doctor, "have known Irish boys, who had very rarely even perhaps seen animal food, when first put upon the liberal dietary of the service, complain that they were being starved, their stomachs having been so used to be distended with large quant.i.ties of vegetables, that it took some time before the organ accommodated itself to a more nutritious but less filling dietary."
You have only got to watch the boy from the training-ship on leave to judge that the navy has yet some popularity. Neatly dressed, clean and natty, surrounded by his quondam playmates, he is "the observed of all observers," and is gazed at with admiring respect by the street arab from a respectful distance. He has, perhaps, learned to "spin a few yarns," and give the approved hitch to his trousers, and, while giving a favourable account of his life on board ship, with its forecastle jollity and "four bitter," is the best recruiting-officer the service can have. The great point to be attended to, in order to make him a sailor, is that "you must catch him young."(35) That a good number have been so caught is proved by the navy estimates, which now provide for over 7,000 boys, 4,000 of the number in sea-going ships.
Governments, as governments, may be paternal, but are rarely very benevolent, and the above excellent inst.i.tutions are only organised for the safety and strength of the navy. There is another cla.s.s of training-ships, which owe their existence to benevolence, and deserve every encouragement-those for rescuing our street waifs from the treadmill and prison. The larger part of these do not enter the navy, but are pa.s.sed into the Merchant Marine, their training being very similar. The Government simply _lends_ the ship. Thus the _Chichester_, at Greenhithe, a vessel which had been in 1868 a quarter of a century lying useless-_never_ having seen service-was turned over to a society, a mere sh.e.l.l or carcase, her masts, rigging, and other fittings having to be provided by private subscriptions. Her case irresistibly reminds the writer of a vessel, imaginary only in name, described by James Hannay:(36)-"H.M.S. _Patagonian_ was built as a three-decker, at a cost of 120,000, when it was discovered that she could not sail. She was then cut down into a frigate, at a cost of 50,000, when it was found out that she would not tack. She was next built up into a two-decker, at a cost of another 50,000, and then it was discovered she could be made useful, so the Admiralty kept her unemployed for ten years!" A good use was, however, found at last for the _Chichester_, thanks to benevolent people, the quality of whose mercy is twice blessed, for they both help the wretched youngsters, and turn them into good boys for our ships. Some of these street arabs previously have hardly been under a roof at night for years together. Hear M. Esquiros:-"To these little ones London is a desert, and, though lost in the drifting sands of the crowd, they never fail to find their way. The greater part of them contract a singular taste for this hard and almost savage kind of life. They love the open sky, and at night all they dread is the eye of the policeman; their young minds become fertile in resources, and glory in their independence in the "battle of life;" but if no helping hand is stretched out to arrest them in this fatal and down-hill path, they surely gravitate to the treadmill and the prison. How could it be otherwise?... The question is, what are these lads good for?" That problem, M. Esquiros, as you with others predicted, has been solved satisfactorily. The poor lads form excellent raw material for our ever-increasing sea-service.
The training of a naval cadet-_i.e._, an embryo midshipman, or "midshipmite" (as poor Peter Simple was irreverently called-before, however, the days of naval cadets)-is very similar in many respects to that of an embryo seaman, but includes many other acquirements. After obtaining his nomination from the Admiralty, and undergoing a simple preliminary examination at the Royal Naval College in ordinary branches of knowledge, he is pa.s.sed to a training-ship, which to-day is the _Britannia_ at Dartmouth. Here he is taught all the ordinary acquirements in rigging, seamanship, and gunnery; and, to fit him to be an officer, he is instructed in taking observations for lat.i.tude and longitude, in geometry, trigonometry, and algebra. He also goes through a course of drawing-lessons and modern languages. He is occasionally sent off on a brig for a short cruise, and after a year on the training-ship, during which he undergoes a quarterly examination, he is pa.s.sed to a sea-going ship. His position on leaving depends entirely on his certificate-if he obtains one of the First Cla.s.s, he is immediately rated midshipman; while if he only obtains a Third Cla.s.s certificate, he will have to serve twelve months more on the sea-going ship, and pa.s.s another examination before he can claim that rank.(37)
The actual experiences of intelligent sailors, or voyagers, written by themselves, have, of course, a greater practical value than the sea-stories of clever novelists, while the latter, as a cla.s.s, confine themselves very much to the quarter-deck. Dana"s "Two Years Before the Mast" is so well known that few of our readers need to be told that it is the story of an American student, who had undermined his health by over-application, and who took a voyage, _via_ Cape Horn, to California in order to recover it. But the old brig _Pilgrim_, bound to the northern Pacific coast for a cargo of hides, was hardly a fair example, in some respects, of an ordinary merchant-vessel, to say nothing of a fine clipper or modern steam-ship. Dana"s experiences were of the roughest type, and may be read by boys, anxious to go to sea, with advantage, if taken in conjunction with those of others; many of them are common to all grades of sea service. A little work by a "Sailor-boy,"(38) published some years ago, gives a very fair idea of a seaman"s lot in the Royal Navy, and the two stories in conjunction present a fair average view of sea-life and its duties.
Pa.s.sing over the young sailor-boy"s admission to the training-ship-the "Guardho," as he terms it-we find his first days on board devoted to the mysteries of knots and hitch-making, in learning to lash hammocks, and in rowing, and in acquiring the arts of "feathering" and "tossing" an oar.
Incidentally he gives us some information on the etiquette observed in boats pa.s.sing with an officer on board. "For a lieutenant, the c.o.xswain only gets up and takes his cap off; for a captain, the boat"s crew lay on their oars, and the c.o.xswain takes his cap off; and for an admiral the oars are tossed (_i.e._, raised perpendicularly, _not_ thrown in the air!), and all caps go off." Who would not be an admiral? While in this "instruction" he received his sailor"s clothes-a pair of blue cloth trousers, two pairs of white duck ditto, two blue serge and two white frocks, two pairs of white "jumpers," two caps, two pairs of stockings, a knife, and a marking-type. As soon as he is "made a sailor" by these means, he was ordered to the mast-head, and tells with glee how he was able to go up outside by the futtock shrouds, and not through "lubber"s hole." The reader doubtless knows that the lubber"s hole is an open s.p.a.ce between the head of the lower mast and the edge of the top; it is so named from the supposition that a "land-lubber" would prefer that route. The French call it the _trou du chat_-the hole through which the cat would climb. Next he commenced cutla.s.s-drill, followed by rifle-drill, big-gun practice, instruction in splicing, and all useful knots, and in using the compa.s.s and lead-line. He was afterwards sent on a brig for a short sea cruise. "Having," says he, "to run aloft without shoes was a heavy trial to me, and my feet often were so sore and blistered that I have sat down in the "tops" and cried with the pain; yet up I had to go, and furl and loose my sails; and up I did go, blisters and all. Sometimes the pain was so bad I could not move smartly, and then the unmerited rebuke from a thoughtless officer was as gall and wormwood to me."
Dana, in speaking of the incessant work on board any vessel, says, "A ship is like a lady"s watch-always out of repair." When, for example, in a calm, the sails hanging loosely, the hot sun pouring down on deck, and no way on the vessel, which lies
"As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean,"
there is always sufficient work for the men, in "setting up" the rigging, which constantly requires lightening and repairing, in picking oak.u.m for caulking, in brightening up the metal-work, and in holystoning the deck.
The holystone is a large piece of porous stone,(39) which is dragged in alternate ways by two sailors over the deck, sand being used to increase its effect. It obtains its name from the fact that Sunday morning is a very common time on many merchant-vessels for cleaning up generally.
[Ill.u.s.tration: INSTRUCTION ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR.]
The daily routine of our young sailor on the experimental cruises gave him plenty of employment. In his own words it was as follows:-Commencing at five a.m.-"Turn hands up; holystone or scrub upper deck; coil down ropes.
Half-past six-breakfast, half an hour; call the watch, watch below, clean the upper deck; watch on deck, clean wood and bra.s.s-work; put the upper decks to rights. Eight a.m.-hands to quarters; clean guns and arms; division for inspection; prayers; make sail, reef topsails, furl top-sails, top-gallant sails, royals; reef courses, down top-gallant and royal yards. This continued till eight bells, twelve o"clock, dinner one hour. "All hands again; cutla.s.s, rifle, and big-gun drill till four o"clock; clear up decks, coil up ropes;" and then our day"s work is done."
Then they would make little trips to sea, many of them to experience the woes of sea-sickness for the first time.
But the boys on the clean and well-kept training-brig were better off in all respects than poor Dana. When first ordered aloft, he tells us, "I had not got my "sea-legs" on, was dreadfully sea-sick, with hardly strength to hold on to anything, and it was "pitch-dark" * * * How I got along I cannot now remember. I "laid out" on the yards, and held on with all my strength. I could not have been of much service; for I remember having been sick several times before I left the top-sail yard. Soon all was snug aloft, and we were again allowed to go below. This I did not consider much of a favour; for the confusion of everything below, and that inexpressibly sickening smell, caused by the shaking up of bilge-water in the hold, made the steerage but an indifferent refuge to the cold, wet decks. I had often read of the nautical experiences of others, but I felt as though there could be none worse than mine; for, in addition to every other evil, I could not but remember that this was only the first night of a two years"
voyage. When we were all on deck, we were not much better off, for we were continually ordered about by the officer, who said that it was good for us to be in motion. Yet anything was better than the horrible state of things below. I remember very well going to the hatchway and putting my head down, when I was oppressed by nausea, and felt like being relieved immediately." We can fully recommend the example of Dana, who, acting on the advice of the black cook on board, munched away at a good half-pound of salt beef and hard biscuit, which, washed down with cold water, soon, he says, made a man of him.
Some little explanation of the mode of dividing time on board ship may be here found useful. A "watch" is a term both for a division of the crew and of their time: a full watch is four hours. At the expiration of each four hours, commencing from twelve o"clock noon, the men below are called in these or similar terms-"All the starboard (or port) watch ahoy! Eight bells!" The watch from four p.m. to eight p.m. is divided, on a well-regulated ship, into two "dog-watches;" the object of this is to make an uneven number of periods-seven, instead of six, so that the men change the order of their watches daily. Otherwise, it will be seen that a man, who, on leaving port, stood in a particular watch-from twelve noon to four p.m.-would stand in the same watch throughout the voyage; and he who had two night-watches at first would always have them. The periods of the "dog-watches" are usually devoted to smoking and recreation for those off duty.
As the terms involved must occur frequently in this work, it is necessary also to explain for some readers the division of time itself by "bells."
The limit is "eight bells," which are struck at twelve, four, and eight o"clock a.m. or p.m. The ship"s bell is sounded each half-hour. Half-past any of the above hours is "one bell" struck sharply by itself. At the hour, two strokes are made sharply _following_ each other. Expressing the strokes by signs, half-past twelve would be | (representing one stroke); one o"clock would be || (two strokes sharply struck, one after the other); half-past one, || |; two o"clock, || ||; half-past two, || || |; three o"clock, || || ||; half-past three, || || || |; and four o"clock, || || || ||, or "eight bells." The process is then repeated in the next watch, and the only disturbing element comes from the elements, which occasionally, when the vessel rolls or pitches greatly, cause the bell to strike without leave.
Seamen before the mast are divided into three cla.s.ses-able, ordinary, and boys. In the merchant service a "green hand" of forty may be rated as a boy; a landsman must ship for boy"s wages on the first voyage. Merchant seamen rate themselves-in other words, they cause themselves to be entered on the ship"s books according to their qualifications and experience.
There are few instances of abuse in this matter, and for good reason.
Apart from the disgrace and reduction of wages and rating which would follow, woe to the man who sets himself up for an A.B. when he should enter as a boy; for the rest of the crew consider it a fraud on themselves. The vessel would be short-handed of a man of the cla.s.s required, and their work would be proportionately increased. No mercy would be shown to such an impostor, and his life on board would be that of a dog, but anything rather than that of a "jolly sea-dog."(40)
There are lights in the sailor"s chequered life. Seamen are, Shakespeare tells us, "but men"-and, if we are to believe Dibdin, grog is a decided element in their happier hours. "Grog" is now a generic term; but it was not always. One Admiral Vernon-who persisted in wearing a grogram(41) tunic so much that he was known among his subordinates as "Old Grog"-earned immortality of a disagreeable nature by watering the rum-ration of the navy to its present standard. At 11.30 a.m., on all ships of the Royal Navy nowadays, half a gill of watered rum-two parts of water to one of the stronger drink-is served out to each of the crew, unless they have forfeited it by some act of insubordination. The officers, including the petty officers, draw half a gill of pure rum; the former put it into the general mess, and many never taste it. "Six-water"
grog is a mild form of punishment. "Splicing the main-brace" infers extra grog served out for extraordinary service. Formerly, and, indeed, as late as forty odd years ago, the daily ration was a full gill; but, as sailors traded and bartered their drinks among themselves, it would happen once in awhile that one would get too much "on board." It has happened occasionally in consequence that a seaman has tumbled overboard, or fallen from the yards or rigging, and has met an inglorious death. Boys are not allowed grog in the Royal Navy, and there is no absolute rule among merchant-vessels. In the American navy there is a coin allowance in lieu of rum, and every nation has its own peculiarities in this matter. In the French navy, wine, very _ordinaire_, and a little brandy is issued.
There are shadows, too, in the sailor"s life-as a rule, he brings them on himself, but by no means always. If sailors are "but men," officers rank in the same category, and occasionally act like brutes. So much has been written on the subject of the naval "cat"-a punishment once dealt out for most trifling offences, and not abolished yet, that the writer has some diffidence in approaching the subject. A volume might be written on the theme; let the testimony of Dr. Stables,(42) a surgeon of the Royal Navy, suffice. It shall be told in his own words:-
"One item of duty there is, which occasionally devolves on the medical officer, and for the most part goes greatly against the feeling of the young surgeon; I refer to his compulsory attendance at floggings. It is only fair to state that the majority of captains and commanders use the cat as seldom as possible, and that, too, only sparingly. In some ships, however, flogging is nearly as frequent as prayers of a morning. Again, it is more common on foreign stations than at home, and boys of the first or second cla.s.s, marines, and ordinary seamen, are for the most part the victims.... We were at anchor in Simon"s Bay. All the minutiae of the scene I remember as though it were but yesterday. The morning was cool and clear, the hills clad in lilac and green, sea-birds floating high in air, and the waters of the bay reflecting the blue of the sky, and the lofty mountain-sides forming a picture almost dream-like in its quietude and serenity. The men were standing about in groups, dressed in their whitest of pantaloons, bluest of smocks, and neatest of black-silk neckerchiefs.
By-and-by the culprit was led in by a file of marines, and I went below with him to make the preliminary examination, in order to report whether or not he might be fit for the punishment.
"He was as good a specimen of the British mariner as one could wish to look upon-hardy, bold, and wiry. His crime had been smuggling spirits on board.
""Needn"t examine me, doctor," said he; "I aint afeared of their four dozen; they can"t hurt me, sir-leastways my back, you know-my breast, though; hum-m!" and he shook his head, rather sadly I thought, as he bent down his eyes.
""What," said I, "have you anything the matter with your chest?"
""Nay, doctor, nay; it"s my feelings they"ll hurt. I"ve a little girl at home that loves me, and, bless you, sir, I won"t look her in the face again nohow."
"I felt his pulse. No lack of strength there, no nervousness; the artery had the firm beat of health, the tendons felt like rods of iron beneath the finger, and his biceps stood out hard and round as the mainstay of an old seventy-four.... All hands had already a.s.sembled-the men and boys on one side, and the officers, in c.o.c.ked hats and swords, on the other. A grating had been lashed against the bulwark, and another placed on deck beside it. The culprit"s shoulders and back were bared, and a strong belt fastened around the lower part of the loins for protection; he was then firmly tied by the hands to the upper, and by the feet to the lower grating; a little basin of cold water was placed at his feet, and all was now prepared. The sentence was read, and orders given to proceed with the punishment. The cat is a terrible instrument of torture; I would not use it on a bull unless in self-defence; the shaft is about a foot and a half long, and covered with green or red baize, according to taste; the thongs are nine, about twenty-eight inches in length, of the thickness of a goose-quill, and with two knots tied on each. Men describe the first blow as like a shower of molten lead.
"Combing out the thongs with his five fingers before each blow, firmly and determinedly was the first dozen delivered by the bo"swain"s mate, and as unflinchingly received.
"Then, "One dozen, sir, please," he reported, saluting the commander.
""Continue the punishment," was the calm reply.
"A new man, and a new cat. Another dozen reported; again the same reply.
Three dozen. The flesh, like burning steel, had changed from red to purple, and blue, and white; and between the third and fourth dozen, the suffering wretch, pale enough now, and in all probability sick, begged a comrade to give him a mouthful of water.