Frederick Whymper

“ There is every conceivable green, or rather of hues, ranging from pale yellow through all greens into cobalt; and “as the wind stirs the leaves, and sweeps the lights and shadows over hill and glen, all is ever-changing, iridescent, like a peacock’s tail; till the whole island, from peak to shore, seems some glorious jewel—an emerald, with tints of sapphire and topaz, hanging between blue sea and white surf below, and blue sky and white cloud above.” ”

“ THE FUSIYAMA MOUNTAIN. The great attraction, in a landscape point of view, outside Yokohama, is the grand Fusiyama Mountain, an extinct volcano, the great object of reverence and pride in the Japanese heart, and which in native drawings and carvings is incessantly represented. A giant, 14,000 feet high, it towers grandly to the clouds, snow-capped and streaked. It is deemed a holy and worthy deed to climb to its summit, and to pray in the numerous temples that adorn its sides. Thousands of pilgrims visit it annually. And now let us make a northward voyage. ”

“ New York has not to-day a dock worthy of the name; magnificent steamships and palatial ferry-boats all lie alongside wharfs, or enter “slips,” which are semi-enclosed wharfs. Brooklyn and Jersey City have, however, docks.
Who that has visited New York will ever forget his first impressions? The grand Hudson, or the great East River, itself a strait: the glorious bay, or the crowded island, alike call for and deserve enthusiastic admiration. ”

“ Next morning the sun rose fiery and red, a sure indication of a gale, and by eight o’clock it blew a violent storm, the waves running so high that their sail was becalmed when between the seas. They lightened the boat by throwing overboard all superfluous articles, and removing the tools, put the bread, on which their very existence depended, in the chest. Miserably wet and cold as were all, Bligh administered a tea-spoonful of rum to each at dinner time. The sea still rose, and the fatigue of baling became very great. ”

“ Man is not independent of his fellow-man in distant countries, nor is it desirable that he should be. No land produces all the necessaries, and the luxuries which have begun to be considered necessaries, sufficient for itself. Transportation by land is often impracticable, or too costly, and the ocean thus becomes the great highway of nations. Vessel after vessel, fleet after fleet, arrive safely and speedily. But as there is danger for man lurking everywhere on land, so also is there on the sea. The world’s wreck-chart for one year must, as we shall see hereafter, be something appalling. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These and a variety of other grievances, real or fancied, nearly upset the equilibrium of our entire navy. It is not too much to say that not merely England’s naval supremacy was for a time in the greatest jeopardy through the disaffection of the men, but that our national existence, almost—and most certainly our existence as a first-class power—was alarmingly threatened, the cause being nothing more nor less than a very general spirit of mutiny. To do the sailors justice, they sought at first to obtain fair play by all legitimate means in their power. ”

“ At Lake Menzaleh the banks are very slightly above the level of the Canal, and from the deck of a big steamer there is an unbounded view over a wide expanse of lake and morass studded with islets, and at times gay and brilliant with innumerable flocks of rosy pelicans, scarlet flamingoes, and snow-white spoonbills, geese, ducks, and other birds. The pelicans may be caught bodily from a boat, so clumsy are they in the water, without the expenditure of powder and shot. Indeed, the sportsman might do worse than visit the Canal, where, it is almost needless to state, the shooting is open to all. ”

“ The surf whispered softly on the beach. The cheerful murmur of voices came off the shore, and above it, the tinkling of some little bell, calling good folks to early mass. A cheery, brilliant picture as man could wish to see, but marred by two ugly elements. A mile away on the low northern cliff, marked with many a cross, was the lonely cholera cemetery, a remembrance of the fearful pestilence which, a few years since, swept away thousands of the people: and above frowned that black giant, now asleep: but for how long? ”

“ Captains still have their idiosyncrasies, but not of such a marked nature. There may be indolent captains, like he who was nicknamed “The Sloth;” or, less likely, prying captains, like he in “Peter Simple,” who made himself so unpopular that he lost all the good sailors on board, and had to put up with a “scratch crew;” or (a comparatively harmless variety) captains who amuse their officers with the most outrageous yarns, but who are in all else the souls of honour. Who can help laughing over that Captain Kearney, who tells the tale of the Atta of Roses ship? ”

“ The letters of patent, however, granted to poor Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and subsequently to Sir Walter Raleigh, mark a most important epoch in the world’s history, for from those small starting-points date the English efforts at colonising America—the great New World of the past, the present, and the future. Where then a few naked savages lurked and lazed, fished and hunted, forty millions of English-speaking people now dwell, whose interests on and about the sea, rising in importance every day, are scarcely excelled by those of any nation on the globe, except our own. ”

“ Those who have stood in Princes Street at night, and gazed upon the Old Town and Castle of Edinburgh, can form a very correct notion of the fairy-like spectacle. Expecting to find San Francisco a city of wonders, I was not disappointed when it seemed to my eyes a city of magic—such a city as Aladdin might have ordered the genii to create in order to astonish and dazzle the spectator. ”

“ The steamer enters between the large island and a cluster of islets, standing high out of the water with rocky banks, and covered to their summits by rich green jungle, with here and there a few forest trees towering above it high in the air. Under the vessel’s keel, too, as she passes slowly over the shoaler patches of the entrance, may be seen beautiful beds of coral, which, in their variegated colours and fantastic shapes, vie with the scenery above. The Peninsular and Oriental Steamers’ wharfs are situated at the head of a small bay, with the island of Pulo Brani in front. ”

“ They sometimes have sails. They will irresistibly remind the traveller of those picturesque rafts on the Rhine, on which there are cabins, with the smoke curling from their stove-pipes, and women, children, and dogs, the men with long sweeps keeping the valuable floating freight in the current. Many a German, now in England or America, made his first trip through the Fatherland to its coast on a Rhine raft.
The sailor generally makes his first acquaintance with the island of Singapore by entering through New Harbour, and the scenery is said to be almost unsurpassed by anything in the world. ”

“ Perfumed isles are in many people’s minds merely fabled dreams, but they are easy of realisation here. There is scarcely a part of the island, except those few places where the original forest and jungle have been cleared away, from which at night-time, on the first breathings of the land winds, may not be felt those lovely forest perfumes, even at the distance of more than a mile from shore. ”

“ When the party, consisting of five ladies, four gentlemen, the master and two men, started in the morning, there was scarcely a breath of wind or a ripple on the water, and oars as large as those used on a barge were employed to propel the vessel.
“The sea was bright, and the bark rode well,” and at length the desired haven, a sheltered nook, with fine cliffs, seaweed-covered rocks, and deep, clear water, was reached, and a dozen strong lines, with heavy sinkers, put out. The sea was bountiful: in a couple of hours enough fish were caught to furnish a capital lunch for all. ”

“ I find there are many good men amongst us; for my own part, I have had full confidence of all in this ship, and once more beg to express my approbation of your conduct.
“May God, who has thus far conducted you, continue so to do; and may the British Navy, the glory and support of our country, be restored to its wonted splendour, and be not only the bulwark of Britain, but the terror of the world. ”

“ Great sea-fights and notable shipwrecks recur to our memory—the progress of naval supremacy, and the means by which millions of people and countless millions of wealth have been transferred from one part of the earth to another. We cannot help thinking, too, of “Poor Jack” and life before the mast, whether on the finest vessel of the Royal Navy, or in the worst form of trading ship. We recall the famous ships themselves, and their careers. We remember, too, the “toilers of the sea”—the fishermen, whalers, pearl-divers, and coral-gatherers ”

“ The horrors of the sea—its storms, hurricanes, whirlpools, waterspouts, impetuous and treacherous currents—rise vividly before our mental vision. Then there are the inhabitants of the sea to be considered—from the tiniest germ of life to the great leviathan, or even the doubtful sea-serpent. And even the lowest depths of ocean, with their mountains, valleys, plains, and luxurious marine vegetation, are full of interest ”

“ It puts me in mind of the soup at Treemont house—good enough at top, but dip down and you have the riches—the coal, the iron ore, the gypsum, and what not. As for Halifax, it’s well enough in itself, though no great shakes neither; a few sizeable houses, with a proper sight of small ones, like half-a-dozen old hens with their broods of young chickens: but the people, the strange critters, they are all asleep. They walk in their sleep, and talk in their sleep, and what they say one day they forget the next ”

“ Down the beds of the small ravines run burns, overgrown by dock-leaves of enormous size, and the banks are clothed with a rich vegetation of dark-leaved myrtle, bignonia, and winter-bark, tree-shrubs, with tall grass, ferns, and flowering plants. And as you lie there, humming-birds come darting and thrumming within reach of your stick, flitting from flower to flower, which dot blue and white the foliage of bignonias and myrtles. ”

“ His deeds may be none the less heroic because his conquests are peaceful, and because Neptune rather than Mars is challenged to cede his treasures. Anson, Cook, and Vancouver, Parry, Franklin, M’Clintock, and M’Clure, among a host of others, stand worthily by the side of our fighting sailors, because made of the same stuff. Let us also, then, for a time, leave behind the smoke and din, the glories and horrors of war, and cool our fevered imaginations by descending, in spirit at least, to the depths of the great sea. ”

“ But the great triumph of red-hot shot was on that memorable 13th of September, 1782, when forty-six sail of the line, and a countless fleet of gun and mortar boats attacked the fortress. With all these appliances of warfare, the great confidence of the enemy—or rather, combined enemies—was in their floating batteries, planned by D’Arcon, an eminent French engineer, and which had cost a good half million sterling. ”

“ Many a brave tar has lost his life on her, but yet she is no coffin-ship. On board, one notes the scrupulous order, the absolute perfection of cleanliness and trimness; the large guns and carriages alternating with the mess-tables of the crew. And we should not think much of the man who could stand emotionless and unmoved over the spots—still pointed out on the upper deck and cockpit below—where Nelson fell and Nelson died, on that memorable 21st, off Trafalgar Bay. ”

“ Whether viewed from some promontory where the eye seeks in vain another resting-place, or when sailing over the deep, one looks around on the unbounded expanse of waters, the sea must always give rise to ideas of infinite space and indefinable mystery hardly paralleled by anything of the earth itself. ”

“ Your road is everything that a road ought to be; it is bordered with trees, and with strange plants and flowers; it is shady and pleasant, or sunny and still pleasant; it carries you by the prettiest and peacefulest and most home-like of homes, and through stretches of forest that lie in a deep hush sometimes, and sometimes are alive with the music of birds; it curves always, which is a continual promise, whereas straight roads reveal everything at a glance and kill interest. ”

“ The importance of the bread-fruit to these people cannot be over-stated. That old navigator, Dampier, had well described it a hundred years before. “The bread-fruit, as we call it, grows on a large tree, as big and high as our largest apple-trees; it hath a spreading head, full of branches and dark leaves. The fruit grows on the boughs like apples; it is as big as a penny loaf when wheat is at five shillings the bushel; it is of a round shape, and hath a thick, tough rind; when the fruit is ripe, it is yellow and soft, and the taste is sweet and pleasant. The natives of Guam use it for bread. ”

“ To prove our points, it will not be necessary to recite the full history of the grandest engineering work of this century—a century replete with proud engineering works. Here it can only be given in the barest outline.
Every intelligent child on looking at the map would ask why the natural route to India was not by the Isthmus of Suez, and why a canal was not made. His schoolmaster answered, in days gone by, that there was a difference in the levels of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. That question has been answered successfully, and the difference has not ruined the Canal. ”