Seaward

“ We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark. As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the heights and down to the water's edge. ”

“ Yet the English fleet, far from keeping in port, was
beating seaward against wind and wave. On the quarter deck 10
of the flagship stood Admiral Sir John Narborough—the
[316] first seaman in England—who thirty-five years before
had been a cabin boy. ”

“ At midnight, seawards again began to swirl the tide, and we rose to go,—not without having first paid a visit to the room where the little daughters of the house lay folded in sleep. Then descending to the beach, laden with flowers and kind wishes waved to us by white handkerchiefs held in still whiter hands, we rowed on board; up went the napping sails, and dipping her ensign in token of adieu—the schooner glided swiftly on between the walls of rock, until an intervening crag shut out from our sight the friendly group that had come forth to bid us "Good speed." ”

“ Ahead of us loomed the shadow of a double-funnelled steamer—an inky dye of scarcely determinable proportions upon the black and silent waters of the harbour. The Capécure pier made a faint, phantom-like line of gloom as it ran seawards on our left, with here and there a lump of shadow denoting some collier fast to the skeleton timbers.
The stillness was impressive; from the sands came a dull and distant moan of surf; the dim strains of a concertina threaded the hush which seemed to dwell like something material upon the black, vague shape of a large brig almost directly abreast of us. ”

“ And with them I went to the rich beaches of Copper Island, where our salt-piles became high with skins. And in that silent sea we saw no man till we were ready to come away. Then, one day, the fog lifted on the edge of a heavy wind, and there jammed down upon us a schooner, with close in her wake the cloudy funnels of a Russian man-of-war. We fled away on the beam of the wind, with the schooner jamming still closer and plunging ahead three feet to our two. And upon her poop was the man with the mane of the sea lion, pressing the rails under with the canvas and laughing in his strength of life. ”

“ This spacious, convenient, and secure harbour, second to none on the face of the globe, is one of the indications that Providence formed this group of Islands for the abode of an enlightened and maritime people. From a spacious and deep bay, in which the whole navy of Britain might moor in safety, a cove jets into the land on the left; and on one side of the cove there is an opening through the land like a dock-gate, with perpendicular sides of solid rock, against which a ship of the line might lie with safety, as against a pier. ”

“ This done, we re-christened the schooner—dashing a bottle of spirits upon her bows—and calling her the ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp.’ We lay quietly at anchor that night, and weighing before dawn, the last of the land-wind carried us clear of the bay, and when the sea-breeze struck us next morning, we up helm, veered away the sheets, and stood away along the coast bound for Jamaica.
How vast is the difference between beating to windward in a small vessel against a rough sea, and flying gaily on before wind and waves! ”

“ She stood level as a die, stern to the island and bow to the sea—the sea that she was likely never to sail again; for no human agency could ever launch her from that altitude, with a double row of sharp reefs between her and the deep water. As a seagoing vessel we admitted that the career of the Seagull was ended; but as a place of refuge—a residence and a fort—the ship in its present location would prove invaluable to us as long as we were obliged to remain upon the island. ”

“ Ten terrible-looking beings stood swaying like skeletons in their ragged shrouds, drinking in the fresh air of the fast-breaking dawn, as dying castaways might drink in water. What more terrible sight could the whole world present than that lonely, wrecked, waterlogged schooner, and on its deck those wobbling heads with half-blind eyes, the rags of the skeleton frames flapping in the wind, their forms falling to the deck as the schooner rolled and pitched on the storm-tossed seas. ”

“ Every moment the sea got up higher, and the wind blew more furiously. Onward we flew, the oars now perfectly useless, the men at the rudders scarcely able to move them so as to guide the course of the vessel. Where we went we could not tell. Clouds chased each other over the hitherto serene sky, and a thick driving rain, a complete cataract of water, descended, shrouding the coast from our sight. The seas leaped to a terrific height in our wake, and following us, almost dashed over our stern; but the tightly built vessel rose over them, and onward again we went uninjured. ”

“ At length we sighted an island, the coast of which was rocky and barren. Through stress of weather we were compelled to keep off the shore, steering northward until, on the third day, the weather having moderated, we hove to as near to the coast as we dared approach, and endeavoured to land a boat's crew. In spite of breakers and a heavy sea, six of the sailors leaped overboard opposite a sandy beach, and with great difficulty reached the shore. Whilst searching for water the sailors saw four natives, who fled at their approach. They were wild, black, and entirely naked. ”

“ All great seafaring races, English, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Dutch, have taken to salt water because there was lack of space, food, or work ashore, and their strong young men craved opportunities. Like the Pilgrim Fathers and their fishing shallops they had nowhere else to go.
When the Flying Cloud and the clippers of her kind—taut, serene, immaculate—were sailing through the lonely spaces of the South Atlantic and the Pacific, they sighted now and then the stumpy, slatternly rig and greasy hull of a New Bedford whaler, perhaps rolling to the weight of a huge carcass alongside. ”

“ Those who have only sailed in seas navigated for centuries with excellent charts of every rock, shoal, and current, are scarcely aware of the anxiety those experience who have to sail across an unknown ocean where numberless small islands exist, and reefs, some under the water and some just above it, on which the incautious voyager may run his ship and lose her, with little or no warning. At night, except when there was a moon, the schooner was hove-to, lest she should run on a reef, or past Jack’s supposed island. ”

“ Just without us as we lay at an anchor was a small sandy Island laying upon a large Coral shoal, much resembling the low Islands to the eastward of us but the first of the kind we had met with in this part of the South Sea. Early in the morn we weighd and saild as usual with a fine breeze along shore, the Countrey hilly and stoney. At night fall rocks and sholes were seen ahead, on which the ship was put upon a wind off shore. ”

“ A wild and stormy abode, sometimes, was that fine, narrow-waters academy of seamanship from which I launched myself on the wide oceans. My teachers had been the coasting sailors of the Norfolk shore. Coast men, with steady eyes, mighty limbs, and gentle voice. Men of very few words, which, at least, were never bare of meaning. Honest, strong, steady men, sobered by domestic ties, one and all as far as I can remember.
That is what years ago the North Sea, I could hear growling in the dark all round the ship, had been for me. ”

“ The seaboard was lined with dusky clouds; the ocean heaved in gentle undulations; and a light breeze murmured by, with a low soft music in its tone, like the whisper of a young girl to her lover. As the twilight deepened, the shadowy outlines of the distant land became more and more indistinct, until at length they were merged in the obscurity of the whole western firmament. No sound was heard over the vast expanse as we resumed our course, and silently stretched up towards the island.
It was nearly midnight when we reached the mouth of the harbor. All within was still. ”

“ The twenty-ninth dawned overhead from out of ragged clouds; there is no moment when a boat at sea appears so trenchantly black and so conspicuously little; and the crew looked about them at the sky and water with a thrill of loneliness and fear. With sunrise the trade set in, lusty and true to the point; sail was made; the boat flew; and by about four in the afternoon, they were well up with the closed part of the reef, and the captain standing on the thwart, and holding by the mast, was studying the island through the binoculars.
“Well, and where's your station?” cried Mac. ”

“ In the evening of the second day, we saw two schooners standing down the bay, and sailing close on the wind, so as to pass between the fleet and the Eastern Shore. As it was dangerous for large ships to approach much nearer the Eastern Shore than where we lay, several of the tenders of the fleet, amounting in all to more than a dozen, were ordered, by signal, to intercept the strange sails, and bring them to the fleet. ”

“ Deep water, and a very rapid current or tide, rendered it unsafe to anchor amongst the islands; we therefore continued to coast along the main shore in search of a harbour for several hours. The shore in this place was not elevated more than 30 to 40 feet above the level of the sea. It was skirted with tussoc, which, from the very [56] gradual rise of the land, hid all the interior from our view, except a few moderate elevations far distant.
At 6 P. M. the appearance of a wide bay induced me to send off the boat to examine for anchorage. ”

“ After awhile the full moon rose and changed the darkened bay into a sea of fluid silver, and shining full against the blackened western shore, changed it into a line of diamond light. Then Marguerite was aware of a sail making down the bay and bearing full upon the island. There was no reason for the feeling, but the approach of this packet filled the lady’s mind with a [129] strange anxiety, alike impossible to explain or expel. The vessel anchored near the isle and sent out a boat, manned by two sailors, and containing a third person, apparently a passenger. ”

“ I had shipped an ordinary European crew in the Thames; and in the Downs, where we lay wind-bound for three days, every man-jack of them, saving Mr. Jones and Winstanley, lowered that quarter-boat,' said he, nodding to it, 'one dark night, chucked their traps in and went away for Dover round the South Foreland. I recovered the boat, and was told that there was a crew of Malays lodged at the Sailors' Home at Dover. A vessel from Ceylon that had touched at the Cape and taken in some coloured seamen there had stranded, a night or two before my men ran, somewhere off the South Sand Head. ”

“ You could open your eyes in the silent hours of the night and see the outbound sailing ships as the rigging flitted across the moonlight and the crew sang some homebound song as the ship met the outer foams and started on the long, long track home. The awful stench from Woolloomoolloo Bay came on the wind round the bend at intervals, like the hot breath of reality across your dreams. ”

“ And when the full moon peered over the ocean rim, touching with dim light the feathery palms that sheltered the tin roofs of the scattered coral-built houses, it looked like some staged faery town of a South Sea isle. Often by night some strange-rigged ship would hug the coast-line for hours while its crew of blackbirders crept ashore and kidnapped native men and women from the villages. ”

“ Then again, look at that emigrant vessel steaming slowly up the harbour; think of the folk aboard her, all with their hopes and fears, confident of a successful future in this terra incognita, or despondent of that and everything else. Away to the left there you see a little island schooner making her way down towards the blue Pacific; imagine her in a few weeks among the islands—tropical heavens dropped down into sunlit waters! Yes, it is a wonderful picture we have before us—a very wonderful picture!'
"'You seem to have studied it very carefully,' I said after a moment's silence. ”

“ Of all sensations, the first glimpse of the land towards which a ship has been steering for weeks and weeks, with seldom even so much as a passing sail to relieve the monotony of the ocean, is the most thrilling. The oldest seaman will desert his bunk or hammock to make for the forecastle and have a look at the dim cloud. The pale-faced steward, seldom seen on deck, sneaks from his berth in the steerage redolent of lukewarm soup and resonant with the ceaseless clattering of crockery, to peer over the bulwarks at the far-off coast. ”

“ When I was fifteen I was captain and owner of an oyster-pirate sloop. By the time I was sixteen I was sailing in scow-schooners, fishing salmon with the Greeks up the Sacramento River, and serving as sailor on the Fish Patrol. And I was a good sailor, too, though all my cruising had been on San Francisco Bay and the rivers tributary to it. I had never been on the ocean in my life.
Then, the month I was seventeen, I signed before the mast as an able seaman on a three-top-mast schooner bound on a seven-months’ cruise across the Pacific and back again. ”

“ Some stood to the north, some towards the south, endeavouring, as best they could, to beat up against the gale; but they were quickly dispersed here and there, so that the seamen on board the Sea-gull, with which we have to do, when they looked out into the gloom around, could not discover a single sail near them. Dark seas, with white, foaming crests, rose up on every side, threatening to fall over on the deck of the little vessel, and send her to the bottom. ”