CHAPTER XXI.

ཨཀ ཎ ཏ

SOCIAL EVENINGS-QUAINTNESS OF ENGLISH SEAMEN-THE ADVENTURES OF LUCAS- RUNS AWAY TO LIVERPOOL-ENTERS ON BOARD OF AN AFRICAN TRADER THE VOYAGE TO THE BIGHTS-FEVER-DEATHS-DIFFICULTY IN LEAVING PORT— A NEW CAPTAIN JOINS-VOYAGE HOME-SUFFERINGS FROM WANT OF WATER-DISORDERLY SCENES-A FIGHT-VILLANOUS BEVERAGE-A MAN FLOGGED TO DEATH-A HORRID

POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION-TEMPORARY RELIEF-RECKLESSNESS SUFFERINGS-A SECOND CASE OF MURDER-LUCAS A SAILOR NOLENS VOLENS."

As the majority of the boats were now together, there was more sociability among the crews than we had ever before had; and the dear old Hyacinth being notoriously one of the most united and smartest crews on the East India station, everything that could relieve monotony was done by both seamen and officers in the best spirit of unselfishness. The crews of the pinnace and cutter had been remarkably healthy, although living in open boats for four months, and their spirits were proportionately light. For several hours in the evening, songs would be sung and yarns would be told over the supperpipe or grog, and the loud chorus to the deliciously quaint melodies of

or,

ENGLISH SEAMEN.

"On Gosport beach I landed, that place of noted fame,
And I called for a bottle of good brandy,

To treat my lovely, lovely dame!" &c.,

"She gave unto me a gay gold ring,
And a locket filled with hair," &c. &c.,

225

would roll through the jungles of Parlis, and put to flight all things earthly and unearthly; but if the honest fellows' melodies partook of the rudely harmonious, their yarns were decidedly well worth hearing. In all cases, they merely related their own adventures; and it required no fiction to make them deeply interesting. The hand is now cold which could truly give a sailor's narrative, in all its original phraseology and strong characteristics the naval Fielding, Captain Marryat; and it is only in having sailors' histories told in their own way, that the general reader can ever form a correct idea of all their peculiarities of character. They have changed somewhat from Marryat's day, but still preserve all the originality of character for which their forefathers were famous they do not drink quite so hard, nor swear so much, but they are just as overflowing with wit and humour; and the smattering of education which enables the majority to read and the few to write, has in no way injured on the contrary, improved-the original view they always take of what passes under their notice. I shall not attempt to repeat any one of their yarns in its original clothing; but perhaps, whilst we are waiting for the closing scene in the blockade of Quedah, I may be pardoned for relating a strange tale, which I wrote down as it was told to me by a young seamen; and, as

it is somewhat startling, I may assure the reader that I have reason to believe every word to be true.

We had lately entered a young sailor, called Lucas, from a merchantman: he evidently was educated far beyond his station in life, and I heard some of the men remark that he had boasted of being the son of a gentleman. Watching for a good opportunity, I persuaded him to tell me who he was, and how he came to be in such a situation.

"My father," he said, "was a respectable tenantfarmer living near one of the seaports in the north of Ireland. His family consisted of several daughters, and myself, his only son. He spent a good deal of money upon my education, and tried hard to stifle in me a strong and early inclination for the sea-a taste I had acquired by my visits to the shipping in the harbour.

"I was sent to an inland school, to more effectually wean me from salt-water. I was in one continual row with my Dominie, and finding me very unruly, he reported me to my father, who caused me to be more severely punished and lectured. I determined to escape from what I regarded as cruelty and oppression, and, in spite of father and schoolmaster, to go to sea. Watching a good opportunity, I left school, reached Belfast, got on board a billy boy bound for Liverpool, and landed there with a few shillings in my pocket. The master of the lodging-house that I put up at introduced me to the engineer of a steamer running between Glasgow and Liverpool, and I shipped with him as engine-room boy.

A small description of coasting vessel, common to the British

ADVENTURES OF LUCAS.

227

This life I soon became tired of: the engineer seemed to consider it his privilege to thrash me whenever anything went wrong in the engine-room. All day—and all night too, if we were under way-there was one incessant call for Boy Lucas! 'Boy, oil that bearing!' 'Boy, wipe down this!' and, Clean up that !' short, I became a perfect white slave: there was but one way of escape-I again ran away.

"The abominable Scotch engineer and the steamer had not, however, sickened me of the sea; I was determined to get out to foreign countries, and to avoid the coasting trade, which is all very well for grown-up sailors, but bitter work for boys or novices. I was afraid to go back to my old lodgings, for the master of the house would have handed me over to the engineer again, so I lived about as I best could some of my poor Irish countrymen and women often gave me a bit of food, when I had starved through a long day, going from ship to ship, asking captains to take me to the East Indies.

"I was almost despairing of success, and just on the point of returning to my father, when the master of an African trader offered to ship me as a boy. I jumped at the chance, and joined immediately. She was a large heavy-looking brig, bound to the Bonny* for palm-oil. I afterwards had good cause to know that she was a crazy old craft that had been condemned as being even unfit for the Quebec timber trade. I and one or two shipkeepers were the only persons at first on board of the brig

* The Bonny, a nautical phrase for the Bight of Benin, into which the river Bonny flows.

in the river we had to pump her out every two hours, which I thought rather strange; the more so that the chief mate warned me that he would break my neck if he heard me say it was necessary to do so to any of the seamen who came on board to enter. Starvation had humbled me, and I held my tongue, although I saw that during the day the mate kept the working pumpbolt, which was as bright as silver, in his pocket, and substituted for it a rusty stiff bolt, which gave the pump the appearance of never being worked. This was done to prevent the men being afraid of entering on board a vessel in which the extra work of pumping would necessarily be very harassing.

"The day came for the crew to sign the articles of agreement upon which they were to sail in the brig. Besides the captain and mate, there were a cooper and thirteen hands; each of the latter, before signing the articles, examined the pump-bolt to see if it was bright, and expressed gratification at finding it as rusty as a tight ship's ought to be: they little thought how my arms were aching from labouring at the handle, or what rogues the ship-keepers and mate were! A few days afterwards we dropped to the fair-way buoy; and one fine day all our men were brought off, the majority so dead drunk as to suffer afterwards from delirium tremens; and a steam-tug took us outside the river, and let us go to find our way as best we could. The captain, mate, cooper, and I set all the sails, and lived on deck for

* The pump-bolt is the pin or fulcrum upon which the handle of a ship's pump works. Of course, the more the pump is worked, the brighter the pump-bolt becomes.