Medical Life in the Navy Part 5

It was the Cape winter when I joined the gunboat. The hills were covered with purple and green, the air was deliciously cool, and the far-away mountain-tops were clad in virgin snow. It was twelve o'clock noon when I took my traps on board, and found my new messmates seated around the table at tiffin. The gunroom, called the wardroom by courtesy--for the after cabin was occupied by the lieutenant commanding--was a little morsel of an apartment, which the table and five cane-bottomed chairs entirely filled. The officers were five-- namely, a little round-faced, dimple-cheeked, good-natured fellow, who was our second-master; a tall and rather awkward-looking young gentleman, our mids.h.i.+pman; a lean, pert, and withal diminutive youth, brimful of his own importance, our a.s.sistant-paymaster; a fair-haired, bright-eyed, laughing boy from Cornwall, our sub-lieutenant; and a "wee wee man," dapper, clean, and tidy, our engineer, admitted to this mess because he was so thorough an exception to his cla.s.s, which is celebrated more for the unctuosity of its outer than for the smoothness of its inner man.

"Come along, old fellow," said our navigator, addressing me as I entered the messroom, bobbing and bowing to evade fracture of the cranium by coming into collision with the transverse beams of the deck above--"come along and join us, we don't dine till four."

"And precious little to dine upon," said the officer on his right.

"Steward, let us have the rum," [Note 1] cried the first speaker.

And thus addressed, the steward shuffled in, bearing in his hand a black bottle, and apparently in imminent danger of choking himself on a large mouthful of bread and b.u.t.ter. This functionary's dress was remarkable rather for its simplicity than its purity, consisting merely of a pair of dirty canvas pants, a pair of purser's shoes--innocent as yet of blacking--and a greasy flannel s.h.i.+rt. But, indeed, uniform seemed to be the exception, and not the rule, of the mess, for, while one wore a blue serge jacket, another was arrayed in white linen, and the rest had neither jacket nor vest.

The table was guiltless of a cloth, and littered with beer-bottles, biscuits, onions, sardines, and pats of b.u.t.ter.

"Look out there, Waddles!" exclaimed the sub-lieutenant; "that beggar Dawson is having his own whack o' grog and everybody else's."

"Dang it! I'll have _my_ tot to-day, I know," said the a.s.sistant-paymaster, s.n.a.t.c.hing the bottle from Dawson, and helping himself to a very liberal allowance of the ruby fluid.

"What a cheek the fellow's got!" cried the mids.h.i.+pman, s.n.a.t.c.hing the gla.s.s from the table and bolting the contents at a gulp, adding, with a gasp of satisfaction as he put down the empty tumbler, "The chap thinks n.o.body's got a soul to be saved but himself."

"Soul or no soul," replied the youthful man of money as he gazed disconsolately at the empty gla.s.s, "my _spirit's_ gone."

"Blessed," said the engineer, shaking the black bottle, "if you devils have left me a drain! see if I don't look out for A1 to-morrow."

"Where's the doctor's grog?" cried the sub-lieutenant.

"Ay, where's the doctor's?" said another.

"Where is the doctor's?" said a third.

And they all said "Where is the doctor's?" and echo answered "Where?"

"Steward!" said the middy.

"Ay, ay, sir."

"See if that beggarly b.u.mboat-man is alongside, and get me another pat of b.u.t.ter and some soft tack; get the grub first, then tell him I'll pay to-morrow."

These and such like sc.r.a.ps of conversation began to give me a little insight into the kind of mess I had joined and the character of my future messmates. "Steward," said I, "show me my cabin." He did so; indeed, he hadn't far to go. It was the aftermost, and consequently the smallest, although I _ought_ to have had my choice. It was the most miserable little box I ever reposed in. Had I owned such a place on sh.o.r.e, I _might_ have been induced to keep rabbits in it, or guinea-pigs, but certainly not pigeons. Its length was barely six feet, its width four above my cot and two below, and it was minus sufficient standing-room for any ordinary-sized sailor; it was, indeed, a cabin for a commodore--I mean Commodore Nutt--and was ventilated by a scuttle seven inches in diameter, which could only be removed in harbour, and below which, when we first went to sea, I was fain to hang a leather hat-box to catch the water; unfortunately the bottom rotted out, and I was then at the mercy of the waves.

My cabin, or rather--to stick to the plain unvarnished truth--my burrow, was alive with scorpions, c.o.c.kroaches, ants, and other "crawlin'

ferlies."

"That e'en to name would be unlawfu'."

My dispensary was off the steerage, and sister-cabin to the pantry. To it I gained access by a species of crab-walking, squeezing myself past a large bra.s.s pump, and edging my body in sideways. The sick came one by one to the dispensary door, and there I saw and treated each case as it arrived, dressed the wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, and bandaged the bad legs. There was no sick-berth attendant; to be sure the lieutenant-in-command, at my request, told off "a little cabin-boy"

for my especial use. I had no cause for delectation on such an acquisition, by no means; he was not a model cabin-boy like what you see in theatres, and I believe will never become an admiral. He managed at times to wash out the dispensary, or gather c.o.c.kroaches, and make the poultices--only in doing the first he broke the bottles, and in performing the last duty he either let the poultice burn or put salt in it; and, finally, he smashed my pot, and I kicked him forward, and demanded another. _He_ was slightly better, only he was seldom visible; and when I set him to do anything, he at once went off into a sweet slumber; so I kicked him forward too, and had in despair to become my own menial. In both dispensary and burrow it was quite a difficult business to prevent everything going to speedy destruction. The best portions of my uniform got eaten by c.o.c.kroaches or moulded by damp, while my instruments required cleaning every morning, and even that did not keep rust at bay.

Imagine yourself dear reader, in any of the following interesting positions:--

Very thirsty, and nothing but boiling hot newly distilled water to drink; or wis.h.i.+ng a cool bath of a morning, and finding the water in your can only a little short of 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

To find, when you awake, a couple of c.o.c.kroaches, two inches in length, busy picking your teeth.

To find one in a state of decay in the mustard-pot.

To have to arrange all the droppings and eggs of these interesting creatures on the edge of your plate, previous to eating your soup.

To have to beat out the dust and weevils from every square inch of biscuit before putting it in your mouth.

To be looking for a book and put your band on a full-grown scaly scorpion. Nice sensation--the animal twining round your finger, or running up your sleeve. _Denouement_--cracking him under foot-- full-flavoured bouquet--joy at escaping a sting.

You are enjoying your dinner, but have been for some time sensible of a strange t.i.tivating feeling about the region of your ankle; you look down at last to find a centipede on your sock, with his fifty hind-legs--you thank G.o.d not his fore fifty--ab.u.t.ting on to your s.h.i.+n. _Tableau_-- green and red light from the eyes of the many-legged; horror of yourself as you wait till he thinks proper to "move on."

To awake in the morning, and find a large and healthy-looking tarantula squatting on your pillow within ten inches of your nose, with his basilisk eyes fixed on yours, and apparently saying, "You're only just awake, are you? I've been sitting here all the morning watching you."

You know if you move he'll bite you, somewhere; and if he _does_ bite you, you'll go mad and dance _ad libitum_; so you twist your mouth in the opposite direction and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e--

"Steward!" but the steward does not come--in fact he is forward, seeing after the breakfast. Meanwhile the gentleman on the pillow is moving his horizontal mandibles in a most threatening manner, and just as he makes a rush for your nose you tumble out of bed with a shriek; and, if a very nervous person, probably run on deck in your s.h.i.+rt.

Or, to fall asleep under the following circ.u.mstances: The bulkheads, all around, black with c.o.c.k-and-hen-roaches, a few of which are engaged cropping your toe-nails, or running off with little bits of the skin of your calves; bugs in the crevices of your cot, a flea tickling the sole of your foot, a troop of ants carrying a dead c.o.c.kroach over your pillow, lively mosquitoes attacking you everywhere, hammer-legged flies occasionally settling on your nose, rats running in and rats running out, your lamp just going out, and the delicious certainty that an indefinite number of earwigs and scorpions, besides two centipedes and a tarantula, are hiding themselves somewhere in your cabin.

Note 1. Officers, as well as men, are allowed one half-gill of rum daily, with this difference,--the former pay for theirs, while the latter do not.

CHAPTER TEN.

ROUND THE CAPE AND UP THE 'BIQUE. SLAVER-HUNTING.

It was a dark-grey cloudy forenoon when we "up anchor" and sailed from Simon's Bay. Frequent squalls whitened the water, and there was every indication of our being about to have dirty weather; and the tokens told no lies. To our little craft, however, the foul weather that followed seemed to be a matter of very little moment; for, when the wind or waves were in any way high, she kept snugly below water, evidently thinking more of her own convenience than our comfort, for such a procedure on her part necessitated our leading a sort of amphibious existence, better suited to the tastes of frogs than human beings. Our beds too, or matresses, became converted into gigantic poultices, in which we nightly steamed, like as many porkers newly shaven. Judging from the amount of salt which got encrusted on our skins, there was little need to fear danger, we were well preserved--so much so indeed, that, but for the constant use of the matutinal freshwater bath, we would doubtless have shared the fate of Lot's wife and been turned into pillars of salt.

After being a few days at sea the wind began to moderate, and finally died away; and instead thereof we had thunderstorms and waves, which, if not so big as mountains, would certainly have made pretty large hills.

Many a night did we linger on deck till well nigh morning, entranced by the sublime beauty and terrible grandeur of those thunderstorms. The roar and rattle of heaven's artillery; the incessant _floods_ of lightning--crimson, blue, or white; our little craft hanging by the bows to the crest of each huge inky billow, or next moment buried in the valley of the waves, with a wall of black waters on every side; the wet deck, the slippery shrouds, and the faces of the men holding on to the ropes and appearing so strangely pale in the electric light; I see the whole picture even now as I write--a picture, indeed, that can never, never fade from my memory.

Our cruising "ground" lay between the island and town of Mozambique in the south, to about Magadoxa, some seven or eight degrees north of the Equator.

Nearly the whole of the slave-trade is carried on by the Arabs, one or two Spaniards sometimes engaging in it likewise. The slaves are brought from the far interior of South Africa, where they can be purchased for a small bag of rice each. They are taken down in chained gangs to the coast, and there in some secluded bay the dhows lie, waiting to take them on board and convey them to the slave-mart at Zanzibar, to which place Arab merchants come from the most distant parts of Arabia and Persia to buy them. Dhows are vessels with one or two masts, and a corresponding number of large sails, and of a very peculiar construction, being shaped somewhat like a short or Blucher boot, the high part of the boot representing the p.o.o.p. They have a thatched roof over the deck, the projecting eaves of which render boarding exceedingly difficult to an enemy.

Sometimes, on rounding the corner of a lagoon island, we would quietly and unexpectedly steam into the midst of a fleet of thirty to forty of these queer-looking vessels, very much to our own satisfaction, and their intense consternation. Imagine a cat popping down among as many mice, and you will be able to form some idea of the scramble that followed. However, by dint of steaming here and there, and expending a great deal of shot and sh.e.l.l, we generally managed to keep them together as a dog would a flock of sheep, until we examined all their papers with the aid of our interpreter, and probably picked out a prize.

I wish I could say the prizes were anything like numerous; for perhaps one-half of all the vessels we board are illicit slaveholders, and yet we cannot lay a finger on them. One may well ask why? It has been said, and it is generally believed in England, that our cruisers are sweeping the Indian Ocean of slavers, and stamping out the curse. But the truth is very different, and all that we are doing, or able at present to do, is but to pull an occasional hair from the h.o.a.ry locks of the fiend Slavery. This can be proved from the return-sheets, which every cruiser sends home, of the number of vessels boarded, generally averaging one thousand yearly to each man-o'-war, of which the half at least have slaves or slave-irons on board; but only two, or at most three, of these will become prizes. The reason of this will easily be understood, when the reader is informed, that the Sultan of Zanzibar has liberty to take any number of slaves from any one portion of his dominions to another: these are called household slaves; and, as his dominions stretch nearly all along the eastern sh.o.r.es of Africa, it is only necessary for the slave-dealer to get his sanction and seal to his papers in order to steer clear of British law. This, in almost every case, can be accomplished by means of a bribe. So slavery flourishes, the Sultan draws a good fat revenue from it, and the Portuguese--no great friends to us at any time--laugh and wink to see John Bull paying his thousands yearly for next to nothing. Supposing we liberate even two thousand slaves a year, which I am not sure we do however, there are on the lowest estimate six hundred slaves bought and sold daily in Zanzibar mart; two hundred and nineteen thousand in a twelvemonth; and, of our two thousand that are set free in Zanzibar, most, if not all, by-and-bye, become bondsmen again.

I am not an advocate for slavery, and would like to see a wholesale raid made against it, but I do not believe in the retail system; selling freedom in pennyworths, and spending millions in doing it, is very like burning a penny candle in seeking for a cent. Yet I sincerely believe, that there is more good done to the spread of civilisation and religion in one year, by the slave-traffic, than all our missionaries can do in a hundred. Don't open your eyes and smile incredulously, intelligent reader; we live in an age when every question is looked at on both sides, and why should not this? What becomes of the hundreds of thousands of slaves that are taken from Africa? They are sold to the Arabs--that wonderful race, who have been second only to Christians in the good they have done to civilisation; they are taken from a state of degradation, b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, and wretchedness, worse by far than that of the wild beasts, and from a part of the country too that is almost unfit to live in, and carried to more favoured lands, spread over the sunny sh.o.r.es of fertile Persia and Arabia, fed and clothed and cared for; after a few years of faithful service they are even called sons and feed at their master's table--taught all the trades and useful arts, besides the Mahommedan religion, which is certainly better than none--and, above all, have a better chance given them of one day hearing and learning the beautiful tenets of Christianity, the religion of love.

I have met with few slaves who after a few years did not say, "Praised be Allah for the good day I was take from me c.o.o.ntry!" and whose only wish to return was, that they might bring away some aged parent, or beloved sister, from the dark cheerless home of their infancy.

Means and measures much more energetic must be brought into action if the stronghold of slavedom is to be stormed, and, if not, it were better to leave it alone. "If the work be of G.o.d ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found to fight even against G.o.d."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.