Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 712

On the 9th March the first Australian sea-birds were sighted; and on the morning of the 16th they cast anchor in Sydney Harbour, which, with its wooded hills sloping gently down to the sea, seemed to our apprentice a perfect paradise of beauty. At Sydney they remained a fortnight, enjoying the luxury of very good and very cheap dinners, for meat only cost from twopence to fourpence per pound. After discharging their cargo, they sailed to Newcastle, sixty miles distant, to take in a cargo of coal, with which they sailed on the 23d April for Hong-kong, where they arrived on the 15th of June.

While at Hong-kong they had abundance of buffalo-meat, eggs, fruit, and soft bread, and plenty of hard work too, in washing out the hold of the ship, which had been much begrimed by the coals, to fit it for a cargo of tea. This the captain was unable to obtain, and was in consequence obliged to sail to Foo-chow, on the river Min, where, on the 13th of July, they arrived at Pagoda anchorage, so called from an old pagoda built on an island in the river, which widens out here to the dimensions of a small lake. Here also they waited in vain for a freight of tea, and the captain at last resolved to take a native cargo of poles to Shanghae, and try for better luck there.

On the 14th September they entered the Yangtze-kiang, where they found the scenery flat and uninteresting, but yet home-like, for the river reminded them of the Thames below London.

In the course of a week they unloaded their timber, but still no freight of tea could be procured; and the captain, after some delay, resolved to return to Foo-chow, taking as ballast native goods and medicines, two dozen sheep, and two dozen passengers. On the voyage back to Foo-chow, the cook having abandoned his post in disgust at the sharpness of a new Chinese steward, our apprentice was induced to volunteer his services, and was formally installed in his new office at four o'clock one fine morning. He began his arduous task by trying to kindle a fire, which for more than an hour obstinately resisted all his efforts to make it burn. At last he succeeded in evoking a tiny blaze, and thankful at heart even for that small mercy, he placed upon his fire the copper with water for the breakfast coffee, and marched off elate to get the rations for the day. It chanced to be a pork and pea-soup day; and having got his supplies of pork and pease, he returned to his galley, and was horror-struck to find that the sea was washing into it every few minutes, sometimes sportively rising almost as high as the precious fire which had cost him so much trouble. In his anxiety to preserve this cherished flame, the little tub of pork, which he had put out of his hands for a moment, capsized, and its contents were washed swiftly round and round the galley, to the surprise and disgust of the unfortunate amateur. At last, giving chase, he succeeded in capturing them with a considerable admixture of cinders; and having placed the tub and its heterogeneous contents out of harm's way, he concentrated his energies upon the question of the moment, which was coffee.

Tired of waiting for the water to boil, he threw in the coffee, and then, to while away the time, he began to pare some potatoes, which, by some unaccountable fatality, as fast as they were pared rolled out of the basin in which he placed them, upon the floor. Whish! away went the ship, lurching heavily, and away went the tub of pork again; and pork, tub, and potatoes began chasing each other round the galley in gallant style, being kept in countenance by a couple of buckets, which went frantically clanging and clanking against each other and everything else that came in their way. Despair shews itself in many ways: at this crisis our apprentice laughed; and he was still grinning over his own mishaps, when the watch arrived, sharp set for their coffee.

They were by no means in a laughing humour when they learned how the land lay, and neither was he, for that matter, when they left him. Convinced that at all risks he must make the water boil, he frantically heaped upon the fire odd bits of rope and canvas; but the water had a will of its own, and boil it would not. Eight o'clock struck, and again they came, each holding out an empty hook-pot, which he filled with by no means the best grace in the world, trying, as he ladled out the vile mixture, to sink the coffee, which floated like dust upon the surface. It would not do. First one man came growling back, and then another, and then the steward arrived to ask after the captain's potatoes. The captain's potatoes! He had forgotten all about them, and they had meanwhile been having a rare lark of it on deck, rattling first into one hole and then into another, until at last the greater number of them had scuttled overboard. What had he done? Had he been guilty of mutiny, insubordination, or gross carelessness as bad as either, on the high seas? In his panic he stepped back into the galley, which, for a wonder, happened to be free from water, and a hot coal falling out of the stove, burned his foot; and so ingloriously ended his career as cook.

At Pagoda Island the captain became seriously ill; and notwithstanding the most careful nursing on the part of his wife and our sailor apprentice, he passed away without ever having recovered consciousness, and was interred in the English cemetery at Foo-chow.

On the 6th November, the Sea Queen having loaded up, and being ready to start, a new captain came on board, the crew standing by the break of the forecastle and keenly eyeing him as he stepped on deck. There was not much to look at in him. He was a middle-sized man, with a moustache and whiskers of a sandy red hue; and that he did not despise his creature-comforts was evident from the quantity of provisions that came on board next day. He was, however, not illiberal with his good things, but from time to time presented the apprentices' mess with some little delicacies. As for the question of questions always asked by a crew with regard to a new captain: 'Does he carry on?' that is, does he risk a large press of sail in a stiff wind, it had to be answered in the negative. He was, in fact, as timid as his predecessor had been, but from a different cause – he had always formerly commanded a steamer, and his new duties were strange to him.

They had now been at sea for several weeks, when one lovely evening our apprentice was with his watch on deck, and had just lain down for an hour's nap, when the after-bell was struck hurriedly three times. As it was his duty to keep the time, and as the three strokes had, moreover, nothing to do with the proper hour, he suspected that something was wrong with the helmsman, a Swede, Edghren Andrews, and was just about to verify his suspicion, when the man rushed up to him and said: 'Will you take the wheel for a minute? I feel very sick; perhaps a swig of cold tea will set me up.' He went to get it; and in a few minutes returned to his post, where he had scarcely been a quarter of an hour, when the bell was again struck twice. A second time he went to the helmsman's assistance, and on the poop met Andrews, who said he was worse than ever; whereupon our apprentice offered to finish up his time for him.

Next morning the Swede took him into the forecastle and related the following curious story. The evening before, while at the wheel, he had suddenly seen the late captain on the weather-side of the poop, anxiously looking up at the sails and sky; and while he stared at him in mute surprise, he turned round angrily, and looked at him with such a horrible expression of face, that he dropped the wheel in a panic and rang the bell. In Sweden, he said, ghosts were supposed to have a special dislike to a knife and to the Bible; so he rushed below to procure them, by way of charm; but although he could have got a whole bucketful of knives, he could not lay his hands upon a single Bible; and so he took instead a Swedish novel, thinking that as the late captain had not understood Swedish, it could not make much difference. He soon found, however, that he had reckoned without his host. He was no sooner set down to the wheel than the ghost reappeared, and approaching the binnacle, looked at the compass, and made angry signs to him to alter the vessel's course. So much for sea superstitions.

On boxing-day the ordinary routine of ship-life was broken by a terrible accident. The port watch had just finished tea, and had turned into their bunks for a smoke and a read, when a frightful clamour and trampling of feet got up overhead. In a moment every one was on deck, where all was in the wildest hurry and confusion. 'A man overboard!' was the cry. 'Who is it? Who is gone?' asked half-a-dozen voices. 'Johnson!' answered the second mate, excitedly hauling at a rope. 'Haul up the mainsail!' shouted the mate, in tones that rung clear and high above the uproar. 'Slack away the sheet, lads! Bear down on the clew garnets.' All was in vain: the sea was so high that the ship could not be brought round to the wind, and the captain would not hear of a boat being launched. 'It would only,' he very justly said, 'put more lives in jeopardy.' With breathless excitement the look-outs at each mast-head strained their eyes into the darkness of the wild night. The black waves were tumbling mountain high, and there, like a cork upon the billows, was their drowning messmate, slowly drifting astern to his doom. A cold shudder ran through the veins of the breathless watchers. Could nothing be done to help him? Nothing! The helmsman threw him a life-buoy as he passed; perhaps he seized it, perhaps he did not: he was never seen again.

On the 26th February they reached New York; and after unloading their tea, took in a cargo of grain and resin, and sailed for London on the 15th of March. It was a bad season of the year, and the ship was overladen with grain, which makes a peculiarly heavy and unelastic cargo. The weather, stormy from the first, grew gradually worse until the 23d of March, when the gale freshened into a tempest, and that again into the wildest conceivable hurricane. Some frightful hours followed; the waves rolled along the bulwarks like mountains of blackish green water; the roar of wind and sea was inconceivably fearful, and suggested to the shivering crew the idea of something demoniac. At last it became evident to all, that unless the sails could be got rid of, the ship would founder. Who was to risk his life in the attempt? What hero would be found to do this deed of courage? As usual the hour brought the man in the person of Jack Andersen, a Swedish sailor. With his open knife between his teeth, this brave fellow sprang along the encumbered deck undaunted by a heavy sea which broke over him; and soon a loud explosion told of his success; the last sail was gone, and the Sea Queen lay like a helpless log upon the waters. At three in the morning a lull occurred, and the wind and sea gradually went down; but the vessel continuing to sink deeper in the water, it was necessary to lighten her, and fifty tons of cargo were thrown overboard. The sacrifice saved her; and on the 1st of April they sighted the welcome Lizard light. As for the suffering and discomfort on board subsequent to the storm, it was simply inconceivable. Our apprentice's chest floated bottom up for days; and his log-book, which was locked up in it, got a thorough soaking, which fortunately did not render it illegible, else we should have missed a very graphic and interesting narrative of life at sea.

'ONLY TRIFLES.'

When tempted to scorn the little duties of our calling, let us think of such sayings as the following. One day a visitor at Michael Angelo's studio remarked to that great artist, who had been describing certain little finishing 'touches' lately given to a statue – 'But these are only trifles.' 'It may be so,' replied the sculptor; 'but recollect that trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.' In the same spirit the great painter Poussin accounted for his reputation in these words – 'Because I have neglected nothing.' It is related of a Manchester manufacturer, that, on retiring from business, he purchased an estate from a certain nobleman. The arrangement was that he should have the house with all its furniture just as it stood. On taking possession, however, he found that a cabinet which was in the inventory had been removed; and on applying to the former owner about it, the latter said: 'Well, I certainly did order it to be removed; but I hardly thought you would have cared for so trifling a matter in so large a purchase.' 'My lord,' was the reply, 'if I had not all my life attended to trifles, I should not have been able to purchase this estate; and excuse me for saying so, perhaps if your lordship had cared more about trifles, you might not have had occasion to sell it.' 'Oh, what's the good of doing this and that?' we say in reference to departments of our business where quick returns are not forthcoming, or where success does not at once stare us in the face. When Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning and electricity, people of this baser sort asked with a sneer 'Of what use is it?' The philosopher's retort was: 'What is the use of a child? It may become a man!' Apropos of this remark, grown-up people should remember while doing improper things in the presence of him who is 'only a child,' that he will one day become a man just like themselves.

Mr Careless Nevermind and Miss Notparticular think that great men only deal with great things. The most brilliant discoverers were of a different opinion. They made their discoveries by observing and interpreting simple facts. When fools were walking in darkness, the eyes of these wise men were in their heads. Galileo's discovery of the pendulum was suggested to his observant eye by a lamp swinging from the ceiling of Pisa Cathedral. A spider's net suspended across the path of Sir Samuel Brown, as he walked one dewy morning in his garden, was the prompter that gave to him the idea of his suspension bridge across the Tweed. So trifling a matter as the sight of seaweed floating past his ship, enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny which arose amongst his sailors at not discovering land, and to assure them that the eagerly sought New World was not far off. Galvani observed that a frog's leg twitched when placed in contact with different metals, and it was this apparently insignificant fact that led to the invention of the electric telegraph. While a bad observer may 'go through a forest and see no firewood,' a true seer learns from the smallest things and apparently the most insignificant people. 'Sir,' said Dr Johnson to a fine gentleman just returned from Italy, 'some men will learn more in the Hampstead stage than others in the tour of Europe.' Certainly the power of little things can never be denied by Englishmen who reflect that the chalk cliffs of their island have been built up by little animals – detected only by the help of the microscope – of the same order of creatures that have formed the coral reefs.

Perhaps it is not too much to say that England owes her reputation of being the best workshop in Europe not so much to the fact that she is rich in coal and iron, as because her workmen put or used to put a good finish on their work. A country must become and continue great when its labourers work honestly, paying attention to detail, putting conscience into every stone they place and into every nail they drive. There is no fear of England declining so long as it can be said of her workers what was said of the Old Masters in statuary, painting, and cathedral-building:

In the elder days of art,Builders wrought with greatest careEach minute and unseen part,For the gods are everywhere.

How much of this honest workmanship, that careth for little things and not merely for the large and showy, is to be seen on the roof of Milan Cathedral! Here the smallest and least visible statue of the statue forest that tops the building, is carved with quite as great care as the largest and most conspicuous.

It has been remarked that we cannot change even a particle of sand on the sea-shore to a different place without changing at the same time the balance of the globe. The earth's centre of gravity will be altered by the action, in an infinitely small degree no doubt, but still altered; and upon this will ensue climatic change which may influence people's temperaments and actions. Of course this is an absurd refinement; but it illustrates the undoubted fact that the most trivial thought and act in our lives carries with it a train of consequences, the end of which we may never guess. The veriest trifles become of importance in influencing our own or other people's lives and characters. One look may marry us. Our profession may be settled for us by the most trivial circumstance. 'A kiss from my mother,' said West, 'made me a painter.' Going into an inn for refreshment, Dr Guthrie saw a picture of John Pounds the cobbler of Portsmouth teaching poor ragged children that had been left by ministers, ladies, and gentlemen to go to ruin on the streets. The sight of this picture hanging over the chimney-piece on that day, made Dr Guthrie the founder of ragged schools.

On a clock in one of the Oxford colleges is inscribed this solemn warning to those who fancy that killing time is not murder: Periunt et imputantur (the hours perish and are laid to our charge). But is not this equally true of those 'odd moments' during which we say it is not worth while commencing or finishing anything? Mr Smiles tells us that Dr Mason Good translated Lucretius while driving from patient's house to patient's house; that Dr Darwin composed nearly all his works in the same way; that Hale wrote his Contemplations while travelling on circuit; that Elihu Burritt while earning his living as a blacksmith mastered eighteen ancient languages and twenty-two European dialects in 'odd moments;' that Madame de Genlis composed several of her volumes while waiting for the princess to whom she gave daily lessons. Kirke White learned Greek and J. S. Mill composed Logic as they walked to their offices. Many of us get into a fuss if the dinner be not to the moment. Not so did D'Aguesseau, one of the greatest Chancellors of France, act. He used this mauvais quart d'heure, for he is said to have written a large and able volume in the intervals of waiting for dinner. Wellington's achievements were mainly owing to the fact that he personally attended to such minutiæ as soldiers' shoes, camp-kettles, biscuits, horse-fodder; and it was because Nelson attended to detail in respect of time that he was so victorious. 'I owe,' he said, 'all my success in life to having been always a quarter of an hour before my time.' 'Every moment lost,' said Napoleon, 'gives an opportunity for misfortune.' Well would it have been for himself – as his bitter end proved – had this European bully known another fact – that every moment selfishly employed is worse than lost, and 'gives an opportunity for misfortune!' However, he attributed the defeat of the Austrians to his own greater appreciation of the value of time. While they dawdled he overthrew them.

It may be said that 'it is the pace that kills – that people nowadays are more prone to wear themselves out by overworking than to rust unused.' But is it not over-anxiety and want of method, rather than overwork, that kills us? Methodical arrangement of time is like packing things in a box; a good packer will get in half as much again as a bad one.

Little words and acts far more than great ones reveal the manner of a man. No one – in Great Britain at least – could be such a Goth as to rest his heels on the mantel-piece or to spit when sitting in the company of ladies round a fire. It is not, however, given to all to continue sinless as regards those many little things that mark the naturally refined man. Women are said to be better readers of character than men, and perhaps the reason is this: character is shewn by minutiæ, and the fine intuition or mental sharp-sightedness by which these are discerned, belongs to women in a greater degree than to men.

Without caring in the smallest degree for goodness, we may avoid crime and gross sin because of the police, or because we desire to get on in the world, or because we are afraid of ridicule. The test, therefore, of a fine character is attention to the minutiæ of conduct. Nor does the performance of those large duties which are almost forced upon us prove our love to God or to man nearly so convincingly as do the little commonplace services of love – the cheerful word, the cup of cold water – when rendered not grudgingly or of necessity. By little foxes tender grapes are destroyed, according to Solomon. Little foxes are very cunning and most difficult to catch; and so are those little temptations by which our moral natures are gradually eaten away. The tender grapes of many a Christian branch are destroyed by such little foxes as temper, discontent, avarice, vanity. Many who could resist much greater sins yield to these. There is an excitement in the very greatness of a trial or temptation which enables us to resist it; while the chase after little foxes is dull and uninteresting. No wonder that when we analyse the lives of those who have ruined themselves morally, we generally discover that

It was the little rift within the luteThat, ever widening, slowly silenced all;Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit,That, rotting inward, slowly mouldered all.

How many people are almost successful, missing their aim by 'Oh, such a little!' Minutiæ in these cases make or mar us. 'If I am building a mountain,' said Confucius, 'and stop before the last basketful of earth is placed on the summit, I have failed.' The examination is lost by half a mark. One neck nearer and the race would have been won. The slightest additional effort would have turned the tide of war. 'Thou art not far from the kingdom of God,' were solemn words, marking the terrible difference between almost and altogether.

A MASONIC INCIDENT

When the Territory of Kansas applied to the government at Washington for the privilege of adding another star to the national flag – now nearly twenty-five years ago – conflicting interests were involved in the very important question as to whether she should enter the Union as a free or a slave state. Some of the foremost abolitionists of the North were determined that no territory should be added to the Union as a slave state; Southerners were equally resolute that the limits of slavery should no longer be circumscribed; while others, affecting a more moderate temper, offered to leave the settlement of the matter to the people themselves who sought the more extended national relationship. At this time the public mind was in a highly excited condition. The effect of the iniquitous 'Fugitive Slave Law' – passed in a spirit of conciliation towards the South, and for assisting which, by his vote, the illustrious Daniel Webster sacrificed much of his well-earned reputation – had not died away when, in 1852, the statute was suddenly put into practical operation in the city of Boston, and a scene was there enacted which is without a parallel in American history. A negro named Burns having escaped from bondage, settled in Boston, and for some years had earned an honest living as a waiter at hotels and in sundry other occupations in which men of his race were accustomed to be engaged. The Fugitive Slave Law empowered slaveholders to follow runaways into free states and remove them therefrom; and Burns' owner having discovered the fugitive's whereabouts, resolved on the exercise of his newly-acquired rights. Burns was arrested and lodged in jail. The news spread with the speed and effect of an electric shock. The whole city was moved. With youthful ardour many of the students of Harvard College (located at the neighbouring suburb of Cambridge) assailed the prison, with a view to the forcible liberation of the captive. So quickly had the riot assumed a portentous aspect, that a large force of police and soldiery was called into requisition to quell the disturbance. The representatives of the law succeeded in at once restoring peace and in placing in custody many of the students and other citizens who had attempted, though in vain, to render a humane service to an oppressed fellow-creature.

The quiet of the following day – Sunday – failed to allay the excitement which had seized the public mind. As the people issued from the various places of worship the proceedings of the previous day formed the general theme of conversation; groups of eager citizens were to be seen here and there discussing the outrage which had been perpetrated in the very 'cradle of liberty' itself.