whom I had the good fortune to meet again in Paris in 1878, after many years of a rambling life in the Southern Hemisphere.
My eldest brother took it into his head to start for Australia in 1837. I was much engrossed by the fuss all our friends made with him when he left for what was then considered the confines of the world; his letters describing the voyage, his landing, and the prospects of this new world so preyed on my mind that I at once decided to follow in his tracks.
Communications, however, were not quite as frequent in those days as they are now. Instead of a thirty-five days’ passage on board a floating palace, a trip to Australia meant close imprisonment for eleven or twelve months in a wooden tub of three or four hundred tons, with hard biscuit and salt junk, and perhaps an occasional meal of tinned beef and preserved potatoes, washed down with a draught of putrid water, often doled out in very minute portions. All these were thoroughly put before me to cool down my travelling proclivities. But, on the other hand, most of the visitors at home were old shipmates of my father’s—Dumont-Durville, Laplace, Berard—all eminent French navigators, who had followed Cook and Lapeyrouse’s ships in the Pacific—so that, whilst one ear listened to the words of caution and “Home, Sweet Home,” sung to me by the female portion of the household, the other, like gentle Desdemona’s, heard our visitors tell
Of moving accidents by flood and field;
Of hair-breadth 'scapes in the imminent, deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery. …
And of the cannibals that each other eat—
The Anthropophagi— …
In faith ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange.
The more welcome tales of adventures across the sea became prominent in my mind and eventually carried the day. Once my mind was set on going, I left no stone unturned to make a start. At the instigation of our sailor friends, and with their assistance, I obtained from the then Ministre de la Marine, also a friend of my father—Admiral Duperré—a passage on board the corvette Heroine, which was going to make a voyage round the world, and, en passant, to carry to the Bay of Islands some Church ornaments and ecclesiastical garments sent by the Queen of the French—the sainted wife of Louis Phillipe—to Monseigneur Pompallier, Catholic Bishop of New Zealand.
III.
CHIPS FROM AN OLD LOG
ON the 1st of May, 1839, before daybreak—having only been a few hours on board the Heroine—an unusual noise and turmoil gave me the first idea of the life of a “passager civil” on board a man-of-war.
My hammock was hung close to the gun-room in the gun-deck, where 32 caronades and 250 Jack-tars shared with me that rather close and murky dormitory, which at a given signal from the boatswain’s whistle had to be cleared of hammocks, washed, holystoned, and mopped—all before 5 A.M.
This, I may say, was an operation commenced on that first morning an hour earlier than usual, owing to the fact that “Saint Philippe” being the patron saint of the King of the French, and the first of May being the birthday of the said saint (a fact I am not prepared to vouch for), the whole of the fleet at anchor in the port of Brest would thunder a royal salute at sunrise, in which our ship could not take part, as in those benighted days it was thought that the firing of 21 guns might cause a deviation of the chronometers.
It appears that an order received during the night—to clear out before daylight—had to be obeyed, so we weighed anchor and put out to sea. It was a rough, miserable day. I had hardly managed to hurry on my clothes before the Heroine commenced to toss and pitch as only a heavily-gunned frigate can do in a short, heavy sea with half a gale blowing in her teeth.
I shall never forget an eventful night in the Bay of Biscay, when the frigate was rolling heavily from side to side. One of the racks between the caronades gave way under the weight of the eight or ten thirty-two pound shots it held. These cannon balls were of course sent rolling from starboard to port with increased velocity, threatening in their progress to knock the sides of the ship into splinters. The watch was piped down to stop this mischief, but the task was not an easy one. The men had only the dim light of lanterns to see the very lively balls, and stopping them in their mad career was fraught with much danger; indeed, before they were all secured, several poor fellows had to be carried into the hospital with bruised and broken limbs.
I must confess that had it been possible on that and the following few days to have changed places with the only brother I had left comfortably quartered under the paternal roof, these pages would never have been penned in New Zealand, and he, poor fellow, would have escaped the tragical death he met with in the trenches at Sebastopol during the Crimean war, where he fell mortally wounded at the head of his company, the 11th Artillery.
Youth and a healthy constitution soon overcame the effects of the mal de mer. The Heroine was the smartest sailer in the French navy. Our orders were to keep in the wake of an admiral’s ship—“La Gloire”—sent to Rio de Janeiro to arrange matters in connection with the intended marriage of the Prince de Joinville with the sister of Don Pedro, Emperor of Brazil. Whilst tossing in the Bay of Biscay, and in order to keep at a respectful distance astern of the admiral’s ship, our commander—a knowing old salt, well versed in seamanship—well aware that the best qualities of his frigate were under easy sail, crammed on as much canvas as she could stagger under. This manœuvre brought out a signal from La Gloire to reduce sail and “rendezvous” at the entrance of Rio harbour. This, happening at sunset, was at once acted upon. During the night, under reduced sail, we forged ahead, so that when daylight came the admiral’s ship was almost hull-down astern of the Heroine. A quarter-master came to the skipper saying that the Gloire had hoisted our number, and was signalling fresh orders. “Who told you to look astern, sir?” said the captain. “You deserve to lose a week’s grog for being so officious. Go on the fore-castle and see if there are any breakers ahead; leave it to me to watch the admiral’s signals!” The fact is the old boy wanted to call at the Azores to take in a supply of wine for his and the gun-room table; he knew well that as soon as the heavy pressure of canvas was taken off, the gallant ship would displace less water under her bows, and could give the flag-ship one mile in three.
Thanks to this dodge, we spent a few days at Madeira and Teneriffe, where I received my first idea of semi-tropical climate, vegetation, and manners.
By this time, though not much of a sailor, I had got over the nauseous feeling, and got somewhat used to the “hard tack” called food, served twice a day to the midshipmens’ mess, where I was quartered.
Two meals of half a kilogramme of biscuit, as hard as cast-iron and quite as dark in colour; half a pint of haricots or broad beans alternately, which, I should think, were bought at the sale of surplus stores of Noah’s ark after she stranded on Mount Ararat; salt beef or pork, quite as ancient; and oh! such water!—the stench of it made the washing of one’s hands in it a punishment. Yet we had to drink it, together with the Vin de campagne—a bluish mixture which would have been most acceptable to Messrs Day and Martin for the dilution of their celebrated blacking, but certainly rejected with contempt by Cross and Blackwell for pickling purposes.
What a treat it was to land at Funchal and Teneriffe! Shall I ever forget the delicious treat to rush into a cook-shop and “tuck in” a regular “burster” of white bread, fresh meat, and fruit. Of the latter I made, of course, an ample provision—returning on board with baskets of oranges, bananas, &c. Alas! I had to learn that in a man-of-war, in the year A.D. 1839, a passenger was a kind of incubus—looked upon as a nuisance—an object everlastingly in everybody’s