The great Monsoons, again, of the Indian and China oceans play almost as important a part in this grand nautical drama along the coasts of those remote countries. These great phenomena will be found to obey precisely the same laws as their less fluctuating brethren the mighty Trades; and hence springs one of the chief delights of science when its study is conducted in a proper spirit. If the pursuit of truth be engaged in with sincerity, phenomena apparently the most opposite in character, for example, winds in different parts of the earth, but in the same latitude, blowing in totally different directions at the same season of the year, will always prove in the end illustrative of one another, and of their common theory.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] On the renewal of their Charter, in 1833, the East India Company ceased to be traders, and these noble ships no longer sail under the Company's flag.



CHAPTER VI.

THE TRADE WINDS.

There are few things more curious in the history of human knowledge than the establishment of extensive errors as to matters of fact, and the perverse tenacity with which they retain their hold on the public mind. In some cases it would almost seem that the pleasure which springs from genuine philosophical inquiry is subordinate to that which arises from the indolent process of taking things for granted. This applies peculiarly to the phenomena of the Trade-winds, respecting which many erroneous ideas are generally entertained. To professional men these fallacies are calculated to prove extremely mischievous; while even to persons not directly connected with the sea, the existence of error may often be injurious: and, although it is not very easy to explain these things in a popular way, I shall attempt to give a description of the facts as they really exist.

The main characteristics may easily be described.

The great belt of the earth's surface, nearly three thousand miles in width, lying between the tropics (from 23-1/2 deg. north to 23-1/2 deg. south latitude), is the chief region of the Trade-winds; though in some parts of the world they extend to the latitude of 28 deg. both north and south of the equator; while at other places well within the tropics, and even close to the line, totally different winds prevail. It is only in the open parts of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans that the true Trade-winds blow. In the Indian and China seas, and in many other portions of the great tropical belt, periodical winds, called Monsoons, are found. These shifting Trades exact the closest study from the practical navigator, in consequence of their extensive variety and seeming complication. But they are not less deserving the attention of merely curious inquirers, from the beautiful manner in which these modifications of the regular breezes obey the same general laws which direct the grand phenomena of the Trades. Indeed, the most extensive observation serves only to link the whole into one harmonious chain or series of explanations, exhibiting the uniformity as well as the exquisite adaptability of Nature, even in those departments called "inconstant," where she is supposed to be most capricious.

The only general assertion that can safely be made with respect to the Trade-winds is, that they blow more or less from the eastern half of the compass towards the western. On the north side of the equator, the north-east Trade-winds blow; and on the south side, the south-east Trade-winds. These two names have undoubtedly contributed to mystify the subject by naturally suggesting to the imagination currents of air blowing respectively from the north-east and the south-east, or at an angle of 45 deg. with the meridian. And I have even seen sailors (old sailors too) quite surprised, and rather provoked, when they have encountered very different winds in those parts of their voyage, where, being misled by the force of names alone, they had taught themselves to expect a regular breeze from a particular quarter. But, in point of fact, the Trade-winds do very seldom blow directly from north-east and south-east; neither are they uniform in their direction on the same spot at different seasons of the year, nor is their strength uniform from month to month. I may add, that the equatorial limits, or bounding lines, of the trades, are not steadily confined to the same latitude. In short, so far from these winds being perfectly fixed in direction, force, and position, they are subject to very considerable mutations, dependent on the position of the sun. Their vast nautical value, in fact, as well as philosophical curiosity, turns mainly on their uniformity, which, in spite of all the fluctuations alluded to, gives them a very distinctive character.

Dr. Young and Hadley, the great authorities on the subject, are both wrong in their conclusions.[3] Where Hadley obtains his "experience" he does not tell; but certain it is, that no sailor who ever crossed the equinoctial line could possibly have furnished him with two of his principal statements. The Trades are not strongest near the equator, as he states, nor when they reach that district do they blow along it, or in a parallel direction, but almost always at right angles to it.

If the earth had no motion on its axis, but were surrounded as at present with an atmosphere, and if the sun moved round and round it exactly above the equator, without varying his declination, the following effects would ensue: That portion of the earth lying, say thirty degrees, on each side of the equator, being more exposed to the action of the sun than those further from it, would become much warmer; while the superincumbent air, being greatly heated by the contact, would expand, or become specifically lighter, and would consequently rise. The adjacent air, both on the north and south, being cooler, and, of course, heavier, would rush in to supply the place of the heated air. This air coming from the regions beyond the tropics would, in its turn, be heated, and rise on reaching the warmer equatorial regions, giving place to a fresh supply, which, it is easy to see, must be furnished by the descent of that portion of air formerly heated at the equator, raised into the cold regions of the sky, and forced into a regular circuit by fresh elevations of heated air. All these and many other interesting results are clearly developed in Daniell's Meteorological Essays, a book which every one at all interested in such inquiries will find it advantageous to study. The first edition of this work was published in 1823, some years after these speculations had been forced upon my notice by a long course of service between the tropics.

It will be understood, that, as long as we imagine the globe at rest while this circulation is going on, the course of the lower air along the surface would be directly towards the equator, from due north in one hemisphere, and from due south in the other; while in the upper regions the currents would follow the opposite directions, and stream towards the poles. But the instant we conceive the earth put into rotatory motion from west to east, a change would take place in the course of these aerial currents, both above and below. It must be recollected that a volume of air, when once put in motion, will move on, like any other body, by the mere force of its own momentum, till that motion is destroyed by its friction against the substances along or through which it is impelled. Any one who has observed the ring of smoke sometimes projected from the mouth of a cannon will be sensible that this is true.

It may likewise be of use, before going further, to consider, that, if the globe, instead of being unequally heated; were equally heated at all parts, from pole to pole, and being surrounded by an atmosphere, were then made to revolve on its axis, it would carry the atmosphere round with it exactly at the rate at which it was itself going. That portion of the air in contact with the equator would move about 1000 miles in one hour, while that in latitude 90 deg. would be as motionless as the poles themselves.

From this it will be seen, that, while the equator moves at the rate of 1000 miles an hour, the district about the latitude 30 deg. moves only 860, or 140 miles slower. The average whirling velocity of the earth's easterly motion, in the space between the equator and latitude 30 deg., may be stated at 950 miles an hour; and that of the belt lying between 30 deg. and 40 deg., at about 800 miles.

In the hypothetical case, above suggested, of the whole surface being equally heated, and consequently the whole atmosphere at the same temperature, there would be a universal calm, whatever might be the rotatory motion impressed upon the earth. If, however, we next suppose, what really is the case, that the air over the tropical region is more heated than that which is farther from the equator, this rarefied air will instantly ascend, and occupy a place above the colder and denser air, which will flow in from the belts lying beyond the tropics.

When the comparatively slow-moving air of the temperate zone, lying beyond the tropics, first comes in contact with those quicker-moving parts of the earth forming the tropical edges of the torrid zone, the apparent motion of the air from the east, caused by the relative difference of the rotatory velocity between the air and earth, is great, compared to the other motion of the air, caused by its being drawn directly towards the equator, to supply the place of the heated portions raised into the sky. Consequently, at the tropical borders of both Trades the wind is found to blow very nearly from the east point.

Since the cool air of the temperate and comparatively slow-moving zones beyond the tropics is thus drawn towards the equator, and comes successively in contact with parallels of latitude moving faster and faster towards the east, there must be gradually imparted to it, by the increased friction, a considerable degree of the increased rotatory velocity belonging to the low latitudes it has now reached; that is to say, there will be less and less difference of velocity between the easterly motion of this temperate air and the easterly motion of the earth; and, consequently, the wind, as it approaches the equator, will appear to blow less and less directly from the eastward. But, while the earth's rotation within the tropics is thus acting on the slower-moving air which has travelled to it from beyond the tropics, with increased friction at every successive moment, there has been no such powerful counteracting influence in operation to diminish the meridional motion impressed on the air in question; for, although in proceeding from the tropics towards the equator, the wind might, at first sight, be supposed to have its speed somewhat lessened by friction along the earth's surface, the retardation due to this cause, if there be any at all, must be inconsiderable, compared to that which affects the motion caused by the difference in the rotatory velocity of the earth at the different parallels. It must be recollected, also, that there is a constant demand for fresh air from the north and south, to occupy the place of the heated and rarefied air which is raised up in the torrid zone; and this demand being pretty equal, the motion it produces on the air in the direction of the meridian must likewise be uniform.

If it be admitted that all the easterly character of the Trade-winds is due to the difference of velocity between the rotation of the torrid zone of the earth from west to east, and that of the air impressed only with the slower rotatory motion to the east of the temperate zone, it will follow, that, if this difference of velocities between the earth and the air in contact with it be diminished or annihilated, the easterly character of these winds will be diminished or annihilated likewise. At the same time, there is no cause in operation, that I can discover, to alter the direction of the meridional motion, as it may be called, of the Trade-winds, or that by which they are impelled directly towards the equator.

At first starting from the temperate zone, on its voyage to the equator, the cold air of that slow-moving region is impressed with a rotatory velocity of only 800 miles per hour to the eastward, but it soon comes over parts of the earth moving more than 100 miles per hour faster to the eastward than itself. The difference of velocity in the earth's rotation between latitudes 30 deg. and 20 deg. is 74 miles an hour, while between 20 deg. and 10 deg. it is only 45 miles, and in the next ten degrees the difference in rate per hour is reduced to 15 miles.

The velocity with which the air drawn from beyond the tropics travels along the sea towards the equator is probably not above twenty miles an hour, a rate slow enough to allow time for the constantly-increasing friction of the earth's rotation to act upon it, and draw it more and more entirely to the east. By the time it has reached the equatorial regions, the friction of the earth's surface has operated long enough to carry the air completely along with it; and, of course, all relative motion being done away with, everything easterly in the character of the Trade-winds will be at an end.

But, although this constantly-increasing friction of the earth's rotation has thus annihilated all relative easterly motion between the air and earth, that air still retains its motion towards the equator; and accordingly we do find the Trade-winds, at their equatorial limits, blowing, not from the east, as Hadley, Dr. Young, and others, conceived, but directly from the north and from the south respectively. The strength and velocity of the Trades at these places is, in general, considerably diminished, chiefly, perhaps, by the air becoming heated, and rising up rather than flowing along; and also, no doubt, by the meeting of the two opposite currents of air—one from the north, the other from the south—which produces the intermediate space called the Calms, or the Variables.

In strict conformity with these theoretical views, the clouds above the Trades are almost invariably observed to proceed in the contrary direction to the winds below. On the top of the Peak of Teneriffe I found a gentle breeze blowing from the south-westward, directly opposite to the course of the Trade-wind.

The more detailed circumstances usually met with in that part of a voyage to India which lies between 30 deg. north and 30 deg. south, and which I am about to describe, will now, I imagine, be readily understood. Before setting out, however, I must strongly recommend any one wishing to see these matters clearly, to have them fixed in his mind to useful purpose, to follow both the theoretical and the practical parts of this explanation with the assistance of a terrestrial globe.

Most ships touch at Madeira, either to take in a stock of wine, to get fruit and vegetables, or to form a pleasant break in the early and most disagreeable part of the voyage. Some ships pass barely in sight of the high mountain which rises above the town of Funchal, and satisfy themselves with taking sights for verifying the rates of their chronometers when on the meridian of the island; while others tantalise their passengers still more by sweeping through the roads, without anchoring, or communicating with the shore. The captains by such ships are pretty deeply, if not very loudly, abused by all hands, passengers especially, who are perhaps the most dissatisfied, because the most idle, of mortals. Shortly after leaving Madeira, which is in 32-1/2 deg. north latitude, a ship may expect to meet the Trades; but she cannot calculate with any certainty upon catching them till she arrives at the parallel of 28 deg.. On first reaching the Trade-wind it will be found to blow very nearly from due east, and with this a course is easily steered past or amongst the Canaries, and thence for the Cape de Verdes. Some navigators pass within this group, others keep so far out as barely to make San Antonio; and this, I think, is considered the best route. As the ship proceeds to the southward, the wind draws gradually round from the east to north-east, and eventually to north-north-east, and even to north, at the southern margin of the north-east Trade-wind.

The position of this margin or southern edge, which in technical language is called the equatorial limit of the Trade, varies considerably with the season of the year. From December to May inclusive it frequently reaches as far as the 3rd degree of north latitude, though it ranges about 5 deg. and 6 deg. north. From June to November it is shifted back as far, sometimes, as 13 deg. north, but it seldom extends as far south as 8 deg. north. Subjects which are treated of in a series of tables showing the equatorial limits of both Trade-winds, deduced by the late Captain James Horsburgh, hydrographer of the East India Company, from the observations of 238 ships. These tables show very clearly the effect of the absence or presence of the sun in shifting the limits of the Trades, drawing them after him, as it were. The presence of the sun in either hemisphere obstructs considerably the regularity and strength of the Trade-winds in that hemisphere, and vice versa.

The great difficulty experienced in making the outward-bound voyage commences after the ship has been deserted by the north-east Trade, for she has then to fight her way to the southward across the region of Calms and Variables. But as these Variables blow generally from the southward and westward, from a cause afterwards to be explained, it is obvious enough why this part of the homeward voyage is always more easily made than the outward passage. These southerly breezes, which are met with in the Variables, blow at times with considerable force, and greatly perplex the young navigator, who, trusting perhaps to some of the erroneous published accounts, not unnaturally reckons upon meeting the regular Trade-wind, blowing, as he supposes, from the east near the equator, not from the south; still less is he prepared or pleased to find it blowing from the south-westward.

This troublesome range, intervening between the two Trades, varies in width from 150 to more than 500 miles. It is widest in September, and narrowest in December or January. I now speak more particularly of what happens in the Atlantic. In the wide Pacific, far from land, fewer modifying circumstances interfere with the regular course of the phenomena, than in the comparatively narrow sea formed by the opposite shoulders of Africa and South America.

Calms, also, are met with in this intermediate region, or purgatory of the outward-bound voyage, and occasionally violent tornados or squalls, which in a moment tear away every rag of canvas from a ship's yards. For several hours at a time, also, rain falls down in absolute torrents. Even when the weather clears up, and a fresh breeze comes, it is generally from the southward, directly in the outward-bound navigator's teeth. He must have patience, however, and strive to make the most of it by keeping on that tack by which most southing is to be gained. It is now, I believe, generally held to be the best practice to place the ship between 18 deg. and 23 deg. of west longitude on losing the north-east Trade; and likewise to endeavour, if possible, to cross the equator somewhere between these two longitudes. Before reaching the line, however, the navigator will almost always be met by the south-east Trade-wind. From January to May he may expect to meet it in 1 deg. or 2 deg. north latitude; but in summer and autumn he will find the northern or equatorial limit of the south-east Trade a degree or two still further to the northwards of the lines.

On first encountering the south-east Trade an outward-bound ship is obliged to steer much more to the westward than she wishes to do, in consequence of the wind blowing so directly towards the equator, and not along it, as some of the books will insist on, in spite of Nature. So that if she be a dull sailer she may have some difficulty in weathering the coast of Brazil about Cape St. Roque. As she proceeds onwards, however, and makes a little more southing, the wind will haul more and more round from the south to the south-east, then east-south-east, and eventually to east at the southern limit of the Trade-wind. An inexperienced sailor, on first entering the south-east Trade, is very apt to be too solicitous about making southing, and hugs the wind much too close; whereas he ought rather to keep his ship off a little, give her a fathom or two of the fore and main sheets, and take a small pull of the weather topsail and top-gallant braces, to ensure making good way through the water. Indeed, many officers go so far as to recommend flanking across the south-east Trade with a fore-topmast studding-sail set. Although, I think, there can be no doubt of the soundness of this advice, I confess that it does require no inconsiderable degree of faith to adopt a course, which, apparently, takes the ship not directly away from her object, but very much out of the straight road. In this respect, it may be remarked that the scale of navigation on every Indian voyage is so great, and the importance of getting into those parallels where favourable breezes are certain to be met with, of so much more consequence than the gain of mere distance, that two or three hundred miles to the right or left, or even twice that space, is often not to be regarded. Accordingly, in cutting or flanking across the south-east Trade-wind, the object, it should be remembered, is not to shorten the distance, but to reach those latitudes where strong westerly gales are to be met with, by help of which five hundred or a thousand miles of lost distance are speedily made up, and the rest of the passage secured.

In those regions lying beyond the southern tropic westerly winds prevail during the greater part of the year, exactly as we find on this side of the northern tropic. In the southern hemisphere, and far from the land, the wind may be said to blow from the westward almost as steadily as the Trades do from the eastward. The great object, therefore, for an outward-bound ship is to get far enough south to ensure this fair wind. Beyond the latitude of 30 deg., and as far as 40 deg., this purpose will generally be answered.

We are sufficiently familiar in England with the fact of westerly winds prevailing in the Atlantic. From a list of the passages made by the New York sailing packets across the Atlantic, during a period of six years, it is shown that the average length of the voyage from Liverpool to America, that is, towards the west, was forty days; while the average length of the homeward passage, or that from west to east, was only twenty-three days. And it may fix these facts more strongly in the recollection, to mention that the passage-money from England to America (in the days of sailing packets) was five guineas more than that paid on the return voyage.

This prevalence of westerly winds beyond the tropics is readily explained by the same reasoning which has been applied to the Trades blowing within them. The swift moving air of the torrid zone, on being rarefied and raised up, flows along towards the poles, and in a direction from the equator, above the cooler and slower-moving air, which, as I have already described, is drawn along the surface of the earth from the temperate regions beyond the tropics. When the rarefied equatorial air has travelled some thirty or forty degrees of latitude along the upper regions of the atmosphere towards the poles it becomes cooled, and is ready to descend again, between the latitudes of 30 deg. and 60 deg., to supply the place of the lower air, drawn off towards the equator by the Trade-winds. But this partially-cooled air falls on a part of the earth's surface which is moving much more slowly towards the east, in its diurnal rotation, than the air which has descended upon it, and which is still impressed with a great proportion of its eastern velocity due to the equatorial parallels of latitude, where it was heated and raised up. The necessary consequence of this is, to produce a rapid motion in the air from the west over the earth's surface; and this, combined with the other motion of the same portion of air, or that which has driven it from the equatorial regions, produces this remarkable prevalence of south-westerly winds in the northern hemisphere, and north-westerly winds in the southern hemisphere, in those districts lying between the latitudes of 30 deg. and 60 deg..

In all that has been said above it has been assumed that the quickest-moving or equatorial belt of the earth is also the hottest, and consequently that over which the air has the greatest tendency to rise. But, although this is generally true, it is not, by any means, universally so. The variations, however, which are observed to occur in those places where the circumstances form an exception to the general rule, tend strongly to confirm the theory of Hadley. The monsoons of India, as I shall presently show, are examples of this; but the most striking instance with which I am personally acquainted occurs in the Pacific Ocean, between the Bay of Panama and the Peninsula of California, from latitude 8 deg. to 22 deg. north. If the huge continent of Mexico were taken away, and only sea left in its place, there can be no doubt but the ordinary phenomena of the Trade-winds would be observable in that part of the Pacific above mentioned. Cool air would then be drawn from the slow moving parallels lying to the northward, towards the swift moving latitudes, near the equator, in order to supply the place of the rarefied air removed to the higher regions of the atmosphere, and, of course, north-easterly breezes would be produced. But when the sun comes over Mexico, that vast district of country is made to act the part of an enormous heater, and becomes a far more powerful cause of rarefaction to the superincumbent air than the ocean which lies between it and the equator. Accordingly, the air over Mexico, between the latitudes of 10 deg. and 30 deg., is more heated than that which lies over the sea between the line and latitude 20 deg.; and as the coolest, or least heated, that is, the most dense fluid, always rushes towards the place lately occupied by the hottest and most buoyant, the air from the equator will be drawn towards the coast of Mexico, the great local source of heat and rarefaction.

But as this equatorial air is of course impressed with a more rapid eastern velocity than those parts of the earth which form the southern shores of Mexico, a westerly wind must be produced by the relative difference in these two motions. At that particular season of the year when the sun is in high southern declination, Mexico is not exposed to his perpendicular rays. The equatorial regions are then more heated than Mexico, and accordingly we actually find north-easterly breezes nearly as they would be if Mexico were out of the way, and quite in accordance with our theory.

In like manner, in the Atlantic, when the sun is far to the north, the great deserts of the western angle, or shoulder of Africa, become as vehemently heated, or more so, perhaps, than Mexico, and this draws the air from the equator, so as to produce the south-westerly winds I have already spoken of in the troublesome range called the Variables.

Finally, the great monsoons of the Indian ocean and China sea contribute to establish this theory of Hadley, though I am not aware that he ever brought it to bear on these very interesting phenomena. They are eminently deserving of such notice, however, from being periodical Trade-winds of the highest order of utility in one of the busiest commercial regions of the world. Their periodical or shifting character is the circumstance upon which their extensive utility in a great measure depends, amongst nations where the complicated science of navigation is but in a rude state. Myriads of vessels sail from their homes during one monsoon before the wind, or so nearly before it, that there is no great skill required in reaching all the ports at which they wish to touch; and when the wind shifts to the opposite quarter, they steer back again, in like manner, with a flowing sheet. Thus, with an exceedingly small portion of nautical skill, they contrive to make their passages by means of what we blue-jackets call "a soldier's wind, there and back again." It will sometimes happen that these rude navigators miscalculate their time, or meet with accidents to retard them till the period of change has gone past, and then they have no resource but to wait for half-a-year till the monsoon shifts.

Experienced sailors, in like circumstances, acquainted with the varieties of winds prevailing in those seas, would speedily get their vessels out of this scrape, into which the lubberly Chinese junks sometimes fall. They might, and certainly would, lose time in making a roundabout of some two or three hundred miles in searching for a wind; but, if they really knew what they were about, they would be sure to catch it at last, and to turn it to their purpose.

From April to October, when the sun's rays fall with greatest effect on Arabia, India, and China, and the several interjacent seas to which these immense countries give their name, the air in contact with them, becoming heated, rises, and gives place to fresh supplies drawn from the equator. But this equatorial mass of air has had imparted to it by the earth's rotation a greater degree of velocity in the direction from west to east than belongs to the countries and seas just mentioned; and this additional velocity, combined with its motion from the equator, in rushing to fill up the vacuum caused by the rarefaction of the air over those regions intersected by the tropic, causes the south-west monsoon. "This wind," says Horsburgh, "prevails from April to October, between the equator and the tropic of Cancer, and it reaches from the east coast of Africa to the coasts of India, China, and the Philippine Islands; its influence extends sometimes into the Pacific Ocean as far as the Marian Islands, on to longitude about 145 deg. east, and it reaches as far north as the Japan Islands."

The late Captain Horsburgh thus describes what takes place in the winter months:—"The north-east monsoon," he says, "prevails from October to May, throughout nearly the same space that the south-west monsoon prevails in the opposite season mentioned above. But the monsoons are subject to great obstructions by land; and in contracted places, such as Malacca Strait, they are changed into variable winds. Their limits are not everywhere the same, nor do they always shift exactly at the same period."

During this last named period, when the north-east monsoon is blowing, viz. from October to May, the sun is acting with its greatest energy on the regions about the equator, and the seas lying between it and the southern tropic, while the countries formerly mentioned (Arabia, India, and China), lying under the northern tropic, become comparatively cool. The air over these regions becomes relatively more dense than the rarefied air near the line; consequently the cool air rushes to the southward to interchange places with that which has been heated; and as the cool air comes from slower-moving to quicker-moving parallels of latitude, that is, from the tropical to the equatorial regions, the north-easterly monsoon is produced, very much resembling in its effect, as it strictly does in its cause, the ordinary trade-wind of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

This is a very general view of what may be called the great monsoons of India; but there are many variations in different places, all of which are so readily explained by the foregoing theory, that they form by no means the least interesting branch of the subject, or the least satisfactory of its illustrations.

One of the most extensive of these varieties, though of a less general and sweeping character than those which blow in the Arabian sea and bay of Bengal, is found in a very remote part of the world. "From October to April this north-west monsoon prevails between the north-east part of Madagascar and the west coast of New Holland; and it is generally confined between the equator and 10 deg. or 11 deg. south latitude, but subject to irregularities." This westerly wind is evidently produced by the air drawn actually from the equator towards the slower moving latitudes of the earth, by the rarefaction of the air to the southward when the sun is near the tropic of Capricorn. "The south-east monsoon predominates from April to October in the space last mentioned, and in some places reaches to the equator." In this case, the slow moving air near the southern tropic is brought, as in the ordinary case of the south-east Trade wind, to the quick-moving parts of the earth's surface.

The following remark of Horsburgh's, in describing the monsoons, is extremely valuable, and assists to explain Hadley's theory of these matters:—"The parts where the north-west and the south-east monsoons prevail with greatest strength and regularity are in the Java sea, and from thence eastward to Timor, amongst the Molucca and Banda islands, and onward to New Guinea;" for it will be obvious to any one who inspects the globe, on reading this passage, that there occurs in the neighbourhood of the spots alluded to a powerful cause for the strength and regularity of the monsoons. The enormous island, or continent, as it might almost be called, of Australia, may well be supposed to act the part of a heater from October to April, when the sun is so nearly over it. During that period the equatorial air is drawn to the south, along the intermediate seas, amongst the Moluccas and other Spice islands, so as to produce a strong and steady north-westerly monsoon. Of course, the opposite effect will be produced when the sun retreats to the north, and leaves Australia to cool.

These instances are quite enough, I should imagine, to satisfy ordinary curiosity on this point; but professional men ought not to be contented till they have investigated all branches of this important topic; including that elegant and very useful episode, the land and sea breezes of all hot climates, and Horsburgh's East India Directory, which I have quoted above so frequently, is by far the best authority with which I am acquainted on these subjects. At the same time, I must not omit to do justice to a beautifully-written and accurate Essay on Winds and Currents, by that Prince of all Voyagers, Old Dampier; who, with means far more circumscribed than most of his successors, has contrived to arrange and condense his information in such a way as not only to render it available to practical men, but to make it intelligible and interesting to every class of readers.[4]

FOOTNOTES:

[3] It is necessary to note here that these questions have been examined since Captain Hall wrote, by Commander Maury, late secretary to the American navy, in the true analytical spirit, and immense progress made in our knowledge of these winds by the mass of practical observations on the subject made by practical navigators, and published under his directions.—ED.

[4] The principle of "Great Circle Sailing," which now guides the navigator to the Indian Ocean, must be studied in connection with this chapter. "For every degree the ship changes her longitude south of the Line she sails a shorter distance along the great circle than on any other curve; for on the parallel of 60 deg. thirty miles corresponds to a distance of sixty at the equator."—ROBERTSON'S Theory of Great Circle Sailing: Bell and Daldy.



CHAPTER VII.

PROGRESS OF THE VOYAGE.

Let people say what they please of the fine bracing weather of a cold climate, I have never seen any truth-speaking persons who, on coming fairly to the trial, did not complain of a cold frosty morning as a very great nuisance, or who did not cling eagerly to the fire to unbrace themselves again. For my own part, I have always delighted in the relaxation caused by hot weather; and, accordingly, I have very seldom, if ever, felt the weather disagreeably warm, even in India, especially when sailing on the open sea, or enjoying the free range of a wide country, under awnings and bungaloes, or stretched in a palanquin, or shaded by an umbrella on the back of an elephant. Soldiers and sailors, whose duty exposes them at all hours, either on a march or in boats, are often struck down by the heat, and sigh with all their hearts for the bracing frosts of higher latitudes. But those who have the means of bringing to bear on their comforts the innumerable contrivances which the ingenuity of wealth has devised in the East, indeed, make its climate not only bearable, but one of the most enjoyable in the world.

As we sailed along on our voyage to India, gradually slipping down from the high to the low latitudes, the sun crept up higher and higher every day towards the zenith, while the thermometer, of course, rose likewise. What was most agreeable in this change from cold to warmth was the little difference between the temperature of the day and that of the night. As we approached the equator, the thermometer fell only from 82 deg. in the day-time to 79 deg. or 80 deg. at night, which, on deck, was delightful. We did not, of course, come to this high temperature all at once; for on the 6th of May, the day after we passed directly under the sun, the average of the twenty-four hours was 73 deg., and at night 69 deg. and 70 deg..

It is not to be imagined that everyone was pleased with these changes; for on board ship, as on shore, there exist discontented spirits, whose acquired habit it is to find fault with the existing state of things, be these what they may. To such cantankerous folks a growl of misery would really seem to be the great paradoxical happiness of their lives, and, in the absence of real hardship, it is part of your thorough-bred growler to prophesy. I have seen a middy of this stamp glad to find, on coming below, that some insignificant portion of his dinner really had been devoured by his hungry messmates, while he himself was keeping his watch on deck.

"I am used worse than a dog!" he would cry, secretly delighted to have gained the luxury of a grievance, "I can't even get a basin of pease-soup put by for me; it's an infernal shame, I'll cut the service!"

The diversity of climate on an Indian voyage furnishes capital nuts for these perturbed spirits. It is first too cold, then too hot; then there is not wind enough; then it blows too fresh in the squalls: by-and-bye the nights are discovered to be abominably close and sultry, and in the day the fierce flaming downright heat of the sun is still worse; then the calms are never to be over; or the lying trades, as they call them, have got capsized, and blow from the west instead of the east! After the line has been crossed, and the south-east wind is met with, the weather soon becomes what these ingenious fellows call too temperate, then it grows too cold again; and next off the Cape the latitude is too stormy. In this alone they have some reason; and I have often regretted that, by a royal ordinance of the King of Portugal, the name of this mighty promontory was changed from Cabo de Tormentos, the headland of storms, to its present spoony title. In short, this grand voyage is merely a peristrephic panorama of miseries, which if they survive, say they, it will be happy for them.—Happy! Not a whit. It is out of their nature to be happy. To find fault, to fling away the good the gods provide them, and to aggravate the pain of every real wound by the impatience of idle complaints, is their diseased joy. "Evil, be thou my good!" they might well exclaim; for, instead of heightening the pleasures of life by full participation, or subduing its inevitable evils, or, at all events, softening their asperity by enduring with fortitude and cheerfulness what cannot be helped, these self-tormentors reject what is substantially pleasing, and cling with habitual but morbid relish to whatever is disagreeable.

As we glided along, through the Trade-winds, towards the neck of sea which divides Africa from South America, the symptoms of a change in climate became daily more manifest. Every skylight and stern window was thrown wide open, and every cabin scuttle driven out, that a free draught of air might sweep through the ship all night long. In the day-time, the pitch in the seams of the upper-deck began to melt, and, by sticking to the soles of our shoes, plastered the planks, to the great discomfiture of the captain of the after-guard. The tar, oozing from the cordage aloft, dropped on our heads, speckled the snow white boat covers, and obliged us to spread the hammock-cloths, to prevent the bedding being ruined by the spots. On the larboard or eastern side of the ship, which, of course, is always presented to the sun when crossing the Trades on the outward-bound voyage, the pitch and rosin with which the seams had been payed ran down in little streams across the lines of paint. To prevent, as far as we could, some of these annoyances, we spread the awnings over the decks, and triced up the curtains, fore and aft, while every art was used to introduce air to all parts of the ship. The half-ports were removed from the main-deck guns, the gratings put on one side, and as many windsails sent down the hatchways as could be made to catch a puff of air. Blue trousers and beaver scrapers soon gave way before the elements, and were succeeded by nankeens, straw hats, and canvas caps. In the captain's cabin, where the presence of the governor, our passenger, still kept up the strait-laced etiquette of the service, coats and epaulettes appeared at dinner; but in the gun-room, the officers, the instant they came below, slipped on their light white jackets, and, disdaining waistcoat, seized their flutes and books, and drew their chairs as near as possible to the mouth of the windsail. In the midshipmen's berth, outside in the steerage, the shirt without neckcloth or stock, and sometimes with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, was the most fashionable rig. The seamen and marines, of course, dined on the main-deck, not only that they might enjoy the fresh air breathing gently in upon them through the ports on the weather side, and sweeping out again by those to leeward, but that the lower deck might be kept as cool and airy as possible against the sultry feverish night season.

On such occasions the men leave their tables and stools below, and either seat themselves tailor-fashion, or recline Roman-fashion. Nor is this in the least degree unpleasant; for the deck of a man-of-war is made as clean every morning as any table, and is kept so during the day by being swept at least once an hour. Of all the tunes played by the boatswain's pipe, that which calls the sweepers is the most frequently heard. When the order is given for dining on deck, the different messes into which the crew are divided occupy the spots immediately above their usual mess-places below, as far as the guns allow of their doing so. It has always struck me as very pleasing, to see the main-deck covered, from the after hatchway to the cook's coppers, with the people's messes, enjoying their noon-day repast; while the celestial grog, with which their hard, dry, salt junk is washed down, out-matches twenty-fold in Jack's estimation all the thin potations of those who, in no very courteous language, are called their betters.

Until we had crossed the North-east Trade, and reached the Calms, the ship's way through the water was too great to allow of bathing alongside; but we easily contrived a shower-bath, which answered very well. This consisted of a packing-box, the bottom of which was perforated with holes, triced up between two of the skids, near the gangway, and under the quarter of one of the boats on the booms. A couple of the top-men with draw-buckets supplied the water from above, while the bather stood on the main-deck, enjoying the shower. The time selected for this delightful bath was usually about four o'clock in the morning, after the middle watch was out, and before the exhausted officer tumbled into bed. A four hours' walk, indeed, in a sultry night, be it managed ever so gently, has a tendency to produce a degree of heat approaching to feverishness; and I have no words to describe the luxury of standing under a cool shower when the long task is ended. We were generally just enough fatigued to be sure of a sound, light, happy sleep, and just enough heated to revel in the coolest water that was to be had. In fact, we found that of the sea much too warm, being only two or three degrees below the temperature of the air. To remedy this, our plan was, to expose a dozen buckets-full on the gangway at eight or nine o'clock in the evening; and these, being allowed to stand till morning, became so much cooler by the evaporation in the night, that the shock was unspeakably grateful.

Perhaps there is not any more characteristic evidence of our being within the tropical regions than the company of those picturesque little animals, the flying-fish. It is true, that a stray one or two may sometimes be met with far north, making a few short skips out of the water, and I even remember seeing several close to the edge of the banks of Newfoundland, in latitude 45 deg.; but it is not until the voyager has fairly reached the heart of the torrid zone that he sees the flying-fish in perfection. I have hardly ever observed a person so dull or unimaginative that his eye did not glisten as he watched a shoal of flying-fish rise from the sea, and skim along for several hundred yards. There is something in it so totally dissimilar to everything else in other parts of the world, that our wonder goes on increasing every time we see even a single one take its flight. The incredulity of the old Scotch woman on this head is sufficiently excusable. "You may hae seen rivers o' milk, and mountains o' sugar," said she to her son, returned from a voyage; "but you'll ne'er gar me believe you have seen a fish that could flee!"

The pleasant Trade, which had wafted us with different degrees of velocity, over a distance of more than a thousand miles, at last gradually failed. The sails began to flap gently against the masts, so gently, indeed, that we half hoped it was caused, not so much by the diminished force of the breeze, with which we wore very unwilling to part, as by that long and peculiar swell which,

"In the torrid clime Dark heaving,"

is productive of oscillating motion on the ship; but the faint zephyrs, which had coquetted with our languid sails for an hour or two, at length took their leave, first of the courses, then of the topsails, and lastly of the royals and the smaller flying kites aloft. In vain we looked round and round the horizon for some traces of a return of our old friend the Trade, but could distinguish nothing save one polished, dark-heaving sheet of glass, reflecting the unbroken disc of the sun, and the bright clear sky in the moving mirror beneath. From the heat, which soon became intense, there was no escape, either on deck or below, aloft in the tops, or still higher on the cross-trees; neither could we find relief down in the hold; for it was all the same, except that in the exposed situations we were scorched or roasted, in the others suffocated. The useless helm was lashed amidships, the yards were lowered on the cap, and the boats were dropped into the water, to fill up the cracks and rents caused by the fierce heat. The occasion was taken advantage of to shift some of the sails, and to mend others; most of the running-ropes also were turned end for end. A listless feeling stole over us all, and we lay about the decks gasping for breath, seeking in vain some alleviation to our thirst by drink! drink! drink! Alas, the transient indulgence only made the matter worse!

Meanwhile, our convoy of huge China ships, rolling very slowly on the top of the long, smooth, and scarcely perceptible ridges, or sinking as gently between their summits, were scattered in all directions, with their heads in different ways, some looking homeward again, and some, as if by instinct, keeping still for the south. How it happens I do not know, but on occasions of perfect calm, or such as appear to be perfectly calm, the ships of a fleet generally drift away from one another; so that, at the end of a few hours, the whole circle bounded by the horizon is speckled over with these unmanageable hulks, as they may for the time be considered. It will occasionally happen, indeed, that two ships draw so near in a calm as to incur some risk of falling on board one another. I need scarcely mention, that, even in the smoothest water ever found in the open sea, two large ships coming into actual contact must prove a formidable encounter. As long as they are apart their gentle and rather graceful movements are fit subjects of admiration; and I have often seen people gazing, for an hour at a time, at the ships of a becalmed fleet, slowly twisting round, changing their position, and rolling from side to side, as silently as if they had been in harbour, or accompanied only by the faint, rippling sound tripping along the water-line, as the copper below the bends alternately sunk into the sea, or rose out of it, dripping wet, and shining as bright and clean as a new coin, from the constant friction of the ocean during the previous rapid passage across the Trade-winds.

But all this picturesque admiration changes to alarm when ships come so close as to risk a contact; for these motions, which appear so slow and gentle to the eye, are irresistible in their force; and as the chances are against the two vessels moving exactly in the same direction at the same moment, they must speedily grind or tear one another to pieces. Supposing them to come in contact side by side, the first roll would probably tear away the fore and main channels of both ships; the next roll, by interlacing the lower yards, and entangling the spars of one ship with the shrouds and backstays of the other, would in all likelihood bring down all three masts of both ships, not piecemeal, as the poet hath it, but in one furious crash. Beneath the ruins of the spars, the coils of rigging, and the enormous folds of canvas, might lie crushed many of the best hands, who, from being always the foremost to spring forward in such seasons of danger, are surest to be sacrificed. After this first catastrophe, the ships would probably drift away from one another for a little while, only to tumble together again and again, till they had ground one another to the water's edge, and one or both of them would fill and go down. In such encounters it is impossible to stop the mischief, and oak and iron break, and crumble in pieces, like sealing-wax and pie-crust. Many instances of such accidents are on record, but I never witnessed one.

To prevent these frightful rencontres care is always taken to hoist out the boats in good time, if need be, to tow the ships apart, or, what is generally sufficient, to tow the ships' heads in opposite directions. I scarcely know why this should have the effect, but certainly it appears that, be the calm ever so complete, or dead, as the term is, a vessel generally forges ahead, or steals along imperceptibly in the direction she is looking to; possibly from the conformation of the hull.

Shortly after the Trade-wind left us, a cloud rose in the south, which soon filled the whole air, and discharged upon us the most furious shower I ever beheld. The rain fell down in perpendicular lines of drops, or spouts, without a breath of wind, unaccompanied by thunder or any other noise, and in one great gush or splash, as if some prodigious reservoir had been upset over the fleet from the edge of the cloud.

Our noble commander, delighted with the opportunity of replenishing his stock of water, called out, "Put shot on each side, and slack all the stops down, so that the awnings may slope inwards. Get buckets and empty casks to hand instantly!"

In a few minutes the awnings were half full of water, and a hole connected with a hose having been prepared beforehand near the lowest point, where the canvas was weighed down by the shot, a stream descended as if a cock had been turned. Not a drop of this was lost; but being carried off, it was poured into a starting-tub at the hatchway, and so conveyed by a pipe to the casks in the hold. By the time the squall was over we had filled six or eight butts; and although not good to drink, from being contaminated by the tar from the ropes and sails, the water answered admirably for washing, which was our object in catching it.

Ever since the days of Captain Cook it has been the practice to allow the crew two washing days per week, on the details of which proceeding we all know the misery of putting on wet clothes, or sleeping in damp sheets. Now, a shirt washed in salt water is really a great deal worse than either; putting on linen washed in salt water, you first dry your unhappy shirt by exposing it to the sun or the fire till it seems as free from moisture as any bone; you then put it on, in hopes of enjoying the benefit of clean linen. Alas, not a whit of enjoyment follows! For if the air be in a humid state, or you are exposed to exercise, the treacherous salt, which, when crystallised, has hidden itself in the fibres of the cloth, speedily melts, and you have all the tortures of being once more wrapped in moist drapery. In your agony, you pull it off, run to the galley-range, and toast it over again; or you hang it up in the fiery heat of the southern sun, and when not a particle of wet seems to remain, you draw it on a second time, fancying your job at last complete. But, miserable man that you are! the insidious enemy still lurks there, and no art we yet know of will expel him, save and except that of a good sound rinsing in fresh water.

I need scarcely add, then, that there are few favours of the minor kind which a considerate captain may bestow on his crew more appreciated than giving them as much fresh water as will serve to carry off the abominable salt from their clothes, after they have first been well scoured in the water of the ocean; it is a great comfort, and an officer of any activity, by a judicious management of the ship's regular stock, and, above all, by losing no opportunity of catching rain water, need seldom be without the means of giving to each man of his crew a gallon twice a-week during the longest voyage.

It was from an old and excellent officer I first learned, that, by proper and constant care, this indulgence might almost always be granted. It is not easy, I freely admit, at all times, and in all climates, to keep a supply Of washing-water on board. But a captain ought to do what is right and kind, simply because it is right and kind, regardless of trouble; and his conduct in this respect should not be uninfluenced by the manner in which it is received; at all events, he may be certain that if his favours be not well received, the fault lies in his manner of giving them. Sailors have the most acute penetration possible on these occasions; and if the captain be actuated by any wish except that of doing his duty uniformly and kindly, the Johnnies will see through it all, and either laugh at him or hate him.



CHAPTER VIII.

AQUATIC SPORTS.

One day, after we had lost the north-east Trade wind, a furious squall, unperceived till it reached us, swept through the fleet. These violent tornadoes are generally called white squalls, from being unattended by those black heavy rain clouds. On the occasion of ordinary squalls, even with the advantage of the warning given by rising clouds, it is not always easy to escape their force unhurt. If the wind be fair, a natural reluctance is felt to shorten sail, at all events, until the squall is so near that there is an absolute necessity for doing so, and inexperienced officers are often deceived by the unexpected velocity with which the gust comes down upon them. Even the oldest sailors are apt to miscalculate the time likely to elapse before the wind can touch them. In these cases, unless the men be very active, the sails are torn, and sometimes a mast or a yard is carried away. It is, besides, often doubtful whether there is wind or merely a plump of rain in the squall; there are, therefore, few points of distinction more remarkable between the seamanship of an old and a young officer, than their power of judging of this matter. To a man quite inexperienced, a squall may look in the highest degree threatening; he will order the top-gallant clew-lines to be manned, place hands by the topsail haulyards, and lay along the main clew-garnets. His more experienced captain, however, being apprised of the squall's approach, steps on deck, takes a hasty look to windward, and says quietly to the officer of the watch, "Never mind, there's nothing in it, it's only rain; keep the sails on her."

But although the older authority nine times in ten proves correct in his judgment, even he might find it difficult, if not impossible, to tell exactly upon what his confidence rested. Sailors boast, indeed, of having an infallible test by which the point in question may be ascertained, their secret being clothed in the following rhymes so to call them:—

"If the rain's before the wind, 'Tis time to take the topsails in; If the wind's before the rain, Hoist your topsails up again."

The practical knowledge alluded to, however, comes not by rhymes, but by experience alone, with a kind of intuitive confidence. Many long and hard years of study, and myriads of forgotten trials must have been gone through to give this enviable knowledge.

No experience, however, can altogether guard against these sudden gusts or white squalls, since they make no show, except, sometimes, by a rippling of the water along which they are sweeping. On the occasion above alluded to there was not even this faint warning. The first ships of the convoy touched by the blast were laid over almost on their beam-ends, but in the next instant righted again, on the whole of their sails being blown clean out of the bolt-ropes. The Theban frigate and the Volage, then lying nearly in the centre of the fleet, were the only ships which saved an inch of canvas, owing chiefly to our having so many more hands on board, but partly to our having caught sight of the ruin brought on the vessels near us, just in time to let fly the sheets and haulyards and get the yards down. But even then, with the utmost exertion of every man and boy on board, we barely succeeded in clewing all up.

When this hurricane of a moment had passed, and we had time to look round, not a rag was to be seen in the whole fleet; while the Wexford, a ship near us, had lost her three top-gallant masts and jib-boom, and, what was a much more serious misfortune, her fore-topmast was dangling over the bows. Part of the fore-topsail was wrapped like a shawl round the lee cat-head, while the rest hung down in festoons from the collar of the fore-stay to the spritsail yard-arm. A stout party of seamen from each of the men-of-war were sent to assist in clearing the wreck, and getting up fresh spars; and a light fair wind having succeeded to the calm in which we had been lolling about for many days, we took our wounded bird in tow, and made all sail towards the equator. By this time, also, the China ships had bent a new set of sails, and were resuming their old stations in the appointed order of bearing, which it was our policy to keep up strictly, together with as many other of the formalities of a fleet in line of battle and on a cruise as we could possibly maintain.

While we were thus stealing along pleasantly enough under the genial influence of this newly-found air, which as yet was confined to the upper sails, and every one was looking open-mouthed to the eastward to catch a gulp of cool air, or was congratulating his neighbour on getting rid of the tiresome calm in which we had been so long half-roasted, half-suffocated, about a dozen flying-fish rose out of the water, just under the fore-chains, and skimmed away to windward at the height of ten or twelve feet above the surface. But sometimes the flying-fish merely skims the surface, so as to touch the tops of the successive waves, without rising and falling to follow the undulations of the sea; that they also rise as high as twenty feet out of the water is certain, being sometimes found in the channels of a line-of-battle ship; and they frequently fly into a 74 gun-ship's main-deck ports. On a frigate's forecastle and gangways, also elevations which may be taken at eighteen or twenty feet, they are often found. I remember seeing one, about nine inches in length, and weighing not less, I should suppose, than half-a-pound, skim into the Volage's main-deck port just abreast of the gangway. One of the main-topmen was coming up the quarter-deck ladder at the moment, when the flying-fish, entering the port, struck the astonished mariner on the temple, knocked him off the step, and very nearly laid him sprawling.

I was once in a prize, a low Spanish schooner, not above two feet and a-half out of the water, when we used to pick up flying-fish enough about the decks in the morning to give us a capital breakfast. They are not unlike whitings to the taste, though rather firmer, and very dry. They form, I am told, a considerable article of food for the negroes in the harbours of the West Indies. The method of catching them at night is thus described:—In the middle of the canoe a light is placed on the top of a pole, towards which object it is believed these fish always dart, while on both sides of the canoe a net is spread to a considerable distance, supported by out-riggers above the surface of the water; the fish dash at the light, pass it, and fall into the net on the other side.

Shortly after observing the cluster of flying-fish rise out of the water, we discovered two or three dolphins ranging past the ship, in all their beauty, and watched with some anxiety to see one of those aquatic chases of which our friends of the Indiamen had been telling us such wonderful stories. We had not long to wait; for the ship, in her progress through the water, soon put up another shoal of these little things, which, as the others had done, took their flight directly to windward. A large dolphin, which had been keeping company with us abreast of the weather gangway at the depth of two or three fathoms, and, as usual, glistening most beautifully in the sun, no sooner detected our poor dear little friends take wing, than he turned his head towards them, and, darting to the surface, leaped from the water with a velocity little short, as it seemed, of a cannon-ball. But although the impetus with which he shot himself into the air gave him an initial velocity greatly exceeding that of the flying-fish, the start which his fated prey had got enabled them to keep ahead of him for a considerable time.

The length of the dolphin's first spring could not be less than ten yards; and after he fell we could see him gliding like lightning through the water for a moment, when he again rose, and shot forwards with considerably greater velocity than at first, and, of course, to a still greater distance. In this manner the merciless pursuer seemed to stride along the sea with fearful rapidity, while his brilliant coat sparkled and flashed in the sun quite splendidly. As he fell headlong on the water at the end of each huge leap, a series of circles were sent far over the still surface, which lay as smooth as a mirror; for the breeze, although enough to keep the royals and top-gallant studding sails extended, was hardly as yet felt below.

The group of wretched flying-fish, thus hotly pursued, at length dropped into the sea; but we were rejoiced to observe that they merely touched the top of the swell, and scarcely sunk in it, at least they instantly set off again in a fresh and even more vigorous flight. It was particularly interesting to observe that the direction they now took was quite different from the one in which they had set out, implying but too obviously that they had detected their fierce enemy, who was following them with giant steps along the waves, and now gaining rapidly upon them. His terrific pace, indeed, was two or three times as swift as theirs, poor little things! and the greedy dolphin was fully as quick-sighted as the flying-fish which were trying to elude him; for whenever they varied their flight in the smallest degree, he lost not the tenth part of a second in shaping a new course, so as to cut off the chase; while they, in a manner really not unlike that of the hare, doubled more than once upon their pursuer. But it was soon too plainly to be seen that the strength and confidence of the flying-fish were fast ebbing. Their flights became shorter and shorter, and their course more fluttering and uncertain, while the enormous leaps of the dolphin appeared to grow only more vigorous at each bound. Eventually, indeed, we could see, or fancied we could see, that this skilful sea sportsman arranged all his springs with such an assurance of success, that he contrived to fall, at the end of each, just under the very spot on which the exhausted flying-fish were about to drop! Sometimes this catastrophe took place at too great a distance for us to see from the deck exactly what happened; but on our mounting high into the rigging, we may be said to have been in at the death; for then we could discover that the unfortunate little creatures, one after another, either popped right into the dolphin's jaws as they lighted on the water, or were snapped up instantly afterwards.

It was impossible not to take an active part with our pretty little friends of the weaker side, and accordingly we very speedily had our revenge. The middies and the sailors, delighted with the chance, rigged out a dozen or twenty lines from the jib-boom end, and spritsail yard-arms, with hooks baited merely with bits of tin, the glitter of which resembles so much that of the body and wings of the flying-fish, that many a proud dolphin, making sure of a delicious morsel, leaped in rapture at the deceitful prize.

It may be well to mention that the dolphin of sailors is not the fish so called by the ancient poets. Ours, which I learn from the Encyclopaedia, is the Coryphoena hippurus of naturalists, is totally different from their Delphinus phocoena, termed by us the porpoise, respecting which there exists a popular belief amongst seamen that the wind may be expected from the quarter to which a shoal of porpoises are observed to steer. So far, however, from our respecting the speculations of these submarine philosophers, every art is used to drag them out of their native element, and to pass them through the fire to the insatiable Molochs of the lower decks and cockpits of his Majesty's ships, a race amongst whom the constant supply of the best provisions appears to produce only an increase of appetite.

One harpoon, at least, is always kept in readiness for action in the fore part of the ship. The sharpest and strongest of these deadly weapons is generally stopped or fastened to the fore-tack bumpkin, a spar some ten or twelve feet long, projecting from the bows of a ship on each side like the horns of a snail, to which the tack or lower corner of the foresail is drawn down when the ship is on a wind. This spar, which affords good footing, not being raised many feet above the water, while it is clear of the bow, and very nearly over the spot where the porpoises glide past, when shooting across the ship's forefoot, is eagerly occupied by the most active and expert harpooner on board, as soon as the report has been spread that a shoal, or, as the sailors call it, a "school" of porpoises, are round the ship. There is another favourite station which is speedily filled on these occasions; I mean, alongside of the slight-looking apparatus projecting perpendicularly downwards from the end of the bowsprit. This spar is not inaptly called the dolphin-striker, from its appearing to dash into the waves as the ship pitches; perhaps it may have acquired its name on account of its being so capital a position from which to strike that fish. The lower end of the spar is connected with the outer end of the jib-boom, by means of a stout rope, which, after passing through its extremity, extends to the ship; and it is upon this guy that the fortunate wielder of the harpoon fixes himself. The harpoon is a triangular, or rather a heart-shaped barbed weapon, somewhat larger than a man's head, and in the centre about as thick as his knuckles. Its point and edges are made of iron so soft that they can easily be brought to a rough edge by means of a file. This javelin-head, or, as it is technically called by whalers, the "mouth," is connected by a slender arm or shank, terminating in a socket. The barbed head or mouth is eight inches long, and six broad; the shank, with its socket, two feet and a-half long. The shank is not quite half an inch in diameter; and as this part is liable to be forcibly extended, twisted, and bent, it requires to be made of the toughest and most pliable iron.

A piece of small, but stout line, called, I think, the foreganger, is spliced securely to the shank of the harpoon. To the end of this line is attached any small rope that lies handiest on the forecastle, probably the top-gallant clew-line, or the jib down-haul. The rope, before being made fast to the foreganger, is rove through a block attached to some part of the bowsprit, or to the foremost swifter of the fore-rigging; a gang of hands are always ready to take hold of the end, and run the fish right out of the water when pierced by the iron.

The harpooner has nothing to attend to but the mere act of striking his object; and there are few exploits in which the dexterity of one person is more conspicuous over that of another than in delivering the harpoon. I have heard Captain Scoresby say, that, when a whale is struck, it is an object of importance to drive the weapon socket-deep into the blubber, or outer rind, of the floating monster; but in the case of the porpoise the true point of skill appears to lie in the aim alone: for the mere weight of the instrument, with its loaded staff, is sufficient to lodge the barbs in the body of the fish, and in many cases to carry it right through to the other side.

The strength of the porpoise must be very great, for I have seen him twist a whale harpoon several times round, and eventually tear himself off by main force. On this account, it is of consequence to get the floundering gentleman on board with the least possible delay after the fish is struck. Accordingly, the harpooner, the instant he has made a good hit, bawls out, "Haul away! haul away!" upon which the men stationed at the line run away with it, and the struggling wretch is raised high into the air. Two or three of the smartest hands have in the mean time prepared what is called a running bowline knot, or noose, the nature of which may be readily described by saying that although it slips up, or renders, very easily, it is perfectly secure, without being subject to jamming. This running bowline, of which several are always previously made ready, is placed by hand round the body of the porpoise, or it may be cast, like the lasso, over its tail, and then, but not till then, can the capture be considered quite secure. I have seen many a gallant prize of this kind fairly transfixed with the harpoon, and rattled like a shot up to the block, where it was hailed by the shouts of the victors as the source of a certain feast, and yet lost after all, either by the line breaking, or the dart coming out during the vehement struggles of the fish.

I remember once seeing a porpoise accidentally struck by a minor description of fish-spear called a grains, a weapon quite inadequate for such a service. The cord by which it was held, being much too weak, soon broke, and off dashed the wounded fish, right in the wind's eye, at a prodigious rate, with the staff erect on its back, like a signal-post. The poor wretch was instantly accompanied, or pursued, by myriads of his own species, whose instinct, it is said, teaches them to follow any track of blood, and even to devour their unfortunate fellow-fish. I rather doubt the fact of their cannibalism, but am certain that, whenever a porpoise is struck and escapes, he is followed by all the others, and the ship is deserted by the shoal in a few seconds. In the instance just mentioned, the grains with which the porpoise was struck had been got ready for spearing a dolphin; but the man in whose hands it happened to be, not being an experienced harpooneer, could not resist the opportunity of darting his weapon into the first fish that offered a fair mark.

The dolphin, the bonito, and the albacore, are sometimes caught with the grains, but generally by means of lines baited either with bits of tin, or with pieces of the flying-fish, when any are to be had. In fine weather, especially between the tropics, when the whole surface of the sea is often covered with them, a dozen lines are hung from the jib-boom end and spritsail yard, all so arranged, that when the ship sends forward, the hook, with its glittering bait, barely touches the water, but rises from it when the ship is raised up by the swell. The grains, spoken of above, resembles nothing so much that I know of as the trident which painters thrust into the hands of Daddy Neptune. If my nautical recollections, however, serve me correctly, this spear has five prongs, not three, and sometimes there are two sets, placed in lines at right angles to one another. The upper end of the staff being loaded with lead, it falls down and turns over the fish, which is then drawn on board on the top of the grains, as a potato or a herring might be presented on the point of a fork.

The dolphin is eaten and generally relished by every one, though certainly a plaguy dry fish. It is often cut into slices and fried like salmon, or boiled and soused in vinegar, to be eaten cold. The bonito is a coarser fish, and only becomes tolerable eating by the copious use of port-wine.

It happened in a ship I commanded that a porpoise was struck about half-an-hour before the cabin dinner; and I gave directions, as a matter of course, to my steward to dress a dish of steaks, cut well clear of the thick coating of blubber. It so chanced that none of the crew had ever before seen a fish of this kind taken, and in consequence there arose doubts amongst them whether or not it was good, or even safe eating. The word, however, being soon passed along the decks that orders had been given for some slices of the porpoise to be cooked for the captain's table, a deputation from forward was appointed to proceed as near to the cabin door as the etiquette of the service allowed, in order to establish the important fact of the porpoise being eatable. The dish was carried in, its contents speedily discussed, and a fresh supply having been sent for, the steward was, of course, intercepted in his way to the cook. "I say, Capewell," cried one of the hungry delegates, "did the captain really eat any of the porpoise?"

"Eat it!" exclaimed the steward, "look at that!" at the same time lifting off the cover, and showing a dish as well cleared as if it had previously been freighted with veal cutlets, and was now on its return from the midshipmen's berth.

"Ho! ho!" sung out Jack, running back to the forecastle; "if the skipper eats porpoise, I don't see why we should be nice; so here goes!" Then pulling forth the great clasp-knife which always hangs by a cord round the neck of a seaman, he plunged it into the sides of the fish, and, after separating the outside rind of blubber, detached half-a-dozen pounds of the red meat, which, in texture and taste, and in the heat of its blood, resembles beef, though very coarse. His example was so speedily followed by the rest of the ship's company, that when I walked forward, after dinner, in company with the doctor, to take the post-mortem view of the porpoise more critically than before, we found the whole had been broiled and eaten within half-an-hour after I had unconsciously given, by my example, an official sanction to the feast.

On the 24th of May, the day before crossing the equator, I saw the grandest display of all these different kinds of fish which it has ever been my fortune to meet with. In my journal, written on that day, I find some things related of which I have scarcely any recollection, and certainly have never witnessed since. A bonito, it appears, darted out of the water after a flying-fish, open-mouthed, and so true was the direction of his leap that he actually closed with the chase in the air, and sought to snap it up; but, owing to some error in his calculation, the top of his head striking the object of pursuit, sent it spinning off in a direction quite different from that which his own momentum obliged him to follow. A number of those huge birds, the albatrosses, were soaring over the face of the waters, and the flying-fish, when rising into the air to avoid the dolphins and bonitos, were frequently caught by these poaching birds, to the very reasonable disappointment of the sporting fish below. These intruders proceeded not altogether with impunity, however; for we hooked several of them, who, confident in their own sagacity and strength of wing, swooped eagerly at the baited hooks towed far astern of the ship, and were thus drawn on board, screaming and flapping their wings in a very ridiculous plight. To render this curious circle of mutual destruction quite complete, though it may diminish our sympathy for the persecuted flying-fish, I ought to mention that on the same day one dropped on board in the middle of its flight, and in its throat another small fish was found half swallowed, but still alive!

All this may be considered, more or less, as mere sport; but in the capture of the shark, a less amiable, or, I may say, a more ferocious spirit is sure to prevail. There would seem, indeed, to be a sort of perpetual and hereditary war waged between sailors and sharks, like that said to exist between the Esquimaux and the Indians of North America, where, as each of the belligerents is under the full belief that every death, whether natural or violent, is caused by the machinations of the other side, there is no hope of peace between them, as long as the high conflicting parties shall be subject to the laws of mortality.

In like manner, I fear, that in all future times, as in all times past, when poor Jack falls overboard in Madras roads, or in Port Royal harbour, he will be crunched between the shark's quadruple or quintuple rows of serrated teeth, with as merciless a spirit of enjoyment as Jack himself can display. Certainly, I nave never seen the savage part of our nature peep out more clearly than upon these occasions, when a whole ship's company, captain, officers, and young gentlemen inclusive, shout in triumphant exultation over the body of a captive shark, floundering in impotent rage on the poop or forecastle. The capture always affords high and peculiar sport, for it is one in which every person on board sympathises, and, to a certain extent, takes a share. Like a fox-chase, it is ever new, and draws within its vortex every description of person. Even the monkey, if there be one on board, takes a vehement interest in the whole progress of this wild scene. I remember once observing Jacko running backwards and forwards along the after-part of the poop hammock-netting, grinning, screaming, and chattering at such a rate, that, as it was nearly calm, he was heard all over the decks.

"What's the matter with you, Master Mona?" said the quarter-master; for the animal came from Teneriffe, and preserved his Spanish cognomen. Jacko replied not, but merely stretching his head over the railing, stared with his eyes almost bursting from his head, and by the intensity of his grin bared his teeth and gums nearly from ear to ear.

The sharp curved dorsal fin of a huge shark was now seen, rising about six inches above the water, and cutting the glazed surface of the sea by as fine a line as if a sickle had been drawn along.

"Messenger! run to the cook for a piece of pork," cried the captain, taking command with as much glee as if it had been an enemy's cruiser.

"Where's your hook, quarter-master?"

"Here, sir, here!" cried the fellow, feeling the point, and declaring it as sharp as any lady's needle, and in the next instant piercing with it a huge junk of rusty pork, weighing four or five pounds; for nothing, scarcely, is too large or too high in flavour for the stomach of a shark.

The hook, which is as thick as one's little finger, has a curvature about as large as that of a man's hand when half closed, and is from six to eight inches in length, with a formidable barb. This fierce-looking grappling-iron is furnished with three or four feet of chain, a precaution which is absolutely necessary; for a voracious shark will sometimes gobble the bait so deep into his stomach, that he would snap through the rope as easily as if he were nipping the head off an asparagus.

A good strong line, generally the end of the mizen-topsail-haulyards, being made fast to the chain, the bait is cast into the ship's wake; for it is very seldom so dead a calm that a vessel has not some small motion through the water. I think I have remarked that at sea the sharks are most apt to make their appearance when the ship is going along at a rate of somewhat less than a mile an hour, a speed which barely brings her under command of the rudder, or gives her what is technically called steerage-way.

A shark, like a midshipman, is generally very hungry; but in the rare cases when he is not in good appetite he sails slowly up to the bait, smells at it, and gives it a poke with his shovel-nose, turning it over and over. He then edges off to the right or left, as if he apprehended mischief, but soon returns again, to enjoy the delicious haut gout of the damaged pork, of which a piece is always selected, if it can be found.

While this coquetry or shyness is exhibited by John Shark, the whole after-part of the ship is so clustered with heads that not an inch of spare room is to be had for love or money. The rigging, the mizen-top, and even the gaff, out to the very peak, the hammock-nettings and the quarters, almost down to the counter, are stuck over with breathless spectators, speaking in whispers, if they venture to speak at all, or can find leisure for anything but fixing their gaze on the monster, who as yet is free to roam the ocean, but who, they trust, will soon be in their power. I have seen this go on for an hour together; after which the shark has made up his mind to have nothing to say to us, and either swerved away to windward, if there be any breeze at all, or dived so deep that his place could be detected only by a faint touch or flash of white many fathoms down. The loss of a Spanish galleon in chase, I am persuaded, could hardly cause more bitter regret, or call forth more intemperate expressions of anger and impatience than the failure in hooking a shark is always sure to produce on board a ship at sea.

On the other hand, I suppose the first symptom of an enemy's flag coming down in the fight was never hailed with greater joy than is felt by a ship's crew on the shark turning round to seize the bait. The preparatory symptoms of this intention are so well known to every one on board, that, the instant they begin to appear, a greedy whisper of delight passes from mouth to mouth amongst the assembled multitude; every eye is lighted up, and such as have not bronzed their cheeks by too long exposure to sun and wind to betray any change of colour may be seen to alter their hue from pale to red, and back to pale again, like the tints on the sides of the dying dolphin.

It is supposed by seamen that the shark must of necessity turn on his back before he can bite anything, and, generally speaking, he certainly does so turn himself before he takes the bait; but this arises from two circumstances—one of them accidental and belonging to the particular occasion, the other arising out of the peculiar conformation and position of his mouth. When a bait is towed astern of a ship that has any motion through the water at all, it is necessarily brought to the surface, or nearly so. This, of course, obliges the shark to bite at it from below; and as his mouth is placed under his chin, not over it, he must turn nearly on his back before he can seize the floating piece of meat in which the hook is concealed. Even if he does not turn completely round, he is forced to slue himself, as it is called, so far as to show some portion of his white belly. The instant the white skin flashes on the sight of the expectant crew, a subdued cry, or murmur of satisfaction, is heard amongst the crowd; but no one speaks, for fear of alarming the shark.

Sometimes, the very instant the bait is cast over the stern, the shark flies at it with such eagerness that he actually springs partially out of the water. This, however, is rare. On these occasions he gorges the bait, the hook, and a foot or two of the chain, without any mastication or delay, and darts off with his treacherous prize with such prodigious velocity and force that it makes the rope crack again as soon as the whole coil is drawn out; but in general he goes more leisurely to work, and seems rather to suck in the bait than to bite at it. Much dexterity is required in the hand which holds the line at this moment; for a bungler is apt to be too precipitate, and to jerk away the hook before it has got far enough down the shark's maw. Our greedy friend, indeed, is never disposed to relinquish what may once have passed his formidable batteries of teeth; but the hook, by a premature tug of the line, may fix itself in a part of the jaw so weak that it gives way in the fierce struggle which always follows. The secret of the sport is, to let the voracious monster gulp down the huge mess of pork, and then to give the rope a violent pull, by which the barbed point, quitting the edge of the bait, buries itself in the coats of the victim's throat or stomach. As the shark is not a personage to submit patiently to such treatment, it will not be well for any one whose foot happens to be accidentally on the coil of the rope, for, when the hook is first fixed, it spins out like the log-line of a ship going twelve knots.

The suddenness of the jerk with which the poor devil is brought up, when he has reached the length of his tether, often turns him quite over on the surface of the water. Then commence the loud cheers, taunts, and other sounds of rage and triumph, so long suppressed. A steady pull is insufficient to carry away the line; but it sometimes happens that the violent struggles of the shark, when too speedily drawn up, snap either the rope or the hook, and so he gets off, to digest the remainder as he best can. It is, accordingly, held the best practice to play him a little, with his mouth at the surface, till he becomes somewhat exhausted. No sailor, therefore, ought ever to think of hauling a shark on board merely by the rope fastened to the hook; for, however impotent his struggles may generally be in the water, they are rarely unattended with risk when the rogue is drawn half-way up. To prevent the line breaking, or the hook snapping, or the jaw being torn away, the device formerly described, of a running bowline knot, is always adopted. This noose, being slipped down the rope, and passed over the monster's head, is made to jam at the point of junction of the tail with the body. When this is once fixed, the first act of the piece is held to be complete, and the vanquished enemy is afterwards easily drawn over the taffrail and flung on the deck, to the unspeakable delight of all hands. But, although the shark is out of his element, he has by no means lost his power of doing mischief; and I would advise no one to come within range of the tail, or thrust his toes too near the animal's mouth. The blow of a tolerably large-sized shark's tail might break a man's leg; and I have seen a three-inch hide tiller-rope bitten more than half-through full ten minutes after the wretch had been dragged about the quarter-deck, and had made all his victors keep at the most respectful distance. I remember hearing the late Dr. Wollaston, with his wonted ingenuity, suggest a method for measuring the strength of a shark's bite. If a smooth plate of lead, he thought, were thrust into the fish's mouth, the depth which his teeth should pierce the lead would furnish a sort of scale of the force exerted.

I need scarcely mention, that, when a shark is floundering about, the quarter-deck becomes a scene of pretty considerable confusion; and if there be blood on the occasion, as there generally is, from all this rough usage, the stains are not to be got rid of without a week's scrubbing, and many a growl from the captain of the after-guard. For the time, however, all such considerations are superseded; that is to say, if the commander himself takes an interest in the sport, and he must be rather a spoony skipper that does not. If he be indifferent about the fate of the shark, it is speedily dragged forward to the forecastle, amidst the kicks, thumps, and execrations of the conquerors, who very soon terminate his miserable career by stabbing him with their knives, boarding-pikes, and tomahawks, like so many wild Indians.

The first operation is always to deprive him of his tail, which is seldom an easy matter, it not being at all safe to come too near; but some dextrous hand, familiar with the use of the broad axe, watches for a quiet moment, and at a single blow severs it from the body. He is then closed with by another, who leaps across the prostrate foe, and with an adroit cut rips him open from snout to tail, and the tragedy is over, so far as the struggles and sufferings of the principal actor are concerned. There always follows, however, the most lively curiosity on the part of the sailors to learn what the shark has got stowed away in his inside; but they are often disappointed, for the stomach is generally empty. I remember one famous exception, indeed, when a very large fellow was caught on board the Alceste, in Anjeer Roads at Java, when we were proceeding to China with the embassy under Lord Amherst. A number of ducks and hens which had died in the night were, as usual, thrown overboard in the morning, besides several baskets, and many other minor things, such as bundles of shavings and bits of cordage: all of which were found in this huge sea-monster's inside. But what excited most surprise and admiration was the hide of a buffalo, killed on board that day for the ship's company's dinner. The old sailor who had cut open the shark stood with a foot on each side, and removed the articles one by one from the huge cavern into which they had been indiscriminately drawn. When the operator came at last to the buffalo's skin, he held it up before him like a curtain, and exclaimed, "There, my lads! d'ye see that? He has swallowed a buffalo; but he could not disgest the hide!"