Home > Authors Index > James Fenimore Cooper > Ned Myers; or, A Life Before the Mast > This page
Ned Myers; or, A Life Before the Mast, a non-fiction book by James Fenimore Cooper |
||
Chapter 18 |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ Chapter XVIII I had left the Hope in a fit of the sulks. The vessel never pleased me, and yet I can now look back, and acknowledge that both her master and her mate were respectable, considerate men, who had my own good in view more than I had myself. There was an American ship, called the Plato, in port, and I had half a mind to try my luck in her. The master of this vessel was said to be a tartar, however, and a set of us had doubts about the expediency of trusting ourselves with such a commander. When we came to sound around him, we discovered he would have nothing to do with us, as he intended to get a crew of regular Dutchmen. This ship had just arrived from Batavia, and was bound to New York. How he did this legally, or whether he did it at all, is more than I know, for I only tell what I was told myself, on this subject. There was a heavy Dutch Indiaman, then fitting out for Java, lying at Rotterdam. The name of this vessel was the Stadtdeel--so pronounced; how spelt, I have no idea--and I began to think I would try a voyage in her. As is common with those who have great reason to find fault with themselves, I was angry with the whole world. I began to think myself a sort of outcast, forgetting that I had deserted my natural relatives, run from my master, and thrown off many friends who were disposed to serve me in everything in which I could be served. I have a cheerful temperament by nature, and I make no doubt that the sombre view I now began to take of things, was the effects of drink. It was necessary for me to get to sea, for there I was shut out from all excesses, by discipline and necessity. After looking around us, and debating the matter among ourselves, a party of five of us shipped in the Stadtdeel. What the others contemplated I do not know, but it was my intention to double Good Hope, and never to return. Chances enough would offer on the other side, to make a man comfortable, and I was no stranger to the ways of that quarter of the world. I could find enough to do between Bombay and Canton; and, if I could not, there were the islands and all of the Pacific before me. I could do a seaman's whole duty, was now in tolerable health and strength, and knew that such men were always wanted. Wherever a ship goes, Jack must go with her, and ships, dollars and hogs, are now to be met with all over the globe. The Stadtdeel lay at Dort, and we went to that place to join her. She was not ready for sea, and as things moved Dutchman fashion, slow and sure, we were about six weeks at Dort before she sailed. This ship was a vessel of the size of a frigate, and carried twelve guns. She had a crew of about forty souls, which was being very short-handed. The ship's company was a strange mixture of seamen, though most of them came from the north of Europe. Among us were Russians, Danes, Swedes, Prussians, English, Americans, and but a very few Dutch. One of the mates, and two of the petty officers, could speak a little English. This made us eight who could converse in that language. We had to learn Dutch as well as we could, and made out tolerably well. Before the ship sailed, I could understand the common orders, without much difficulty. Indeed, the language is nothing but English a little flattened down. So long as we remained at Dort, the treatment on board this vessel was well enough. We were never well fed, though we got enough food, such as it was. The work was hard, and the weather cold; but these did not frighten me. The wages were eight dollars a month;--I had abandoned eighteen, and an American ship, for this preferment! A wayward temper had done me this service. The Stadtdeel no sooner got into the stream, than there was a great change in the treatment. We were put on an allowance of food and water, in sight of our place of departure; and the rope's-end began to fly round among the crew we five excepted. For some reason, that I cannot explain neither of us was ever struck. We got plenty of curses, in Low Dutch, as we supposed; and we gave them back, with interest, in high English. The expression of our faces let the parties into the secret of what was going on. It is scarcely necessary to add, that we English and Americans soon repented of the step we had taken. I heartily wished myself on board the Hope, again, and the master's prophecy became true, much sooner, perhaps, than he had himself anticipated. This time, I conceive that my disgust was fully justified; though I deserved the punishment I was receiving, for entering so blindly into a service every way so inferior to that to which I properly belonged. The bread in this ship was wholesome, I do suppose, but it was nearly black, and such as I was altogether unused to. Inferior as it was, we got but five pounds, each, per week. In our navy, a man gets, per week, seven pounds of such bread as might be put on a gentleman's table. The meat was little better than the bread in quality, and quite as scant in quantity. We got one good dish in the Stadtdeel, and that we got every morning. It was a dish of boiled barley, of which I became very fond, and which, indeed, supplied me with the strength necessary for my duty. It was one of the best dishes I ever fell in with at sea; and I think it might be introduced, to advantage, in our service. Good food produces good work. As all our movements were of the slow and easy order, the ship lay three weeks at the Helvoetsluys, waiting for passengers. During this time, our party, three English and two Americans, came to a determination to abandon the ship. Our plan was to seize a boat, as we passed down channel, and get ashore in England. We were willing to run all the risks of such a step, in preference of going so long a voyage under such treatment and food. By this time, our discontent amounted to disgust. At length we got all our passengers on board. These consisted of a family, of which the head was said to be, or to have been, an admiral in the Dutch navy. This gentleman was going to Java to remain; and he took with him his wife, several children, servants, and a lady, who seemed to be a companion to his wife. As soon as this party was on board, the wind coming fair, we sailed. The Plato went to sea in company with us, and little did I then think, while wishing myself on board her, how soon I should be thrown into this very ship--the last craft in which I ever was at sea. I was heaving the lead as we passed her; our ship, Dutchman or not, having a fleet pair of heels. The Stadtdeel, whatever might be her usage, or her food, sailed and worked well, and was capitally found in everything that related to the safety of the vessel. This was her first voyage, and she was said to be the largest ship out of Rotterdam. The Stadtdeel must have sailed from Helvoetsluys in May, 1839, or about thirty-three years after I sailed from New York, on my first voyage, in the Sterling. During all this time I had been toiling at sea, like a dog, risking my health and life, in a variety of ways; and this ship, with my station on board her, was nearly all I had to show for it! God be praised! This voyage, which promised so little, in its commencement, proved, in the end, the most fortunate of any in which I embarked. There was no opportunity for us to put our plans in execution, in going down channel. The wind was fair, and it blew so fresh, it would not have been easy to get a boat into the water; and we passed the Straits of Dover, by day-light, the very day we sailed. The wind held in the same quarter, until we reached the north-east trades, giving us a quick run as low down as the calm latitudes. All this time, the treatment was as bad as ever, or, if anything, worse; and our discontent increased daily. There were but one or two native Hollanders in the forecastle, boys excepted; but among them was a man who had shipped as an ordinary seaman. He had been a soldier, I believe; at all events, he had a medal, received in consequence of having been in one of the late affairs between his country and Belgium. It is probable this man may not have been very expert in a seaman's duty, and it is possible he may have been drinking, though to me he appeared sober, at the time the thing occurred which I am about to relate. One day the captain fell foul of him, and beat him with a rope severely. The ladies interfered, and got the poor fellow out of the scrape; the captain letting him go, and telling him to go forward. As the man complied, he fell in with the chief mate, who attacked him afresh, and beat him very severely. The man now went below, and was about to turn in, as the captain had ordered,--which renders it probable he had been drinking,--when the second mate, possibly ignorant of what had occurred, missing him from his duty, went below, and beat him up on deck again. These different assaults seem to have made the poor fellow desperate. He ran and jumped into the sea, just forward of the starboard lower-studdingsail-boom. The ship was then in the north-east trades, and had eight or nine knots way on her; notwithstanding, she was rounded to, and a boat was lowered--but the man was never found. There is something appalling in seeing a fellow-creature driven to such acts of madness; and the effect produced on all of us, by what we witnessed, was profound and sombre. I shall not pretend to say that this man did not deserve chastisement, or that the two mates were not ignorant of what had happened; but brutal treatment was so much in use on board this ship, that the occurrence made us five nearly desperate. I make no doubt a crew of Americans, who were thus treated, would have secured the officers, and brought the ship in. It is true, that flogging seems necessary to some natures, and I will not say that such a crew as ours could very well get along without it. But we might sometimes be treated as men, and no harm follow. As I have said, the loss of this man produced a great impression in the ship, generally. The passengers appeared much affected by it, and I thought the captain, in particular, regretted it greatly. He might not have been in the least to blame, for the chastisement he inflicted was such as masters of ships often bestow on their men, but the crew felt very indignant against the mates; one of whom was particularly obnoxious to us all. As for my party, we now began to plot, again, in order to get quit of the ship. After a great deal of discussion, we came to the following resolution: About a dozen of us entered into the conspiracy. We contemplated no piracy, no act of violence, that should not be rendered necessary in self-defence, nor any robbery beyond what we conceived indispensable to our object. As the ship passed the Straits of Sunda, we intended to lower as many boats as should be necessary, arm ourselves, place provisions and water in the boats, and abandon the ship. We felt confident that if most of the men did not go with us, they would not oppose us. I can now see that this was a desperate and unjustifiable scheme; but, for myself, I was getting desperate on board the ship, and preferred risking my life to remaining. I will not deny that I was a ringleader in this affair, though I know I had no other motive than escape. This was a clear case of mutiny, and the only one in which I was ever implicated. I have a thousand times seen reason to rejoice that the attempt was never made, since, so deep was the hostility of the crew to the officers,--the mates, in particular,--that I feel persuaded a horrible scene of bloodshed must have followed. I did not think of this at the time, making sure of getting off unresisted; but, if we had, what would have been the fate of a parcel of seamen who came into an English port in ship's boats? Tried for piracy, probably, and the execution of some, if not all of us. The ship had passed the island of St. Pauls, and we were impatiently waiting for her entrance into the Straits of Sunda, when an accident occurred that put a stop to the contemplated mutiny, and changed the whole current, as I devoutly hope, of all my subsequent life. At the calling of the middle watch, one stormy night, the ship being under close-reefed topsails at the time, with the mainsail furled, I went on deck as usual, to my duty. In stepping across the deck, between the launch and the galley, I had to cross some spars that were lashed there. While on the pile of spars, the ship lurched suddenly, and I lost my balance, falling my whole length on deck, upon my left side. Nothing broke the fall, my arms being raised to seize a hold above my head, and I came down upon deck with my entire weight, the hip taking the principal force of the fall. The anguish I suffered was acute, and it was some time before I would allow my shipmates even to touch me. After a time, I was carried down into the steerage, where it was found necessary to sling me on a grating, instead of a hammock. We had a doctor on board, but he could do nothing for me. My clothes could not be taken off, and there I lay wet, and suffering to a degree that I should find difficult to describe, hours and hours. I was now really on the stool of repentance. In body, I was perfectly helpless, though my mind seemed more active than it had ever been before. I overhauled my whole life, beginning with the hour when I first got drunk, as a boy, on board the Sterling, and underrunning every scrape I have mentioned in this sketch of my life, with many of which I have not spoken; and all with a fidelity and truth that satisfy me that man can keep no log-book that is as accurate as his own conscience. I saw that I had been my own worst enemy, and how many excellent opportunities of getting ahead in the world, I had wantonly disregarded. Liquor lay at the root of all my calamities and misconduct, enticing me into bad company, undermining my health and strength, and blasting my hopes. I tried to pray, but did not know how; and, it appeared to me, as if I were lost, body and soul, without a hope of mercy. My shipmates visited me by stealth, and I pointed out to them, as clearly as in my power, the folly, as well as the wickedness, of our contemplated mutiny. I told them we had come on board the ship voluntarily, and we had no right to be judges in our own case; that we should have done a cruel thing in deserting a ship at sea, with women and children on board; that the Malays would probably have cut our throats, and the vessel herself would have been very apt to be wrecked. Of all this mischief, we should have been the fathers, and we had every reason to be grateful that our project was defeated. The men listened attentively, and promised to abandon every thought of executing the revolt. They were as good as their words, and I heard no more of the matter. As for my hurt, it was not easy to say what it was. The doctor was kind to me, but he could do no more than give me food and little indulgencies. As for the captain, I think he was influenced by the mate, who appeared to believe I was feigning an injury much greater than I had actually received. On board the ship, there was a boy, of good parentage, who had been sent out to commence his career at sea. He lived aft, and was a sort of genteel cabin-boy He could not have been more than ten or eleven years old but he proved to be a ministering angel to me. He brought me delicacies, sympathised with me, and many a time did we shed tears in company. The ladies and the admiral's children sometimes came to see me, too, manifesting much sorrow for my situation; and then it was that my conscience pricked the deepest, for the injury, or risks, I had contemplated exposing them to. Altogether, the scenes I saw daily, and my own situation, softened my heart, and I began to get views of my moral deformity that were of a healthful and safe character. I lay on that grating two months, and bitter months they were to me. The ship had arrived at Batavia, and the captain and mate came to see what was to be done with me. I asked to be sent to the hospital, but the mate insisted nothing was the matter with me, and asked to have me kept in the ship. This was done, and I went round to Terragall in her, where we landed our passengers. These last all came and took leave of me, the admiral making me a present of a good jacket, that he had worn himself at sea, with a quantity of tobacco. I have got that jacket at this moment. The ladies spoke kindly to me, and all this gave my heart fresh pangs. From Terragall we went to Sourabaya, where I prevailed on the captain to send me to the hospital, the mate still insisting I was merely shamming inability to work. The surgeons at Sourabaya, one of whom was a Scotchman, thought with the mate; and at the end of twenty days, I was again taken on board the ship, which sailed for Samarang. While at Sourabaya there were five English sailors in the hospital. These men were as forlorn and miserable as my self, death grinning in our faces at every turn. The men who were brought into the hospital one day, were often dead the next, and none of us knew whose turn would come next. We often talked together, on religious subjects, after our own uninstructed manner, and greatly did we long to find an English bible, a thing not to be had there. Then it was I thought, again, of the sermon I had heard at the Sailors' Retreat, of the forfeited promises I had made to reform; and, more than once did it cross my mind, should God permit me to return home, that I would seek out that minister, and ask his prayers and spiritual advice. On our arrival at Samarang, the mate got a doctor from a Dutch frigate, to look at me, who declared nothing ailed me. By these means nearly all hands in the ship were set against me, but my four companions, and the little boy fancying that I was a skulk, and throwing labour on them. I was ordered on deck, and set to work graffing ring-bolts for the guns. Walk I could not, being obliged, literally, to crawl along the deck on my hands and knees. I suffered great pain, but got no credit for it. The work was easy enough for me, when once seated at it, but it caused me infinite suffering to move. I was not alone in being thought a skulk, however. The doctor himself was taken ill, and the mate accused him, too, very much as he did me, of shirking duty. Unfortunately, the poor man gave him the lie, by dying. I was kept at the sort of duty I have mentioned until the ship reached Batavia again. Here a doctor came on board from another ship, on a visit, and my case was mentioned. The mate ordered me aft, and I crawled upon the quarter-deck to be examined. They got me into the cabin, where the strange doctor looked at me. This man said I must be operated on by a burning process, all of which was said to frighten me to duty. After this I got down into the forecastle, and positively refused to do anything more. There I lay, abused and neglected by all but my four friends. I told the mate I suffered too much to work, and that I must be put ashore. Suffering had made me desperate, and I cared not for the consequences. Fortunately for me, there were two cases of fever and ague in the ship. Our own doctor being dead, that of the admiral's ship was sent for to visit the sick. The mate seemed anxious to set evidence against me, and he asked the admiral's surgeon to come down and see me. The moment this gentleman laid eyes on me, he raised both arms, and exclaimed that they were killing me. He saw, at once, that I was no impostor, and stated as much in pretty plain language, so far as I could understand what he said. The mate appeared to be struck with shame and contrition; and I do believe that every one on board was sorry for the treatment I had received. I took occasion to remonstrate with the mate, and to tell him of the necessity of my being sent immediately to the hospital. The man promised to represent my case to the captain, and the next day I was landed. My two great desires were to get to the hospital and to procure a bible. I did not expect to live; one of my legs being shrivelled to half its former size, and was apparently growing worse; and could I find repose for my body and relief for my soul, I felt that I could be happy. I had heard my American shipmate, who was a New Yorker, a Hudson river man, say he had a bible; but I had never seen it. It lay untouched in the bottom of his chest, sailor-fashion. I offered this man a shirt for his bible; but he declined taking any pay, cheerfully giving me the book. I forced the shirt on him, however, as a sort of memorial of me. Now I was provided with the book, I could not read for want of spectacles. I had reached a time of life when the sight begins to fail, and I think my eyes were injured in Florida. In Sourayaba hospital I had raised a few rupees by the sale of a black silk handkerchief, and wanted now to procure a pair of spectacles. I sold a pair of boots, and adding the little sum thus raised to that which I had already, I felt myself rich and happy, in the prospect of being able to study the word of God. On quitting the ship, everybody, forward and aft, shook hands with me, the opinion of the man-of-war surgeon suddenly changing all their opinions of me and my conduct. The captain appeared to regret the course things had taken, and was willing to do all he could to make me comfortable. My wages were left in a merchant's hands, and I was to receive them could I quit this island, or get out of the hospital. I was to be sent to Holland, in the latter case, and everything was to be done according to law and right. The reader is not to imagine I considered myself a suffering saint all this time. On the contrary, while I was thought an impostor, I remembered that I had shammed sickness in this very island, and, as I entered the hospital, I could not forget the circumstances under which I had been its tenant fifteen or twenty years before. Then I was in the pride of my youth and strength; and, now, as if in punishment for the deception, I was berthed, a miserable cripple, within half-a-dozen beds of that on which I was berthed when feigning an illness I did not really suffer. Under such circumstances, conscience is pretty certain to remind a sinner of his misdeeds. The physician of the hospital put me on very low diet and gave me an ointment to "smear" myself with, as he called it; and I was ordered to remain in my berth. By means of one of the coolies of the hospital, I got a pair of spectacles from the town, and such a pair, as to size and form, that people in America regard what is left of them as a curiosity. They served my purpose, however, and enabled me to read the precious book I had obtained from my north-river shipmate. This book was a copy from the American Bible Society's printing-office, and if no other of their works did good, this must be taken for an exception. It has since been placed in the Society's Library, in memory of the good it has done. My sole occupation was reading and reflecting. There I lay, in a distant island, surrounded by disease, death daily, nay hourly making his appearance, among men whose language was mostly unknown to me. It was several weeks before I was allowed even to quit my bunk. I had begun to pray before I left the ship, and this practice I continued, almost hourly, until I was permitted to rise. A converted Lascar was in the hospital, and seeing my occupation, he came and conversed with me, in his broken English. This man gave me a hymn-book, and one of the first hymns I read in it afforded me great consolation. It was written by a man who had been a sailor like myself, and one who had been almost as wicked as myself, but who has since done a vast deal of good, by means of precept and example. This hymn-book I now read in common with my bible. But I cannot express the delight I felt at a copy of Pilgrim's Progress which this same Lascar gave me. That book I consider as second only to the bible. It enabled me to understand and to apply a vast deal that I found in the word of God, and set before my eyes so many motives for hope, that I began to feel Christ had died for me, as well as for the rest of the species. I thought if the thief on the cross could be saved, even one as wicked as I had been had only to repent and believe, to share in the Redeemer's mercy. All this time I fairly pined for religious instruction, and my thoughts would constantly recur to the sermon I had heard at the Sailor's Retreat, and to the clergyman who had preached it. There was an American carpenter in the Fever Hospital, who, hearing of my state, gave me some tracts that he had brought from home with him. This man was not pious, but circumstances had made him serious; and, being about to quit the place, he was willing to administer to my wants He told me there were several Englishmen and one American in his hospital, who wanted religious consolation greatly, and he advised me to crawl over and see them; which I did, as soon as it was in my power. At first, I thought myself too wicked to offer to pray and converse with these men, but my conscience would not let me rest until I did so. It appeared to me as if the bible had been placed in my way, as much for their use as my own, and I could not rest until I had offered them all the consolation it was in my power to bestow. I read with these men for two or three weeks; Chapman, the American, being the man who considered his own moral condition the most hopeless. When unable to go myself, I would send my books, and we had the bible and Pilgrim's Progress, watch and watch, between us. All this time we were living, as it might be, on a bloody battle-field. Men died in scores around us, and at the shortest notice. Batavia, at that season, was the most sickly; and, although the town was by no means as dangerous then as it had been in my former visit, it was still a sort of Golgotha, or place of skulls. More than half who entered the Fever Hospital, left it only as corpses. Among my English associates, as I call them, was a young Scotchman, of about five-and-twenty. This man had been present at most of our readings and conversations, though he did not appear to me as much impressed with the importance of caring for his soul, as some of the others. One day he came to take leave of me. He was to quit the hospital the following morning. I spoke to him concerning his future life, and endeavoured to awaken in him some feelings that might be permanent, he listened with proper respect, but his answers were painfully inconsiderate, though I do believe he reasoned as nine in ten of mankind reason, when they think at all on such subjects. "What's the use of my giving up so soon," he said; "I am young, and strong, and in good health, and have plenty of sea-room to leeward of me, and can fetch up when there is occasion for it. If a fellow don't live while he can, he'll never live." I read to him the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, but he left me holding the same opinion, to the last. Directly in front of my ward was the dead-house. Thither all the bodies of those who died in the hospital were regularly carried for dissection. Scarcely one escaped being subjected to the knife. This dead-house stood some eighty, or a hundred, yards from the hospital, and between them was an area, containing a few large trees. I was in the habit, after I got well enough to go out, to hobble to one of these trees, where I would sit for hours, reading and meditating. It was a good place to make a man reflect on the insignificance of worldly things, disease and death being all around him. I frequently saw six or eight bodies carried across this area, while sitting in it, and many were taken to the dead-house, at night. Hundreds, if not thousands, were in the hospital, and a large proportion died. The morning of the day but one, after I had taken leave of the young Scotchman, I was sitting under a tree, as usual, when I saw some coolies carrying a dead body across the area. They passed quite near me, and one of the coolies gave me to understand it was that of this very youth! He had been seized with the fever, a short time after he left me, and here was a sudden termination to all his plans of enjoyment and his hopes of life; his schemes of future repentance. Such things are of frequent occurrence in that island, but this event made a very deep impression on me. It helped to strengthen me in my own resolutions, and I used it, I hope, with effect, with my companions whose lives were still spared. All the Englishmen got well, and were discharged. Chapman, the American, however, remained, being exceedingly feeble with the disease of the country. With this poor young man, I prayed, as well as I knew how, and read, daily, to his great comfort and consolation, I believe. The reader may imagine how one dying in a strange land, surrounded by idolaters, would lean on a single countryman who was disposed to aid him. In this manner did Chap man lean on me, and all my efforts were to induce him to lean on the Saviour. He thought he had been too great a sinner to be entitled to any hope, and my great task was to overcome in him some of those stings of conscience which it had taken the grace of God to allay in myself. One day, the last time I was with him, I read the narrative of the thief on the cross. He listened to it eagerly, and when I had ended, for the first time, he displayed some signs of hope and joy. As I left him, he took leave of me, saying we should never meet again. He asked my prayers, and I promised them. I went to my own ward, and, while actually engaged in redeeming my promise, one came to tell me he had gone. He sent me a message, to say he died a happy man. The poor fellow--happy fellow, would be a better term--sent back all the books he had borrowed; and it will serve to give some idea of the condition we were in, in a temporal sense, if I add, that he also sent me a few coppers, in order that they might contribute to the comfort of his countrymen. _ |
||