CHAPTER VII.

Clutha Leader, Volume V, Issue 215, 23 August 1878, Page 7

CHAPTER VII.

North Latitude 23^-, Longitude East 113; the time March of this same year ; the wind southerly ; the port Whampoa, in the Canton river. Ships at anchor reared their tall masts here and there ; and the broad stream was enlivened and coloured by junks and boats of all sizes and vivid hues, propelled on the screw principle by a great scull at the stern, with projecting handles for the crew to work ; ' and at times a gorgeous mandarin boat, with two great glaring eyes set in' the bows, came'flying, rowed with forty paddles by an armed crew, whose shields hung on the gunwale and flashed fire in the sunbeams; the mandarin, in conical and buttoned hat, sitting on the top of his cabin calmly smoking Paradise, alias opium, while his gong boomed and his boat flew fourteen miles an hour, and all things scuttled out of his celestial way. And there, looking majestically down on all these waterants, the huge Agra, cynosure of so many loving eyes and loving hearts in England, lay at her moorings, homeward bound.

Her tea not being yet on board, the ship's hull floated high as a castle, and to the subtle, intellectual, doll-faced, bolus-eyed people, that sculled to and fro busy as bees, though looking forked mushrooms, she sounded like a vast musical shell, for a lusty harmony of many mellow voices vibrated in her great cavities, and made the air ring cheerily around her. The vocalists were the Cyclopes, to judge by the tremendous thumps that kept clean time to their sturdy tune. Yet it was but human labour, so heavy and so knowing, that it had called in music to help. It was the third mate and his gangcompleting his floor to receive the coming tea chests. Yesterday he had stowed his dunnage, many hundred bundles of light flexible canes from Sumatra and Malacca; on these he had laid tons of rough saltpetre, in 2001 b. gunny-bags, and was now mashing it to music/ bags and all. His gang of fifteen, naked to the waist, stood in line ; with huge wooden beetles called commanders, and lifted them high and brought them down on the nitre in cadence with true nautical power and unison, singing as follows, with, a ponderous bump on the first note in each bar : —

Here goes one, owe me there ono _ One now it is gone, There's another yet to come, And away we'll go to Flanders, Amongst our wooden commanders, Where we'll get wine in plenty, Rum, brandy, and Ge-na-vy. Here goes two, owe me there two, &c. And so up to fifteen, when the stave was concluded with a shrill " Spell, bo ! " and the gang relieved, streaming with perspiration. When the saltpetre was well mashed, they rolled ton waterbutts on it till the floor was like a billiard table. A fleet of chop boats then began to arrive, so many per day, with the tea-chests. Mr Grey proceeded to lay the first tier on his saltpetre floor, and. then built the chests tier upon tier, beginning at the sides,, and leaving in the middle a lane some-i what narrower than a tea-chest. Thenl he applied a screw-jack to the chests on: both sides, and so enlarged his central aperture, and forced the remaining tea-! chests in ; and behold the enormous' cargo packed as tight as ever shop-' keeperpacked a box — nineteen thousand eight hundred and six chests, sixty : half-chests, and fifty quarter-chests. j While Mr Grey" was contemplating | his work with singular satisfaction, a small boat from Canton came alongside,and Mr Tickell, midshipman, ran up! the side* skipped' on the qu-irtetfdeck,-saluted it first, and then the first mate,' and gave him a line from the captain,

desiring him to take the ship down to Second Bar — for her waW — at tbe turn of the tide.

Two hours alter receipt of this order the ship swung to the ebb. Instantly Mr Sharpe unmoored, and the Agra began her famous voyage, with her head at right angles to her course, for the wind being foul all Sharpe could do was to set his topsails, driver, and jib, and keep her in the tide-way, and clear of the numerous craft, by backing or filling as the case required," which he did with considerable dexterity, making the sails steer tbe helm for the nonce ; he crossed the Bar at sunset, and brought to with the best bower anchor in five fathoms and a half. Here they began to take in their water, and on the fifth day the six-oared gig was ordered up to Canton for the captain. The next afternoon he passed the ship in her, going down the river to Lin-Tin to board the Chinese admiral for his chop, or permission to leave China. All night the Agra showed three lights at her mizen peak for him, and kept a sharp look out. But he did not come ; he was having a very serious talk with the Chinese adrairul ; at daybreak, however, the' gig was reported "in sight, and Sharpe told one of the midshipmen 'to call the boatswain and man the side. Soon the gig ran alongside ; two of the ship's boys jumped like monkeys over the bulwarks, lighting, one on the main channels, the other on the midship port, and put the side-ropes assiduously in the captain's hands; he bestowed a slight paternal smile on them, the first the imps had ever received from an officer, and went lightly up the sides. The moment his foot touched the deck, the boatswain gave a frightful shrill whistle; the men at the sides uncovered ; the captain saluted the quarter deck, and all the officers saluted him, which he returned, and stepping for a moment to the W9ather side of his deck, gave the loud command, " All hands heave anchor.' 1 He then directed Mr Sharpe to get what sail he could on the ship, the wind now being westerly, and dived into his cabin.

The boatswain piped three shrill pipes, and " All hands up anchor," was thrice repeated forward, followed by private admonitions, •' Rouse and bitt/' " Show a leg," &c, and up tumbled the crew with homeward bound written on their tanned faces. (Pipe.) " Up all hammocks." In ten minutes the ninety and odd hammocks were all stowed neatly in the netting, and covered with a snowy hammock cloth; and the hands, were active, unbitting the cable, shippingcapstan bars, &c. ' All ready below, sir/ cried a voice. ' Man the bars/ returned Mr Sharpe from the quarter-deck, ' Play up, fifer, Heave away.' Out broke the merry fife with a rymthmical tune, and tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp went a hundred and twenty feet round and round, and, with brawny chests pressed tight against the capstan bars, sixty fine fellows walked the ship up to her anchor, drowning the fife, at intervals with their sturdy song, as pat to their feet as an echo : Heavo with a will, ye jolly boyg, Heave around ; We're off from Chainee, jolly boys, Homeward bound. ' Short stay apeak, sir/ roars the boatswain from forward. ' Unship the bars, Way aloft. Loose sails. Let fall' The ship being now over her anchor, and the top-sails set, the capstan bars were shipped again, the men all heaved with a will, the messenger grinned, the anchor was torn out of China with a mighty heave/ and then run up with a luff tackle and secured ; the ship's head cast to port :

' Up with the jib — man the taupsle halliards — all hands make sail.' Round she came slow and majestically ; the J sails filled, and the good ship bore away for England. She made the Bogue forts in three or four tacks, and there she had to come to again for another chop, China being a place as hard to get into as Heaven, and to get out of as— Chancery. At three p m. she was at Macao, and hove to four miles from the land, to take in her passengers, A gun was fired from the forecastle. No boats came off. Sharpe began to fret : for the wind though light, had now got to the N.W., and they were wasting it. After a while the captain came on deck, and ordered all the carronades to be scaled. The eight, heavy reports bellowed the great ship's impatience . across the wafer, and out pulled two boats with the passengers. While they were coming, Dodd sent and ordered . the gunner to load the carronades with. shot,, and secuTe and apron them. The first boat brought Colonel Keneally, Mr Fullalove, and a prodigious negro, who all mounted by the side-ropes. But the whip was rigged for the next boat, and the Hon. Mrs Beresfbrd and poodle hoisted on board, item her white maid, item her black nurse, item her little boy and male Oriental, in charge thereof, the strangest compound of dignity andi servility, and of black and while, being clad in snowy cotton' aiid japanned to the nine.

Mrs Beresford was the wife of a member of council in India. She had been to Macao for her boy's health, intending to return tp Calcutta; but meantime her husband, was made a director, and went home: so she was going to join him. A' tall, handsome lady with too curved, a' nose.

Like rnos£ aquiline women, she was born to domineer a bit, and, for the last ten years, Orientals cringing at her knee, and Europeans flattering at her ear, had nursed this quality high, and spoiled her with all their might. A similar process had been applied to her son Frederick from infancy : he was now nearly six : arrogance and caprice shone so in both their sallow faces, and spoke so in every gesture, that, as they came on board Sharpe, a reader of passengers, whispered the second mate : ' Bayliss, we have shipped the devil.' ' And a cargo of his imps/ grunted Mr Bavliss.

Mr Fullalove was a Methodist parson — to the naked eye : grave, sober, lean, lank-haired? But some men are hidden fires. Fullalove was one of the extraoreinary products of an extraordinary nation, the United States of America. He was an engineer, for one thing, and an inventive and practical mechanican ; held two patents of bis own creating, which yielded him a good income both at home and in Great Britain. Such results are seldom achieved without deep study and seclusion : and, accordingly, Joshua Fullalove, when the inventive fit was on, would be hurried deep as Archimedes for a twelvemonth, burning the midnight oil : then, his active element predominating, the pale student would dash into the forest or the prairie, with a rifle and an Indian, and come out bronzed, and more or less bepanthered or bebuffaloed ; thence invariably to sea for a year or two ; there, AngloSaxon to the back-bone, his romancehad ever an eye to business ; he was always after foreign mechanical inventions — he was now importing an excellent one from Japan — and ready to do - lucrative feats of knowledge : thus he bought a Turkish ship at tbe bottom of the Dardanelles for twelve hundred dollars, raised her cargo (hardware), and sold, it for six thousand dollars; then weighed the empty ship, pumped her, repaired her, and navigated her himself into Boston harbour, Massachussets. On the way he rescued, with his late drowned ship, a Swedish vessel, and received salvage. He once fished eighty elephants' tusks out of a craft foundered in the Firth of Forth, to the disgust of elder Anglo-Saxons looking on from the shore. These unusual pursuits were varied by a singular recreation : he played at elevating the African chaaacter to European levels. With this view he had bought Vespasian for .eighteen hundred dollars; whereof anon. America is fertile in mixtures : what do we not owe ber ? Sherry cobbler, gin sling, cocktail, mint julep, brandy smash, sudden death,' eye openers. Well, one day she outdid herself, and mixed Fullalove : Quaker, Nimrod, Archimede, Philanthropist, decorous Red Rover, and What Not. The passenger boats cast loose. ' All hands make sail.' The boatswain piped, the light-heeled topsman sped up the ratlines, and lay out on the yards, while .all on deck looked vp s as usual, to see them work. Out bellied sail after sail aloft ; the ship came curtseying round to the southward, spread her snowy pinions high and wide, and went like a bird over the wrinkled sea — homeward bound. It was an exhilarating start, and all faces were bright — but one. The capt. looked somewhat grave and thoughtful, and often scanned the horizon wih his glass ; he gave polite but very short answers to his friend Colonel ELenealy, who was firing nothings in his ear; aud sent for the gunner.

While that personage, a crusty old Niler, called Monk, is cleaning himself to go on the quarter-deck, peep we into Captain Dodd's troubled mind and into the circumstances which connect him with the heart of this story, despite the twelve thousand miles of water between him and the lovers at Barkington. It had always been his pride to lay by money for, his wife and children, and, under advice of an Indian friend, he had, during the last few years, placed considerable sums at intervals,in a great Calcutta house, which gave eight per cent, for deposits : swelled by fresh capital, and such high . interest, the hoard grew fast. When his old ship, sore battered off the Cape, was condemned by the Company's agents at Canton, he sailed tq Calcutta, intending to return thence to England'as a.passenger. But, while he was at Calcutta, the greatest firm there suspended payment, carrying astonishment and. dismay into a hundred families. At such moments tbe press and the fireside 'ring for a iittle while the common-sense cry,* ' Good interest means bad security.' As for Dodd, who till then had revered all these great houses with nautical or childlike confidence, a blind' terror took the place of blind trust in him ; he felt guilty towards his children for risking their money (he had got to believe it was theirs, not his), and vowed, if he could only get, hold of it once more, he would never trust a penny of it out of his own hands again, except, perhaps tp the Bank of England. But should he ever get it? it was a large sum. He went to Messrs Anderson and Anderson, and drew for his fourteen thousand j pounds. To his dismay, but hardly to his surprise, the clerks looked at We another, and sent the cheque, into; some inner department.;^-^ kept waiting, 7 His heart /saiikl^'thin him : there was a hitch. "' ' : ,'* '* v ' * . '--•-. ••';•,'■*,• '-;• 'W'ffy * The Duke of Wellington (tlie iron'bae) is the author of this saying? ' ■ i *'; }! 4fJf ( y^^ffiJ;r ■ (To be ContMiid^J^^^Jy