BY SEA AND LAND

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 104, 27 January 1920, Page 7

BY SEA AND LAND

LOB-D MERESFORD'S ACTIVITIES

There are two England*. One is of the sea and tho other of the land. Admiral lord Beresford :s, perhaps, the only great seaman who toiled and fought, commanded men and directed affairs and took his pleasure in both hemispheres 'irites Mr. L. Cope Cornford in tho "National lieviow"). Beresford was not two men, one of the sea. and the other of tho shore. He was one and the same, and all of a piece. But when he enmo on shore people saw only the Charlie Beresford, the beloved of the populace, who adored a sportsman. They saw only the Beresford who rode a pig down Park Lano at sunrise on liis way back from a dance; who ran a hundred yards race with an Irish lord at a Doyal garden party and beat him; who habitually rode :n steeplechases; who carried away a toll-gate on the back of hi a trap into Plymouth because the tollkeeper refused to open it; who trfmed and trained .in elephant on board 11.M.5. Galatea; and who, with his brother, cut the too-long locks of the porter at Limerick Junction with the snuffers of the station lamps, and "Sure," sa'd the porter, "I'll grow my hair again as quick as I can tho way you'll be giving mo another tip"; who, when he was flag-lieutenant at Plymouth, had seated the whole Board of Admiralty in his conch in order to drive the Lords Commissioners down to witness naval manoeuvres, when Bear-Ad-nrnil Beauchiimp Seymour interfered with the imty. "You <'"n't know that boy," said Seymour. "He's not safe! He'll upset you on pun>o>c, just to sny he's upset the whole Board of Admiralty." The worthy Admiral, afterwards Lord Alcester. famed for his bombardment of Alexandria and his good dinners, unconsciously revealed tho official mind, as it was then, is now, and will be for over. It is afra'd of being upset.

But society on shore, smiling pleasantly at tho reckless, gallant, hard-riding, witty, and inextinguishably gay young Irish aristocrat, had no notion of the nnval officer at sea. Charles Beresford entered the Old Navy of masts and sails at 13; tho Old Navy of immense sporting cruises all round tho world, of terrific discipline, of fierce joviality, of a superb seamanship unmatched in_ fh« world. Berssford's account, in his Memoirs, of 11.M.5. Marlborough is one of the most vivid pictures of the old Victorian Navy ever limned.

"What can bo more glorious," writes Beiesfonl, "than n ship getting undor way? She quivers like a sentient thing amid the whole moving, tumultuous, lusty life. Men are racing aloft; other men, their feel pounding upon tho white decks, nro running away with the ropes; tho ringing commands and tho shouting fill the air; tho wind strikes with a salt and hearty sting; and the proud and beautiful creature rises to the lift of the pea. Doctors, paymaster, idlors. am! all -'sed to run 'up on deck to witness that niagnificont spectacle, a full-rig o r cd ship getting under sail." Darin;; Hin voyage, whose beginning ho thus sketches, Bcrosford, then a midshipman, saved the ship from driving dead on show,- in a hurricane, perceiving the danger just in time. It was then ho first heard tho boatswain's pipo crying "Savo ship." Fo heard that despornto melody once again, off the west coast of {forth America, in a full pate. Before, he was promoted to lieutenant, Berosford had served a commission in the Mediterranean, sailed round tho Horn, shot gfoso in the Falkland Islands, l:elped to bring to Panama Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands, cut the first trail through the virgin forest of Vancouver, learned seamanship in every detail, down to cutting out sails, under Captain Lord G/illfnrd. helped to extinguish a great tiro in Valparaiso, and fitai one of the tint submarines leave the coast of Chile and Rink. As lieutenant, Keresford sailed in H.M.S. Galatea with the Duke of Edinburgh, and visited Cape Town, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, the Sandwich Islands, Japan, China, India, and tho Falkland Islands

When he entered Parlmmont Bercsford was 28 years old, and had been 15 years In tho Navy, of which period he spoilt tho greater part at «a.