LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 639, 6 July 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AN EVENTFUL VOYAGE. In Two Chapters. Chapter I, At the time my story commences, I was one of six midshipmen on an Indiaman outward bound for Calcutta, touching at Plymouth and the Cape. The vessel was one of the fine old frigate build, with a high poop and top-gallant forecastle, and her main deck was pierced for twelve guns. Her name was the Bangalore. She was built of teak, and was as strong as wood, copper, and iron could make her. The ship was owned by a well known firm in London, and was chartered by Government to take detachments

of troops from Plymouth to Bengal. The captains name, of which he was very proud, was Robertson Benbow. He was a middlesized, bulbous-looking man, clean shaved, with both hair and whiskers plentifully streaked with silver. His complexion was of a rich, deep yellow, almost the colour of his own Madeira, a wine to which he was not unpartial. He was between fifty and sixty years of age, and at Calcutta was almost as well known as the Viceroy or Government House itself. He used to boast that he had in his time taken out and brought home the principal civil and military men in the country. Many of these had gone out to Bengal with him as young men, and returned with old Bobus, £is he was called, to retire on their pensions. Old Bobus was in his way a character; he was pompous in his manner, and very tenacious of his dignity, and had mixed so much in the society of civilians and military men, and others high in authority, that he had adopted not only their manners and customs, but even their mode of speaking, and was well posted up as to all appointments and promotions in the Bengal Civil Service. Below the rank of a commissioner, a colonel or a judge, Captain Benbow seldom made free with any of his passengers ; and young officers, or griffs as he called them, going out to India for the first time, were objects of his particular dislike. The Bangalore seldom left Gravesend without two or three, sometimes half a dozen, young ladies being placed under the captain’s charge, consigned to Calcutta; and he took as much care of them as though they belonged to himself. The ship was at Plymouth, lying in the Sound, and we were busily employed taking on board ammunition, fresh provisions, passengers’ luggage, fresh meat and vegetables, prior to embarking the troops. We were to sail at two o’clock the next day, and the troops were to embark in the morning.

The name of the chief officer was Blake ; he was a little square built man, with a large Roman nose/ He was forty years of age, and was the echo of the captain, with whom he had made several voyages. Mr Sparks, the second officer, was the very opposite to the chief. He was a redhaired man, with a gravel-color complexion, and whiskers to correspond. He had a bullying way with him, and a violent temper, and possessed a voice that was perpetually heard fore and aft all over the ship. Though rough and ready, Roaring Sparks, as he wa«

called, was the smartest officer and best seaman on board. In addition to the third and fourth officers, there were besides six midshipmen jfmo were learning their profession on board 'this vessel; and the senior of these was a remarkably well built stylish-looking young fellow of nineteen, with a profusion of dark wavy hair, and a pair of very piercing dark brown eyes. He was a clergyman’s son, and had been partly educated at the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, his only brother being a lieutenant in the servicS, It was said that Vaughan had left the college- prematurely, through being expelled, but for what reason I never heard. Although not twenty, there was scarcely a vice with which this youth was unfamiliar; but withal he had talent, humor and wit. His manners were frank and engaging, and his bearing peculiarly graceful, and he had also great determination; but of power to regulate his passions he was entirely destitute. Vaughan had been nearly four years at sea, was a capital yachtsman, and from infancy had been familiar with nautical matters. While off Mount Edgecombe, we embarked about six hundred troops, chiefly detachments for service in India, a number of officers, a judge, and about a dozen ladies; some of these were going out to rejoin their husbands, and others were the wives of officers on board. The commanding officer was the Honourable Colonel Boyle, who had seen service in the Crimea, and was going to join his regiment at Dinapore. He was accompanied by his wife, who was very thin and tall, and generally carried a small walking cane. The lady was attended by an ayah, and was more military in her conversation than the oldest soldier on board. The morning of the day we got under way was beautifully fine, and Vaughan was on duty at the gangway, and the troops were expected on board in the afternoon. It was ten o’clock when a man-o’-war’s gig came alongside: and escorting a very stylish young lady up the gangway ladder was an elderly gentleman in the undress uniform of a post captain. On reaching the gangway he saluted Vaughan, and asked— * Is Captain Benbow on board ? ’ but just as Vaughan was about to reply, Old Bobus himself appeared, and the naval officer, whose name was Nugent, stepped forward and said—- ‘ How are you, Benbow ? Glad to see you here again: wish I was going passenger with you. Allow me to introduce you to a very charming young lady, who has just completed her education, and is going to join her father in Bengal. Miss Talbot, Captain Benbow.’ ‘ What ! ’ exclaimed the captain, ‘ the -daughter of my old friend, the judge at Moorshedabad ! ’ Old Bobus looked at her for a-minute, and took her hand in his and said — 1 When you were a very little girl, and could hardly speak a dozen words, I brought you home. Twenty-one years ago I took your father out to Calcutta, when he had been appointed by the India House; and I took your mother out to him in the Taj Mahal to be married. Bless me, how the time gets on ! ’ Then turning aside to her guardian, he continued— * You should have seen her mother, Nugent; she was a perfect picture ! The first time she was presented at Government House, in Lord Auckland’s time, I was present. She seemed so pretty and fresh, and had such a silvery, hearty laugh, that every one was in raptures about her. The natives all thought she was a goddess.’ [ To be continued.']

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