William Henry Giles Kingston
Mark Seaworth
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066162597
Table of Contents
Chapter Four.
Chapter Two.
A large ship was floating on the ocean. I use the term floating, for she could scarcely be said to be doing anything else, as she did not seem to be moving in the slightest degree through the water. Some straw and chips of wood, which had been thrown overboard, continued hour after hour alongside. She was, however, moving; but it was round and round, though very slowly indeed, as a glance at the compass would have shown. The sea was as smooth as glass, for there was not a breath of air to ruffle it; there was, in fact, a perfect calm.
The ship was a first-class Indiaman, on her outward voyage to the far-famed land of the East; and she belonged to that body of merchant princes, the East India Company. In appearance she was not altogether unlike a frigate with her long tier of guns, her lofty masts, her wide spread of canvas, and her numerous crew; but her decks were far more encumbered than those of a man-of-war, and her hold was full of rich merchandise, and the baggage of the numerous passengers who occupied her cabins. Her sails, for the present, however, were of no use; so, having nothing else to do, for the sole purpose, it would seem, of annoying the most sensitive portion of the human beings on board, they continued, with most persevering diligence, flapping against the masts, while the ship rolled lazily from side to side. The decks presented the appearance of a little world shut out from the rest of mankind; for all grades, and all professions and trades, were to be found on board. On the high poop deck, under an awning spread over it to shelter them from the burning rays of the sun, were collected the aristocratical portion of the community. There were there to be found ladies and gentlemen, the sedate matron, and the blooming girl just reaching womanhood, the young wife and the joyous child; there were lawyers and soldiers, sailors and merchants, clergymen and doctors, some of them holding high rank in their respective professions. The captain, of course, was king, and his mates were his ministers; but, like the rest, he was bound by laws which he dared not infringe, even had he desired to have done so.
On the deck below were seen craftsmen of all sorts, occupied in their respective callings. Carpenters hard at work with plane and saw; blacksmiths with bellows and anvil; tailors and cobblers, barbers and washerwomen, painters and armourers, rope-makers and butchers, and several others, besides the seamen engaged in the multifarious duties in which officers know well how to employ them. Among the crew were seen representatives of each quarter of the Old World. There were Malays and other Asiatics, and the dark-skinned sons of Africa, mingled among the hardy seamen of Britain, each speaking a different jargon, but all taught by strict discipline to act in unison.
Besides the human beings, there were cattle and sheep destined for the butcher’s knife—cows to afford milk to the lady passengers, the invalids, and the children—even horses were on board, valuable racers or chargers, belonging to some of the military officers; there were several head of sheep penned up in the long-boat; and there were pigsties full of grunting occupants, who seemed to be more happy and to have made themselves far more at home than any of their four-footed fellow-voyagers. Ranging at liberty were several dogs of high and low degree, from the colonel’s thorough-bred greyhound to the cook’s cur, a very