Part 35 (1/2)
Folly and foolishness! to think that a gentleman is known by his finger-nails, like Nebuchadnezzar, when his grew long in the pasture: or that the badge of n.o.bility is to be found in the smallness of the foot, when even a fish has no foot at all!
Dandies! amputate yourselves, if you will; but know, and be a.s.sured, oh, democrats, that, like a pyramid, a great man stands on a broad base. It is only the brittle porcelain paG.o.da, that tottles on a toe.
But though Harry's hand was lady-like looking, and had once been white as the queen's cambric handkerchief, and free from a stain as the reputation of Diana; yet, his late pulling and hauling of halyards and clew-lines, and his occasional dabbling in tar-pots and slush-shoes, had somewhat subtracted from its original daintiness.
Often he ruefully eyed it.
Oh! hand! thought Harry, ah, hand! what have you come to? Is it seemly, that you should be polluted with pitch, when you once handed countesses to their coaches? Is this the hand I kissed to the divine Georgiana?
with which I pledged Lady Blessington, and ratified my bond to Lord Lovely? This the hand that Georgiana clasped to her bosom, when she vowed she was mine?--Out of sight, recreant and apostate!--deep down--disappear in this foul monkey-jacket pocket where I thrust you!
After many long conversations, it was at last pretty well decided, that upon our arrival at New York, some means should be taken among my few friends there, to get Harry a place in a mercantile house, where he might flourish his pen, and gently exercise his delicate digits, by traversing some soft foolscap; in the same way that slim, pallid ladies are gently drawn through a park for an airing.
LVII. ALMOST A FAMINE
”Mammy! mammy! come and see the sailors eating out of little troughs, just like our pigs at home.” Thus exclaimed one of the steerage children, who at dinner-time was peeping down into the forecastle, where the crew were a.s.sembled, helping themselves from the ”kids,” which, indeed, resemble hog-troughs not a little.
”Pigs, is it?” coughed Jackson, from his bunk, where he sat presiding over the banquet, but not partaking, like a devil who had lost his appet.i.te by chewing sulphur.--”Pigs, is it?--and the day is close by, ye spalpeens, when you'll want to be after taking a sup at our troughs!”
This malicious prophecy proved true.
As day followed day without glimpse of sh.o.r.e or reef, and head winds drove the s.h.i.+p back, as hounds a deer; the improvidence and shortsightedness of the pa.s.sengers in the steerage, with regard to their outfits for the voyage, began to be followed by the inevitable results.
Many of them at last went aft to the mate, saying that they had nothing to eat, their provisions were expended, and they must be supplied from the s.h.i.+p's stores, or starve.
This was told to the captain, who was obliged to issue a ukase from the cabin, that every steerage pa.s.senger, whose dest.i.tution was demonstrable, should be given one sea-biscuit and two potatoes a day; a sort of subst.i.tute for a m.u.f.fin and a brace of poached eggs.
But this scanty ration was quite insufficient to satisfy their hunger: hardly enough to satisfy the necessities of a healthy adult. The consequence was, that all day long, and all through the night, scores of the emigrants went about the decks, seeking what they might devour. They plundered the chicken-coop; and disguising the fowls, cooked them at the public galley. They made inroads upon the pig-pen in the boat, and carried off a promising young shoat: him they devoured raw, not venturing to make an incognito of his carca.s.s; they prowled about the cook's caboose, till he threatened them with a ladle of scalding water; they waylaid the steward on his regular excursions from the cook to the cabin; they hung round the forecastle, to rob the bread-barge; they beset the sailors, like beggars in the streets, craving a mouthful in the name of the Church.
At length, to such excesses were they driven, that the Grand Russian, Captain Riga, issued another ukase, and to this effect: Whatsoever emigrant is found guilty of stealing, the same shall be tied into the rigging and flogged.
Upon this, there were secret movements in the steerage, which almost alarmed me for the safety of the s.h.i.+p; but nothing serious took place, after all; and they even acquiesced in, or did not resent, a singular punishment which the captain caused to be inflicted upon a culprit of their clan, as a subst.i.tute for a flogging. For no doubt he thought that such rigorous discipline as that might exasperate five hundred emigrants into an insurrection.
A head was fitted to one of the large deck-tubs--the half of a cask; and into this head a hole was cut; also, two smaller holes in the bottom of the tub. The head--divided in the middle, across the diameter of the orifice--was now fitted round the culprit's neck; and he was forthwith coopered up into the tub, which rested on his shoulders, while his legs protruded through the holes in the bottom.
It was a burden to carry; but the man could walk with it; and so ridiculous was his appearance, that spite of the indignity, he himself laughed with the rest at the figure he cut.
”Now, Pat, my boy,” said the mate, ”fill that big wooden belly of yours, if you can.”
Compa.s.sionating his situation, our old ”doctor” used to give him alms of food, placing it upon the cask-head before him; till at last, when the time for deliverance came, Pat protested against mercy, and would fain have continued playing Diogenes in the tub for the rest of this starving voyage.
LVIII. THOUGH THE HIGHLANDER PUTS INTO NO HARBOR AS YET; SHE HERE AND THERE LEAVES MANY OF HER Pa.s.sENGERS BEHIND
Although fast-sailing s.h.i.+ps, blest with prosperous breezes, have frequently made the run across the Atlantic in eighteen days; yet, it is not uncommon for other vessels to be forty, or fifty, and even sixty, seventy, eighty, and ninety days, in making the same pa.s.sage. Though in the latter cases, some signal calamity or incapacity must occasion so great a detention. It is also true, that generally the pa.s.sage out from America is shorter than the return; which is to be ascribed to the prevalence of westerly winds.
We had been outside of Cape Clear upward of twenty days, still hara.s.sed by head-winds, though with pleasant weather upon the whole, when we were visited by a succession of rain storms, which lasted the greater part of a week.
During the interval, the emigrants were obliged to remain below; but this was nothing strange to some of them; who, not recovering, while at sea, from their first attack of seasickness, seldom or never made their appearance on deck, during the entire pa.s.sage.