WHEN I made my second voyage in the British Enterprise, I was glad to find a fellow-apprentice and particular friend from my last voyage named Norris, and the third mate, shipmates again ; all the remainder of the crew had been changed. Norris and I were both fond of climbing, boxing, and gymnastics of all kinds, and usually did things together in the dogwatch, while most of the crew congregated round the fore hatch to yarn, sing, or dance to the strains of the bos'n's concertina. Norris was as nimble as a monkey when aloft, and did many very daring things, the most foolhardy of these being going hand-over-hand along the main royal brace from the mizen topmast head to the main royal yard arm, and then hanging by his toes from the foot-rope. These things were not done to show off, as he did them when he thought no one was looking.

Melbourne was our port of destination, and when we neared the coast of Australia we caught large numbers of barracouta by trailing a line over the stern while the ship was travelling fairly fast. This is the only fish I have caught in this way from a ship's stern.

Barracouta being very good to eat, our catch was enjoyed by everyone on board.

While running our Basting in the roaring forties, we had the misfortune to have the truss of the main yard carried away by the heavy rolling of the ship.

The temporary repairs, although very well done, retarded the swing of the main yard, so that when we entered Port Phillip the captain asked the pilot he had engaged to call him every time the ship had to be tacked in the channel leading to Melbourne, explaining that the accident to the truss of the mainyard interfered with the manoeuvre being carried out without nursing the mainyard a bit. The pilot thought he could manage the manoeuvre equally well by himself, and did not call the captain, which resulted in the ship missing stays ; and as we had a bank to leeward, there was no alternative but to drop both anchors to save the ship from running stern foremost on to the bank. The wind being fresh and all our sails flat aback, the ship had considerable sternway by this time and it was lucky our cables did not part. After this mishap the captain engaged a tug to take us to Melbourne.

Taking into consideration the fact that we were carrying all sail in a breeze that laid the ship over to a considerable angle before the accident, you will understand that clewing up and furling our sails while flat aback was no light work, and it took us a good number of hours.

On arriving at Melbourne we were berthed alongside a very long pier at which lay a large number of sailing ships. One of these was remarkable for her size ; she was four-masted and square - rigged on each mast.

She was an iron vessel of about 2,000 tons, and as no one in Melbourne had seen a vessel of her class before, her captain threw her open for public inspection. On the day I visited her, she was nearly empty. At least, no cargo was visible from the main hatch, down which I happened to be looking when I heard a man near me say, " Why, she's holler 1 " On looking round I saw a young fellow who had evidently never seen a ship before. But while the hollowness of the ship astonished him, his companion astonished me even more, for she was a young woman who must have been about seven feet tall, the top of her head being on a level with the boat skids, or beams, that run across a ship on which the boats rest.



In those days the Melbourne piers, with so many fine sailing ships alongside them, were favourite promenades for the town folk on Sundays and holidays, and you should have seen the diversion among them one Sunday, when a friend of mine who had just arrived from London, walked down the pier to visit me, dressed in a morning coat and silk hat, most ridiculous clothes to wear on the Melbourne water front.

Having discharged our cargo we were moved to another pier and fitted out to carry a cargo of 275 horses to Calcutta. As this cargo required the removal of two upper deck planks on each side of the ship, to provide air below decks, one did not feel the ship quite safe on the trip to Calcutta, even though coamings had been fitted to the deck openings.

I must say I very much disliked having this cargo of horses on board, as it upset the ship generally and made her very dirty.

Soon after our arrival at Calcutta two of my Worcester friends, now Hoogli pilots, called on board to see me. I was at the time helping to clean out the ship's bilges, which were naturally very dirty from the drainage from the horse boxes during the voyage.

The day was very hot, so when I came on deck, streaming with perspiration and looking extremely dirty, my friends considered it wisest not to visit me again but left me to come and see them when I was clean.

One of these two Worcester friends introduced me to a shore friend who had recently arrived from England.

His name was Furlonge, and I met him again in Shanghai in 1893. One of my father's friends who was on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief was very good to me, and invited me up to Simla, but I had neither the kit nor the money to accept his kind invitation, nor that of the General-in-Command at Fort William.

We loaded jute at Calcutta for England with instructions to call at Falmouth for orders. Bales of jute make a nice clean cargo, which we much appreciated after the dirty cargo of horses.

I have a very vivid recollection of a battle in the air when off the Cape of Good Hope homeward bound, when two tempests met. This was a grand but aweinspiring sight that made one feel one's ship a very puny thing.

We were at the time running before a south-east gale when lightning was seen in the north-west ; this is the usual forerunner to a gale from that quarter.



The lightning increased and heavy threatening clouds massed ahead, looking as if they would engulf us, but the gale we were running before showed no sign of being overcome by the advancing tempest from the opposite direction. The lightning was a truly magnificent sight, as it brilliantly lit up the heavens ahead of us ; it continued for some considerable time, but by degrees became less vivid and gradually moved to the southward, and then disappeared, the south-easterly gale having won the battle.

I always enjoyed furling or reefing sail, or anything that kept me aloft, for I saw many daring deeds on these occasions. For instance, we were reefing the main upper topsail in a gale on the quarter, and could not get any sail up to catch hold of the reef points owing to the force of the gale. Suddenly the man next to me said, " Hold on to my leg and pull hard when I kick." He then slipped head-first down into the belly of the sail. After a short while I felt a kick, and between us the man on the other side of him and I pulled our daring friend up on the yard, with the two reef-points in his teeth and a reef-point in each hand.

Speaking about this, reminds me how one can underestimate the risk taken when doing a simple job. We were going along nicely at about 12 knots, with a strong wind on the port quarter, and as we were approaching a region where bad weather conditions prevailed, the mate detailed Norris and me to double the lee leech-lines on the mainsail and foresail, and I was sent to the foresail. We were each provided with an able seaman to help us, and were given a new manila gasket with which to support ourselves.

The weather was cold, and I had on a thick monkey jacket, pilot cloth trousers and a pair of well-greased heavy boots. I lay aloft as I stood and slipped down the foreside of the foresail, holding on to the gasket, one end of which was being taken round the jackstay on the yard and the end held by the able seaman.

After I had finished my job, and was starting to climb up the gasket hand-over-hand from the lower leechline cringle, I realised what a fool I had been to risk slipping down the new and greasy manila gasket (a piece of line about as thick as your finger) into the sea and being drowned, for I could not have swum in my heavy clothing. My thick monkey jacket so lumbered up my arms that I could not climb freely, and my heavy greasy boots slipped when I tried to use my feet to help me up the belly of the foresail. I struggled on, making little headway, until at last I was utterly done, and my only chance lay in the possibility of slipping down the gasket in an attempt to reach the clew of the sail. I ran a great risk of missing my hold, as I was now completely exhausted, so I thought it best to find out how near to the yard I was, and if it was possible for my assistant to reach me. To my great relief he could just manage to get hold of the collar of my coat with one hand, and helped me to get on to the yard. I thereupon looked to see how Norris was getting on, but he, unlike myself, had realised the risk and had removed his coat and boots, by which simple expedient he was able to complete his job and return to the yard without any difficulty at all. I then realised what an ass I had been.

When in mid-Atlantic somewhere near the Azores, the British Enterprise was driven over on to her beam ends by a violent gale. We had been running before a heavy gale with a mountainous sea, which the captain was afraid might poop us, so at eight o'clock at night all hands were ordered to bring the ship to the wind and heave her to; and to furl the mizen lower top-sail as we came round. We had at the time the three lower topsails and fore staysail set. But though the captain's idea of taking in the mizen lower topsail then may have been good, there was some delay in getting the mizen topsail clewed up, owing to the lee clewline getting unhooked ; which delay caused the ship to get in irons, lose steerage way and become perfectly helpless as we lay beam-on to the wind and sea, which broke across the deck with great force.

How it was that the ship remained afloat that night is a miracle. Or it would be better to say that the fact of the ship being built of iron saved our bulwarks, which protected the deckhouse and hatches; for the ship lay over so far at times that half the poop deck was under water, and the lee boats on the skids filled and broke away. Had it been possible for anyone to move along the main deck, the captain would have ordered the lee foretopsail sheet to be let go, which would have allowed that sail to flap to ribbons and relieved the ship from the pressure of that sail. But as the captain realised, no one could get forward, there was nothing to be done but to trust to providence on the poop, where we all held on to the weather rigging.

While clewing up the mizen topsail a large double block fell on my head and nearly laid me out, making me scramble down the companion ladder into the saloon to lie down. I found it partly under water, so did not remain down there long.

Luckily for us the gale abated as the day dawned, and when the deck was free of water I never saw a ship in such a mess before, for all the running gear was over the side ; while our berth, being on the lee side of the poop, had been under water and everything we had was ruined, so we had no mattresses to sleep on for the remainder of the voyage home. We were too thankful that no one had been washed overboard to care much, especially as we would soon reach our destination.

A few days after this incident we arrived at Falmouth, and in less than no time our decks were converted into a fair by the many vendors of food and clothing.

This was lucky, as a good many of us had lost our kit.

From Falmouth we proceeded to Dundee.

As bad luck would have it, I got another knock on the head a few days after my arrival in London. When walking along the platform at Liverpool Street Station, a heavy oil lamp that was being thrown from the top of a railway carriage to a porter on the platform struck me on the head in transit, and cut it open. However, I soon found a doctor to stitch it up.

After all these experiences, I thought I would like to change my ship, and my next voyage was made in the barque British Duke.

I had applied to be taken in another vessel, but she had her full complement of apprentices, and could not take me.

While on our way down the English Channel, we happened to communicate with a pilot boat, and one of the pilots told us that the vessel I had asked to be appointed to had foundered with all hands, except the cook and the boy. This news made me realise how providential it was that I had not sailed in that vessel, but in the British Duke instead.