Perhaps no ingredients are more certain to produce an explosion in a limited space than a Post Captain proceeding as a passenger on the ship of an officer some months his junior. It was my privilege once to watch one of these preliminary simmerings during the latter sixties and the subsequent inevitable dÉnouement.

George Malcolm, who in his younger days had had a distinguished career as flag-lieutenant at Portsmouth, but for a decade had lived the indolent life of a German at Frankfort, being compelled by the regulations to put in sea time as a Post Captain, was proceeding with a new crew to recommission the Danae on the West Indian station. It was not long before he developed his Teutonic acquirements. Smoking half the night in his cabin, he intimated to his crew that they might smoke when they pleased. Keeping his lights burning after hours, he next came into collision with the master-at-arms, who reported the irregularity to the captain, a peremptory order being issued that Malcolm was not to be made an exception, and that the regulations were to be enforced. The little man—Captain Grant, of the Himalaya—who thus entered the lists at the first challenge was well-known throughout the Navy as a veritable tartar. Standing little over five feet high, he had the body of a giant; his lower proportions were short and far from comely. These were the combatants for whom the arena was now cleared. Malcolm opened the attack by repeating the light-burning after hours. Grant retorted by ordering the master-at-arms to enter if necessary and carry out his orders. Next morning the two captains met in presence of their respective first lieutenants, and abused and accused each other of insubordination and mutiny.

The crews meanwhile took up the quarrel, and some of the Danae men had the temerity to cheek the master-at-arms. To this little Grant replied by tying up six of them to the shrouds, and giving them four dozen apiece with the cat. This checked the effervescence, and a few days later the ship entered Port Royal.

Then followed reports. But the admiral was one of the psalm-singing school, and not possessing sufficient character to adjudicate upon it himself, referred the matter home. Meanwhile the Danae was recommissioned and sailed away, the Himalaya returned to Portsmouth, and so the matter ended.

A flogging in the old days was a very “thorough” affair, and lost nothing in the matter of detail. Four stalwart boatswains stripped to their shirts stood like statues, on the deck reposed four green baize bags, each containing a cat.

When all was ready the captain’s warrant was read—for it may or may not be generally known that every skipper, from battleship to pigboat, is a justice of the peace, and has the power of life and death on the high seas—and then the operation began. Occasionally some genius, having prearranged to outwit the authorities, would feign collapse by suddenly tucking up his legs; but a feel of the pulse and a nod soon adjusted matters, and the culprit was in “full song.” And then the little man made a speech, not too long, but very much to the point: “Now, my lads, when you want any more, you know where to come for it.” After which he cocked his cap, and descended to his cabin with his sword clanking behind. It’s a way they had in the Navy.

All this, of course, was before the central authority was transferred from Whitehall to Whitechapel, and without expressing an opinion on the merits or demerits of corporal punishment, one may be permitted to ask: Are the bluejackets of to-day any better than Peel’s Naval Brigade in the Crimea, or the tough old tars that helped to quell the Mutiny? Are the specimens one occasionally meets smoking cigarettes and Orange Blossom tobacco superior to the old sea dogs that chewed what would have killed a rhinoceros and rolled quids of ’baccy saturated in rum? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Be that as it may, flogging has ever been found the only deterrent for a certain class of scum which occasionally rises to the surface even in the Navy.

On another occasion, when I was embarking at Portsmouth, barely had the Himalaya left the side of the quay when the Honourable Mrs. Montmorency (afterwards Lady Frankfort), accompanied by her father, Sir John Michel, and a crowd of sisters, cousins, and aunts, might have been seen rushing frantically towards the slowly-moving trooper; but the cries fell on deaf ears, and the good ship continued her course.

Next night in Queenstown Harbour a bumboat might have been seen struggling against wind and tide to reach the trooper lying a mile out at sea, which, on getting alongside, was found to contain the lady, who, since we last saw her, had undertaken a journey of four hundred miles, attended by every discomfort that travelling flesh is heir to, and all because she did not know little Grant, and expected to impress him by arriving five minutes late. The same lady very nearly had a similar experience a month later at St. Helena, and only just reached the deck as the “blue Peter” was being hauled down.

It was on this same voyage that a subaltern, whose duties compelled him to be on deck at daylight, remarked to the navigating-lieutenant later in the day: “How splendid the sun looked this morning rising over the hills.” “Oh! yes,” was the snubbing reply, “we call that Cape Flyaway. Why, man, we are five hundred miles from the West coast.”

That night, when hammocks were being issued, a cry of “Land on the port bow” brought all hands on deck, and lo! we were steaming full speed for land with 1,400 souls on board. Almost in front of us was an angry surf, a little beyond it tropical foliage was distinctly visible, and then followed the silence as when engines are stopped, and with extra hands at both wheels, the shout of “Hard a-starboard!” pierced the darkness, and we were going full speed in the opposite direction.

Cape Flyaway cost poor little Piper a reprimand and half-pay for life, and an innocent wife and family—God help them—may still be suffering for that disregarded sunrise.

When dear old Admiral Commerell succeeded Purvis as Commander-in-Chief at the Cape, things at Government House hummed as they had never done before, and the energy that the little man put into his hospitality was as conspicuous as when fighting on sea or on land. With more than the lives attributed to a cat, it is incredible that he should have survived a blunderbuss full of slugs on the Prah a few years later, which, fired point blank, drove half a monkey-jacket into his lungs. Though brought to Cape Town on the Rattlesnake, more as a formality than with any hopes of recovery, and for months after spitting up pieces of blue serge, he rallied as he had often done before, and the last time I saw him was in a Maxim gun show-room in Victoria Street, where, as “Managing Director,” he explained the intricacies of the weapon to every ’Arry that chose to look in, and so trade laid hands in his declining years on as brave a recipient of the Victoria Cross as ever trod a quarter-deck.

When the flying squadron under Beauchamp Seymour was expected at Ascension on its return from the Cape, great excitement prevailed from the possibility of a visit, and a trooper that was “laying off” was in such deadly fear of any want of smartness being observable that the washing by the soldiers’ wives that had been permitted was made short work of, and petticoats, shirts, and socks that were fluttering in the breeze were ruthlessly ordered down, for fear some signalman should detect a strange signal and note it in the log-book. For this lynx-eyed race is incapable of being hoodwinked; indeed, so dexterous did they become in the Channel Squadron some years ago (and doubtless are so still) that they read the signals for fleet manoeuvres before the flags were broken, necessitating the entire bunch being rolled into one, and so giving every ship an equal chance of displaying their smartness. Of the turtle we discussed recently, the “last phase” is to be seen in the smoking-room of a well-known hostelry in Leadenhall Street, where, peeping through the tanks, numerous specimens may be seen blinking and winking as if in reproach at the unfair advantage taken of them by perfidious Albion in leading them into captivity when guests of the nation and in an interesting condition.

Ascension, as most of us are aware, is on the direct road to the Cape and within easy distance of St. Helena—a by no means unpleasant place, despite an unjust prejudice that attaches to it.

It was on board a Union steamer that the absurd incident I witnessed took place, when the diamond fields were coming into notice and attracting speculators in every kind of ware likely to find favour amongst the natives, who had not then been educated in Houndsditch ways to the extent they have since arrived at. The genius who contemplated a rich harvest not discounted by any such absurd formalities as paying “duty,” declaring contraband, or propitiating officials apt to be too inquisitive, was a Hebrew jeweller of a pronounced type with the unusual adornment of carroty hair, who afterwards developed into a Bond Street shopkeeper, and may still be seen shorn of his sunny locks, which nevertheless still retain a pleasing suspicion of the blaze they once emitted. The chief officer was a shrewd individual, who long before we arrived at Table Bay had taken his passenger’s measure, and what added insult to injury was a presentation to him of a wretched ring the wholesale price of which could not have exceeded ten shillings. Had he pressed a five-pound note into his hand it would have proved a less expensive procedure. The sequel was disastrous, as, passing through the dock gates, ’Enery was requested to turn out his pockets, and the percentage to the informant amounted to a very handsome sum. Who the informant was—actuated by duty!—it is needless to discuss, but our friend got to the Fields at last and turned a considerable profit on his “Brummagem” wares.

Years later his enterprise again brought him into notice by providing a young ass (whom many will recollect), who had come into £70,000 on attaining his majority, not only with a flat, but completely furnishing it, and then smothering him with bracelets and bangles for personal wear, and trinkets and gimcracks that made him rattle to a greater extent than the historical lady of Banbury Cross.

The sequel was more melodramatic. Within a year the entire £70,000 was gone, within another year the prodigal was in his grave, and, despite the strenuous efforts of an elder brother to recover a trifle from the clutches of a philanthropist, a feather merchant, and dramatic author—all since gathered into Abraham’s bosom—the shekels never changed hands—s’help me—and ’Enery is still one of the most respected Elders in Israel.

It was in ’65 on the island of Ascension, where I happened temporarily to be, that an awful tragedy was on the verge of being investigated by a Court of Inquiry, but it was realised that the terrible Atlantic rollers that perpetrated the cruel deed and the innocent children that were the victims had left no data for the groundwork of the conventional farce.

It was on that dismal rock whose only merits are its strategical coaling position and its inexhaustible supply of turtle that during the season when those insidious rollers of unbroken water, without sound, without warning, suddenly spread over the sandy beach, two or three children of an officer of Marines were suddenly swept off their legs and carried by the back-wash with the velocity of a millstream towards the coral reefs a hundred yards out at sea, where death awaited them.

On the one side an expanse of sand that forthwith resumed its placid, shining surface, on the other a ripple literally bristling with fins of the most voracious species of shark known to naturalists.

In a second it was all over, and the crimson pall that covered the face of the blue Atlantic told all there was to tell of the terrible catastrophe.

The few observation boxes containing niggers on the look-out for turtle had seen nothing, heard nothing; the only eye-witness was the helpless nursemaid, and only because there was nothing to tell was the farce of a “Court of Inquiry” abandoned.

The turtle industry is simplicity itself: so soon as one advances sufficiently inland a couple of niggers rush out and turn her over and lug her into the tank, when her laying days are over, for it is the female only that is captured as she comes to deposit her eggs, and no human eye has ever seen nor any alderman ever guzzled amid the green fat of the male animal.

Ascension is best described as the most God-forsaken spot in creation, except perhaps Aden, to which must be given the palm. Here the naval garrison seem to have grown into a mechanical routine, and only change their monotonous wading through sand by an occasional day’s leave to Green Mountain, on whose summit the only three blades of grass on the island struggle for existence. How these gallant men are chosen for this dreary duty it is difficult to say; no alien princeling attached to the British Navy ever appears to have his turn; and one must assume that “merit tempered with non-interest” is the qualification that controls the roster. Of the turtle there can be no two opinions; in unlimited supplies, two huge tanks, through which the tide ebbs and flows, contain some hundreds of these delectable creatures, delectable only with the aid of the highest embellishments, but the most nauseous sickening of “plats” in the shape of rations. Every man-of-war calling at Ascension is compelled to ship a dozen, which lie for weeks on deck, their heads resting on a swab, and the hose playing on them of a morning, while a stench more insidious than the vapours of a fried-fish shop attaches itself to everything; one’s hair-brush reeks like a turtle fin, and whether one eats, drinks, or smokes, it’s toujours tortue.

During the Ashanti war, Ascension appeared at its best; in its comfortable hospital the wounded from spear and slug, and the dying from West Coast fever, obtained the best of attendance. In it I saw Thompson, of the Inniskilling Dragoons, just brought down from the Prah—one of the most popular men in the Army—die; whilst from it many a brave man has been carried to his last home, and many a sufferer who has entered its portals in apparently the last stage of fever and ague has been pulled round, and put on board with renewed life to return to England to bless the surgeons and curse Ascension.

It was on my return home in ’69 that I met old Toogood (whom everybody knew) at Aden—who, rushing up to me, whispered, “Come along, I’ve secured a carriage,” and following with that glee that all who have crossed the Desert will appreciate, I was horrified to find he had all his bundles in the quarantine carriage.

“Great heavens,” I exclaimed, “do you know what this means?” and he hardly gave me time to explain the pains and penalties before he was in full cry after the rascally Egyptian guard, who, realising he was dealing with a novice, had accepted a sovereign for placing him in a carriage by himself.

In those long-ago days—and possibly still—every train had a quarantine carriage, entering which meant vigorous isolation till fumigation had taken place, and “even betting” that one’s cabin in the trooper at Cairo would have remained vacant homeward bound.

When the Japanese were airing their aspirations at becoming the great naval power they now are, I witnessed one of their virgin attempts at navigating a warship under the control of British officers. Confident of their ability, and fretting to show what they could do, they one day insisted on landing their instructors and assuming temporary control of the ship. The development was not long in coming. Away flew the ship, in graceful circles round and round the bay, when suddenly a dashing manoeuvre beyond the comprehension of the most enlightened observer, and, lo! she was steaming full speed for the shore. Within the hour she was well wedged on a sandy bottom, and a tidal wave not long after having considerately lifted her a few hundred yards higher up, the hull was converted into an hotel, and for years gave ocular proof of Japan’s first triumph in navigation. That was in the later sixties, when Togo was still in the womb of futurity.

In those long-ago days, Yokohama had not attained its present respectable civilisation; top hats were sought after as the daintiest of fashionable attainments; every battered specimen on board fetched its weight in gold; open baths for mixed bathing were to be met with in the public thoroughfares; British regimental guards disarmed fanatics before allowing them to enter the town; inlaid bronzes, miniature trees, and genuine curios were procurable; massive Birmingham products had not become an industry wherewith to catch the unwary; public crucifixions by transfixing with bamboo stakes (such as I witnessed in the case of the murder of a British officer) were still in full blast, and the sweetest little girls were to be bought for domestic service, and sent to be dealt with by the nearest magistrate on the breath of a suspicion of breach of fidelity. To go a mile beyond the Treaty Port was to court certain death, whilst to remain peacefully within the town and visit the various day and night entertainments was as delightful an existence as the most blasÉ reprobate could desire.