This is the unpretending spot. I mean to lead you to not but that a similar concern of a far loftier kind is easily within reach, where many a sovereign of the sea has heretofore occupied its cradle. The establishment adverted to lies on a small river, into which the salt water flows far up to wards a village called Beaulieu. If you should be tempted to go beyond the station of ship-building, and visit this village, the reality will not disappoint the anticipation which rises at such a name as Beaulieu, given, doubtless, while Norman-French was the language of the land, for it is a place of antiquity. It is seated where the river curves and spreads into a bayoaken coverts feather down to the water's edge-relics of an abbey are on the bank the prior's house is still habitable, and still retains its monastic look of seclusion: for walls heavily loaded with ivy still girdle it in; and the visitor is still admitted through a cautious-looking postern in a venerable outer lodge. A mile or more down the water is Bucklershard, and whenever a launch took place there, the place was a focus of attraction for my reach. "Of that spectacle, I miles around, and the day a noticeable one with those to whom sights were dear. speak of youthful feelings,) after be ing almost in despair of reaching it, and quite weary of seeing oak after oak fringing the broad green-sward, which is so amply conceded on either hand of the public roads made in the neighbourhood of our royal forests. A crowd was there before our arrival. The bustle of preparation shewed that something was going forward... The noise of the mallet and the axe rose above the hum of the throng. The glorious spectacle, which was the cause of our visit, tower ed in solemn grandeur over all the inferior enticements for curiosity, and was now right before us. The soft flowing tide was watched with much anxiety; and the moment duly came at which it rose to its appointed height. Then was the instant of intensest in terest. At the first suspicion that the massive fabric was believed to move, the hush was simultaneous. But it is as well for me not to attempt to ex press the sensations of those few se conds, while the paragraphs of Mr Campbell, in which he speaks of wit nessing "the spectacle of the launching of a ship-of-the-line," are Four or five of our largest men-ofwar have I seen taking their first steps upon the waters from that spot. Our journey to the scene of action was of some eight miles' length; and was, perhaps, not the least delightful part of the day's recreation; although it may very well have happened, that the eagerness of boyish impatience did not reckon it at all in the account. The way lay along the skirts of the New Forest; and, throughout, we were within view of the Solent Sea, as the channel which divides the isle of Wight from the main land was formerly called. Spithead, and the Motherbank near Portsmouth, gleamed, in the pearly distance to the east, a thousand times the rendezvous for our fleets before they have gone forth to battle. After two-thirds of our drive were accomplished, we passed St Leonard's -the ruined grange of Beaulieu Abbey-in which just enough of the features of Gothic architecture peeped out from under the net-work of ivy, to remind the traveller that it was not a mere secular farm in the olden time. To Bucklershard we came at last, (I never can forget the impression. When the vast bulwark sprang from her cradle, the calm water, on which she swung majestically round, gave the imagination a contrast of the stormy element, on which she was soon to ride. All the days of battle and nights of danger she had to encounter-all the ends of the earth which she had to visit and all that she had to do and suffer for her country, rose in awful presentiment before my mind; and when the heart. gave her a benediction, it was like one pronounced upon a living being." Those, however, were the sights of a few high-days and holidays, remem berable as epochs in one's mind, like a victory, a bridal, or a birth. It is not very likely that any of us should see many more launches of line-of-battleships; and I am past the age when the sight would strike with the force it did upon the youngling imagination. The war is over, and the first start of a new national bulwark of heart-of-oak, must be, under present circumstances, a rare incident. But the activity of the less pretend ing spot to which I now proceed to conduct you, is not diminished by the peace. My business lies with things of more "" common growth" than se venty-fours and three-deckers. Let us return to the shipwright's yard, at my native place, where the well-timed strokes of the alternate hammers are hardly ever silent; and although they be not engaged in fabricating an object of surprise or of such stupendous magnitude as shall engage our thoughts for a longer time than we stay there, yet we shall see enough to reward attention for the brief space we devote to the observation of them. Come sit down beside me on the inviting bend of this piece of seasoned timber. I am not going to talk learnedly of maritime architecture-do not expect that I can enter upon the mys teries of triangular trussing and other astute inventions to ward off the danger of hogging; nor can I explain the different parts and uses of a ship's skeleton, nor of its equipment when its thews and sinews are complete for, woe is me! never was there a native of the sea-shore who knew less of naval evolutions or of the sailor's vocabulary. I have been indolently "Contented to enjoy The things which others understand." A shipwright's yard is not a school where I advance in science ;-but it is to me a mere moving picture; a scene of active animal life, which gives a fillip to the spirits; a net of old associations, which catches and detains my thoughts till I let them fly at liberty again; a sober sort of peep-show, into which I am by sufferance allowed to gaze idly, while I sit and regain breath, and rest my feet, a little wearied by their previous ramble. What then have we now before us? The centre of the piece is a half-finished yacht, about which the workmen are swarming like bees-there is one descending by that pliant board, to which, with a sailor's looseness of tread, he conforms his footsteps, by tripping with the regular rise and fall of his vibrating pathway. Our music is the reciprocal clink of hammers driving in the treenails which fasten on the outer planks, with a low under-song from onder shingle-roofed saw-pit, where che trunk of a tree is treated much as loaf is, when it is metamorphosed nto a plate of bread and butter. To he right there squats a low building, which is almost all chimney-it has ndeed a most wide-throated vomitory, VOL. XI. to be sure for so tiny an edifice; its back is towards us, otherwise we should discern that it is merely a fire-place for heating pitch, which even now is reek ing-the cloud wafts itself hither, and brings what Crabbe denominates "the pungence of o'erboiling tar." This to many noses is as fragrant as the flowers Proserpina let fall." If ever we should possess a classified nosology, my nose must be ranked in the order, genus, and species, which shall comprise the pitch-delighting olfactories. What tumbling confusion of materials for a rich foreground! but above all the jumble, rises a most venerable windlass. Look, how the veteran is scarred, and seamed, and bleached, by many a year's exposure to beam and blast it would supply an excellent study for a painter; all edginess, all stiff perpendicularity, all rawness of tint is gone-it looks scarcely as if it were fixed there by the hand of man, but rather as if it were the bole of some nighty tree, still anchored in its original site by still-existing roots, but whose body was felled at mid-height full a century ago. A figure-head or two past service, mutilated anchors, well-japanned tar barrels, buoys, blocks, and other wrought and unwrought wood in all its shapes, may be combined as you please, for they meet the eye in profusion on all sides. At our back (but we may turn round, for our accommodating seat admits of any posture) is the old work-shop of the place, in which the frame of some superior kind of boat cumbers the midfloor. Its exterior is just what the Flemish school of artists would have liked. The shape is of that unformal character which results from there having been sundry additions made to a main building, jutting here and there just as convenience prompted, while, in the question of their erection, symmetry was allowed to have no vote; the roof too has stooped a little with the weight of years, and no longer has either ridge or eaves in perfect parallel with the horizon. The bricks of which it is built betray their long stay near the salt water, for they have imbibed their full dose, and are crumbling under its operation; meanwhile, it has mellowed their hue into one of sober warmth, and in perfect harmony with the accompaniments. Without quitting our station, we can see the inside 3 H 1 of the building through the open doors and unglazed windows. The walls are loaded with more tools than I can give names to, with models for the proper curvatures of different descriptions of craft, with cordage, iron-work, and other stores, besides being well furnished with lock-up receptacles for more portable and perhaps more valuable articles of the ship-carpenter's trade. Here and there too, on some smoother slab of this wainscotting, (if such it may be called,) may be discerned some humble essays in the art of design touched off in chalk, in tar, or by a more venturesome hand-in the paint of which some gay boat was defrauded a ship (that prime object of the sailor-draughtsman's attempts) the union flag-an anchor-or perhaps a first flight in portrait, where Jack's pig-tail is the best part of the resemblance. In a rude frame there is nailed up a specimen of sea-port pleasantry, a printed sheet of "Rules for the Lazy Club,"-no ill-humoured piece of banter on those professores emeriti of naval science, whom one meets on every quay and wharf along our coast-jolly, comfortable-looking ci-devant watermen, who, by means of" Trinity-money," and other windfalls, happen to be in easy circumstances, and who are, therefore, not pressed by need to tug at the oar, and so lounge about with their pipes as look ers-on, but must not, if the "Rules" speak true, do aught useful or laborious, lest they be ejected from the fraternity. I think we have sat still long enough, and, as I am going to speak of my recollections, we may as well walk about and talk, (though I am candid enough to confess that I have the lion's share in the confab,)-here is an open space where we may feel the mild sea-breeze. Perhaps of all the operations carried on in this homely arena, careening and pitching a ship is the most striking, particularly if the work be carried, as I have witnessed it in this place, far into the dusk of evening. A bonfire on land, with its busy figures passing and repassing in well-defined shapes of blackness, if they be in front,-or whose hands and faces are lighted up and glimmer through the smoke, if the flames be interposed betwixt them and the spectator,-will always catch "the attention of him who arrives with in view of it. But how tame is it to 66 the splendour of the proces to, if one can get an unopŝty of it from an opposite black vessel, looking still merthe indistinctness caused by and the night-gloom, is the s ground which sets off the Rembrandt glow of the lustrous part of the picture. The workmen are on a floating raft or stage-ever and anon, faggots of furze, soon kindled and soon spent," are raised to where the brush is busy with the half-melted pitch, and the rapid blaze which spires upward or spreads in lambent flames upon the surface of the ship, helps to give fluidity to the tenacious varnish that it may be evenly spread. But how striking is the instant of combustion!-how singular the illumination!-the conflagration is at the very edge of the water, so that there is a double glory. Not only have we the steady beauty of the reality in the scene upon the raft, but a more dazzling spectacle in the flickering and vision-like reflection from the tide, whose waters give the firelight_back, but not unaltered. For though one flash of brilliance quivers with not many breaks immediately beneath the busy raft, yet around is a circle of receding corruscations dancing and twinkling on the tips of the restless ripple. I have watched the proceedings till nought but a few sparkles was visible in the little stove on the floating stage; their horizontal motion and the sound of a dipping pole "would then warn me that the workmen were pushing for the dock, and had suspended their labours for the night. An incident happened in my pre sence in this very yard which cannot easily be forgotten by me, for terror intruded itself where only the gaiety of a spectacle was thought of by the beholders. It was at the launching of a two-masted vessel destined for the coal-trade. Contrary to the custom in this part of the kingdom, she was rig ged upon the stocks, as I understand is commonly done in the north England, and so like Minerva from the brain of Jove sprang forth full armed-or if that is too bellicose a mile, let us say, that like a butterfly she issued forth with wings ready for unfurling and for proceeding on immediate excursion. She went off good style, amid the cheers of as larg an assemblage as our little town coul muster, and with not a few men and maidens embarked in her. She glided down-the temporary cradle accompanying her and disparting on all sides after the plunge, and rising to the surface in many a junk-and the ship was now apparently triumphant and out of peril in the midst of the river. In order to try how she balanced herself, the crew on board began to rock her by running, all hands, from side to side, this was persisted in too long, particularly as she was found to be what is called here lop-sided, for at last a rush made her heel so much on the faulty quarter, and carried her so far over that the keel throughout was nearly seen, (some said it was quite,) and the masts lay nearly parallel with the sea-wall on the opposite shore; and thus she hung unmoving I know not exactly how long-but in such a crisis moments are important portions of time and then, as if relenting, she swung slowly back and recovered her self, to the great satisfaction of the adventurers within her, who had no farther inclination to make another such perilous trial of her want of equipoise. "Who'd have thought," said an old shipmaster at my elbow," that she'd have righted? I declare my heart was up in my mouth, all the time she hung back." I doubt whether I have so distinct a recollection of the other grander launches I have spoken of, as the consternation of the minute still causes me to have of this. Had she been swamped, and a few hundred weight would have turned the scale, many lives would probably have been lost. Now then I have had my walk and my breathing time-I have introduced you to the old spot, with which I have many associations of pleasurable hours. I have had all the talk to myself (perhaps this may be more literally true than I could wish)-so I think we will now leave the Shipwright's Yard. R. CALCUTTA. CHAPTER I. THE LANDING. Boatswain.-Down with the topmast, yare; lower, lower, bring her to try with main course. In the year 1818, being ordered from Madras to Penang, we stood out to sea with the S.W. monsoon, which blows for one half of the year in those seas. For the first two days we got on smoothly enough, but towards the morning of the third the wind began to increase, and at eight bells of the morning watch, it blew half a gale. Top-gallant sails, royals, and skyscrapers, had been taken in during the watch, and a single reef in the topsails had made the ship snug for the time; but the sky looked still so threatening, that the master, a cautious old Scotchman, brought up in the Baltic trade, hinted that it might be as well to close reef top-sails and courses, and stand by for the gale that was apparently approaching. The Captain, however, who had never learned to discriminate between caution and cowardice, swore that she shewed as little muslin as the weather required, and what she could not carry she might drag. About half an hour after this doughty bravado had been uttered, she had to drag her mizen top-mast, Tempest. which gave way before a sudden gust, not uncommon in these latitudes; the main top-sail at the same instant was split from clue to earing, and shaken to shreds before it could be unbent. Whilst laying nearly on her beam ends, a heavy sea struck her on the starboard quarter, broke completely over her, and carried away one of her quarter boats. The helm was put aweather, and we bore up to repair da mages. On sounding the well, we found much more water in the hold than had been anticipated, which induced us to suspect that we had sprung a leak. This disagreeable surmise was fully confirmed by finding, that, by the most laborious pumping during the half of the watch, we could barely keep the ship free. Under these circumstances the Captain deemed it expedient to run for the Hoogly, and we shaped our course accordingly. When we arrived abreast of the Black Pagodas, we found that the pilots (as usual) had run in on the approach of the gale. As the leak was hourly increasing, we were at a loss how to act, but the master, who had been inside the Sand Heads before, thought he could run the ship up till f we fell in with a pilot schooner. We stood on under easy sail, heaving to occasionally to sound; a practice highly commendable when a ship is groping -her way near the land in the dark, or in waters where she is but imperfectly -acquainted, but which seerns to have gone out of use of late among the nautical officers of the Hon. India Company's service. Early in the morning we descried a vessel a-head, which on coming up proved to be a pilot schooner (by the bye, pilot schooners here are all brigs,) who sent a pilot on board to take charge of the ship, and by ten A.M. we we were safely moored at the new anchorage off the island of Saugur. All hands were now turned to, to find the leak, and as in the course of the search it was discovered that right under the counter dry rot had commenced its ravages, it was resolved to proceed to Calcutta with as little delay as possible, and I was ordered off to prepare accommodations for the crew while the ship might be in dock. On the pilot's coming on board we were most anxious to obtain intelligence of the result of the Marattah campaign, which (though we were not aware of it) had been brought to a most successful termination by the political and military skill of the Governor-General. But I had ever found pilots miserably deficient in news, and those of the Ganges, though better appointed, do not in this respect excel either their sable brethren of the West India Islands, or their silent sulky tenbreeched compeers of the Scheldt or Helder. In answer to our queries he said, that he had heard there had been sights of fighting up about the hills, but whether the Goorkah, or Garrow, or Rajmaul hills, he could not take upon himself to say. That his Lordship had beat Blacky all to nothing, and was now returning to Calcutta, where, it was said, that the people were a-going to present him with a sword, or an address, or a speechification, or something of that nature. Some said too, that there was a-going to be a praying match in the churches about it, but for himself he did not mind such things much. I observed, that from what I had heard, that was the last demonstration of satisfaction I should have expected from the Calcutta folks, as I understood that they had but few prayers to spare upon any occasion. "Why, master," said he," that there might have been the case once, but all that is changed now; for some time back they had got out a bishop, and a bishop's mate, and a second mate, and a Scotch padré, and what with them, and the missionaries who had come out to convert the black fellows, the people are like to become a d-d sight too sacreligious, (sanctimonious?") But notwithstanding this good gentleman's opportunities of information, and the number, zeal, and talents of their spiritual instructors, I did not quit Calcutta with any violent apprehensions of its worthy inhabitants falling into the sin of becoming righteous overmuch. As I knew nothing of the country, I repaired on board the pilot vessel to obtain information how to proceed, and had the good luck to find three young gentlemen who had been on a cruize for the recovery of their health. They were just sitting down to tiffin, (a meal which corresponds to our lunch) and if I might judge from their appetites, had perfectly obtained the purpose of their voyage. Two of these were young civilians of the Honourable Company's service, called writers; the third was a mercantile man, who, from his Israelitish cast of features, I took for a Jew, more particularly when his companions addressed him by the style and title of Moses. But on hearing his voice, I immediately recognized the tones of my own country. It was only my ignorance of the country that could have excused this blunder as to the gentleman's nation. In Calcutta, there are no Jews (by birth,) but they are not missed, as their functions are most ably performed by the native Sircars and European agents. These gentlemen received me with the greatest politeness, and on hearing my errand, told me, that if I would stay and tiff with them, they would be happy to take me over to Kedgeree in a fishing-boat they had detained for that purpose, where they said they had a bungalow or budgerow, or some name of that kind, that would take us to Calcutta; after expressing my ob ligations, I sat down and made a meal, that, but for its name, I should have supposed to be a dinner. |