The Doomed Ship; or, the Wreck of the Arctic Regions

Front matter

DEATH OF JAMES LENTON. THE DOOMED SHIP: OR, THE WRECK OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS BY WILLIAM HURTON, i-CTHOH OF ((A VOYAGE FftOSC LEITH TO LAPLAND," &.C. EMBELLISHED WITH SIXTEEN ENGRAVINGS, BY WATTS PHILLIPS. A M K W EB1TIO JV. L 0 X D 0 X : WILLOUGHBY A X D C ()., 26, SMITHFIELD; 185G. TO MADAME AMALIA BECKWITH LOHMEYER OF COPENHAGEN", THIS NARRATIVE, MAINLY DESCRIPTIVE OF THE CHRISTIAN HEROISM OF ONE OF HER DANISH SISTERS, IS CORDIALLY INSCRIBED, IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF HAPPY HOURS SPENT IN HER HOSPITABLE HOME, BY WILLIAM HURTON. LIST 0 F I L L U S T R A T 1 0 X S . TAGE Death of James Lenton ....... face Title. The Himmelsfugl ......... 28 Illness of Captain Larpent ........ 31 The Alarming Discovery ....... 43 The Mutiny ... ...... 51 Charles' Affliction on the Death of his Uncle .... 59 The Awful Discovery ........ 79 The Broken Rum Bottle 87 The Great Feast ......... 95 The Secret Indulgence ........ 113 Blackbird Jim's Encounter . . . . . . . 124 First sight of the Esquimaux . . . . . . 131 Esquimaux frightened at the Firing of a Gun . . . . 143 Incantation of the Conjuror ....... 155 Stag Hunting .......... 165 Departure from the Ship in the Arctic Regions ....

P R E F A C E. The present being the third appearance in type of this Narrative, the author may be permitted to preface the edition with a few brief remarks. The last chapter hut one contains the following sentence : — " How far it is a ' bona fide' Narrative, I need not insult an intelligent reader by pointing out. That it contains much 'fiction' 1 freely admit, but even that fiction is a reflex of facts." — There is not much occasion to qualify these observations. The book was conscientiously written, with the object of combining entertainment and instruction : whether successfully, the Public must decide. " I always bow to the verdict ofthe Public," said mv Lord Bvron, " for it is generally right." Certain passages concerning the superstitions of seamen (particularly that relative to ' I riday,' ) must not be considered the author's personal opinions, being only introduced as the sentiments of the assumed narrator, and of other mariners of the " old school."

Nearly four centuries have elapsed since first the Arctic Regions were visited by our hardy and enterprising forefathers. In 1497, the younger Cabot sailed up to nearly 68° N. More than half a century' later, the gallant but ill-fated Sir Hugh Willoughby adven tured in search of a passage to " Kathay and India." He reached Nova Zembla, but was driven back by ice, and in the autumn of 1533 he took refuge in the river Arzina, on the coast of Lapland. " Thus remaining in this haven the space of a weeke," (wrote he in his journal,; " seeing the yeare farre spent, and also very evill wether — as frost, snowe, and haile, as though it had beene the deepe ot winter, wee thought it best to winter there." Sir Hugh and his men were all frozen to death during the winter — their remains being subsequently discovered by the Russians.

Preface

. discovery of the North-west Passage, by way of Hudson's Strait ; and in 1773 the government sent Captain Phipps, with two vessels (on board one the future Lord Nelson sailed as a coxswain !) which reached Spitzbergen, and had a narrow escape from destruction. In 177H the celebrated Captain Cook vainly attempted to penetrate the " Passage," by way of Behring's Strait. The modern expeditions to the Arctic Regions began iu 1818, when R.oss and Parry were sent out. Subsequent voyages were performed by Buchau, Franklin, Beechy, Lyon, Ross, Back, &c. No voyage was so extraordinary as that of Captaiii (now Admiral bir John) Ross. He was out more than four years, (1829 — 33) being eventually rescued by the " Isabella" whaler of Hull — which ship, singularly enough, he himself had commanded when she belonged to the Royal Navy.

Several overland expeditions from the Hudson's Bay territories were also dispatched from time to time, and with discouraging results. As to Sir Johu Franklin's expedition, the public is only too painfully familiar with its presumed fate. Apart from all other considerations, the various Arctic explorations have been most valuable for their contributions to geography, natural history, and astronomy ; and in a moral point of view, they exhibit transcendant examples of British skill, courage, and endurance. Yet, as regards the inner Polar Circle, very much remains unknown. To this hour the Arctic Regions have only been partially penetrated, and whoever shall first explore the dread and mysterious solitudes in the vicinity of the North Pole, will, in all probability, discover marvellous phenomena, the nature of which can at present only be vaguely conjectured. '1 he author presumes to hope that the Doomed Ship will convey to the general reader distinct impressions of the Arctic Regions, and prove instructive to those who have not hitherto carefully studied the chronicles of modern voyagers and explorers.

He might here conclude in the words of good and great-hearted John Bunyan — " Go forth, my little book, &c," but he prefers to cordially shake hands in the words of honest John Dory : — " To the reader who reads me to praise. Farewell ; and God prosper his days ! To the reader who reads me to blame, Farewell ; and I wish him the same. Much good to the writer will fall. Will readers but read him at all!" March, 185G. THE DOOMED SHIP; Oil, THE WRECK OP THE ARCTIC REGIONS. BY AVILLIAM HUETON, AITTHOB OF "A VOTAGE FEOM LEITH TO LAPLAND," &C ♦

Chapter I

Friday, the seventh day of July, 1822, was appointed for the sailing ofthe good barque "Lady Emily," chartered from Hull to Tromso, in Nordland, with a cargo of coals and salt, and thence in ballast up the Baltic to St. Petersburgh to ship timber and deals for the return voyage. The barque was a large, bluff-bowed, square-sterned, old-fashioned craft of 389 tons O. M., very heavily timbered, as she had originally been a Baffin's Bay whaler. Although a mere tea waggon as regarded her sailing qualities, she was in high repute as a remarkably fortunate craft (a reputation of great weight with sadors), for in all the voyages she had made during the twenty years she had been afloat, no accident of any consequence had ever befallen her. The present crew consisted of captain, two mates, carpenter, cook, steward, fourteen men before the mast, and two boys— in all twenty-two hands.

I was nephew of the captain, and acted as second mate, being then a young fellow of five-and-twenty. A singular and melancholy occurrence attended our clearing out of port, and the superstitious among us might well regard it as an evil augury. We had taken in our cargo in the Humber Dock and thence warped out into the basin. After clearing the end ofthe south pier, which was crowded with spectators, we sent a boat off to fasten a hawser to the great pile-head at the pier point, to drop the ship gently out whdst her sails were being set. One of the hands remained in the boat, and the other, a sailor named James Lenton, or Lentown, secured the hawser. The tide was running strongly, and as soon as the ship swung out, the hawser tightened, and kept snapping and jerking till it smoked again, as the hands on board payed it out.

It was a six-inch rope, quite new, and capable of bearing an immense strain ; but Lenton, foreseeing that an accident might happen, loudly warned the spectators to stand back, as it is not unusual for legs to be broken by the snapping of a hawser and the recoil of its broken end. They took the hint, but he himself stood by, ready to cast off when the signal was given from the ship. The latter had dropped some fifty to sixty yards, when the hawser fouled on board owing to its excessive stiffness (for it had never been used before), and ere the men could clear its kinks, the ship was brought up with a heavy jerk. For an instant the hawser stretched out straight and stiff as a bar of steel, and then with a report like a small cannon it parted, a fathom from the pier post, and the fragment whirled round in the air and struck poor James Lenton full on the head.

He fell like an ox in a butcher's shambles, and never uttered moan nor any cry, nor ever stirred more. We perceived the accident from the ship, and the captain instantly ordered an anchor to be let go, and sent me to the pier in a shore boat that was holding on by our mizen-chains. When I landed I found poor Lenton quite dead. His skull was fairly beaten in by the terrible blow. Loud were the exclamations of the crowd, and I especially remember the remark of one gruff old mariner — " Aye," said he, " that poor fellow '11 never stand his watch any more, God forgive him ! But what better could be expected from a SniP OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 9 ship's sailing on a Friday ?* Did any of ye ever know such a v'yage to turn out good, mateys ? No ! there's a power aloft as won't be joked with anyhow !"

A murmur of assent ran through the nautical members of the crowd, but one man boldly and emphatically laughed the superstition to scorn. " Sawdust !" growled he. " What's Friday more nor any other day ? D'ye mean to tell me, old Grampus, that if this here hawser had parted in the same fashion on a Monday, and had struck a fellow on the^head, as it wouldn't have stopt his grog ? Gammon, old chaw-quid !" " But it wouldn't ha' parted on a Monday !" obstinately retorted the dogmatic old tar, setting his arms a-kimbo, and looking fiercely at his scepticaTbrother blue-jacket. " Them only laughs at sailing on Fridays as knows no better. Live and larn, says I ; but there's some as never'll larn, and waint tek a warning. And I say that this here mischanter is a God's judgment and warning of what'll befall that theer ship on the v'yage.

Theer she is," and he held out his brawny arm in the direction of the " Lady Emily," which had now swung round to her anchor, with her bowsprit pointed to the pier, " and ye may look at her, for she'll never come back • The superstitions of sailors have been much sneered at, and none more so than their belief that Friday is a very unlucky day for commencing a voyage. Perhaps the author's early life and companionship may have rendered him peculiarly susceptible of auch impressions, but at any rate he is not ashamed to confess that he himself firmly believes there is more in some ofthe superstitions of mariners than proud philosophy can explain. He has known many startling instances of disaster occurring to vessels that left port on a Friday. On one occasion he sailed in a foreign ship on a Friday, and for several days she was in imminent peril.

Very soon afterwards the same vessel agiin sailed (on the evil day it is believed), and was wrecked on the coast of Sweden, and every soul on board perished. People may laugh at the idea as much as they please, but if the author commanded a ship he would not set sail on a Friday for any consideration. Fenimore Cooper mentions the following remarkable fact in connexion with the subject: — A merchant of Connec ticut, imagining that he could give a death-blow to the opinion sailors entertain about Friday,«caused the keel of a very large ship to be laid on a Friday ; she was launched on a Friday ; christened " The Friday" ; a captain was found to command her whose name was also Friday ; and finally she sailed on her first voyage on a Friday, bound with a costly cargo to China, and in every respect as noble an Indiaman as ever left port.

The result was that she was never seen nor heard of more ! Only a few hours after the above was written, the " Amazon," West India steamer was lost ; and on reading the appalling narrative, I find that she sailed on a Friday! again to port. I wouldn't swing my hammock aboard on her, if ye would give me my chest full o' Spanish doubloons." "Then 1 would !" answered the unbeliever in the popular superstition, " and if the captain '11 give me a berth in room o' this poor fellow, I'm ready and willing to ship this blessed moment !" "And so you shall, my man!" exclaimed I, "for we shall not sail short-handed. What name d'ye hail by ?" " Blackbird Jim, sir !" replied the man, who was a deeply-bronzed and thorough-looking seaman. The soubriquet of " Blackbird Jim," as I subsequently learn't, had been bestowed on him because he had for many years been engaged on the African coast in the respectable and lucrative profession of " blackbird catching," i.e. aboard a slaver, and under this name he had been repeatedly entered on ship's books, for sailors frequently sign articles, and sail under the most extraor dinary nicknames conceivable.

The departure ofthe " Lady Emily" was delayed four-and-twenty hours by the accident, as a portion of the crew and the officers were compelled to give evidence at the inquest held on the body of the ill-fated sailor. I introduced Mr. Blackbird Jim to the captain, who immediately shipped him in the room of the deceased, well knowing that Jim's enlightened opinions and bold offer to " step into a dead man's shoes" would have a very powerful effect in removing the gloomy forebodings the crew would certainly indulge in. But we were fated to proceed on our voyage short-handed, after all; for when we had passed Spurn Point and got into the open sea, the crew were mustered to be divided into watches, and one man was missing. As he had assuredly been doing duty whilst we were in the Humber, we thought he must either have fallen overboard unnoticed, or else have deserted in the pilot-boat or in a fishing-smack that had been alongside and sold us some fish.

All doubt was settled by one of the crew producing a letter which he stated he had found lying on the lid of the missing man's chest in the forecastle. This epistle was directed to the captain, and its strange contents were to the effect that the writer was so awfully impressed by the accident on the pier at Hull, together with a dream he had had as we lay at anchor that night (and which he declared distinctly revealed to him that the ship and all on board were certain to be lost on the voyage), that he had resolved to desert and save his life by concealing himself on board the fishing-boat which was coming alongside at the time he wrote the letter in his berth. He concluded by begging pardon ofthe captain for this meditated crime, and added a wild kind of rhapsody about his "sinful messmates doomed to perish in their benighted condition".

The sailor who wrote this (a well educated man, and a capital sea man), was a firm believer in the Muggletonian* creed, and he, at any rate, testified his sincerity on the present occasion by leaving his chest, hammock, and all his clothes on board, — everything, in a word, which the poor fellow possessed in the world, except half a dozen precious volumes ofthe Muggletonian writings, and these he managed to smuggle away with him. My uncle read the letter aloud to the deeply attentive crew, and sternly, but judiciously commented on the act of their infatuated shipmate, forcibly pointing out its folly and criminality. But stdl the men only listened in gloomy silence ; and it was very obvious that a profound superstitious idea — that we were indeed doomed to destruction — was fast gaining an ascendancy over them, when Black bird Jim most opportunely requested permission to " say his say," as he expressed it ; and that being granted, he boldly addressed them off-hand, with considerable acuteness and tact, in precisely such lan guage as was calculated to make the deepest impression on foremost Jacks ; and as he wound up with facetious allusions to the creed and some of the former doings ofthe deserter (who had once sailed in the same ship as himself, when engaged in the impious trade of " blackbird-catching"), he not only brought the crew into temporary good humour, but set most of them on the broad grin.

The captain poli tically clenched the matter by ordering the steward to serve out a stiff caulker of grog to all hands, to drink success to the voyage. A fine steady wind set in that night, and after a tolerably quick and prosperous run, we safely cast anchor in the harbour of Tromso, on the 28th day of July. * Muggleton was a fanatic of the lime of the Commonwealth, and professed himself to be .1 prophet — and somes ing more. The author personally knoas a veteran skipper who to this hour carries a library of Muggleton's prophecies and hymns in his cabin, and most reverentially and potentially does he believe them ! The same skipper once fancied he beheld a vision when sailing on the Humber in the dead of the night, and avows his belief that it was identically the same as that which St. John beheld in the Isle of Patmos.

Chapter II

We were nearly a month discharging our cargo ; and after we had shipped a heavy ballast, and warped out midway between the island on which Tromso stands, and the mainland of Finmark, we yet remained another week at anchor, as a considerable time was con sumed in settling with the different merchants and traders who had purchased our cargo in small quantities. During this interval an event happened, which although apparently trivial in itself, and of ordinary occurrence on board large vessels, must be narrated, as the reader will eventually find that its result ex ercised a tremendous influence over the fate of every soul on board. First, let me introduce my uncle, Captain Larpent, and his black steward, Smutta, personally to the reader. The former was a native of the West Indies, where he and his sister (my mother) were born, being children of a small planter, whose wife died in giving birth to my uncle, who was reared at the breast ofa young negro woman, a slave on the estate.

This negress had a httle boy only a few weeks older than my uncle, and a very particular affection existed between him and his black foster-brother — an affection they seem to have im bibed with the milk they sucked in turns from one generous bosom. As the children grew up from infancy to boyhood, the httle black slave was the humble, but inseparable companion and friend of his young master ; and when the latter chose the sea as a profession, poor Smutta was permitted to ship with him. Time wore on, and in his twenty-fourth year, my uncle became commander of a large West Indian privateer, and Smutta, who had never parted from him, became, as a matter of course, his steward. After several successful cruises, the privateer unfortunately fell in with a French frigate, and, after a desperate defence, was captured.

This blow ruined my grandfather, whose whole estate had been mortgaged to fit her out. As to my uncle, he spent three years in a French prison, with his devoted foster-brother. After this, he com manded merchant vessels in every quarter of the globe, and three years before the epoch of this story, he became master of the " Lady Emily,"— Smutta still being his steward; and the glory of the faithful follower was, to boast that, from my uncle's birth, they had never been separated more than three days at a time. My uncle was now in his fiftieth year — a short, square-built, powerful man, with a very dark complexion, and a resolute cast of coun tenance. He was a most excellent navigator, and a member of the Royal Society of London — into which distinguished body he had been admitted in consequence of several papers he communicated, containing valuable results of nautical and astronomical observations.

He was a strict disciplinarian, but a kind-hearted man. He had never married, and when the decease of my parents left me a poor friendless orphan of fourteen, he adopted me, and, taking me to sea with him, made, as he himself used emphatically to say, " a sailor and a man of me." Smutta was a gigantic fellow with a skin as black and shining as polished ebony. So vast was his physical power, that he coidd lift a bower anchor, weighing ten hundred weight, and hold it on a level with his breast ; and I have seen him take a piece of new half inch rope, of the strongest make, and, wrapping each end round his mighty hands, snap it asunder with a single jerk, as easily as 1 could a bit of packthread. His height was six feet nine inches, but his bulk was so remarkable, that at a little distance he by no means looked so tall as he really was.

His arm was as thick as an ordinary man's thigh, and the span of his hand was fifteen inches. His features were of the true Congo type, and certainly poor Smutta was anything but a beauty even for a negro. When he opened his enormous mouth to the full extent, and displayed the cavity with rows of huge teeth, white as the purest ivory, the effect was quite startling to a stranger. He always dressed very smartly, his in variable costume being white duck trowsers, with a broad black belt of varnished leather, confined by a bright brass clasp ; a white shirt, and a blue jacket of fine cloth, jauntily braided and frogged. He used to turn down the broad collars of his shirt, and leave his bull like neck exposed to all seasons and in all weathers. He never wore hat nor cap, and indeed his great head was thatched with such a dense mass of frizzled wool, that any artificial covering would to say the least, have been superfluous.

For ornament, he^wore large gold ear-rings, richly chased, He was, in his way, a nautical dandy, and had the rare merit, in a negro, of being scrupulously cleanly, both in his dress and person. Every morning, at eight bells, he went on the forecastle, and, stripping to the waist, made one of the boys scrub him heartily, and finish off by dashing over him a couple of buckets of salt water. Such was Smutta the Great (no misnomer) ; but although he had a giant's strength, he never used it tyrannously like a giant, but was a gentle and kind-hearted creature. The only thing that ever gave him personal offence was when the men called him " Snowball. He would reply—" I not Snowball— 1 Smutta ; dat you know berry well;" and, if they teased him very much, he would occasionally be so far roused, as to cooly stretch forth one arm, and, seizing the offender by the nape of the neck, lift him up and give him a shake in the air, just as one might do a naughty child.

But if ever the crew had any little favour to beg of the captain, they always made Smutta (he was " Mister" Smutta then, not Snowball) the inter cessor, and never in vain. 1 remember once hearing some of the men bantering him by a comparison between King George and his captain, they pretending to be in dispute as to which was the greatest man, and begging Smutta to decide the knotty question. The steward listened very gravely to all their roguish mock arguments, and then gave this oracular judgement. — " Berry good. King Shorge, be berry great man — yah, dat is so. King Shorge I nebber hab seen, — but he no sailor ; he not eben know how splice rope 1 Ugh ! Captain Larpen', he my king ! Go along, yah !" Smutta's love and devotion to his foster-brother and captain was really quite affecting.

Whatever Captain Larpent said or did was in Smutta's opinion, necessarily right. He would go through fire and water at the slightest hint from the captain ; and once, when the latter was laid up in his berth, dangerously ill, I thought Smutta would have gone altogether distracted. He would sit moaning to himself by the captain's bed-side, tending him, and watching him, as a fond mother does a sick child, and would permit no living being but himself to administer anything At times his agony and despair was such, that he woidd run sobbino on deck, and wring his hands, crying, " Oh de cappen ! he die— Smutta die too !" And I verily think that if the " cappen" had died, Smutta would not have long survived him. One peculiar act of this simple, but noble-hearted creature affected me to tears. One night, when the captain's disorder reached its crisis, I went on deck.

We were then in the latitude of the Azores, and it was almost a dead calm. I was astonished to see all hands congregated on the forecastle in a close group. Stepping up, I found them sur rounding Smutta, whilst one of the boys, by the light of a lanthorn, was reading aloud the prayers for a sick person from the Book of Com mon Prayer. The reader stopped at my presence, and the crew made a movement to separate, but I said, " Go on !" and the lad read to the end, amid a silence broken only by the convulsive sobs of Smutta, and the pattering of his heavy tears, as they trickled down his sable cheeks, and fell on deck. It seems that this devoted fellow had taken the captain's large Prayer-book from the cabin, and, as he could not read himself, he had made one of the boys his chaplain, and had actually roused up the watch below, and induced all hands to assemble to pray for his beloved captain !

Heaven surely listened to those prayers ! Thrice had Smutta saved the captain's life — on two occasions from drowning, and once when in action with the French. The bonds which united them were altogether extraordinary. On his part, the captain reciprocated his foster-brother's affection with almost equal intensity. Next to the captain, Smutta loved and reverenced me. I was near akin to his idol, and looked upon as the great captain's son, and from my boyhood had been constantly with them both. And now for the incident I alluded to. One of the ship's appren tices, who chiefly acted as cabin-boy, was a lad about fifteen years of age, named Claude Chepini, born in England, but of Italian parents. He was a tall, active fellow, with strongly-marked Italian features, large black eyes, and long black hair.

Three days before we saded from Tromso, the captain ordered this boy to clean his favourite telescope. In doing this on deck, Chepini very carelessly laid the pieces of the telescope on the top ofthe bul wark, and one of the largest rolled overboard. The captain was so vexed, that at the moment he snatched up a rope-end, and gave the boy three or four blows, but not very severe ones. Nothing more was thought of this at the time ; but the next morning the boat which had been lying alongside was missing, and Chepini also. He had run the ship. Inquiries were immediately made, and the boat soon was found drifting along the shore of the opposite mainland. A party was sent in search of the deserter, and in a few hours they captured him hiding among the brushwood of Tromsdal (a ravine near the shore), and brought him back to the ship.

He was forthwith marched to the quarter-deck before the captain, who was naturally very angry. " Now, Chepini, what made you run the ship ?" said he. The lad never spoke, but turned deathly pale, and hung down his head. " Have I not always been a good and kind captain to you ?" My uncle had really been quite a father to the boy, having paid for his outfit, a year before, out of his own pocket, and ever had treated him most kindly, and had even recently begun to teach him navigation. StiU Chepini made no reply. " Do you hear me, boy ?" repeated the captain with increasing irritation. This time Chepini raised his head, and I shall never forget the starthng glance of malignancy which shot from his flashing black eyes, as he hissed, rather than said, " You struck me yesterday !" " Struck you ! and hadn't I a right .

Who are you ? It is high time, I find, to teach you your station. Will you beg pardon for running the ship ?" The boy clenched his teeth, and again hanging down his head muttered something inaudible. " What do you say ? Once more, wdl you beg pardon?" Not a syllable did the culprit reply. The captain's brow grew black with passion, and turning round to the steward, who, as usual, was at his elbow, foUowing him like a dog, he quickly said. " Smutta, strip that lad and swing him up !" No sooner said than done. The gigantic black handled Chepini precisely as if he were an infant, and, stripping him naked to the waist, lashed him fast by the wrists to the mizen shrouds. " Now, Chepini," said the captain, biting his Up to restrain his anger, " any other captain but me would flog you within an inch of your life, but I will yet forgive you, if you wUl only say you are sorry for what you have done, and beg my pardon."