How Tom Jeffrey saw the world

Front matter

/•'. Frith & Co.,] [Kcigah; Sin rcy H. M.S. " IMPREGNABLE," DEVONPOKT. HOW TOM JEFFREY SAW THE WORLD MACKIE AND CO., LD., PRINTERS, WARRINGTON HOW TOM JEFFREY SAW THE WORLD BY W. H. J. JENKINS ILLUSTRATED XonOon : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT 4 CO., LTD. DEDICATION. TO THE BOYS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE WHO LOVE THEIR QUEEN AND COUNTRY, AND WHO WILL, IN THIS HER MAJESTY'S DIAMOND JUBILEE YEAR, REMEMBER WITH PRIDE AND GRATITUDE THOSE WOMANLY QUALITIES WHICH HAVE ENDEARED HER TO ALL HER SUBJECTS. Goo save tbe (Sfcueen !

Preface

. These few pages in a boy's life are written with the hope that the reading of them will inspire many boys of this generation to keep alive and cherish the recollection of the pluck and enterprise of the men who have helped to build up this nation's greatness. They should remember with pride what such men have done in the domains of scientific research and discovery, and also the courage and devotion of her soldiers and sailors in the path of duty. There never was, perhaps, a time when the splendid records of " the services " need to be borne in mind, and cherished with all the ardour they so well deserve, than there is at the present moment. VI

PREFACE.

. English boys should always remember that to serve their country well and faithfully, either in the great fields of travel and discovery, and thus assist to develop and extend the greatness of the Empire, or in facing " the battle and the breeze," in order to maintain and uphold their country's honour, is amongst the greatest distinctions that a man can attain. That many boys may be influenced by the reading of these pages to give their best days to the service of their country, and especially to join in keeping alive the glorious traditions of the British Navy, is the earnest desire of THE AUTHOR. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Chapter I. — Tom's home — School-boy days — Death of the Schoolmaster. Chapter II. — Rural life under Dartmoor — Banks of the Tavy — Lady Howard's Oak — Tailor Jakeman — Sir Francis Drake's Birthplace.

Chapter III. — Visit to Morwellham — Nature at early morn — Fitting out of " Nancy Lee " — The sail to Devonport. Chapter IV. — Sailing down the River Tamar — Saltash Bridge — Old England's Wooden Walls — The Hamoaze — Fore Street, Devonport— Old Naval Resorts— H. M.S. "Rattlesnake" Commissioned. Chapter V. — Plymouth Sound— Fishing for a Breakfast — Interview with Commodore — Prospects of Engagement in Navy — Visit to Devonport Dockyard — The Sail home — Beauties of scenery on Rivers Tamar and Tavy — Consent obtained to join Navy — Last Pic-nic on Dartmoor. Chapter VI. — The Boys' Literary Club — Hindmarsh's story of "A Late Recompense" — The old Convict's wrongful conviction and happy release — Tom's " Anglers' Song." Chapter VII.— Tom joins H. M.S. " Rattlesnake"— Her description and equipment — Set sail for West Coast of Africa — The Bay of Biscay, oh ! — Madeira — Portuguese friends. contents.

VIII Chapter VIII -Leave Madeira-Peak of Teneriffe-Santa Cruz- Las Palmas-Grand Canary-St. Vincent-Cape de Verde Islands— Coaling Ship-Cape de Verde-Bathurst and the River Gambia— Arrive at Sierra Leone— Relieve H. M.S. " Arrogant" — Barter with the Natives — Slaver captured by H. M.S. " Bloodhound" — Shark Fishing — Fishing Pic-nic — Cricket Match — The kindness of the Missionaries — The Chaplain's arrival — Tom's promotion. Chapter IX. — "For to free the Slave Britannia Rules the Wave" — Kroomen join Ship — Sail for Slave Coast — Life and Discipline on Board — Singing Class — Cast Anchor at Cape Coast Castle — Natives Bathing in Surf — Difficulties of Landing. Chapter X. — Land of Fetish — Whydah— King Gelele of Dahomey's Seaport — Reports of Ju-ju Sacrifices — The Commodore writes the King — A Mission to visit Abomey — Capture of Brazilian Schooner — Commodore's Journey to King Gelele arranged.

Chapter XI. — Sunday on Board Man-of-War — Tom down with Fever — Christmas Day from Home — Tom to keep the Commodore's Journal — Lagos — The River Niger — Its Explorers — II Alha Formosa or Fernando Po— The Old " Adventure" — The Spanish Ball. Chapter XII. — Whydah — The Commodore's Visit to Abomey — The King's "Customs" — The King's Amazons — War Dances and State Receptions — King's Entry into Capital — Captives' Heads cut off — War in Abbeokuta — Day fixed for Grand Palaver. Chapter XIII. — The King's Reception of the Mission— Picture of Queen Victoria and other Presents made— The Queen's Message delivered— Slave Trade Questions— Human Sacrifices— Abbeokuta— Legitimate Trade at Whydah— The Commodore leaves the Palace-The King's " Customs "-Slaves Killed m Honour of Visit-T he Present of a Captive to the contents.

IX Commodore — Review of Soldiers and Amazons — The King's Answer— Presents to Queen Victoria— The Commodore's Return. Chapter XIV.— Released Captive "Friday' on Board "Rattlesnake" — The Anchorage at Lagos — Crossing the Bar — Return to Sierra Leone — Gully's Death and Funeral — Accident to Jim Stacey, Gunner's Mate — His Death and Burial at Sea — Freetown — Refitting — Take 3rd West India Regiment to Cape Coast Castle — The Concertina and the Fiddle. Chapter XV. — At Cape Coast Castle — War with Ashanti — Landing of Troops and Naval Brigade — Tornado — Private Evans' Adventure on Sentry — The Marine Sergeants' Mess — The Basket of Fruit — The Young Ashanti Chief and his Sister — Her Story — Rescue or Death. Chapter XVI — The Religion of Fetish — Fetish Priests and their Gods — Their Devilish Incantations — Their Lust for Blood — Marines to the rescue — The little Band of Heroes— Crossing the Lagoon — The Fetish Groves in the Forest — The Temple — Captive Girl face to face with death — Rescue — Death of Chief Fetish Priest — Return to Camp— Rejoicings.

Chapter XVII. — The Phantom Ship — The Merchant Slave Dealers — The "Esmeralda" at San Salvador — The " Rattlesnake " at Anno Bon — Ferdinando de Lopez's Schemes — The Compact with Dan Morgan — His plans complete — Jose de Alvarez — Sail for Havana — The Sailors' Hymn of Invocation. Chapter XVIII. — The West Indies — The Caribbean Sea — Jose de Alvarez joins in plot — Arrival off Havana — The " Esmeralda" hidden in Creek — Puerto de San Maria — De Lopez's Home — The Birthday Party — Plantation Lullaby — Kidnapping of Marguarita Savaneta. Chapter XIX. — Marguarita on Board the Phantom Ship — The Run for a Cargo of Slaves — Her presence known to Cruiser — CONTENTS. X In Bight of Biafra — Watched by Boats — Arrival in River at Gaboon — Cargo Waiting — Marguarita's Terms of Freedom — The Plot — The Escape — Blowing up of Phantom Ship.

Chapter XX. — The River Congo — Destroying Villages of River Pirates — Slaver up the River — Plans for her Capture — She slips away — The Chase — Capture of the "Maraquita" — The Spinners of Yarns — Jack Snagge — Manoel Vacca, the Freebooter — The Story of the' Cruise of the Second Cutter — A Light on the Port Beam. Chapter XXI. — Arrival of Strange Boat to Cruiser — Pero Gomez brings Letter — The Request of Senor Garcia — Doctor visits Pirate Stronghold — The Wrecked Yacht — The English Lady — The Letter — The Attack — The Rescue of English Gentleman and Family — Sail for Angola — St. Paul de Loanda — Little Fish Bay — Sail for Island of Ascension. Chapter XXII. — The Island of Ascension— Its Description and History — Journey to the Green Mountain — The Chaplain's Mishap — The Donkey's Freedom — Sleep — Stalking Goats — ■ Turtle Turning — Return to Ship — Tom transferred to H. M.S. Pioneer" — Home, Sweet Home LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

H. M. S. " Impregnable " — The Hamoaze — Devonport. Frontispiece. I View of Vixen Tor, Dartmoor. The River Tamar, Morwellham. View of Funchal, Madeira. 2 3 4 The Capture of the Brazilian Schooner. View of Cape Coast Castle. 5 6. The Plantation Lullaby. — The Log Hut. 7- 8. The Escape of Marguarita Savaneta, Blowing up of the Phantom Ship. and Mail Boat leaving St. Paul de Loanda. Home ! Sweet Home ! . 9- io. HOW TOM JEFFREY SAW THE WORLD. A BOY'S STORY FOR BOYS.

Chapter I

Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus ; Home keeping youths have ever homely wits Were't not affection chains thy tender days To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love, I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad Than, living dully sluggardized at home, Wear out th;' youth with shapeless idleness. — Two Gentlemen of Verona Boys, do you love this country of ours ? Do you love old England ? Do you not feel proud of your birthright, and citizenship, when you read the history of the lives and of the heroic deeds of the men who have made this nation's greatness ? Do not your ears tingle as you listen to the stories of the self denial and courage of our soldiers and sailors, and of the daring and hardihood which mark the footsteps of our missionaries, travellers, and pioneers of trade and civilization ? h Let us hie away to the wild west country, with its rock-bound coasts, its granite hills, rushing streams, and wooded dales.

There nearly every family has some of its boys who have either left home to help to swell the ranks of the "thin red line " or to face the battle and the breeze. The tendency to wooden legs was a striking feature in the development of many of the families in that part of England in those days when Nelson, Earl St. Vincent, and other naval heroes strove to uphold their country's honour. In the days, too, when smuggling and slave trading flourished, many of the families there — and some leading folk too — profited by the adventurous spirits who revelled in illegal traffic. The spirit of romance and adventure was fostered by the weird or stirring stories told over the quiet fireside in many a village home, and the old sea-dog, or battered soldier, aroused the enthusiasm of his young listeners by wondrous yarns of flood and field.

Books were not so plentiful then as now, nor was news of the doings of the outside world easily obtainable. The daily newspaper was practically unknown. No railway had then penetrated the lovely valley where Tom spent his youthful days. His boyhood was spent in stirring times. The Crimean War was at its height, and then followed those awful days of the Indian Mutiny. Old John Eastlake's, the shoemaker's shop, was the great emporium of news. He ran it hard for favouritism with the blacksmith's shop, where " Whitchurch" reigned supreme, and blood-curdling tales of smuggling and poaching in the past and current tales of fishing and other sport in the present were there the order of the day ; but old John Eastlake was a Methodist and a Chartist, and withal a keen politician, and the boys who assembled there had to be on their best behaviour, and air their views with becoming modesty and respect for age.

" Whitchurch " was the exponent of physical force. A man of splendid frame and presence, a noted wrestler, but as kindly-hearted a man as ever flung his coat into a ring. He and Joe Seccombe, otherwise " Brassey Joe," a noted fisherman and shot, were their tutors in boxing, wrestling, and little arts tending to develop their love of fishing and other sports, and at times it is feared not altogether remotely unconnected with poaching. At any rate their eyes were opened very widely in the direction of how to tie and cast a fly, to watch the seasons and study nature, become inured to hard ships in pursuit of sport, to find, hunt, and kill a fox, otter, or badger, and learn from Brassey how to shoot woodcocks in an oak coppice^ in which art he had no equal. The Times newspaper, then an expensive luxury, having had its news filtered through the Squire, the Vicar, and the village Doctor, reached their little Community.

With what eager footsteps they gathered in John's shop, and with not a sound to break the death-like silence except the voice of the reader, the boys would in turn read to those assembled of the deeds of heroism done by our forces in the Crimea, or of the splendid qualities which the horrors of the Mutiny had developed in our fellow country men. Small wonder, with a nation thrilled to its very core with a feeling of glorious thankfulness for the courage of her sons, and again with horror at the sufferings of her children, that the boys who listened with feelings of admiration and awe at their recital should become strongly imbued with the spirit which had largely animated their forefathers. Their schoolmaster, too, unwittingly, no doubt, fostered in his pupils a love of romance and adventure — ever encouraging in them any tendency to study outside the mere routine of school life.

The cultivation of music, of art, of poetry, the reading of historical works, of books of travel or other literature likely to develop in his young charges some latent power which might tend to create something more than a mere machine, were encouraged by him with loving care. And what a man ! His bodily develop ment, a poor frail tenement, with one leg withered and twisted around the crutch by which he walked with some difficulty. His features, so plain that very bad boys were, under the stress of painful circumstances and the application of a system of logic which has ever commended its principles with touching force, tempted to whisper, and then very softly, " monkey face." But what a glorious mind had been implanted in that otherwise odd specimen of nature's physical development ! His school, his first, his only love.

The limited number of boys under his care were his children, fed and watered so far as their intellectual powers were concerned with a tenderness and care which won their highest regard. " Rule by love ! ! " " Rule by love ! ! " might have been written in letters of gold over the school room mantelpiece. In their little walks with him, because he was their companion and friend, nothing escaped his observant eye. Instruction and recrea tion went hand in hand. Their singing practices in the church were to him a labour of love. There all that was highest and best in his nature found expression, and the boys who sang under his guidance were at times amazed at the marvellous power which seemed to draw their very souls into unison with his, and all the decrepitude of his poor frame vanished. His splendid eyes, beaming with the light which told of the magical force which reigned within, held them spell-bound.

At times he would exercise such powerful influence over their natures that they went to bed with the feeling that they had been " face to face with God." And so they had ! God reigns in man supreme, His power is ever near : 'Tis man who scorns His will When He the path makes clear. But the time was near at hand when the master was wanted. Much nearer than they whose youthful and vigorous frames were built up with pure air, good food, and plenty of exercise could perceive. His slender frame, it is true, seemed to shrink smaller and smaller, but his intellectual fire and indomitable will seemed to burn clearer and to strengthen. His love of his organ became intense, and often they would steal into the little church unseen by him and watch and listen to the outpourings of his soul in rhapsodies which only natures full of heavenly power could emulate.

It was a summer's evening ! The little cottage near the river which prattled along over its pebbly bed to the sea with noisy solicitude was bathed in golden light by the setting sun. Roses and honeysuckle, striving for the mastery, and with loving profusion, hid the sunlight from the windows. The wild fuchsia with tree-like luxuriance guarded the wooden trellis work porch, and the old-fashioned garden revelled in homely flowers such as our grandmothers loved. The master waited within for the touch of life ! Tom and his chums, with lagging footsteps, approached the cottage, and, boylike, at the garden gate hesitated and crowded together as to who should enter first ; then Tom, his favourite music pupil, was gently pushed through, and at the same moment an old lady with upraised finger, to enjoin quiet, opened the cottage door and beckoned to the little party to enter.

The dying man's bed had been brought into the lower room, and his piano had been wheeled from the sitting-room alongside it, and so he was enabled to wile away the time until the angel came. The boys with silent footsteps crowded around, and their sweet voices were blended in singing the themes which he had instilled with such patient care. The same beauti ful touch was there, the harmonies swelled with gentle cadence, until the tired hands were drawn from the keys, the boys' voices were hushed in painful silence, and then — " DeatJi is swallowed up in victory."

Chapter II

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart Across the schoolboy's brain ; The song and the silence in the heart That in part are prophecies, and in part Are longings wild and vain. And the voice of that fitful song Sings on, and is never still; " A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." — Longs elloi The schoolmaster's death was a sad blow to the scholars, their parents and friends. The younger boys were scattered far and wide to resume their studies in fresh fields. The elder scholars, who had nearly finished school-work, were brought suddenly to face another sphere of labour, which under other circumstances would have been anticipated and approached with more thoughtful design. To add to the misery created by war, cholera had been brought into the district, as conjectured, by a foreign legion which had been temporarily landed and located in barracks at Plymouth.

Wretched indeed was the outlook, and boys of the middle class will be surprised to learn that bread was served out with a care and economy which is unknown now. Tom saw his relatives and friends smitten down one by one, and then to crown misfortune he became father less. Well he remembers how the people went about with bated breath as if to say "Who next?" The main thoroughfares of the little town were lit up with huge bonfires of tar barrels, kept burning day and night. Children were scarcely allowed to go outside their homes. Places of worship were deserted, and when the dismal scourge had run its course there was a terrible day of reckoning. But we will haste away from such unpleasant records. Trending westward from the little town of Tavistock, in the county of Devon, and following the course of the River Tavy, is a very beautiful walk.

It is on the right bank of the river, sheltered on the land side by the ivy-clad wall which once formed part of the old Abbey. Then leaving the shadow of the Abbey wall it winds through low-lying lands and meadows of evergreen pastures. The river banks are fringed with gigantic elms and oaks. In the lower meadow, before coming on to the high road, is a remarkable old oak tree which has a history worth recording. It shadows St. Mary's Pool, and its huge trunk throws out its enormous branches until the deep waters below are enshrouded in gloom. At eventide the youthful traveller shuns the path, as this is the home of pixies and other elves who revel in the mysterious shade created by the dark rugged rocks surrounding the pool, and flit unseen amongst the overhanging branches of the great oak.

The ruins of the Abbey at Fitzford are near, and in the days when it was peopled by knights and dames of high degree two gallants were suitors for the hand of Lady Howard. The favoured one was challenged by his rival to deadly combat, and in the meadow by the great oak they fought and with such deadly earnestness that after the combat they both on removal to the Abbey died, and the boys often gazed on the old oaken and blood-stained couch where they are said to have expired. The poor lady became heart-broken, and day by day she visited the great oak to pray, and with a pocket knife she cut out of the great trunk a space until it formed a seat, where she sat and passed the greater part of her time in meditation ; and when her spirit had taken its flight into the unknown land those left behind of keener sight or imagination than their fellows would see on autumn nights a beautiful lady like a vision floating over the Pool of St. Mary, wringing her hands in hopeless grief.

By-the-bye,it is only fair to tell you that Tom and his companions were in some degree honourable poachers. Of course other people's rabbits and apples and pears were sweeter than their own, but they never killed an inland fox. Their pack of hounds were a motley lot, mostly rough badger-grey terriers with tan legs, and they got better noses by crossing them with a harrier or a beagle. To show you that they were honest, Thomas and William Leamon, who hunted the Lamerton pack of foxhounds, borrowed Tom's terriers to run with the hounds. They only killed moorland foxes. Their huntsman was a character, his name " Old Jake " or "Tailor Jakeman," as he was familiarly called. He was a country tailor, who lived somewhere under Mis-tor on Dartmoor, and divided his time between patching up the old clothing of moorland farmers and farm lads and sporting.

His kennel generally consisted of ten or a dozen rough dogs, such as described, and on grand field days the lads added their quota to the pack. Jake presented a queer appearance as he trudged the moorland side with his little pack at his heels. His sleeve board was strapped across his back one way and his fiddle in a green bag the other, and an inside jacket pocket lengthwise carried his fly-rod. And Old Jake was a fine fiddler, full of inspiration and resource. Dances, jigs, or songs he rattled off with a memory which never failed, and he was a rare story-teller, too, and one of the greatest treats was to get him into the back kitchen around a peat fire and get him to spin his yarns about escaped convicts. And many a true one he told them of smugglers and poachers, and tales of sporting, filling their youthful minds with a love of the country-side, and a passion for healthy recreation and sport which only one thing can destroy- Mothers favoured Old Tailor Jakeman.

He had broad views of human nature, and in the making of lads' clothing he studied room more than figure, and especially in his construction of breeches there was not only room for a growing lad to turn his thoughts over with a view to expansion, but to expand. Comfort and homeliness, not elegance, were his great aim, and he attained his end with a success which was more eloquent than words, and told un mistakably that the artist studied his customers in the matter of cloth with an unselfishness which was worthy of a better cause. On a Saturday morning in the early autumn Tom Jeffrey and his schoolmate, Herbert Slade, were walk ing along the path by the river we have spoken of. They had fishing rods and creels, and also four dogs — two rough terriers and two lower on the leg with a dash of the beagle in them, rare little workers, but a bit noisy — and in their pockets a couple of ferrets.

Crossing the high road they struck the river path again, and passing through Farmer Gill's stackyard, sat down on the ruins of an old house at Crowndale. The river there is very wide, and with a bold sweep nestles under the woods of Walreddon. Each bank rises in bold and massive cliffs clothed with woodland, and for miles along each bank these deep lying woods extend. Those on the left bank were owned by Mrs. Courtney, of Walreddon, and those on the right by the Duke of Bedford- On the ducal demesne no one seemed to know or care what the lads did so long as they did not run away with the trees or the land. On Mrs. Courtney's estate, their old and long standing enemy was John Spry, the bailiff, and they really helped to keep him in good health, for which he was never thankful, as the enforced activity produced by their liking for his rabbits saved him no doubt many a doctor's bill.

John loved a good glass of white ale and a quiet pipe, and after they had got into some more than ordinary scrape with him, and he had duly registered the most awful vow of what he would do " if he did catch 'em," they had to be diplomatic. That was easily done, as his weakness for his pipe was their stronghold. Clubbing together, a sum was raised to purchase a packet of Wills' best Bristol bird's-eye tobacco, and waylaying his little daughter going home from school they sent it to her father with expressions of regret for their wicked ways, and all their past trans gressions vanished in the filmy clouds emitted from John's pipe. But the boys and dogs reclining on the sward alongside the little ruins were on classic ground. There Sir Francis Drake was born, the heroic sailor who coolly finished his game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe and then went and smashed up the Spanish Armada.

Mrs. Bray, the authoress, in her letters to Robert Southey, the poet, thus speaks of that lovely nook of Crowndale : — " It is so sheltered that the rudest winds seldom disturb its repose : and here the Tavy does not foam or rush along impetuously, but passes onward in gentle ripples 'That sing the song which contemplation loves.' ' And there Drake was born ; and there stood the old barn-looking cottage in which he first drew breath, with its antique windows, and all its character of past times about it till, alas for modern innovations ! that poor building, which should have been held sacred as long as one stone would rest upon another, was pulled down to give place to an ox-stall or some other common appendage to the farmhouse hard by ! Crowndale too, tradition says, bears its name because there — Fired by her charms, that far outshone renown, Edgar, on Tavy's banks, his kingly crown Laid at Elfrida's feet, as beauty's meed ; And does not Crowndale still attest the deed ?

In a quaint old poem the writer came across lately Drake is thus eulogized: — Go coast Great Britain's Isle, and in each creek Among the noble sons of Neptune seek Who has swam farthest in the liquid seas, Or who first ranged the world's antipodes ; Who round about the world's vast globe did roll Even from the Arctick to the Antarctick pole ; They will with one consent this veidict make, 'Twas our immortal mortal, Tav'stock Drake. The two boys were holding an earnest and animated conversation, and Tom presently remarked, " I tell you what it is, Herbert ; I mean to see Africa. I've just finished reading Mungo Park's travels on the Niger, and his book, together with the reading of Bruce's Abyssinian travels, and those of Denham and Clapperton, have fired me with a longing to visit that part of the world."

They little thought then what increased interest would be taken in the Dark Continent, and what developments in these days would take place. Herbert asked, " But how can you possibly get to Africa unless you go in a merchant ship ? " "Well," Tom replied, "I've been \ thinking over a plan. I think that I might get into the Navy, and if you will go to Devonport with me next week we will see what ships are fitting out in the dockyard, and if there is any chance of going." Their plans having been matured, the intended journey was kept with rigid secrecy, and with what results we shall presently see. They spent the remainder of the Saturday's holiday in fishing and in making a raid on John Spry's rabbits.

Chapter III

A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep, Where the scattered waters rage, And the winds their revels keep. Like an eagle caged I pine, On this dull unchanging shore. Oh ! give me the splashing brine, The wave, and the tempest's roar -Henry Russell. One of the greatest and constant troubles of youth is the scantiness with which the pocket, as a rule, is lined; and Tom and his friend's position in this regard was no exception to those who possessed a chronic thirst for a better supply of the wherewithal which is the great factor of progress either in peace or in war, but who had very little means of obtaining it, and how tosurmount this initial difficulty in the cost of the expedition to Devonport was first carefully considered. The mail coach, it is true, ran to Plymouth, a distance of sixteen miles, and they could walk from there to Devonport, but the fares were much beyond boyish ideas of expenditure ; besides, there was no desire to attract so much attention as travelling in that way would court.