“We sail the ocean blue, And our saucy ship’s a beauty.”

On one of those delicious semi-tropical afternoons, which geologists tell us once bathed the whole of our island, and which even now, as though loath to part from its one-time home, still dwells lovingly in Devonia’s summer, I wended my way to Devonport Park to feast my eyes once again on the familiar scenes of early days. What I beheld was a fair picture the Hamoaze, with its burden of shapely hulls, and its beautiful undulating shores of wood and dell, lay glittering resplendent at my feet. So still and peaceful was it all that the din of hammers, the whir of machinery, and the voices of men were all blended in one most musical cadence. Scores of pleasure-boats dot the lake-like surface of the noble sheet of water, for the most part rowed by the lusty arms of those amphibious creatures familiarly known as “Jack Tars,” recently let loose from the dear old “Model” or the equally dear “Academy.” A voice, bell-like and clear surely that of a girl invited my closer attention; and yes, there she is! and not one only, but many ones, one in each boat, whom Jack is initiating into that wonderfully difficult branch of navigation a sailor’s courtship!

Now, whatever anybody else may say to the contrary, I hold that the British tar would scarcely be the “soaring soul” that he is were it not for the influence not always a beneficial influence, by the way, of the softer sex. And here, a word for him with special respect to what people are pleased to call his inconstancy. With all his vagaries, and from the very nature of his calling he has many, I think there are few other professions which would bear weighing in the balance with his and not be found as wanting in this quality. True, none is so easily swayed, so easily led; but the fault is not his, that must be laid at the doors of those who compel England’s sailors to a forced banishment for long periods of years, in lands where it is impossible the home influences can reach them. Is it a matter of much wonderment, then, if he is swayed by the new and intoxicating forms which pleasure takes in those far-distant climes where the eye of Mrs. Grundy never penetrates?

A somewhat curious way in which to commence my narrative, say you? I think so too, on re-reading it; but with your permission, I will not dash my pen through it.

Let me, however, make sail and get under way with my yarn.

Cast we our eyes outward once again, beyond the boats with their beautiful coxswains I mean hen-swains to where that huge glistening iron mass floats proudly on the main. Reader, that object is the heroine, if I may so say, of this very unromantic story. She is in strange contrast with the numerous wooden veterans around her relics of Old England’s fighting days. I thought as I gazed on that splendid ship that, had I my choice, nothing would suit me better than to go to sea in her.

A month has passed; it is the 4th of July, in the year of grace 1878, and my wish is likely to be consummated, for I find myself on this morning, with several hundreds of others, taking a short trip across the harbour to the “Iron Duke,” for so is she named, corrupted by irreverent mariners into the “Irish Duke.”

We skip lightly up the side, or through the ports, bundling boxes, bags, and hats unceremoniously through anywhere; and find ourselves, though not without sundry knocks and manifold bruises, standing on the quarter-deck.

With a few exceptions we are all West-countrymen, undoubted “dumplings” and “duff-eaters” at least, so say our East-country friends, though experience has taught me, and probably many of my readers too, that at demolishing a plum pudding the east is not a whit behind the west; in that particular we all betray a common English origin.

Though our ship’s company is, seemingly, young, very young, the men are growing, and lusty and strong: and bid fair, ere the end of our commission, to develope into the ideal British sailor. A stranger, perhaps, would be struck with their youthful appearance; for strangers, especially if they be midland men, have an idea that a sailor is a hairy monster, but once removed from a gorilla or a baboon; and if we accept the relationship to these candated gentry, I don’t think his ideas would be far out say a dozen years since. But these terrible monsters are all now enjoying their well-earned pensions in rural quiet, leaving to the youngsters of this generation the duty of supplying their places in that great fighting machine the navy.

The sailor of to-day possesses, at least, one decided advantage over his brother of the past. In the olden days not so very olden either if one man in a ship’s company could read and write a letter he was considered a genius; now a sailor is, comparatively, an educated man: and if one is to be found who cannot read and write well, and accomplish far more abstruse things with his head, he is dubbed a donkey. He is not now the debauched ignoramus which has made the English sailor a proverb all over the world. Education is of little value if it is not capable of changing a man’s habits for the better. There is, however, much room for improvement in certain national traits; apropos of this, the “Mail” for September, 20th, 1880, lies before me, wherein the writer, in a leading article, after giving a description of the combined squadron at Gravosa, goes on to say, “It is amusing to find that the traditional impression of an Englishman prevails so largely at Gravosa, Ragrusa, &c., namely, that he is always drunk, or has just been drunk, or is on the point of being drunk.” Great, though, was the surprise of the honest Ragusans when they discovered that their estimate of that erratic creature was at variance with the testimony of their experience of him; for the writer further adds, “The conduct of our men ashore, the neat, clean appearance they present, and their orderly and sober behaviour has been much commented on.”

But this is a digression let me bring to the wind again. At the time of our arrival on board neither the captain nor the commander had joined. The first lieutenant was, however, awaiting us on the quarter-deck, and who, with the promptness of an old sailor, allowed no time to be wasted, but proceeded at once with the work of stationing his crew.

At length every man knows his place on the watch-bill, and we hurry off to the lower deck to look after our more private affairs.

It needs not that I enter into a long and dry description of the peculiar construction of our ship, of the guns she carries, or how she is fitted out. You yourselves are far more qualified to do that than I am. After just a cursory glance at these particulars we see about getting some “panem,” especially as a most delectable odour from the lower regions assails our nostrils, betraying that that indispensable gentleman, the ship’s cook, has lavished all his art on the production of a sailor’s dinner. “Man is mortal,” so we yield to the temptation, especially as we are awfully hungry when is a sailor not so? Few meals present so much food for wonderment to the landsman as does a sailor’s first dinner on board a newly-commissioned ship; all is hurry, bustle, and apparently hopeless confusion. Bags and hammocks lie about just where they ought not to lie; ditty boxes are piled anywhere, and threatening instant downfall; whilst one has to wade knee-deep through a whole sea of hats to reach a place at the tables.

A jostling, animated, good-natured throng is this multitude of seamen, intent on satisfying nature’s first demand; for dinner is the only meal, properly so called, a sailor gets. Nor does it matter much, though the ship’s steward has not yet issued a single utensil out of which we can dine; such a slight annoyance is not likely to inconvenience men who, in most things, are as primitive in their mode of living as were our progenitors in the garden of story. Bear in mind, the object we have in view is to clear those tables of their frugal burdens hunks of boiled beef, absolutely nothing else. What, then, though there be no elaborate dinner service, so long as the end is attained, and that it is, and in the most satisfactory and expeditious manner, with scrupulous neatness and perfect finish, our friends from the shore must bear witness.

A few words, ere we fall to, descriptive of the lower deck, which serves us for “kitchen, parlour, and all.” What an altitude between the decks! Can it be that those concerns up there are meant for the stowage of boxes and hats? And see, too, this systematic arrangement of bars, transverse and upright, is it possible they are anything naval? Their office, though, becomes apparent when we reflect that there are no hooks, as in wooden ships, for the hammocks. In this iron age we have advanced a step, and even sailors can now boast of having posts to their beds. For the rest, the tables are large and at a comfortable distance apart; the ports admit a cheerful amount of light and a wholesome supply of air; and but there goes the pipe “to dinner,” so I will pipe down.

A telegram had been received during the forenoon, announcing that the captain would join us further on in the day; and accordingly, at about 4 p.m., he arrived. A tall, rather slight made man is our future chief, upright as an arrow, and with an eye such as one sees in men born to command men. His reputation comes with him in that vague semi-mysterious manner such news does travel and we hear he is a strict “service” officer, and an excellent seaman good qualities both, and such as the generality of man-of-war’s men raise no objection to. Withal we are told he is “smart,” meaning, of course, that there must be no shirking of duty, no infringement of the regulations with him. His reputation, I say, came with him, it stuck to him, and left with him. With the captain’s arrival our first day on board came to an end.

On the 6th the commander joined. In appearance he is the direct antithesis of the captain, being stout, well knit, and of medium height the ideal Englishman of the country gentleman type bluff and hearty, and with a face as cheerful as the sun.

Let us now pass rapidly over the few intervening days, and start afresh from July 17th. So much energy and determination had been displayed by all hands, that long before most ships have half thought about the matter we were ready for sea. In the short space of twelve days, so far as we were concerned, we were quite capable of voyaging to the moon given a water-way by which to reach her, especially with such a chief as “Energetic H.” at the helm.

On the morning of the 17th, there being nothing further to detain us in Hamoaze, steam was got up, and ere long we were leaving, for a few years, the old and familiar “Cambridge” and “Impregnable,” the one-time homes of so many amongst us; and bidding king “Billy” and his royal consort a long good bye! until Devil’s Point hides from us a picture many of us were destined never to behold again.

Ere long the booming of our heavy guns, as we saluted the admiral, announced that we had dropped our anchor for the first time in the Sound.

After testing speed on the measured mile, powder and shell, and other explosives, were got on board and safely stowed, though it would appear that the engineer authorities were not satisfied with the results of the steam trial. A second trial was therefore deemed necessary, and on this occasion a sort of fête was made of it; for numbers of officials and un-officials, with their lady friends, came on board to witness the result. The day was beautifully fine, and the trip a really enjoyable one the cruising ground lying between the Start and Fowey.

July 22nd. The “long-expected” come at last, namely, the admiral’s inspection.

There is a purely nautical proverb, or, at any rate, one which is so common amongst sailors, that it may be considered as such, which says “Live to-day live for ever;” one of those expressions which, somehow, everybody knows the meaning of, but which none seem to be able to render intelligible. Well, this idea is peculiarly applicable to admirals’ visits; for if one can manage to live through such an atmosphere of bustle and worry, such rushing and tearing, such anxiety of mind, and such alacrity of movement as follows in the train of the great man, then surely existence at any other time and under any other conditions is an easy matter.

It was with peculiar feelings, then, that we received the august Sir Thomas, over our gangway. Nor were these feelings modified by the knowledge that Admiral Symonds is a thorough old “salt,” a tar of the old school; and, as such, is, of course, au fait with the weak points in a ship’s cleanliness and manoeuvring. His inspection was, I believe, extremely satisfactory.

We hoped that with the departure of the admiral we should have been permitted to land earlier this evening, as a sort of reward for our late exertions, especially as we have not seen our homes and families by daylight for some considerable period. Imagine, then, our feelings when a signal was thrown out at Mount-Wise that we were to perform some evolution, which would consume all the remaining hours of light. But the little cherub on the royal truck, which, according to Dibdin, is perched at that commanding altitude, especially to look out that squalls don’t happen to Jack, came to console us in the at other times unwelcome shape of a deluge of rain. Thus we got ashore earlier, though, as a set-off against so much happiness, wetter men.

On July 26th orders came that we were to proceed to Portsmouth, to take in our armament of torpedoes, and in a few hours the Start was growing small astern as we took our way up channel. We were only a night at sea, but that a dirty one not rough, but foggy such as one usually encounters in this great commercial highway. Early on the following morning the Isle of Wight lay abeam, and the view from the sea was most lovely: the white cliffs of the island, packed in layers like slices of cake, presenting a learned page out of the book of nature to the curious. In passing Sandown Bay we caught a distant view of the operations for raising the “Eurydice.” Our thoughts naturally took a melancholy turn, for many of us had lost comrades some few, friends in that ill-fated ship. But I think one of the leading characteristics of the sailor is the ease with which he throws off melancholy at will. The fact is, he encounters danger so frequently, and in so many varied shapes and forms, that if he put on depressing thoughts every time he is brought face to face with it, then he would be for ever clothed in that garb.

With a pausing tribute to the dead, and many a silent prayer, perhaps for sailors can and do pray we steamed into Spithead, forgetting, in all probability, the Eurydice and all connected with her.

As our torpedoes were all ready for us, it was not long before they were on board and fitted in their places. Our ship was not originally intended to carry these murderous weapons, so it was necessary to pierce ports in her sides, two forward and two aft, that they may be discharged. The staff of the torpedo school brought with them twelve of these novel fighting machines, at a cost of about L300 each, though L500 is the price paid to Whitehead’s firm at Fiume; but as the English Government has the authority, with certain limitations, themselves to manufacture the torpedo, they cost England the former price.

After a short trial of the discharging gear outside the circular forts we shook hands with the land of smoked haddock and sour bread, and trimmed sails for the west, reaching the Sound by the following morning, when coaling lighters attached themselves to us before you could say Jack Robinson.

Work is again the order of the day; for coaling a large iron-clad over all means some exertion I can assure you. It is most unpleasant work, nevertheless it has to be done, so we set to work with a will. Dirty as the ship was, and dirty as we all were, from the copious showers of diamond dust falling everywhere, yet nothing could daunt our friends from paying us the usual dinner-hour visit.

It was a curious spectacle to witness that farewell visit, to see coal begrimed men coming up from below, reeking with sweat, to clasp the fair hand of a mother, to snatch a kiss from the soft cheek of a sister or sweetheart, or to feel the lingering embrace of a wife.

“Then the rough seamen’s hands they wring;
And some, o’erpowered with bursting feeling,
Their arms around them wildly fling,
While tears down many a cheek are stealing.”