51. CHAPTER LI.
After the first miserable weather we experienced at sea,
we had intervals of foul and fair, mostly the former, however,
attended with head winds; till at last, after a three
days' fog and rain, the sun rose cheerily one morning, and
showed us Cape Clear. Thank heaven, we were out of
the weather emphatically called “Channel weather,” and
the last we should see of the eastern hemisphere was now
in plain sight, and all the rest was broad ocean.
Land ho! was cried, as the dark purple headland grew
out of the north. At the cry, the Irish emigrants came
rushing up the hatchway, thinking America itself was at
hand.
“Where is it?” cried one of them, running out a little
way on the bowsprit. “Is that it?”
“Aye, it doesn't look much like ould Ireland, does it?”
said Jackson.
“Not a bit, honey:—and how long before we get there?
to-night?”
Nothing could exceed the disappointment and grief of the
emigrants, when they were at last informed, that the land
to the north was their own native island, which, after leaving
three or four weeks previous in a steamboat for Liverpool,
was now close to them again; and that, after newly voyaging
so many days from the Mersey, the Highlander was only
bringing them in view of the original home whence they
started.
They were the most simple people I had ever seen. They
seemed to have no adequate idea of distances; and to them,
America must have seemed as a place just over a river.
Every morning some of them came on deck, to see how
much nearer we were: and one old man would stand for
hours together, looking straight off from the bows, as if he
expected to see New York city every minute, when, perhaps,
we were yet two thousand miles distant, and steering, moreover,
against a head wind.
The only thing that ever diverted this poor old man from
his earnest search for land, was the occasional appearance of
porpoises under the bows; when he would cry out at the
top of his voice—“Look, look, ye divils! look at the great
pigs of the s'a!”
At last, the emigrants began to think, that the ship had
played them false; and that she was bound for the East
Indies, or some other remote place; and one night, Jackson
set a report going among them, that Riga purposed taking
them to Barbary, and selling them all for slaves; but though
some of the old women almost believed it, and a great weeping
ensued among the children, yet the men knew better than
to believe such a ridiculous tale.
Of all the emigrants, my Italian boy Carlo, seemed most
at his ease. He would lie all day in a dreamy mood, sunning
himself in the long boat, and gazing out on the sea. At
night, he would bring up his organ, and play for several
hours; much to the delight of his fellow voyagers, who
blessed him and his organ again and again; and paid him
for his music by furnishing him his meals. Sometimes, the
steward would come forward, when it happened to be very
much of a moonlight, with a message from the cabin, for
Carlo to repair to the quarter-deck, and entertain the gentlemen
and ladies.
There was a fiddler on board, as will presently be seen;
and sometimes, by urgent entreaties, he was induced to unite
his music with Carlo's, for the benefit of the cabin occupants;
but this was only twice or thrice: for this fiddler deemed
himself considerably elevated above the other steerage-passengers;
and did not much fancy the idea of fiddling to
strangers; and thus wear out his elbow, while persons,
entirely unknown to him, and in whose welfare he felt not
the slightest interest, were curveting about in famous high
spirits. So for the most part, the gentlemen and ladies were
fain to dance as well as they could to my little Italian's organ.
It was the most accommodating organ in the world; for
it could play any tune that was called for; Carlo pulling in
and out the ivory knobs at one side, and so manufacturing
melody at pleasure.
True, some censorious gentlemen cabin-passengers protested,
that such or such an air, was not precisely according
to Handel or Mozart; and some ladies, whom I overheard
talking about throwing their nosegays to Malibran at Covent
Garden, assured the attentive Captain Riga, that Carlo's
organ was a most wretched affair, and made a horrible din.
“Yes, ladies,” said the captain, bowing, “by your leave,
I think Carlo's organ must have lost its mother, for it squealls
like a pig running after its dam.”
Harry was incensed at these criticisms; and yet these
cabin-people were all ready enough to dance to poor Carlo's
music.
“Carlo”—said I, one night, as he was marching forward
from the quarter-deck, after one of these sea-quadrilles, which
took place during my watch on deck:—“Carlo”—said I,
“what do the gentlemen and ladies give you for playing?”
“Look!”—and he showed me three copper medals of
Britannia and her shield—three English pennies.
Now, whenever we discover a dislike in us, toward any
one, we should ever be a little suspicious of ourselves. It
may be, therefore, that the natural antipathy, with which
almost all seamen and steerage-passengers, regard the inmates
of the cabin, was one cause at least, of my not feeling very
charitably disposed toward them, myself.
Yes: that might have been; but nevertheless, I will let
nature have her own way for once; and here declare roundly,
that, however it was, I cherished a feeling toward these
cabin-passengers, akin to contempt. Not because they happened
to be cabin-passengers: not at all: but only because
they seemed the most finical, miserly, mean men and women,
that ever stepped over the Atlantic.
One of them was an old fellow in a robust looking coat,
with broad skirts; he had a nose like a bottle of port-wine;
and would stand for a whole hour, with his legs straddling
apart, and his hands deep down in his breeches pockets, as
if he had two mints at work there, coining guineas. He
was an abominable looking old fellow, with cold, fat, jellylike
eyes; and avarice, heartlessness, and sensuality stamped
all over him. He seemed all the time going through some
process of mental arithmetic; doing sums with dollars and
cents: his very mouth, wrinkled and drawn up at the
corners, looked like a purse. When he dies, his skull ought
to be turned into a savings' box, with the till-hole between
his teeth.
Another of the cabin inmates, was a middle-aged Londoner,
in a comical Cockney-cut coat, with a pair of semicircular
tails: so that he looked as if he were sitting in a swing.
He wore a spotted neckerchief; a short, little, fiery-red vest;
and striped pants, very thin in the calf, but very full about
the waist. There was nothing describable about him but
his dress; for he had such a meaningless face, I can not
remember it; though I have a vague impression, that it
looked at the time, as if its owner was laboring under the
mumps.
Then there were two or three buckish looking young
fellows, among the rest; who were all the time playing at
cards on the poop, under the lee of the spanker; or smoking
cigars on the taffrail; or sat quizzing the emigrant women
with opera-glasses, leveled through the windows of the upper
cabin. These sparks frequently called for the steward to
help them to brandy and water, and talked about going on
to Washington, to see Niagara Falls.
There was also an old gentleman, who had brought with
him three or four heavy files of the London Times, and
other papers; and he spent all his hours in reading them,
on the shady side of the deck, with one leg crossed over the
other; and without crossed legs, he never read at all.
That was indispensable to the proper understanding of what
he studied. He growled terribly, when disturbed by the
sailors, who now and then were obliged to move him to get
at the ropes.
As for the ladies, I have nothing to say concerning them;
for ladies are like creeds; if you can not speak well of them,
say nothing.
