Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/45

Rh  of — every man will do his best; and the best will be very good indeed.

 

 From The Spectator.

was particularly pleasant to go to Portsmouth while all the world was at Epsom, and to visit the Arctic ships when visitors were not expected, and there was no crowd. The journey was not a little suggestive, — through the plains of gold and purple into which the buttercups and the clover divide the southeastern country just now, by the hedgerows rich with broom, and the commons decked with golden gorse; past paths where the forest trees are laden with such foliage as even in England is rarely seen; and gardens where the white and pink hawthorn linger, and the beautiful rose-coloured chestnuts are in full blow. No more complete contrast could be conceived than that between the scene which the explorers are leaving, and that which they are going to; a contrast which grows upon one's fancy, and brings back all the tales of Arctic adventure in which one has taken delight, from Mary Howitt's "Northern Seas," to Captain Markham's "Whaling Cruise in Baffin's Bay." Arrived at the dockyard, one's expectations are completely fulfilled; there is no crowd, no noise, no hurry, everybody looks leisurely, and the sun shines, not too strongly, on the harbour. There lie the Arctic ships, and one's first feeling is of disappointment. They are so small! It takes a little time to get over this, and some contemplation of the huge, ugly monsters by which the "Alert" and the "Discovery" are dwarfed, — great lumps which would be enough to take the poetry out of a poet, lying black, heavy, and sailless on the dark-green water. "Nasty, great, sprawlin' things!" says a young person with very pink cheeks and a bundle, who has lingered a moment to look round before being led on board the "Discovery" by a fine young fellow in a sailor's dress; and the description which she utters in a tone of contempt, as if she were alluding to cockroaches, is strikingly correct. There is a little comfort in being shown the "Bellerophon" — it, at least, is not new-fangled — and in perceiving that the "Valorous," lying at a little distance, with a good deal of stir on her decks, and a pleasant sound of cranks and ropes and chanting voices, is a graceful, ship-like ship. The "Discovery" is the nearest of the Arctic ships, and one goes on board her first, and finds oneself in a scene of extraordinary activity and apparent confusion, all the more interesting if one does not know anything practically about things maritime. Immediately, the notion that the ship is small goes off, to be replaced by an appreciation of its strength, its commodiousness, and the extraordinary ingenuity which is displayed in the employment of every inch of space, and the securing of every conceivable comfort to the officers and men. Looking up through the light rigging, one has one's attention directed to a kind of barrel, painted white, at the side of the mainmast, and near the top, and being told that it is "the crow's nest," has instant visions of the look-out among the ice-floes, and of the great whales captured by the crews of the "Discovery," before she was promoted from the service of commerce to that of science. The deck is heaped with ropes, chains, rough boxes, maritime odds and ends of every description, and to non-nautical eyes, even if everything were all right "below there," being ready to sail on Saturday seems an impossibility; but the expression of a doubt is met with the kindliest amusement, and an assurance that sailors can "tidy up" wonderfully when they set to with a will.

"Below," but very near the deck, are the engines, and remarkably like vast ornamental beer-casks they look, in their brass-bound polished casings, on perforated iron floors. The flues and pipes which are conducted from the engine-room into all the ship, the arrangements for warming, the cooking-apparatus, and the provision against danger of fire, are as perfect as ingenuity combined with simplicity can make them, and it is especially pointed out to visitors that everything of metal which must come in contact with the hand is covered with leather. The officer's cabins are marvels of convenience, and adornment too; the contrivances for stowing-away are pointed out with pride, while one takes a furtive peep at the book-shelves, and little supplementary book-crammed nooks in corners, with an awful sense of wh it it must be to have all one can possibly get to read for three years under one's eyes all at once. "Presents!" says a jolly voice close by; "we've had more presents than we can carry; there'll be a lot of 'em left behind. What should you say this was, 