Life in India/Across the Line
Across the Line
Our forty-second day at sea found us crossing the line. To most of our company this was a new era, as few had seen land or water south of the equator. We were not subjected, however, to the ceremonies formerly attendant on a first passage of the equatorial line at sea; we thus escaped the lathering with grease, and shaving with an iron hoop, the sousing in brine, and other penalties which, in old times, were inflicted upon “green horns,” to the amusement and delight of the "old salts," who were wont to enjoy a short season of license on such occasions.
This practice is passing into disuse, nor would it have been relished by our captain, who was himself making his first India voyage. Some new hand may have been told to stand, by to push the line under the bows; but beyond a joke or two, the event was as unmarked as the line itself.
We had by this time seen the usual sea sights, so important a variety in life to those who for months plough the endless succession of ocean billows without a change of scene or company. Among these were flying-fish in shoals; like glittering arrows darting from the water, they skim through the air for a hundred yards or so, and drop into the wave that meets them; their enemy, the dolphin, swift as lightning in the pursuit of his prey, arrested by our vessel, stops to play about the moving island, shows us his glittering form, and perhaps tempted by a rag dangling from a hook, falls a victim to his blind rapacity; and porpoises, round-bodied, black, and whale-like in form and nature, come bounding and leaping almost with the regularity of a battalion of cavalry in ranks of four or six, now curving so as just to show their backs, and now springing from the water into the air. These poor creatures, too, fall victims to the hand of man. Our captain twice harpooned a porpoise, and gave us the privilege of tasting fresh steaks at sea. The flesh is red, (for the porpoise is a red-blooded sea-animal rather than a fish,) and not unlike beef in appearance and in taste.
Quite often the stirring cry of “Sail ho!" called all hands on deck, and sent every eye glancing over the waters to catch a glimpse of the stranger. Nothing so breaks the solitude of the vast ocean, with its limitless plains of tossing water, as the sight of fellow-travellers upon its bosom. When the stranger barque bears down upon you, and the little birdlike thing, that in the distance was but a speck upon the horizon, swelling as it approaches to a cloud of canvas overhanging the narrow hull, lies side by side with your own sea home, you feel that you are not alone. The voice of the commander, as he hails you with his bluff "Ship ahoy! what ship is that?" and exchanges question and answer, seems like the voice of a friend or brother. This intercourse, however, usually lasts but for a few moments; and the two ships, bowing and curvetting as they rise and fall upon the waves, go each upon its own way, until, losing each other in the distance, each is once more alone upon the deep.
In the North Atlantic we had the usual alternations of winds, fair and foul, blowing from every quarter of the compass. Passing farther south we entered the wide belt of ocean over which the north-east trade wind blows. These almost unchanging winds, on both sides of the equator, known as “the trades,” are remarkable evidences of the goodness and wisdom of God. The beauty of this arrangement cannot but strike a thoughtful voyager most deeply. Without dwelling upon the fact that these and their partner winds are the great regulators of airs, clouds, and rains over the whole earth, we cannot but notice their great importance to commerce. Every seaman knows that for twelve hundred or fifteen hundred miles north of the line he may look for a fresh breeze from the north-east during the whole year; again, south of the equator he will have some two thousand miles of ocean in which a south-east wind always blows. Often for two or three weeks scarce a sail will be shifted. The balminess of the air, and the beauty of the fleecy clouds, make the trades a most delightful part of an East India voyage.
On either side of the equator, and between these two broad belts of easterly wind, lies the region of calms and squalls. It was through this region of light winds, squalls, and calms, that Columbus made his slow way to America, when he might (had he known this arrangement of the air-currents) have sailed down on the track of the trade wind. Returning, he committed an equal error by working his weary way to Europe against this steady north-east wind. In the equatorial region the atmosphere—impelled sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, and often almost without motion in the equilibrium of a calm, loaded with vapour, and heated by a torrid sun—oppresses both body and spirit. Drenching showers, gusts of wind, and waterspouts are frequent. The latter, in the distance, are interesting enough; but when too near, are viewed by the mariner with great dread. A whirlwind creating a vacuum in its centre, the water of the ocean rushes up to fill it, while the cloud above descends to meet the ascending column. It passes over the face of the ocean with a rotary motion, and at times crossing the track of a vessel, tears its sails and spars to pieces.
The squalls, or sudden gusts of wind and rain, though less romantic than the waterspout, are more useful, as they afford the voyager an opportunity to fill his empty water-casks. During a heavy shower, the lee scuppers, by which the water makes its escape, would be stopped till the rain was ankle-deep upon the deck; our fat second mate, then, coolly seating himself on the deck, with the water flowing around him, and washing the tar out of his blue jean pants, bailed it up with a bucket and handed it to the bare-footed men who passed it to the watercask. Although the first gush of the shower had been suffered to wash the deck and run off by the scuppers, yet, when our “fresh water” was served to us at the table, there was a flavour of salt, tar, and various other elements, that made it plainly a different thing from that which is known as fresh water on shore. In a few days its smell, colour, and taste became so odious, that it was unanimously banished from our cabin.
Our days and weeks were not passed in idleness. Sometimes the motion of the ship was so violent, that it was as much as we could do to hold on to the rail and watch the waves; but in ordinary weather we found a variety of occupations with which pleasantly and profitably to fill up our time. After our morning devotions and breakfast, we turned to our grammars to make a beginning in the languages in which we were to teach the Hindus. The afternoons were spent in reading, writing, singing, and walking; then came tea, evening prayers in our cabin, and a closing walk on deck.
Yet we had one great trial: our voyage went on; days not to be recalled were passing; we felt that we were fellow-travellers to eternity with all on board; but we were permitted to do nothing for the seamen. On Sunday morning one-half of their number—that is, the watch off duty—had the privilege of attending worship with us in our cabin, if they chose to do so. But we were forbidden to invite them to come, or to speak to them at any time, whether they were on duty or off duty. Nor were we permitted to have services on deck, as is customary in such voyages. Permission for only one of our number to organize a Bible class for them was refused by the captain, on the ground that it would produce insubordination.
As we had every reason to believe that, from the captain to the cook, not one of the ship's crew feared God, we could not but grieve that the door was thus shut against us. Yet we submitted to the authority of the commander of the vessel. One door he could not close against us, for “the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous; his ears are open to their cry." To him we could cry, and no man hinder us.