human
It's surprising, miss, what funny mistakes them who never leave the land make about seafaring concerns; but then, what can you expect of them? they know no better, he added, in a tone showing the deep commiseration he felt for the ignorance of landsmen.
gpt
To say that they don't know the stem from the stern, isn't to say anything. They know nothing about a ship, how she's built, how she sails, or what she's like. The last voyage I made I had a passenger on board who was a cleverish sort of gentleman, too, and for talking politics he'd go on for an hour; yet he wanted to know why I couldn't bring the ship to an anchor right out in the Bay of Biscay; and one night, when it was blowing a stiffish gale, with a heavy sea running, he roused me out of my sleep to ask me to send a better hand to the helm; one who knew how to keep the craft steady, or else to run into some harbour till the morning. He never could get it out of his head that he was not in the Thames. Now, miss, I see that you are not one of those sort of people, and that you will soon know all about a ship, though you may not just yet be able to act the captain. To-morrow I'll show you how to shoot the sun, as we tell greenhorns we are doing, when we take an observation with the quadrant. It's a very pretty instrument, and you will be pleased to know how to use it.
human
I shall like very much to learn all you can teach me, Captain Bowse, answered Ada, making a great effort to rouse herself from the feeling of sadness which oppressed her.
gpt
I wonder how mariners managed to traverse, as they did, the most distant seas, before these instruments were invented.
human
They used to trust more to the sun and stars, and to their lead reckoning, than they do now, I suppose, miss, answered the master.
gpt
Even now, there's many a man in charge of a vessel who never takes more than a meridional observation, if even that; and having found his latitude, runs down the longitude by dead reckoning. Some even go about to many distant parts entirely by rule of guess, and it is extraordinary how often they hit their point. Now and then, to be sure, they find themselves two or three hundred miles out of their course, and sometimes they get the ship cast away. I have, too, met vessels out in the Atlantic which had entirely lost their reckoning, and had not the slightest notion where they were. Once, I remember, when I belonged to the _Harkaway_ frigate, coming home from the Brazils, we sighted a Spanish man-of-war corvette. When we got up to her we hove to, and an officer came on board who could speak a little English; and you would scarcely believe it, but the first thing he did was to ask us for the latitude and longitude; and he confessed that the only instruments they had on board were out of repair, and, for what I know, the only man who knew how to use them was ill. Our captain then sent an officer on board the corvette, and a pretty condition she was in for a man-of-war. They had a governor of some place as a passenger, and his wife and family, and two or three other ladies and their families; and there they were all lying about the decks in a state of despair, thinking they were never to see land again. They had been a whole month tossing about in every direction, and not knowing how to find the way home. The decks were as dirty as if they had not been holystoned or swept all that time; not a sail was properly set, not a rope flemished down. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I could not have believed such a thing possible. Our appearance raised their spirits a little, and they began putting themselves to rights as soon as they had made sail on their course. They kept company with us till we got into the latitude of Cadiz, for their craft sailed very well, for all that they did not know how to handle her, and I believe that they managed to get into port in safety at last.
human
I am surprised at what you tell me, observed Miss Garden,
gpt
I should have thought the Spaniards could not have so totally forgotten their ancient naval renown as to allow such dreadful ignorance to exist.
human
The men are active, intelligent fellows enough, and the officers in the merchant service are, from what I have seen, very good seamen; but since the war, their navy has been much neglected, and men were made officers who did not know the stem from the stern of the ship, just because they happened to be some poor dependent of one of their nobles, or the son of a valet out of place. Things are mending a little now with them, I hear.
gpt
I wonder any but such beggarly fellows as you speak of can be induced to go into the navy at all, said the colonel, who had been listening to the master's story, and was far from pleased at the interest Ada took in what he said.
human
For my part, I would as soon be a shoe-black; but you seem determined to give my niece a dose of the sea.
gpt
Oh, yes, sir! answered Bowse, perfectly indifferent to the colonel's ill-temper;
human
I hope we shall make the young lady a first-rate sailor before long.
gpt
I hope you will do no such thing, Mr Bowse; she thinks a great deal too much about it already,
human
Indeed I do not, uncle, replied Ada, as he came back, in a half-playful tone, calculated to disarm his anger.
gpt
You must acknowledge that the scene before us is very beautiful and enjoyable. Look at that blue and joyous sea, how the waves leap and curl as if in sport, their crests just fringed with sparkling bubbles of snow-white foam, which, in the freshness of their new-born existence, seem inclined to take wing into the air--then, what can be more bright and clear than the expanse of sky above us, or more pure than the breeze which wafts us along. Look, too, at the blue, misty hills of our dear Malta, just rising from the water. What mere mole-hills those wild rocks now seem. And then that glorious mass of glowing fire which spreads far and wide round the sun as he sinks into that clear outline of sea; and distant though it seems, sends its reflection across the waves even up to the very ship itself. Ah! if one could but secure that orange tinge, one might gaze at it unwearied all day long. See, also, the dark, fantastically-shaped spots on the ocean as the sails of the distant vessels appear between us and the sun, like evil spirits gliding about the ocean to cause shipwrecks and disaster; while again, on the opposite quarter, the canvas appears of snowy whiteness, just catching the last rays of the light-giving orb of day, and we would fain believe them benign beings hovering over the ocean, to protect us poor mortals from the malign influences of their antagonists; while our proud ship glides majestically along in solitary grandeur, casting indignantly aside the waves which it seems to rule, like some mighty monarch galloping over the broad domains which own him as their lord. Come, uncle, can you deny the correctness of my description? And I am sure Captain Bowse will agree with me.