Kitabı oku: «From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life», sayfa 16

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CHINA AND JAPAN

1867–1869

The Iroquois had been as nearly as possible nine months on her way from New York to Hong Kong. A ship of the same class, the Wachusett, which left the station as we reached it, had taken a year, following much the same route. Her first lieutenant, who during the recent Spanish War became familiarly known to the public as Jack Philip, told me that she was within easy distance of Hong Kong the day before the anniversary of leaving home. Her captain refused to get up steam; for, he urged, it would be such an interesting coincidence to arrive on the very date, month and day, that she sailed the year before. I fear that man would have had no scruple about contriving an opportunity.

As the anchor dropped, several Chinese boats clustered alongside, eager to obtain their share of the ship's custom. It is the habit in ships of war to allow one or more boatmen of a port the privilege of bringing off certain articles for private purchase; such as the various specialties of the place, and food not embraced in the ship's ration. From the number of consumers on board a vessel, even of moderate size, this business is profitable to the small traders who ply it, and who from time immemorial have been known as bumboatmen. A good name for fair dealing, and for never smuggling intoxicants, is invaluable to them; and when thus satisfactory they are passed on from ship to ship, through long years, by letters of recommendation from first lieutenants. Their dealings are chiefly with the crew, the officers' messes being provided by their stewards, who market on shore; but at times officers, too, will in this way buy something momentarily desired. I remember an amusing experience of a messmate of mine, who, being discontented with the regular breakfast set before him, got some eggs from the bumboat. Already on a growl, he was emphatic in directing that these should be cooked very soft, and great was his wrath when they came back hard as stones. Upon investigation it proved that they were already hard-boiled when bought. The cable was not yet secured when these applicants crowded to the gangway, brandishing their certificates, and seeking each to be first on deck. The captain, who had not left the bridge, leaned over the rail, watching the excited and shouting crowd scrambling one over another, and clambering from boat to boat, which were bobbing and chafing up and down, rubbing sides, and spattering the water that was squeezed and squirted between them. The scene was familiar to him, for he was an old China cruiser, only renewing his acquaintance. At length, turning to me, he commented, "There you have the regular China smell; you will find it wherever you go." And I did; but how describe it—and why should I?

At this time the Japanese had conceded two more treaty ports, in the Inland Sea—Osaka and Kobé; and as the formal opening was fixed for the beginning of the new year—1868—most of the squadron had already gone north. We therefore found in Hong Kong only a single vessel, the Monocacy, an iron double-ender; a class which had its beginning in the then recent War of Secession, and disappeared with it. Some six weeks before she had passed through a furious typhoon, running into the centre of it; or, more accurately, I fancy, having the centre pass over her. Perhaps it may not be a matter of knowledge to all readers that for these hurricanes, as for many other heavy gales, the term cyclone is exact; that the wind does actually blow round a circle, but one of so great circumference that at each several point it seems to follow a straight line. Vessels on opposite sides of the circle thus have the wind from opposite directions. In the centre there is usually a calm space, of diameter proportioned to that of the general disturbance. As the whole storm body has an onward movement, this centre, calm or gusty as to wind, but confused and tumultuous as to wave, progresses with it; and a vessel which is so unhappy as to be overtaken finds herself, after a period of helpless tossing by conflicting seas, again subjected to the full fury of the wind, but from the quarter opposite to that which has already tried her. Although at our arrival the Monocacy had been fully repaired, and was about to follow the other vessels, her officers naturally were still full of an adventure so exceptional to personal experience. She owed her safety mainly to the strength and rigidity of her iron hull. A wooden vessel of like construction would probably have gone to pieces; for the wooden double-enders had been run up in a hurry for a war emergency, and were often weak. As the capable commander of one of them said to me, they were "stuck together with spit." Battened down close, with the seas coming in deluges over both bows and both quarters at the same time, the Monocacy went through it like a tight-corked bottle, and came out, not all right, to be sure, but very much alive; so much so, indeed, that she was carried on the Navy Register for thirty years more. She never returned home, however, but remained on the China station, for which she was best suited by her particular qualities.

By the time the Iroquois, in turn, was ready to leave Hong Kong—November 26th—the northeast monsoon had made in full force, and dolorous were the prognostications to us by those who had had experience of butting against it in a northward passage. It is less severe than the "brave" west winds of our own North Atlantic; but to a small vessel like the Iroquois, with the machinery of the day, the monsoon, blowing at times a three-quarters gale, was not an adversary to be disregarded, for all the sunshiny, bluff heartiness with which it buffeted you, as a big boy at school breezily thrashes a smaller for his own good. To-day we have to stop and think, to realize the immense progress in size and power of steam-vessels since 1867. We forget facts, and judge doings of the past by standards of the present; an historical injustice in other realms than that of morals.

In our passage north, however, we escaped the predicted disagreeables by keeping close to the coast; for currents, whether of atmosphere or of water, for some reason slacken in force as they sweep along the land. I do not know why, unless it be the result of friction retarding their flow; the fact, however, remains. So, dodging the full brunt of the wind, we sneaked along inshore, having rarely more than a single-reef topsail breeze, and with little jar save the steady thud of the machinery. A constant view of the land was another advantage due to this mode of progression, and it was the more complete because we commonly anchored at night. Thus, as we slowly dragged north, a continuous panorama was unrolled before our eyes.

Another very entertaining feature was the flight of fishing-boats, which at each daybreak put out to sea, literally in flocks; so numerous were they. As I was every morning on deck at that hour, attending the weighing of the anchor, the sight became fixed upon my memory. The wind being on their beam, and so fresh, they came lurching along in merry mood, leaping livelily from wave to wave, dashing the water to either hand. Besides the poetry of motion, their peculiar shape, their hulls with the natural color of the wood,—because oiled, not painted,—their bamboo mat sails, which set so much flatter than our own canvas, were all picturesque, as well as striking by novelty. Most characteristic, and strangely diversified in effect, as they bowled saucily by, were the successive impressions produced by the custom of painting an eye on each side of the bow. An alleged proverb is in pigeon English: "No have eye, how can see? no can see, how can sail?" When heading towards you, they really convey to an imagination of ordinary quickness the semblance of some unknown sea monster, full of life and purpose. Now you see a fellow charging along, having the vicious look of a horse with his ears back. Anon comes another, the quiet gaze of which suggests some meditative fish, lazily gliding, enjoying a siesta, with his belly full of good dinner. Yet a third has a hungry air, as though his meal was yet to seek, and in passing turns on you a voracious side glance, measuring your availability as a morsel, should nothing better offer. The boat life of China, indeed, is a study by itself. In very many cases in the ports and rivers, the family is born, bred, fed, and lives in the boat. In moving her, the man and his wife and two of the elder children will handle the oars; while a little one, sometimes hardly more than an infant, will take the helm, to which his tiny strength and cunning skill are sufficient. Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived in the bottom. Those sedate Chinese children, with their tiny pigtails and their old faces, but who at times assert their common humanity by a wholesome cry; how funny two of them looked, lying in the street fighting, fury in each face, teeth set and showing, nostrils distended with rage, and a hand of each gripping fast the other's pigtail, which he seemed to be trying to drag out by the roots; at the moment not "Celestials," unless after the pattern of Virgil's Juno.

The habit of whole families living together in a boat, though sufficiently known to me, was on one occasion realized in a manner at once mortifying and ludicrous. The eagerness for trade among the bumboatmen, actual and expectant, sometimes becomes a nuisance; in their efforts to be first they form a mob quite beyond the control of the ship, the gangways and channels of which they none the less surround and grab, deaf to all remonstrance by words, however forcible. This is particularly the case the first day of arrival, before the privilege has been determined. In one such instance my patience gave way; the din alongside was indescribable, the confusion worse confounded, and they could not be moved. There was working at the moment one of those small movable hand-pumps significantly named "Handy Billy," and I told the nozzle-man to turn the stream on the crowd. Of course, nothing could please a seaman more; it was done with a will, and the full force of impact struck between the shoulders of a portly individual standing up, back towards the ship. A prompt upset revealed that it was a middle-aged woman, a fact which the pump-man had not taken in, owing to the misleading similarity of dress between the two sexes. I was disconcerted and ashamed, but the remedy was for the moment complete; the boats scattered as if dynamite had burst among them. The mere showing of the nozzle was thereafter enough.

The Iroquois was about a week in the monsoon, a day or so having been expended in running into Fuchau for coal. She certainly seemed to have lost the speed credited to her in former cruises; the cause for which was plausibly thought to be the decreased rigidity of her hull, owing to the wear and tear of service. In the days of sailing-ships there was a common professional belief that lessened stiffness of frame tended to speed; and a chased vessel sometimes resorted to sawing her beams and loosening her fastenings to increase the desired play. But, however this may have been, the thrust of the screw tells best when none of its effect is lost in a structural yielding of the ship's body; when this responds as a solid whole to the forward impulse. In this respect the Iroquois was already out of date, though otherwise serviceable.

On the eleventh day, December 7th, we reached Nagasaki, whence we sailed again about the middle of the month for Hiogo, or Kobé, where the squadrons of the various nations were to assemble for the formal opening. With abundant time before us, we passed in leisurely fashion through the Inland Sea, at the eastern end of which lay the newly opened ports. Anchoring each night, we missed no part of the scenery, with its alternating breadths and narrows, its lofty slopes, terraced here and wooded there, the occasional smiling lowlands, the varied and vivid greens, contrasting with the neutral tints of the Japanese dwellings; all which combine to the general effect of that singular and entrancing sheet of water. The Japanese junks added their contribution to the novelty with their single huge bellying sail, adapted apparently only to sailing with a free wind, the fairer the better.

Hiogo and Kobé, as I understood, are separate names of two continuous villages; Kobé, the more eastern, being the destined port of entry. They are separated by a watercourse, broad but not deep, often dry, the which is to memory dear; for following along it one day, and so up the hills, I struck at length, well within the outer range, an exquisite Japanese valley, profound, semicircular, and terraced, dosed at either end by a passage so narrow that it might well be called a defile. The suddenness with which it burst upon me, like the South Sea upon Balboa, the feeling of remoteness inspired by its isolation, and its own intrinsic beauty, struck home so forcible a prepossession that it remained a favorite resort, to which I guided several others; for it must be borne in mind that up to our coming the hill tracks of Kobé knew not the feet of foreigners, and there was still such a thing as first discovery. Some time afterwards, when I had long returned home, a naval officer told me that the place was known to him and others as Mahan's Valley; but I have never heard it has been so entered on the maps. Shall I describe it? Certainly not. When description is tried, one soon realizes that the general sameness of details is so great as quite to defy convincing presentation, in words, of the particular combination which constitutes any one bit of scenery. Scenery in this resembles a collection of Chinese puzzles, where a few elementary pieces, through their varied assemblings, yield most diverging forms. Given a river, some mountains, a few clumps of trees, a little sloping field under cultivation, an expanse of marsh—in Japan the universal terrace—and with them many picturesque effects can be produced; but description, mental realization, being a matter of analysis and synthesis, is a process which each man performs for himself. The writer does his part, and thinks he has done well. Could he see the picture which his words call up in the mind of another, the particular Chinese figure put together out of the author's data, he might be less satisfied. And should the reader rashly become the visitor, he will have to meet Wordsworth's disappointment. "And is this—Yarrow? this the scene?" "Although 'tis fair, 'twill be another Yarrow." Should any reader of mine go hereafter to Kobé, and so wish, let him see for himself; he shall go with no preconceptions from me. If the march of improvement has changed that valley, Japan deserves to be beaten in her next war.

As I recall attending a Christmas service on board the British flag-ship Rodney at Kobé, we must have anchored there a few days before that fixed for the formal opening; but, unless my memory much deceive me, visiting the shore after the usual fashion was permitted without awaiting the New Year ceremony. At this time Kobé and Hiogo were in high festival; and that, combined with the fact that the inhabitants had as yet seen few foreigners, gave unusual animation to the conditions. We were followed by curious crowds, to whom we were newer even than they to us; for the latest comers among us had seen Nagasaki, but strangers from other lands had been rare to these villagers. In explanation of the rejoicings, it was told us that slips of paper, with the names of Japanese deities written on them, had recently fallen in the streets, supposed by the people to come from the skies; and that different men had found in their houses pieces of gold, also bearing the name of some divinity. These tokens were assumed to indicate great good luck about to light upon those places or houses. By an easy association of ideas, the approaching opening of the port might seem to have some connection with the expected benefits, and inclines one to suspect human instrumentality in creating impressions which might counteract the long-nurtured jealousy of foreign intrusion. Whatever the truth, the external rollicking celebrations were as apparent as was the general smiling courtesy so noticeable in the Japanese, and which in this case was common to both the throng in ordinary dress and the masqueraders. Men and women, young and old, in gay, fantastic costumes, faces so heavily painted as to have the effect of masks, were running about in groups, sometimes as many as forty or fifty together, dancing and mumming. They addressed us frequently with a phrase, the frequent repetition of which impressed it upon our ears, but, in our ignorance of the language, not upon our understandings. At times, if one laughed, liberties were taken. These the customs of the occasion probably justified, as in the carnivals of other peoples, which this somewhat resembled; but there was no general concourse, as in the Corso at Rome, which I afterwards saw—merely numerous detachments moving with no apparent relation to one another. Once only a companion and myself met several married women, known as such by their blackened teeth, who bore long poles with feathers at one end, much like dusters, with which they tapped us on the head. These seemed quite beside themselves with excitement, but all in the best of humor.

Viewed from the distance, the general effect was very pretty, like a stage scene. The long main street, forming part of the continuous imperial highway known as the Tokaido, was jammed with people; the sober, neutral tints of the majority in customary dress lighted up, here and there, by the brilliant, diversified colors of the performers, as showy uniforms do an assembly of civilians. The weather, too, was for the most part in keeping. The monsoon does not reach so far north, yet the days were like it; usually sunny, and the air exhilarating, with frequent frost at dawn, but towards noon genial. Such we found the prevalent character of the winter in that part of Japan, though with occasional spells of rain and high winds, amounting to gales of two or three days' duration.

Unhappily, these cheerful beginnings were the precursors of some very sad events; indeed, tragedies. A week after the New Year ceremonies at Kobé, the American squadron moved over some twelve miles to Osaka, the other opened port, at which our minister then was. Unlike Kobé, where the water permits vessels to lie close to the beach, Osaka is up a river, at the mouth of which is a bar; and, owing to the shoalness of the adjacent sea, the anchorage is a mile or two out. From it the town cannot be seen. The morning after our arrival, a Thursday, it came on to blow very hard from the westward, dead on shore, raising a big sea which prevented boats crossing the bar. The gale continued over Friday, the wind moderating by the following daylight. The swell requires more time to subside; but it was now Saturday, the next day would be Sunday, and the admiral, I think, was a religious man, unwilling to infringe upon the observance of the day, for himself or for the men. His service on the station was up, and, indeed, his time for retirement, at sixty-two, had arrived; there remained for him only to go home, and for this he was anxious to get south. Altogether, he decided to wait no longer, and ordered his barge manned. Danger from the attempt was apprehended on board the flag-ship by some, but the admiral was not one of those who encourage suggestions. Her boatswain had once cruised in whalers, which carry to perfection the art of managing boats in a heavy sea, and of steering with an oar, the safest precaution if a bar must be crossed; and he hung round, in evidence, hoping that he might be ordered to steer her, but she shoved off as for an ordinary trip. The mishap which followed, however, was not that most feared. Just before she entered the breakers, the flag-lieutenant, conscious of the risk, was reported to have said to the admiral, "If you intend to go in before the sea, as we are now running, we had better take off our swords;" and he himself did so, anticipating an accident. As she swept along, her bow struck bottom. Her way being thus stopped for an instant, the sea threw her stern round; she came broadside to and upset. Of the fifteen persons hurled thus into the wintry waves, only three escaped with their lives. Both the officers perished.

The gale continued to abate, and the bodies being all soon recovered, the squadron returned to Kobé to bury its dead. The funeral ceremonies were unusually impressive in themselves, as well as because of the sorrowful catastrophe which so mournfully signalized the entry of the foreigner into his new privilege. The day was fair and cloudless, the water perfectly smooth; neither rain nor wave marred the naval display, as they frequently do. Thirty-two boats, American and British, many of them very large, took part in the procession from the ships to the beach. The ensigns of all the war-vessels in port, American and other, were at half-mast, as was the admiral's square blue flag at the mizzen, which is never lowered while he remains on duty on board. As the movement began, a first gun was fired from the Hartford, which continued at minute intervals until she had completed thirteen, a rear-admiral's salute. When she had finished, the Shenandoah took up the tale, followed in turn by the Oneida and Iroquois, the mournful cadence thus covering almost the whole period up to the customary volleys over the graves. As saluting was the first lieutenant's business, I had remained on board to attend to it; and consequently, from our closeness to the land, had a more comprehensive view of the pageant than was possible to a participant. Our ships were nearly stripped of their crews; the rank of the admiral and the number of the sufferers, as well as the tragic character of the incident, demanding the utmost marks of reverent observance. As the march was taken up on shore, the British seamen in blue uniforms in the left column, the American in white in the right, to the number of several hundred each, presented a striking appearance; but more imposing and appealing, the central feature and solemn exponent of the occasion, was the long line of twelve coffins, skirting the sandy beach against a background of trees, borne in single file on men's shoulders in ancient fashion, each covered with the national colors. The tokens of mourning, so far as ships' ensigns were concerned, continued till sunset, when the ceremonial procedure was closed by a simple form, impressive in its significance and appropriateness. Following the motions of the American flag-ship, the chief mourner, the flags of all the vessels, as by one impulse, were rounded up to the peaks, as in the activities of every-day life; that of the dead admiral being at the same time mast-headed to its usual place. By this mute gesture, vessels and crews stood at attention, as at a review, for their last tribute to the departed. The Hartford then fired a farewell rear-admiral's salute, at the thirteenth and final gun of which his flag came down inch by inch, in measured dignity, to be raised no more; all others descending with it in silent haulage.

Admiral Henry Bell, who thus sadly ended his career when on the verge of an honored retirement, was in a way an old acquaintance of mine. It was he who had refused me a transfer to the Monongahela during the war; and he and my father, having been comrades when cadets at the Military Academy in the early twenties of the last century, had retained a certain interest in each other, shown by mutual inquiries through me. Bell had begun life in the army, subsequently quitting it for the navy for reasons which I do not know. He had the rigidity and precision of a soldier's carriage, to a degree unusual to a naval officer of his period. This may have been due partly to early training, but still more, I think, in his case, was an outcome and evidence of personal character; for, though kindly and just, he was essentially a martinet. He had been further presented to me, colloquially, by my old friend the boatswain of the Congress, some of whose shrewd comments I have before quoted, and who had sailed with him as a captain. "Oh! what a proud man he was!" he would say. "He would walk up and down the poop, looking down on all around, thus"—and the boatswain would compress his lips, throw back his shoulders, and inflate his chest; the walk he could not imitate because he had a stiff knee. Bell's pride, however it may have seemed, was rather professional than personal. He was thorough and exact, with high standards and too little give. An officer entirely respectable and respected, though not brilliant.

Upon the funeral of our wrecked seamen followed a dispersion of the squadron. The Hartford and Shenandoah, both bound home, departed, leaving the Oneida and Iroquois to "hold the fort." Conditions soon became such that it seemed probable we might have to carry out that precept somewhat literally. This was the period of the overthrow of the Tycoon's power by the revolt of the great nobles, among whom the most conspicuous in leadership were Chiosiu and Satsuma; names then as much in our mouths as those of Grant, Sherman, and Lee had been three years before. Hostilities were active in the neighborhood of Osaka and Kobé, the Tycoon being steadily worsted. So far as I give any account, depending upon some old letters of that date, it will be understood to present, not sifted historical truth, but the current stories of the day, which to me have always seemed to possess a real value of their own, irrespective of their exactness. For example, the reports repeated by Nelson at Leghorn of the happenings during Bonaparte's campaign of 1796 in upper Italy, though often inaccurate, represent correctly an important element of a situation. Misapprehension, when it exists, is a factor in any circumstances, sometimes of powerful influence. It is part of the data governing the men of the time.

While a certain number of foreigners, availing themselves of the treaty, were settling for business in Kobé, a large proportion had gone to Osaka, a more important commercial centre, of several hundred thousand inhabitants. Its superior political consideration at the moment was evidenced by the diplomats establishing themselves there, our own minister among them. The defeat of the Tycoon's forces in the field led to their abandoning the place, carrying off also the guards of the legations; a kind of protection absolutely required in those days, when the resentment against foreign intrusion was still very strong, especially among the warrior class. It was, after all, only fourteen years since Perry had extorted a treaty from a none too willing government. The fleeing Tycoon wished to get away from Osaka by a vessel belonging to him; but in the event of her not being off the bar—as proved to be the case—a party of two-sworded men, of whom he was rumored to be one, brought a letter from our minister asking any American vessel present to give them momentary shelter. It is customary for refugees purely political to be thus received by ships of war, which afford the protection their nation grants to such persons who reach its home territory; of which the ships are a privileged extension.

The minister's note spoke of the bearers simply as officers of the very highest rank. About three in the morning they came alongside of the Iroquois, their boatmen making a tremendous racket, awaking everybody, the captain getting up to receive them. When I came on deck before breakfast the poor fellows presented a moving picture of human misery, and certainly were under a heavy accumulation of misfortunes: a lost battle, and probably a lost cause; flying for life, and now on an element totally new; surrounded by those who could not speak their language; hungry, cold, wet, and shivering—a combination of major and minor evils under which who would not be depressed? At half-past seven they left us, after a brief stay of four hours; and there was much trouble in getting so many unpractised landsmen into the boats, which were rolling and thumping alongside in the most thoughtless manner, there being considerable sea. I do not remember whether the ladders were shipped, or whether they had to descend by the cleats; but either presented difficulties to a man clad in the loose Japanese garb of the day, having withal two swords, one very long, and a revolver. What with encumbrances and awkwardness, our seamen had to help them down like children. Poor old General Scott shuddering in a Key West norther, and these unhappy samurai, remain coupled in my mind; pendant pictures of valor in physical extremes, like Cæsar in the Tiber. For were not our shaking morning visitors of the same blood, the same tradition, and only a generation in time removed from, the soldiers and seamen of the late war? whose "fitness to win," to use Mr. Jane's phrase, was then established.

Between the departure of the Tycoon's forces and the arrival of the insurgent daimios, the native mob took possession of Osaka, becoming insolent and aggressive; insomuch that a party of French seamen, being stoned, turned and fired, killing several. The disposition and purposes of the daimios being uncertain, the diplomatic bodies thought best to remove to Kobé, a step which caused the exodus of all the new foreign population. Chiosiu and Satsuma, the leaders in what was still a rebellion, had not yet arrived, nor was there any assurance felt as to their attitude towards the foreign question. The narrow quarters of the Iroquois were crowded with refugees and fugitive samurai; while from our anchorage huge columns of smoke were seen rising from the city, which rumor, of course, magnified into a total destruction. Afterwards we were told that the Tycoon had burned Satsuma's palace in the place, in retaliation for which the enemy on entry had burned his. The Japanese in their haste left behind them their wounded, and one of the Iroquois' officers brought off a story of the Italian minister, who, indignant at this desertion, went up to a Japanese official, shouting excitedly, "I will have you to understand it is not the custom in Europe thus to abandon our wounded." This he said in English, apparently thinking that a Japanese would be more likely to understand it than Italian.