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Redburn. His First Voyage

H >> Herman Melville >> Redburn. His First Voyage




Now, as I lingered about the railing of the statuary, on the Sunday I
have mentioned, I noticed several persons going in and out of an
apartment, opening from the basement under the colonnade; and,
advancing, I perceived that this was a news-room, full of files of
papers. My love of literature prompted me to open the door and step in;
but a glance at my soiled shooting-jacket prompted a dignified looking
personage to step up and shut the door in my face. I deliberated a
minute what I should do to him; and at last resolutely determined to let
him alone, and pass on; which I did; going down Castle-street (so called
from a castle which once stood there, said my guide-book), and turning
down into Lord.

Arrived at the foot of the latter street, I in vain looked round for the
hotel. How serious a disappointment was this may well be imagined, when
it is considered that I was all eagerness to behold the very house at
which my father stopped; where he slept and dined, smoked his cigar,
opened his letters, and read the papers. I inquired of some gentlemen
and ladies where the missing hotel was; but they only stared and passed
on; until I met a mechanic, apparently, who very civilly stopped to hear
my questions and give me an answer.

"Riddough's Hotel?" said he, "upon my word, I think I have heard of such
a place; let me see--yes, yes--that was the hotel where my father broke
his arm, helping to pull down the walls. My lad, you surely can't be
inquiring for Riddough's Hotel! What do you want to find there?"

"Oh! nothing," I replied, "I am much obliged for your information"--and
away I walked.

Then, indeed, a new light broke in upon me concerning my guide-book; and
all my previous dim suspicions were almost confirmed. It was nearly half
a century behind the age! and no more fit to guide me about the town,
than the map of Pompeii.

It was a sad, a solemn, and a most melancholy thought. The book on which
I had so much relied; the book in the old morocco cover; the book with
the cocked-hat corners; the book full of fine old family associations;
the book with seventeen plates, executed in the highest style of art;
this precious book was next to useless. Yes, the thing that had guided
the father, could not guide the son. And I sat down on a shop step, and
gave loose to meditation.

Here, now, oh, Wellingborough, thought I, learn a lesson, and never
forget it. This world, my boy, is a moving world; its Riddough's Hotels
are forever being pulled down; it never stands still; and its sands are
forever shifting. This very harbor of Liverpool is gradually filling up,
they say; and who knows what your son (if you ever have one) may behold,
when he comes to visit Liverpool, as long after you as you come after
his grandfather. And, Wellingborough, as your father's guidebook is no
guide for you, neither would yours (could you afford to buy a modern one
to-day) be a true guide to those who come after you. Guide-books,
Wellingborough, are the least reliable books in all literature; and
nearly all literature, in one sense, is made up of guide-books. Old ones
tell us the ways our fathers went, through the thoroughfares and courts
of old; but how few of those former places can their posterity trace,
amid avenues of modern erections; to how few is the old guide-book now a
clew! Every age makes its own guidebooks, and the old ones are used for
waste paper. But there is one Holy Guide-Book, Wellingborough, that will
never lead you astray, if you but follow it aright; and some noble
monuments that remain, though the pyramids crumble.

But though I rose from the door-step a sadder and a wiser boy, and
though my guide-book had been stripped of its reputation for
infallibility, I did not treat with contumely or disdain, those sacred
pages which had once been a beacon to my sire.

No.--Poor old guide-book, thought I, tenderly stroking its back, and
smoothing the dog-ears with reverence; I will not use you with despite,
old Morocco! and you will yet prove a trusty conductor through many old
streets in the old parts of this town; even if you are at fault, now and
then, concerning a Riddough's Hotel, or some other forgotten thing of
the past. As I fondly glanced over the leaves, like one who loves more
than he chides, my eye lighted upon a passage concerning "The Old Dock,"
which much aroused my curiosity. I determined to see the place without
delay: and walking on, in what I presumed to be the right direction, at
last found myself before a spacious and splendid pile of sculptured
brown stone; and entering the porch, perceived from incontrovertible
tokens that it must be the Custom-house. After admiring it awhile, I
took out my guide-book again; and what was my amazement at discovering
that, according to its authority, I was entirely mistaken with regard to
this Custom-house; for precisely where I stood, "The Old Dock" must be
standing, and reading on concerning it, I met with this very apposite
passage:--"The first idea that strikes the stranger in coming to this
dock, is the singularity of so great a number of ships afloat in the
very heart of the town, without discovering any connection with the
sea."

Here, now, was a poser! Old Morocco confessed that there was a good deal
of "singularity" about the thing; nor did he pretend to deny that it
was, without question, amazing, that this fabulous dock should seem to
have no connection with the sea! However, the same author went on to
say, that the "astonished stranger must suspend his wonder for awhile,
and turn to the left." But, right or left, no place answering to the
description was to be seen.

This was too confounding altogether, and not to be easily accounted for,
even by making ordinary allowances for the growth and general
improvement of the town in the course of years. So, guide-book in hand,
I accosted a policeman standing by, and begged him to tell me whether he
was acquainted with any place in that neighborhood called the "Old
Dock." The man looked at me wonderingly at first, and then seeing I was
apparently sane, and quite civil into the bargain, he whipped his
well-polished boot with his rattan, pulled up his silver-laced
coat-collar, and initiated me into a knowledge of the following facts.

It seems that in this place originally stood the "pool," from which the
town borrows a part of its name, and which originally wound round the
greater part of the old settlements; that this pool was made into the
"Old Dock," for the benefit of the shipping; but that, years ago, it had
been filled up, and furnished the site for the Custom-house before me.

I now eyed the spot with a feeling somewhat akin to the Eastern traveler
standing on the brink of the Dead Sea. For here the doom of Gomorrah
seemed reversed, and a lake had been converted into substantial stone
and mortar.

Well, well, Wellingborough, thought I, you had better put the book into
your pocket, and carry it home to the Society of Antiquaries; it is
several thousand leagues and odd furlongs behind the march of
improvement. Smell its old morocco binding, Wellingborough; does it not
smell somewhat mummy-ish? Does it not remind you of Cheops and the
Catacombs? I tell you it was written before the lost books of Livy, and
is cousin-german to that irrecoverably departed volume, entitled, "The
Wars of the Lord" quoted by Moses in the Pentateuch. Put it up,
Wellingborough, put it up, my dear friend; and hereafter follow your
nose throughout Liverpool; it will stick to you through thick and thin:
and be your ship's mainmast and St. George's spire your landmarks.

No!--And again I rubbed its back softly, and gently adjusted a loose
leaf: No, no, I'll not give you up yet. Forth, old Morocco! and lead me
in sight of tie venerable Abbey of Birkenhead; and let these eager eyes
behold the mansion once occupied by the old earls of Derby!

For the book discoursed of both places, and told how the Abbey was on
the Cheshire shore, full in view from a point on the Lancashire side,
covered over with ivy, and brilliant with moss! And how the house of the
noble Derby's was now a common jail of the town; and how that
circumstance was full of suggestions, and pregnant with wisdom!

But, alas! I never saw the Abbey; at least none was in sight from the
water: and as for the house of the earls, I never saw that.

Ah me, and ten times alas! am I to visit old England in vain? in the
land of Thomas-a-Becket and stout John of Gaunt, not to catch the least
glimpse of priory or castle? Is there nothing in all the British empire
but these smoky ranges of old shops and warehouses? is Liverpool but a
brick-kiln? Why, no buildings here look so ancient as the old
gable-pointed mansion of my maternal grandfather at home, whose bricks
were brought from Holland long before the revolutionary war! Tis a
deceit--a gull--a sham--a hoax! This boasted England is no older than the
State of New York: if it is, show me the proofs--point out the vouchers.
Where's the tower of Julius Caesar? Where's the Roman wall? Show me
Stonehenge!

But, Wellingborough, I remonstrated with myself, you are only in
Liverpool; the old monuments lie to the north, south, east, and west of
you; you are but a sailor-boy, and you can not expect to be a great
tourist, and visit the antiquities, in that preposterous shooting-jacket
of yours. Indeed, you can not, my boy.

True, true--that's it. I am not the traveler my father was. I am only a
common-carrier across the Atlantic.

After a weary day's walk, I at last arrived at the sign of the Baltimore
Clipper to supper; and Handsome Mary poured me out a brimmer of tea, in
which, for the time, I drowned all my melancholy.




XXXII. THE DOCKS


For more than six weeks, the ship Highlander lay in Prince's Dock; and
during that time, besides making observations upon things immediately
around me, I made sundry excursions to the neighboring docks, for I
never tired of admiring them.

Previous to this, having only seen the miserable wooden wharves, and
slip-shod, shambling piers of New York, the sight of these mighty docks
filled my young mind with wonder and delight. In New York, to be sure, I
could not but be struck with the long line of shipping, and tangled
thicket of masts along the East River; yet, my admiration had been much
abated by those irregular, unsightly wharves, which, I am sure, are a
reproach and disgrace to the city that tolerates them.

Whereas, in Liverpool, I beheld long China walls of masonry; vast piers
of stone; and a succession of granite-rimmed docks, completely inclosed,
and many of them communicating, which almost recalled to mind the great
American chain of lakes: Ontario, Erie, St. Clair, Huron, Michigan, and
Superior. The extent and solidity of these structures, seemed equal to
what I had read of the old Pyramids of Egypt.

Liverpool may justly claim to have originated the model of the "Wet
Dock," so called, of the present day; and every thing that is connected
with its design, construction, regulation, and improvement. Even London
was induced to copy after Liverpool, and Havre followed her example. In
magnitude, cost, and durability, the docks of Liverpool, even at the
present day surpass all others in the world.

The first dock built by the town was the "Old Dock," alluded to in my
Sunday stroll with my guide-book. This was erected in 1710, since which
period has gradually arisen that long line of dock-masonry, now flanking
the Liverpool side of the Mersey.

For miles you may walk along that river-side, passing dock after dock,
like a chain of immense fortresses:--Prince's, George's, Salt-House,
Clarence, Brunswick, Trafalgar, King's, Queen's, and many more.

In a spirit of patriotic gratitude to those naval heroes, who by their
valor did so much to protect the commerce of Britain, in which Liverpool
held so large a stake; the town, long since, bestowed upon its more
modern streets, certain illustrious names, that Broadway might be proud
of:--Duncan, Nelson, Rodney, St. Vincent, Nile.

But it is a pity, I think, that they had not bestowed these noble names
upon their noble docks; so that they might have been as a rank and file
of most fit monuments to perpetuate the names of the heroes, in
connection with the commerce they defended.

And how much better would such stirring monuments be; full of life and
commotion; than hermit obelisks of Luxor, and idle towers of stone;
which, useless to the world in themselves, vainly hope to eternize a
name, by having it carved, solitary and alone, in their granite. Such
monuments are cenotaphs indeed; founded far away from the true body of
the fame of the hero; who, if he be truly a hero, must still be linked
with the living interests of his race; for the true fame is something
free, easy, social, and companionable. They are but tomb-stones, that
commemorate his death, but celebrate not his Me. It is well enough that
over the inglorious and thrice miserable grave of a Dives, some vast
marble column should be reared, recording the fact of his having lived
and died; for such records are indispensable to preserve his shrunken
memory among men; though that memory must soon crumble away with the
marble, and mix with the stagnant oblivion of the mob. But to build such
a pompous vanity over the remains of a hero, is a slur upon his fame,
and an insult to his ghost. And more enduring monuments are built in the
closet with the letters of the alphabet, than even Cheops himself could
have founded, with all Egypt and Nubia for his quarry.

Among the few docks mentioned above, occur the names of the King's and
Queens. At the time, they often reminded me of the two principal streets
in the village I came from in America, which streets once rejoiced in
the same royal appellations. But they had been christened previous to
the Declaration of Independence; and some years after, in a fever of
freedom, they were abolished, at an enthusiastic town-meeting, where
King George and his lady were solemnly declared unworthy of being
immortalized by the village of L--. A country antiquary once told me,
that a committee of two barbers were deputed to write and inform the
distracted old gentleman of the fact.

As the description of any one of these Liverpool docks will pretty much
answer for all, I will here endeavor to give some account of Prince's
Dock, where the Highlander rested after her passage across the Atlantic.

This dock, of comparatively recent construction, is perhaps the largest
of all, and is well known to American sailors, from the fact, that it is
mostly frequented by the American ship-, ping. Here lie the noble New
York packets, which at home are found at the foot of Wall-street; and
here lie the Mobile and Savannah cotton ships and traders.

This dock was built like the others, mostly upon the bed of the river,
the earth and rock having been laboriously scooped out, and solidified
again as materials for the quays and piers. From the river, Prince's
Dock is protected by a long pier of masonry, surmounted by a massive
wall; and on the side next the town, it is bounded by similar walls, one
of which runs along a thoroughfare. The whole space thus inclosed forms
an oblong, and may, at a guess, be presumed to comprise about fifteen or
twenty acres; but as I had not the rod of a surveyor when I took it in,
I will not be certain.

The area of the dock itself, exclusive of the inclosed quays surrounding
it, may be estimated at, say, ten acres. Access to the interior from the
streets is had through several gateways; so that, upon their being
closed, the whole dock is shut up like a house. From the river, the
entrance is through a water-gate, and ingress to ships is only to be
had, when the level of the dock coincides with that of the river; that
is, about the time of high tide, as the level of the dock is always at
that mark. So that when it is low tide in the river, the keels of the
ships inclosed by the quays are elevated more than twenty feet above
those of the vessels in the stream. This, of course, produces a striking
effect to a stranger, to see hundreds of immense ships floating high
aloft in the heart of a mass of masonry.

Prince's Dock is generally so filled with shipping, that the entrance of
a new-comer is apt to occasion a universal stir among all the older
occupants. The dock-masters, whose authority is declared by tin signs
worn conspicuously over their hats, mount the poops and forecastles of
the various vessels, and hail the surrounding strangers in all
directions:--"Highlander ahoy! Cast off your bowline, and sheer
alongside the Neptune!"--"Neptune ahoy! get out a stern-line, and sheer
alongside the Trident!"--"Trident ahoy! get out a bowline, and drop
astern of the Undaunted!" And so it runs round like a shock of
electricity; touch one, and you touch all. This kind of work irritates
and exasperates the sailors to the last degree; but it is only one of
the unavoidable inconveniences of inclosed docks, which are outweighed
by innumerable advantages.

Just without the water-gate, is a basin, always connecting with the open
river, through a narrow entrance between pierheads. This basin forms a
sort of ante-chamber to the dock itself, where vessels lie waiting their
turn to enter. During a storm, the necessity of this basin is obvious;
for it would be impossible to "dock" a ship under full headway from a
voyage across the ocean. From the turbulent waves, she first glides into
the ante-chamber between the pier-heads and from thence into the docks.

Concerning the cost of the docks, I can only state, that the King's
Dock, comprehending but a comparatively small area, was completed at an
expense of some £20,000.

Our old ship-keeper, a Liverpool man by birth, who had long followed the
seas, related a curious story concerning this dock. One of the ships
which carried over troops from England to Ireland in King William's war,
in 1688, entered the King's Dock on the first day of its being opened in
1788, after an interval of just one century. She was a dark little brig,
called the Port-a-Ferry. And probably, as her timbers must have been
frequently renewed in the course of a hundred years, the name alone
could have been all that was left of her at the time. A paved area, very
wide, is included within the walls; and along the edge of the quays are
ranges of iron sheds, intended as a temporary shelter for the goods
unladed from the shipping. Nothing can exceed the bustle and activity
displayed along these quays during the day; bales, crates, boxes, and
cases are being tumbled about by thousands of laborers; trucks are
corning and going; dock-masters are shouting; sailors of all nations are
singing out at their ropes; and all this commotion is greatly increased
by the resoundings from the lofty walls that hem in the din.




XXXIII. THE SALT-DROGHERS, AND GERMAN EMIGRANT SHIPS


Surrounded by its broad belt of masonry, each Liverpool dock is a walled
town, full of life and commotion; or rather, it is a small archipelago,
an epitome of the world, where all the nations of Christendom, and even
those of Heathendom, are represented. For, in itself, each ship is an
island, a floating colony of the tribe to which it belongs.

Here are brought together the remotest limits of the earth; and in the
collective spars and timbers of these ships, all the forests of the
globe are represented, as in a grand parliament of masts. Canada and New
Zealand send their pines; America her live oak; India her teak; Norway
her spruce; and the Right Honorable Mahogany, member for Honduras and
Cam-peachy, is seen at his post by the wheel. Here, under the beneficent
sway of the Genius of Commerce, all climes and countries embrace; and
yard-arm touches yard-arm in brotherly love.

A Liverpool dock is a grand caravansary inn, and hotel, on the spacious
and liberal plan of the Astor House. Here ships are lodged at a moderate
charge, and payment is not demanded till the time of departure. Here
they are comfortably housed and provided for; sheltered from all
weathers and secured from all calamities. For I can hardly credit a
story I have heard, that sometimes, in heavy gales, ships lying in the
very middle of the docks have lost their top-gallant-masts. Whatever the
toils and hardships encountered on the voyage, whether they come from
Iceland or the coast of New Guinea, here their sufferings are ended, and
they take their ease in their watery inn.

I know not how many hours I spent in gazing at the shipping in Prince's
Dock, and speculating concerning their past voyages and future prospects
in life. Some had just arrived from the most distant ports, worn,
battered, and disabled; others were all a-taunt-o--spruce, gay, and
brilliant, in readiness for sea.

Every day the Highlander had some new neighbor. A black brig from
Glasgow, with its crew of sober Scotch caps, and its staid, thrifty-
looking skipper, would be replaced by a jovial French hermaphrodite,
its forecastle echoing with songs, and its quarter-deck elastic from
much dancing.

On the other side, perhaps, a magnificent New York Liner, huge as a
seventy-four, and suggesting the idea of a Mivart's or Delmonico's
afloat, would give way to a Sidney emigrant ship, receiving on board its
live freight of shepherds from the Grampians, ere long to be tending
their flocks on the hills and downs of New Holland.

I was particularly pleased and tickled, with a multitude of little
salt-droghers, rigged like sloops, and not much bigger than a pilot-
boat, but with broad bows painted black, and carrying red sails, which
looked as if they had been pickled and stained in a tan-yard. These
little fellows were continually coming in with their cargoes for ships
bound to America; and lying, five or six together, alongside of those
lofty Yankee hulls, resembled a parcel of red ants about the carcass
of a black buffalo.

When loaded, these comical little craft are about level with the water;
and frequently, when blowing fresh in the river, I have seen them flying
through the foam with nothing visible but the mast and sail, and a man
at the tiller; their entire cargo being snugly secured under hatches.

It was diverting to observe the self-importance of the skipper of any of
these diminutive vessels. He would give himself all the airs of an
admiral on a three-decker's poop; and no doubt, thought quite as much of
himself. And why not? What could Caesar want more? Though his craft was
none of the largest, it was subject to him; and though his crew might
only consist of himself; yet if he governed it well, he achieved a
triumph, which the moralists of all ages have set above the victories of
Alexander.

These craft have each a little cabin, the prettiest, charming-est, most
delightful little dog-hole in the world; not much bigger than an
old-fashioned alcove for a bed. It is lighted by little round glasses
placed in the deck; so that to the insider, the ceiling is like a small
firmament twinkling with astral radiations. For tall men, nevertheless,
the place is but ill-adapted; a sitting, or recumbent position being
indispensable to an occupancy of the premises. Yet small, low, and
narrow as the cabin is, somehow, it affords accommodations to the
skipper and his family. Often, I used to watch the tidy good-wife,
seated at the open little scuttle, like a woman at a cottage door,
engaged in knitting socks for her husband; or perhaps, cutting his hair,
as he kneeled before her. And once, while marveling how a couple like
this found room to turn in, below, I was amazed by a noisy irruption of
cherry-cheeked young tars from the scuttle, whence they came rolling
forth, like so many curly spaniels from a kennel.

Upon one occasion, I had the curiosity to go on board a salt-drogher,
and fall into conversation with its skipper, a bachelor, who kept house
all alone. I found him a very sociable, comfortable old fellow, who had
an eye to having things cozy around him. It was in the evening; and he
invited me down into his sanctum to supper; and there we sat together
like a couple in a box at an oyster-cellar.

"He, he," he chuckled, kneeling down before a fat, moist, little cask of
beer, and holding a cocked-hat pitcher to the faucet--"You see, Jack, I
keep every thing down here; and nice times I have by myself. Just before
going to bed, it ain't bad to take a nightcap, you know; eh! Jack?--here
now, smack your lips over that, my boy--have a pipe?--but stop, let's to
supper first."

So he went to a little locker, a fixture against the side, and groping
in it awhile, and addressing it with--"What cheer here, what cheer?" at
last produced a loaf, a small cheese, a bit of ham, and a jar of butter.
And then placing a board on his lap, spread the table, the pitcher of
beer in the center. "Why that's but a two legged table," said I, "let's
make it four."

So we divided the burthen, and supped merrily together on our knees.

He was an old ruby of a fellow, his cheeks toasted brown; and it did my
soul good, to see the froth of the beer bubbling at his mouth, and
sparkling on his nut-brown beard. He looked so like a great mug of ale,
that I almost felt like taking him by the neck and pouring him out.

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