Life and Letters of Robert Browning [38]
her moorings at Algiers, close by. Ropes were next hove
(hang this sea-talk!) round her stanchions, and after a quarter of an hour's
pushing at the capstan, the vessel righted suddenly,
one dead body floating out; five more were in the forecastle,
and had probably been there a month under a blazing African sun --
don't imagine the wretched state of things. They were, these six,
the `watch below' -- (I give you the result of the day's observation) --
the rest, some eight or ten, had been washed overboard at first.
One or two were Algerines, the rest Spaniards. The vessel was a smuggler
bound for Gibraltar; there were two stupidly disproportionate guns,
taking up the whole deck, which was convex and -- nay, look you!
(a rough pen-and-ink sketch of the different parts of the wreck
is here introduced) these are the gun-rings, and the black square
the place where the bodies lay. (All the `bulwarks' or sides of the top,
carried away by the waves.) Well, the sailors covered up the hatchway,
broke up the aft-deck, hauled up tobacco and cigars, such heaps of them,
and then bale after bale of prints and chintz, don't you call it,
till the captain was half-frightened -- he would get at the ship's papers,
he said; so these poor fellows were pulled up, piecemeal,
and pitched into the sea, the very sailors calling to each other
to `cover the faces', -- no papers of importance were found, however,
but fifteen swords, powder and ball enough for a dozen such boats,
and bundles of cotton, &c., that would have taken a day to get out,
but the captain vowed that after five o'clock she should be cut adrift:
accordingly she was cast loose, not a third of her cargo having been touched;
and you hardly can conceive the strange sight when the battered hulk
turned round, actually, and looked at us, and then reeled off,
like a mutilated creature from some scoundrel French surgeon's lecture-table,
into the most gorgeous and lavish sunset in the world:
there; only thank me for not taking you at your word,
and giving you the whole `story'. -- `What I did?' I went to Trieste,
then Venice -- then through Treviso and Bassano to the mountains,
delicious Asolo, all my places and castles, you will see.
Then to Vicenza, Padua, and Venice again. Then to Verona, Trent,
Innspruck (the Tyrol), Munich, Salzburg in Franconia, Frankfort and Mayence;
down the Rhine to Cologne, then to Aix-la-Chapelle, Liege and Antwerp --
then home. Shall you come to town, anywhere near town, soon?
I shall be off again as soon as my book is out, whenever that will be.
I never read that book of Miss Martineau's, so can't understand what you mean.
Macready is looking well; I just saw him the other day for a minute
after the play; his Kitely was Kitely -- superb from his flat cap
down to his shining shoes. I saw very few Italians, `to know', that is.
Those I did see I liked. Your friend Pepoli has been lecturing here,
has he not?
I shall be vexed if you don't write soon, a long Elstree letter.
What are you doing, writing -- drawing?
Ever yours truly
R. B.
To Miss Haworth,
Barham Lodge, Elstree.
==
Miss Browning's account of this experience, supplied from
memory of her brother's letters and conversations, contains some
vivid supplementary details. The drifting away of the wreck
put probably no effective distance between it and the ship;
hence the necessity of `sailing away' from it.
==
`Of the dead pirates, one had his hands clasped as if praying;
another, a severe gash in his head. The captain burnt disinfectants
and blew gunpowder, before venturing on board, but even then,
he, a powerful man, turned very sick with the smell and sight.
They stayed one whole day by the side, but the sailors, in spite of orders,
began to plunder the cigars, &c. The captain said privately to Robert,
"I cannot restrain my men, and they will bring the plague into our ship,
so I mean quietly in the night to sail away." Robert took
two cutlasses and a dagger; they were of
(hang this sea-talk!) round her stanchions, and after a quarter of an hour's
pushing at the capstan, the vessel righted suddenly,
one dead body floating out; five more were in the forecastle,
and had probably been there a month under a blazing African sun --
don't imagine the wretched state of things. They were, these six,
the `watch below' -- (I give you the result of the day's observation) --
the rest, some eight or ten, had been washed overboard at first.
One or two were Algerines, the rest Spaniards. The vessel was a smuggler
bound for Gibraltar; there were two stupidly disproportionate guns,
taking up the whole deck, which was convex and -- nay, look you!
(a rough pen-and-ink sketch of the different parts of the wreck
is here introduced) these are the gun-rings, and the black square
the place where the bodies lay. (All the `bulwarks' or sides of the top,
carried away by the waves.) Well, the sailors covered up the hatchway,
broke up the aft-deck, hauled up tobacco and cigars, such heaps of them,
and then bale after bale of prints and chintz, don't you call it,
till the captain was half-frightened -- he would get at the ship's papers,
he said; so these poor fellows were pulled up, piecemeal,
and pitched into the sea, the very sailors calling to each other
to `cover the faces', -- no papers of importance were found, however,
but fifteen swords, powder and ball enough for a dozen such boats,
and bundles of cotton, &c., that would have taken a day to get out,
but the captain vowed that after five o'clock she should be cut adrift:
accordingly she was cast loose, not a third of her cargo having been touched;
and you hardly can conceive the strange sight when the battered hulk
turned round, actually, and looked at us, and then reeled off,
like a mutilated creature from some scoundrel French surgeon's lecture-table,
into the most gorgeous and lavish sunset in the world:
there; only thank me for not taking you at your word,
and giving you the whole `story'. -- `What I did?' I went to Trieste,
then Venice -- then through Treviso and Bassano to the mountains,
delicious Asolo, all my places and castles, you will see.
Then to Vicenza, Padua, and Venice again. Then to Verona, Trent,
Innspruck (the Tyrol), Munich, Salzburg in Franconia, Frankfort and Mayence;
down the Rhine to Cologne, then to Aix-la-Chapelle, Liege and Antwerp --
then home. Shall you come to town, anywhere near town, soon?
I shall be off again as soon as my book is out, whenever that will be.
I never read that book of Miss Martineau's, so can't understand what you mean.
Macready is looking well; I just saw him the other day for a minute
after the play; his Kitely was Kitely -- superb from his flat cap
down to his shining shoes. I saw very few Italians, `to know', that is.
Those I did see I liked. Your friend Pepoli has been lecturing here,
has he not?
I shall be vexed if you don't write soon, a long Elstree letter.
What are you doing, writing -- drawing?
Ever yours truly
R. B.
To Miss Haworth,
Barham Lodge, Elstree.
==
Miss Browning's account of this experience, supplied from
memory of her brother's letters and conversations, contains some
vivid supplementary details. The drifting away of the wreck
put probably no effective distance between it and the ship;
hence the necessity of `sailing away' from it.
==
`Of the dead pirates, one had his hands clasped as if praying;
another, a severe gash in his head. The captain burnt disinfectants
and blew gunpowder, before venturing on board, but even then,
he, a powerful man, turned very sick with the smell and sight.
They stayed one whole day by the side, but the sailors, in spite of orders,
began to plunder the cigars, &c. The captain said privately to Robert,
"I cannot restrain my men, and they will bring the plague into our ship,
so I mean quietly in the night to sail away." Robert took
two cutlasses and a dagger; they were of