The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [177]
Long voyages could be tedious. Fanny Parks had a fine time coming out to India as there were lots of gallant officers on board and she flirted to her heart's content. Coming back in 1822 was less fun:
This has proved a most uninteresting voyage as far as it has gone, nothing to be seen; one solitary albatross appears now and then, and a few Cape pigeons. The other day I saw a sperm whale blowing at a distance. There is nothing to look at but the boundless ocean; even the sunsets and sunrises have not been remarkably fine....115
So also Lancelot L. Earl in 1882:
The days have hung very heavy on us as we do not have much to do, although we pass the time along by playing various games, such as ship quoits, which are made of rope, and have to be thrown within a chalk ring. We also find a deal of sport in playing at Touch, as we chase each other up and all about the riggings and ropes. Slipper [?] and Tugs of War between married and single men caused a great deal of sport, as the married men pulled us all over the ship, and a great many other games the sailors have put us up to.116
If the weather allowed people danced and put on plays, learnt languages preparatory to arriving in India, and found other improving ways to pass the time.
The weather controlled everything in these sailing ships. We will write about storms presently, but being becalmed in the tropics was also at the least unpleasant. In October 1822 Fanny Parks was stationary in latitude 4° S.
The heat was very great; the vertical sun poured down its sickening rays, the thermometer in the shade of the coolest cabin 86°; not a breath of air.... The sails flapped against the mast, and we only made progress seventeen knots in the twenty-four hours! Thus passed eleven days – the shower bath kept us alive, and our health was better than when we quitted England. M. mon mari, who was studying Persian, began to teach me Hindostanee, which afforded me much pleasure. In spite of the heat there was gaiety on board; the band played [that is the band of the soldiers on the ship] delightfully, our fellow-passengers were agreeable, and the calm evenings allowed of quadrilles and waltzing on the deck, which was lighted up with lanterns and decorated with flags.117
Storms were a fearful event indeed, and we have numerous hair-raising accounts of severe ones, especially in the southern reaches below the Cape. Here is one from 1880, by an immigrant travelling to Australia, Richard James Whyte, on a small sailing vessel, the Helena Mena. In heavy weather in the southern ocean,
the wind blows the ship on one side till the bulwarks are level with the water, then – BUMP – BANG – comes the sea against the side sounding (if you are below) as if the side of the ship was being knocked in, the vessel trembling like a leaf at every blow, if your duty happens to take you along the deck when she is so struck you know directly you hear it that you are doomed to get drenched if you are on the side which she is struck, but there is no real danger to the ship....
Soon after, in a violent gale,
the sailors were as busy as bees furling the sails, the water being thrown up as high as the main stay sail, the sea running mountains high and over the edge of the bulwark, till it looked every time as if the ship must go over. I scrambled down below and with some difficulty got to bed, between 12 and 3 the gale reached its height, and the ship pitched, rolled and plunged to an extent alarming, everything was being rolled from one side of the ship to the other in the most fantastic confusion.118
Steamers and the canal produced a quantum change. The main thing was regularity and predictability. One could guarantee that the voyage would take so many days, and even that one would arrive at a certain time. Voyages lost some of their tedious and dangerous aspects. Human relations also changed, for there is a major difference between being fellow passengers for a few weeks as compared with months. The age of steam also coincided with the high point of British