Redburn: Chapter 34

Chapter 34

THE IRRAWADDY

Among the various ships lying in Prince's Dock, none interested me more
than the Irrawaddy, of Bombay, a "country ship," which is the name
bestowed by Europeans upon the large native vessels of India. Forty
years ago, these merchantmen were nearly the largest in the world; and
they still exceed the generality. They are built of the celebrated teak
wood, the oak of the East, or in Eastern phrase, "the King of the Oaks."
The Irrawaddy had just arrived from Hindostan, with a cargo of cotton.
She was manned by forty or fifty Lascars, the native seamen of India,
who seemed to be immediately governed by a countryman of theirs of a
higher caste. While his inferiors went about in strips of white linen,
this dignitary was arrayed in a red army-coat, brilliant with gold lace,
a cocked hat, and drawn sword. But the general effect was quite spoiled
by his bare feet.

In discharging the cargo, his business seemed to consist in flagellating
the crew with the flat of his saber, an exercise in which long practice
had made him exceedingly expert. The poor fellows jumped away with the
tackle-rope, elastic as cats.

One Sunday, I went aboard of the Irrawaddy, when this oriental usher
accosted me at the gangway, with his sword at my throat. I gently pushed
it aside, making a sign expressive of the pacific character of my
motives in paying a visit to the ship. Whereupon he very considerately
let me pass.

I thought I was in Pegu, so strangely woody was the smell of the
dark-colored timbers, whose odor was heightened by the rigging of kayar,
or cocoa-nut fiber.

The Lascars were on the forecastle-deck. Among them were Malays,
Mahrattas, Burmese, Siamese, and Cingalese. They were seated round
"kids" full of rice, from which, according to their invariable custom,
they helped themselves with one hand, the other being reserved for quite
another purpose. They were chattering like magpies in Hindostanee, but I
found that several of them could also speak very good English. They were
a small-limbed, wiry, tawny set; and I was informed made excellent
seamen, though ill adapted to stand the hardships of northern voyaging.

They told me that seven of their number had died on the passage from
Bombay; two or three after crossing the Tropic of Cancer, and the rest
met their fate in the Channel, where the ship had been tost about in
violent seas, attended with cold rains, peculiar to that vicinity. Two
more had been lost overboard from the flying-jib-boom.

I was condoling with a young English cabin-boy on board, upon the loss
of these poor fellows, when he said it was their own fault; they would
never wear monkey-jackets, but clung to their thin India robes, even in
the bitterest weather. He talked about them much as a farmer would about
the loss of so many sheep by the murrain.

The captain of the vessel was an Englishman, as were also the three
mates, master and boatswain. These officers lived astern in the cabin,
where every Sunday they read the Church of England's prayers, while the
heathen at the other end of the ship were left to their false gods and
idols. And thus, with Christianity on the quarter-deck, and paganism on
the forecastle, the Irrawaddy ploughed the sea.

As if to symbolize this state of things, the "fancy piece" astern
comprised, among numerous other carved decorations, a cross and a miter;
while forward, on the bows, was a sort of devil for a figure-head--a
dragon-shaped creature, with a fiery red mouth, and a switchy-looking
tail.

After her cargo was discharged, which was done "to the sound of flutes
and soft recorders"--something as work is done in the navy to the music
of the boatswain's pipe--the Lascars were set to "stripping the ship"
that is, to sending down all her spars and ropes.

At this time, she lay alongside of us, and the Babel on board almost
drowned our own voices. In nothing but their girdles, the Lascars hopped
about aloft, chattering like so many monkeys; but, nevertheless, showing
much dexterity and seamanship in their manner of doing their work.

Every Sunday, crowds of well-dressed people came down to the dock to see
this singular ship; many of them perched themselves in the shrouds of
the neighboring craft, much to the wrath of Captain Riga, who left
strict orders with our old ship-keeper, to drive all strangers out of
the Highlander's rigging. It was amusing at these times, to watch the
old women with umbrellas, who stood on the quay staring at the Lascars,
even when they desired to be private. These inquisitive old ladies
seemed to regard the strange sailors as a species of wild animal, whom
they might gaze at with as much impunity, as at leopards in the
Zoological Gardens.

One night I was returning to the ship, when just as I was passing
through the Dock Gate, I noticed a white figure squatting against the
wall outside. It proved to be one of the Lascars who was smoking, as the
regulations of the docks prohibit his indulging this luxury on board his
vessel. Struck with the curious fashion of his pipe, and the odor from
it, I inquired what he was smoking; he replied "Joggerry," which is a
species of weed, used in place of tobacco.

Finding that he spoke good English, and was quite communicative, like
most smokers, I sat down by Dattabdool-mans, as he called himself, and
we fell into conversation. So instructive was his discourse, that when
we parted, I had considerably added to my stock of knowledge. Indeed, it
is a Godsend to fall in with a fellow like this. He knows things you
never dreamed of; his experiences are like a man from the moon--wholly
strange, a new revelation. If you want to learn romance, or gain an
insight into things quaint, curious, .and marvelous, drop your books of
travel, and take a stroll along the docks of a great commercial port.
Ten to one, you will encounter Crusoe himself among the crowds of
mariners from all parts of the globe.

But this is no place for making mention of all the subjects upon which I
and my Lascar friend mostly discoursed; I will only try to give his
account of the teakwood and kayar rope, concerning which things I was
curious, and sought information.

The "sagoon" as he called the tree which produces the teak, grows in its
greatest excellence among the mountains of Malabar, whence large
quantities are sent to Bombay for shipbuilding. He also spoke of another
kind of wood, the "sissor," which supplies most of the "shin-logs," or
"knees," and crooked timbers in the country ships. The sagoon grows to
an immense size; sometimes there is fifty feet of trunk, three feet
through, before a single bough is put forth. Its leaves are very large;
and to convey some idea of them, my Lascar likened them to elephants'
ears. He said a purple dye was extracted from them, for the purpose of
staining cottons and silks. The wood is specifically heavier than water;
it is easily worked, and extremely strong and durable. But its chief
merit lies in resisting the action of the salt water, and the attacks of
insects; which resistance is caused by its containing a resinous oil
called "poonja."

To my surprise, he informed me that the Irrawaddy was wholly built by
the native shipwrights of India, who, he modestly asserted, surpassed
the European artisans.

The rigging, also, was of native manufacture. As the kayar, of which it
is composed, is now getting into use both in England and America, as
well for ropes and rigging as for mats and rugs, my Lascar friend's
account of it, joined to my own observations, may not be uninteresting.

In India, it is prepared very much in the same way as in Polynesia. The
cocoa-nut is gathered while the husk is still green, and but partially
ripe; and this husk is removed by striking the nut forcibly, with both
hands, upon a sharp-pointed stake, planted uprightly in the ground. In
this way a boy will strip nearly fifteen hundred in a day. But the kayar
is not made from the husk, as might be supposed, but from the rind of
the nut; which, after being long soaked in water, is beaten with
mallets, and rubbed together into fibers. After this being dried in the
sun, you may spin it, just like hemp, or any similar substance. The
fiber thus produced makes very strong and durable ropes, extremely well
adapted, from their lightness and durability, for the running rigging of
a ship; while the same causes, united with its great strength and
buoyancy, render it very suitable for large cables and hawsers.

But the elasticity of the kayar ill fits it for the shrouds and
standing-rigging of a ship, which require to be comparatively firm.
Hence, as the Irrawaddy's shrouds were all of this substance, the Lascar
told me, they were continually setting up or slacking off her
standing-rigging, according as the weather was cold or warm. And the
loss of a foretopmast, between the tropics, in a squall, he attributed
to this circumstance.

After a stay of about two weeks, the Irrawaddy had her heavy Indian
spars replaced with Canadian pine, and her kayar shrouds with hempen
ones. She then mustered her pagans, and hoisted sail for London.

Back to chapter list of: Redburn