Our Second Typhoon Was While We Were At Anchor In Hong Kong
Harbour.
Those who have knowledge only of the gales, however
violent, of our latitudes, have no conception of what wind-
force can mount to.
To be the toy of it is enough to fill
the stoutest heart with awe. The harbour was full of
transports, merchant ships, opium clippers, besides four or
five men-of-war, and a steamer belonging to the East India
Company - the first steamship I had ever seen.
The coming of a typhoon is well known to the natives at least
twenty-four hours beforehand, and every preparation is made
for it. Boats are dragged far up the beach; buildings even
are fortified for resistance. Every ship had laid out its
anchors, lowered its yards, and housed its topmasts. We had
both bowers down, with cables paid out to extreme length.
The danger was either in drifting on shore or, what was more
imminent, collision. When once the tornado struck us there
was nothing more to be done; no men could have worked on
deck. The seas broke by tons over all; boats beached as
described were lifted from the ground, and hurled, in some
instances, over the houses. The air was darkened by the
spray.
But terrible as was the raging of wind and water, far more
awful was the vain struggle for life of the human beings who
succumbed to it. In a short time almost all the ships except
the men-of-war, which were better provided with anchors,
began to drift from their moorings. Then wreck followed
wreck. I do not think the 'Blonde' moved; but from first to
last we were threatened with the additional weight and strain
of a drifting vessel. Had we been so hampered our anchorage
must have given way. As a single example of the force of a
typhoon, the 'Phlegethon' with three anchors down, and
engines working at full speed, was blown past us out of the
harbour.
One tragic incident I witnessed, which happened within a few
fathoms of the 'Blonde.' An opium clipper had drifted
athwart the bow of a large merchantman, which in turn was
almost foul of us. In less than five minutes the clipper
sank. One man alone reappeared on the surface. He was so
close, that from where I was holding on and crouching under
the lee of the mainmast I could see the expression of his
face. He was a splendidly built man, and his strength and
activity must have been prodigious. He clung to the cable of
the merchantman, which he had managed to clasp. As the
vessel reared between the seas he gained a few feet before he
was again submerged. At last he reached the hawse-hole. Had
he hoped, in spite of his knowledge, to find it large enough
to admit his body? He must have known the truth; and yet he
struggled on. Did he hope that, when thus within arms'
length of men in safety, some pitying hand would be stretched
out to rescue him, - a rope's end perhaps flung out to haul
him inboard? Vain desperate hope! He looked upwards: an
imploring look. Would Heaven be more compassionate than man?
A mountain of sea towered above his head; and when again the
bow was visible, the man was gone for ever.
Before taking leave of my seafaring days, I must say one word
about corporal punishment. Sir Thomas Bouchier was a good
sailor, a gallant officer, and a kind-hearted man; but he was
one of the old school. Discipline was his watchword, and he
endeavoured to maintain it by severity. I dare say that, on
an average, there was a man flogged as often as once a month
during the first two years the 'Blonde' was in commission. A
flogging on board a man-of-war with a 'cat,' the nine tails
of which were knotted, and the lashes of which were slowly
delivered, up to the four dozen, at the full swing of the
arm, and at the extremity of lash and handle, was very severe
punishment. Each knot brought blood, and the shock of the
blow knocked the breath out of a man with an involuntary
'Ugh!' however stoically he bore the pain.
I have seen many a bad man flogged for unpardonable conduct,
and many a good man for a glass of grog too much. My firm
conviction is that the bad man was very little the better;
the good man very much the worse. The good man felt the
disgrace, and was branded for life. His self-esteem was
permanently maimed, and he rarely held up his head or did his
best again. Besides which, - and this is true of all
punishment - any sense of injustice destroys respect for the
punisher. Still I am no sentimentalist; I have a contempt
for, and even a dread of, sentimentalism. For boy
housebreakers, and for ruffians who commit criminal assaults,
the rod or the lash is the only treatment.
A comic piece of insubordination on my part recurs to me in
connection with flogging. About the year 1840 or 1841, a
midshipman on the Pacific station was flogged. I think the
ship was the 'Peak.' The event created some sensation, and
was brought before Parliament. Two frigates were sent out to
furnish a quorum of post-captains to try the responsible
commander. The verdict of the court-martial was a severe
reprimand. This was, of course, nuts to every midshipman in
the service.
Shortly after it became known I got into a scrape for
laughing at, and disobeying the orders of, our first-
lieutenant, - the head of the executive on board a frigate.
As a matter of fact, the orders were ridiculous, for the said
officer was tipsy. Nevertheless, I was reported, and had up
before the captain. 'Old Tommy' was, or affected to be, very
angry. I am afraid I was very 'cheeky.' Whereupon Sir
Thomas did lose his temper, and threatened to send for the
boatswain to tie me up and give me a dozen, - not on the
back, but where the back leaves off.
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