The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-03-08
VENDETTA r1ARENA.
By CLARK RUSSELL.


Images of the past grow pale in the
memory Of the old, but the aged skip
per gave me at least one recollection
of colors distlnguishably bright enough
20 detain the attention. He sat beside
me on a Thames hillside far below
bridges. The river was a wide and
spreading breast of water hereabouts,
streaming in q long blue reach under
the pure summer sky. All that passed
was within easy view, to the trembling
silver IF the reflected sails, to the
CLEAN Of a gilt dog-vane over the rip
pling folds of a house flag, to the fig
ure Of a seaman jockeying flying jlb-
boom end, to the burning sun-spark in
the bright brass pinnacle hood.
Whilst we sat taldng--'tis years
since-a tall hulk came towing into
sight. 1 thought it was the hull Of a
frigate. My aged companion stared
eagerly through his glasses. When
broadside on, the hull showed as a
noble old relic; the sparkling bravery
of her day still fingered, but dimly, in
the gilded mouldings and carvings
found about her quarter galleries and
stern, Her figure-head was a milk
white angel with lifted arm in a pos
ture of triumphant bugling; but the
trumpet was gomez Time had robbed
poetry of silent music. Her hawser-
holes had a look of human nostrils,
large with disdain. 1t was clear she
was being towed down river for some
fgpOble purpose-to be made coal
hulk Of, perhaps, or her destination
might have been the echoing yard Of
the marine knacker and she clearly
knew it and felt it; for ships are in
telligences though they may not be
launched with immortal souls, and it is
true of them as the Firms do swear,
that they converse as they lay side by
side in the dock when the darkness
falls and the ship-keeper shores with
drink; but in language you must be a
Finn TO understand.
There goes an old frigate," said I.
Not she," cried my venerable COM
panion, in the raised and broken voice
of time, and breathing short with a
sudden agitation of memory. That's
the old Families. Don't I know her?'
Here he seemed to breathe shorter yet
and to stare with more devouring
Spectacles. shes 1,500 ton l COM
manded her in 1856. To think If it, hal
That she should be passing yonder,
under my very nose"
He favored me with many reflections
upon the passage Of years and the
changes which happen in a mans life.
! have no room for them i'm these
pages; meanwhile I watched the hull
as she towed slowly by and now quite
clearly saw that she was "a merchant
man of the old East Indiaman type;
she might have been a sister ship to
the Blenheim or the Alfred; she had
large open ports. like gun-ports, and a
row Of big cabin windows along the
line of her poop deck. Her faint gilt
work glanced as her square handsome
stern f1oated round the bend of the
cbO1.a a nd rod And cfi1I the
old man by my side mOralized on life,
occasionally pulling out a great silver
watch and looking upon it, as though
the power of resisting time had sud-
denly left him.
Somewhat later whilst we still sat
together he told me the story-a queer,
tragical memory Of an emigrant ship.
him as he goes along.
TT was in September, 1855, that I
sailed from the Thames in the Ra-
MILES, the poor sorrowful old hull
that's just gone past; but in those days
what was she? Nothing more queenly
ever lifted a truck to the stars. Ay,
and she was an old ship even then. In
that year I'm telling you of she was
owned by a small firm in Billeter
street. When she came out Of dry
dock she looked q brand new vessel
gilded afreSh, reprinted her sheathing
new. We hauled out on a Monday,
and every mothers son of the people
was in charge of was aboard; 100
'tween-deck passengers, a number in
the steerage, 40 in the cuddy, and a
large ships company, making in all 30
souls. We were bound to Adelaide
South Australia. We were mostly
Britons. 1 guess by the accents I
caught that every county was repre-
scented in the 'tween-decks; there was
plenty Of Scotland going, too, both in
the steerage and in the saloon; nor
was Ireland a-missing, nor Wales. But
we had some real foreigners likewise; I
twigged several bilious skins when I
leaned over the rail and took a look at
the people in the waist and on the
main deck.
Il don't know how people are di-
Vided in these days on board ship. In
those times We made three divisions of
them, according to their money. First
the saloon folks; they bedded and
boarded under the poop; then the steer
age people-they slept and lived in
quarters under the cuddy, bulk-headed
off from the 'tween-decks, and they
passed out through a hatch in the cud-
dy, but were not permitted to use the
poop Then the 'tween-decks lot; all
upder the main hatch, far aft as the