IV.
The ship was dropping down the stream,
The Isle of Dogs was just abeam,
And Sin and Blood and I
Saw Greenwich Hospital go past,
And gave a look—(for them the last)—
Towards the London sky!
Ah! nowhere have I ever seen
A sky so pure and so serene!
Did we at length, perhaps, regret
Our strange adventurous lot?
And were our eyes a trifle wet
With tears that we repressed, and yet
Which started blinding hot?
Perhaps—and yet, I do not know,
For when we came to go below,
We cheerfully admitted
That though there was a smell of paint
(And though a very just complaint
Had to be lodged against the food),
The cabin furniture was good
And comfortably fitted.
And even out beyond the Nore
We did not ask to go ashore.
To turn to more congenial topics,
I said a little while ago
The food was very much below
The standard needed to prepare
Explorers for the special fare
Which all authorities declare
Is needful in the tropics.
A Frenchman sitting next to us
Rejected the asparagus;
The turtle soup was often cold,
The ices hot, the omelettes old,
The coffee worse than I can tell;
And Sin (who had a happy knack
Of rhyming rapidly and well
Like Cyrano de Bergerac)
Said “Quant à moi, je n’aime pas
Du tout ce pâté de foie gras!”
But this fastidious taste
Succeeded in a startling way;
At Dinner on the following day
They gave us Bloater Paste.
Well—hearty Pioneers and rough
Should not be over nice;
I think these lines are quite enough,
And hope they will suffice
To make the Caterers observe
The kind of Person whom they serve.——
And yet I really must complain
About the Company’s Champagne!
This most expensive kind of wine
In England is a matter
Of pride or habit when we dine
(Presumably the latter).
Beneath an equatorial sky
You must consume it or you die;
And stern indomitable men
Have told me, time and time again,
“The nuisance of the tropics is
The sheer necessity of fizz.”
Consider then the carelessness—
The lack of polish and address,
The villainy in short,
Of serving what explorers think
To be a necessary drink
In bottles holding something less
Than one Imperial quart,
And costing quite a shilling more
Than many grocers charge ashore.
At sea the days go slipping past,
Monotonous from first to last—
A trip like any other one
In vessels going south. The sun
Grew higher and more fiery.
We lay and drank, and swore, and played
At Trick-my-neighbour in the shade;
And you may guess how every sight,
However trivial or slight,
Was noted in my diary.
I have it here—the usual things—
A serpent (not the sort with wings)
Came rising from the sea:
In length (as far as we could guess)
A quarter of a mile or less.
The weather was extremely clear
The creature dangerously near
And plain as it would be.
Just north, I find, of Cape de Verd
We caught a very curious bird
With horns upon its head;
And—not, as one might well suppose,
Web-footed or with jointed toes—
But having hoofs instead.
As no one present seemed to know
Its use or name, I let it go.
On June the 7th after dark
A young and very hungry shark
Came climbing up the side.
It ate the Chaplain and the Mate—
But why these incidents relate?
The public must decide,
That nothing in the voyage out
Was worth their bothering about,
Until we saw the coast, which looks
Exactly as it does in books.