Part 1
“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”--SHAKESPEARE.
HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
No. 307.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1856. {PRICE 2_d._ {STAMPED 3_d._
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE SULINA MOUTH OF THE DANUBE. DAY-WORKERS AT HOME. TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS. SORROW AND MY HEART. FRENCH AND ENGLISH STAFF OFFICERS. CHIPS. LITTLE SAINT ZITA.
THE SULINA MOUTH OF THE DANUBE.
It was November, and the morrow of our arrival at Sulina dawned a dreary, sunless day, rather cold. We spent it waiting for the boat, which was due from Constantinople. Our pilot, however, surmised that there had been bad weather for many days in the Black Sea, and that no captain in the service of the Austrian Lloyd’s would have ventured to pass the Bosphorus while it lasted. The pilot was a dark, sharp-featured, timorous Greek, of about forty years of age. His name was Birbantaki, a name of high account in every port of the Euxine.
So the long and the short Austrian officer--part of our company from Galatz[1]--very sensibly went out snipe-shooting. They were joined by the Greek consul; who, having no house here, is living on board one of the Danube Company’s vessels, called the Metternich. That consul is driving a very brisk business; for, from the masts of six hundred of the thousand ships detained here by stress of weather, fluttered the gay colours of King Otho. Also, with the shooting-party, goes the agent of the Lloyd Company; a pleasant and influential gentleman, very popular about here. It is said he had five thousand pounds’ worth of property--the hard savings of many thrifty years--destroyed by us. If this be true I shall be surprised to learn it is considered by the authorities as one of the inevitable private wrongs which are wrought by all wars. I cannot quite admit such reasoning, however; for surely, this person is as much entitled to a fair indemnity for the loss of his property, as were the owners of the British merchantman destroyed by the Russians at Sinope. By the way, also, what with Count Zamoïski and Colonel Turr, as well as such little episodes as the agent’s affair, have we not been playing a very strange little game with Austria? Not to put too fine a point upon it, may I be bold enough to hint that we have been soliciting her alliance while slyly tweaking her nose? I wish, sometimes, that our good folks in authority had taken riper counsel in these matters; for we have made many needless and many very bitter enmities. When the shooting party return, therefore, I am not at all surprised to see a Russian officer with them. He is a common-looking-man; awkward, dirty, and, seemingly, of no social importance; but, as he comes on board, two Levantines seize eagerly on an opportunity of offering a loud insult to an Englishman, and then strut, blustering and bowing to the Muscovite, after the manner of their kind.
[Footnote 1: See “The Show Officer,” page 23, of the present volume.]
Mechanically marking these things, and hearing that there was no chance of our departure that day, I determined to go on shore, and visit all that avenging fires have left of Sulina. In truth, our prospect from the steamer was not very cheering. A large timber raft lay alongside us, with a log hut upon it; where its mouldy, amphibious guardians lived. They appeared to be always drying the same pair of calico drawers, on the same stick. Round and round this raft constantly paddled a froggy-looking fellow, seated in a small canoe roughly hewn out of the trunk of a tree. His business was to see that none of the timber drifted away, or was stolen. He was also employed as a sort of messenger, going to and fro among the ships. He used his single paddle--shaped something like a spade--with great skill. Our chief occupation was drowsily watching him. We saw also flocks of wild fowl in great numbers, flying almost out of sight in the air, and a few gulls, which perched, from time to time, about our rigging in the most friendly manner. The only objects of interest were a few Russian boats, fluttering about the harbour. In them sat Cossacks with hessian boots, red breeches, and small red turban-shaped peak-less caps. They were the rude troops of the frontier; clumsy, leaden-faced fellows, who seem to have grown bloated and unhealthy in the air of the marshes. I was glad to land, if only for a change.
Sulina is a wretched place. Russia has ruined it, to build up the trade of Odessa; although it is naturally, perhaps, one of the happiest commercial sites in the world--the natural outlet of Germany and the rich corn-lands of the Principalities. So, the shore, which should be splendid with merchant palaces and populous with busy men from every nation, has been purposely rendered the very abomination of desolation. I say purposely, giving ear to a report current among all sailors in these seas. When the Russian government was reproached with a direct breach of faith in virtually blockading the mouth of the Danube during nine months of the year, they took their own way of clearing themselves from the imputation. It was eminently Russian. A great fuss was made: men and machines were furiously employed to remove the obstructions; but everything that was cleared out on one day, was scrupulously replaced on the next.
The state of the Sulina mouth of the Danube therefore, remains a most notable scandal. Vessels can only get over the bar when lightened of their cargoes, and are subject to all manner of official hindrance and fiscal extortion. They are sometimes detained a whole winter, to the serious loss of owners, to the stoppage of trade, to the increase of the price of food; also to the grave injury of the Moldo-Wallachian ports of Galatz and Ibraila, and the comparative ruin of the navigation of the whole Danube. Wrecks are awfully numerous; the loss of life, appalling, as I had after opportunities of observing.
Sulina is, at this time, a miserable collection of huts hastily run up to meet the pressing exigencies of the moment, being mere temporary erections of dried reeds. Their interiors--of which I visited several--presented no incorrect idea of the very extreme of discomfort in this raw damp climate. In some huts were haggard grisly men asleep, after an ague fit; and withered women, like the dried figs of a bad season with respect to personal appearance, cowering over their smoky fires, and grumbling as they cooked their unsavoury meals, or tore damp sticks for fuel. They had seldom any furniture besides an earthenware pan, or a black pot to stew their food. They had also generally a mat of rushes, dried or undried as the case might be, to sleep on; and they made fires on the bare earth outside their hovels. The central streets--mere muddy lanes--were choked up with sailors; among them, plenty of bad truculent Greeks from the Pirate Islands, seated before the doors of dram booths, gambling with filthy cards, and swearing canting oaths in the pauses of their sneaking debauch. On the face of each skulking rake the stamp of scoundrel was branded, so plainly that a child might read it. It is a pity that we know these rascals too well, to connect one pleasant thought with their fine features and pretty dresses.
These, perhaps, were some of the selfsame revellers who lurked about the seas as buccaneers at the beginning of the war, armed to the teeth, and who bore down one night upon a British merchant ship becalmed; who stabbed the watch; then cut the throats of the sleeping crew; then played ghastly tricks to their mangled remains; then plundered the vessel, and then departed. The ship drifted with her dreadful burden over the beautiful waters of the Ægean, where she was found, some hours afterwards by a man-of-war’s boat, which put off, irate at having hoisted signals to the death-laden bark in vain!
From the open doors of other booths and hovels I heard nasal droning songs, the uncouth sounds of rude instruments, and the shrill tones of wrangling women of no good repute. Here, also, were a crowd of Maltese and Ionians, who bring our name into discredit wherever they are known. Lounging groups of superstitious mariners of the Adriatic added their lazy figures to the heterogeneous mass--a wild company; amongst whom it is never prudent to venture; for their knives gleam on small pretence; and their victims are never heard of more. Human life is held of a strange cheapness by these miscreants, and the law is powerless.
Towards sundown, I returned to the ship; and, after dinner, as the evening closed quite in, a wandering Italian boy came on board. He was one of those itinerant musicians who roam over every country in the world; gathering up a little hoard with many a stern, unchronicled act of self-denial, and passing bitter days enough, poor lads, Heaven help them! This specimen had a hurdygurdy, an ivory whistle, and a rich impudent voice, with which he trolled forth a number of those ballads popular in the Austrian and Neapolitan sea-ports. They were mostly in the form of a dialogue between a young sailor sweetheart, a girl, and her mother, on the old subject of love and ruse, of which the salt is savoured among the people of every land, and the fresh, lively charm is felt from pole to pole. At the end of each verse the singer always lingered on the last note with an arch relish; and, carrying it on through his whistle, trilled out a sparkling impromptu chorus, which had a world of droll life and inuendo in it. Some of the airs he whistled had a dashing, seafaring pathos, quite captivating; and we fairly lay back and had a laugh at his roguish jests, as pleasant and refreshing as is awakened by the airy couplets of a French vaudeville. Yet those ballads seemed to speak aside to me, with a touching and eloquent plea for a race whose children have been taught to solace their captivity with songs, till they have mercifully learned a wondrous cunning in them; and who (knowing that their hopes are a coin with which they can buy but shadows) have courted oblivion so long, that they have found all beauty, freedom, heart-food, their brightest, quickest life, within a dream.
It was very pretty and affecting to see our captain and his wife--a lady from Ragusa--exchange bashful smiles and tell-tale glances, as they both listened to some song which, perhaps revealed their own story, and invested it with the fascination of a romance. Once, the volatile sailor was so moved, by an uncontrollable impulse, that he seized his wife round the waist, and whirled her off in a waltz. It was a fine tribute to the untaught craft of the singer, whose eyes lighted up with a minstrel fire, and his feet beat time as he watched them. When the captain stopped for want of breath, it was but polite to make a bow, and offer to take the lady round and round again; for there she stood, offering irresistible invitation, with foot advanced. Then the other women began to stand up; while the dark-eyed gypsies from Galicia grouped naturally round the dancers in picturesque attitudes, and looked on. So we had quite a little ball.
At nine o’clock the trumpets sounded from an Austrian man-of-war on the station, and the report of a solitary cannon boomed over the sulky waters. After this, the officers went away, and our little festival terminated.
So ended the first day we lay in the port of Sulina; and I noticed, as night came on, that the moon looked veiled and misty; also that light feathery clouds were flitting about in an unsettled way, as if the sky were troubled. About eleven o’clock we heard the wind rising. At first a few sobbing gusts reached us, at intervals, as if they came from afar off, but making our spars rattle, and our cordage whip the masts. I could see also, before I turned in, that the sailing-vessels in the offing had made all taut and trim, and had lowered their yards for rough weather; but the steamers got their steam up and went out to sea. From time to time during the night we heard the mournful sound of distress guns to windward, and now and then a majestic hulk drifted labouring towards us. The winds and the sea-gulls seemed to whoop in derision around her, and the waves reared their heads triumphant and rejoicing.
It was an awful storm. The sea was everywhere convulsed with a pitiless wrath, and the white foam flashed proud and high, as wave rushed upon wave in passionate strife. Of the fifteen sail riding yesterday at anchor yonder, nine broke from their cables, and three lay wrecked in sight of us. Though we were within the bar, our captain was roused thrice during the night, and the voices of our crew sounded in alarm through the darkness; for we were wedged in by shipping, and ever and again some vessel was driven furiously against us by the might of the elements; our vessel danced and rolled like a child’s toy, even in its sheltered place. Our gaunt lean sailors ran to and fro, yelping fears at every fresh collision, and muttering hasty prayers to the Virgin; Jews gasped and gabbled to themselves, clutching the handles of their sea-chests, and keeping always a wary eye upon them; but some Turks who were with us, sat calmly smoking through it all, uttering no sound but “God is great.”
Below, in the cabin were the Christian ladies pale and terrified, and huddled altogether on the sofa by the fire-place. Near them boozed a gang of sharpers, whom no dread or danger could drag from the gambling-table. Their blasphemy and hot disputes mingled with the storm. Perhaps, however, they were impressed equally with us according to their differing natures, by the grand horror of the scene. Let no man judge the depth of another’s feeling by the mode of its expression.
The sky above us was the true old leaden grey Crimean colour, which canopied our sickening armies before Sebastopol last winter. There was a partial fog over the land. On such a sky looked the helpless crew of the fated Prince, when her machinery refused to work, and they were dashed against the iron heights of Balaclava. It was such a fog which closed round gallant Giffard when the Tiger stranded, and he could only flash back a hopeless defiance to the Russian guns. On this low gloomy shore, too--over which the sea-birds swoop and scream so ominously--dwelt the last dying glance of the young and chivalrous Parker.
The gale lasted for three days, raging every hour more rudely. The third day, towards evening, a rain, fine as dust, mingled with the wind. At night the rain changed to snow, and the cold increased. Then we had a fall of mingled rain and snow. The wind abated a little towards morning: but, before noon, there came a perfect hurricane with rain and snow very fierce. The small snow-flakes were whisked about by the wind with incredible violence.
Again we counted the work of the night, and numbered five wrecks. A crowd of Cossacks, assembled round the devoted vessels, were trying to seize two swollen corpses with grappling hooks. As the drowned bodies, however, obviously did not belong to any of the wrecks we saw, they had probably floated to us from some scene of disaster elsewhere. It was a ghastly thing to see the breakers twirling and tossing about them so scornfully. God’s images, who, a few days, or perhaps hours, before, had been like unto ourselves.
Of the wrecked ships the crew of one perished: all hands on board the rest were saved. At night we saw another fated vessel going to inevitable destruction; then the darkness hid her. When morning broke she was among the breakers; but, out of the reach of help, and they swept disdainfully over her shrieking decks. The miserable crew clung wildly on to spar and mast, no boat venturing out to save them. We saw the hungry waves sweep on towards them with a hoarse cry; the keen ice wind palsying their strength. They were, poor fellows, carried away one by one. Their contortions were horrible. They writhed, and twisted, and grappled on to anything they could seize, with despairing energy. For a little while their shrill screams rose even over the cry of the elements,--then all was still. Six only of the crew were saved. These, springing into a boat, dropped over before she struck, and had been carried as witnesses of Almighty mercy, miraculously to land.
Late in the afternoon of the fifth day, the sun peeped coyly and ashamed at us, once or twice. Then came the windgusts again, like the tumultuous sobs of a grief not yet subsided, and the sun was veiled again, and the storm howled on as before.
Something deserving of notice was that, all the time the hurricane lasted, a broad streak of sky was distinctly visible towards the east. It never grew larger or smaller, and its promise of fine weather was altogether illusory.
We lay fifteen days at the Port of Sulina. At length our wine was exhausted, and even our provisions ran short; for the bakers lazily refused to bake us any bread, though the captain himself went to parley with them. We got a little stringy fresh meat now and then, with sometimes a fresh fish; but we lived chiefly on raw ham and ship’s biscuits. The steward--a plump, tight, rich-complexioned Sancho Panza, with sleek black hair and small roguish eyes--having the distribution of these delicacies, became a man of importance, and found it a very good business. Our fore-cabin passengers suffered severely. They watched us of the after cabin with famished and hateful looks as we went down to dinner; for their own meals were infinitely more scanty than ours. The small supply of orthodox food which the Jews also had brought with them being nearly exhausted, the Greeks, who have a traditional hatred of the chosen people, taunted them with offers of pork. It was at once ludicrous and pathetic to see the feverish trembling indignation, and hear the odd anathemas with which the children of Israel garrulously replied.
Upon the whole, our position was not so cheerful and exhilarating as might have been desired by persons fond of comfort and gaiety. To make it the less inviting, cholera gadded about the neighbourhood with great activity, and did not contribute materially to raise our spirits, nor increase our current fund of pleasing anecdote. A guest of our captain, in sound health and with a noticeable appetite, came and sat with us at dinner one day. On the next day we asked whether he was coming to dinner again, and we were told he was buried. One of our passengers died at breakfast in the midst of us. Moreover, it was an awful sort of thing to wake in the small hours of the night and hear a man in the next cabin bemoaning his crimes in a strange tongue; calling on the saints for mercy, under an impression (likely enough to be true) that he was attacked by the swift destroyer, and was hastening with panic-stricken steps on his journey to another world.
Therefore I was truly thankful when the wind at last abated. It was sometime, however, even then, before our troubles were over; for there was such a heavy swell that no boat, with sail or oar, dared venture to convey us from one steamer to the other. A steam-tug would have done our business in half an hour; but there was no steam-tug.
It was not until the seventeenth day after our arrival that we were at length delivered from durance. The sea having then grown calmer (though still running very high) we fired a gun and hoisted signals for the packet that was to convey us to Constantinople, and which had returned to her anchorage. So she stood nearer in towards us about mid-day; then one half of the passengers who had left Galatz with us, nearly three weeks before, on urgent business, returned whence they came, having missed their opportunities. The others--I among the number--went over the bar.
It was a hazardous trip. Our boatmen charged us eighteen ducats, or about nine pounds; every man in it fairly staking his life against our money. It was a large boat and well manned; but it shook and trembled on the waters at the mouth of the river, as if it had been a cockleshell. Once we were carried quite round, and I made up my mind to swim for it, if I should lose my grasp on the boat when she turned over. She righted again, however, and went rearing and pitching forward for some hundred yards till the danger was over. Not a week before, a boat with fifteen souls in it had gone down in the very spot where we met and escaped that peril.
No one knows how long the present infamous condition of the Sulina mouth of the Danube may last; for few, I am sorry to say, seem seriously to interest themselves in such questions. I have written this paper, therefore; not to amuse an idle hour, but with a solemn and earnest hope that it may be the means of calling general attention to a matter of European importance. I have rather understated the case than overstated it; having omitted many things which might have added to the interest of the description, lest any word should creep in that might appear fanciful or exaggerated; for I know that a public writer, who would render any real service to mankind, must simply abide by indisputable facts.
Let me add, then, that, although it is but a very few weeks ago I was on the scene I have endeavoured to describe, I learn by the French papers that no less than sixty vessels have been wrecked since then, and that three hundred human lives have been lost off the Sulina Mouth. I have not dared to trifle with the sympathies of the public in this matter. I have honestly made a plain statement, and venture, with respectful importunity, to press it on their attention. We have taken upon ourselves a grave responsibility in these countries, and whenever Peace is discussed, it behoves us to be mindful of it, so that not in vain and as to a heedless people may have been confided in trust to our generation that immense inheritance--the Empire of the Seas.
DAY-WORKERS AT HOME.