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Behind him, living or dead, lay all he humanly loved and cared for; before him lay a voyage full of certain difficulties and dangers; dangers from the ships, dangers from the crews, dangers from the weather, dangers from the unknown path itself; and beyond them, a twinkling star on the horizon of his hopes, lay the land of his belief.
The commanders of the vessels were directed to give marked attention to all circumstances connected with the health of the crews, the climate, temperature, products, and science; and especially the phenomena of magnetism. A geologist and a zoologist were added to the expedition, the whole under the command of Captain Francis Blackwood.
The captains, therefore, brought figs, cocoa-nuts, and fowls, and persuaded the fishermen who had before kept away to come and sell their fish while the crews and passengers landed to wash their clothes, so that the Portuguese and the natives became great friends. Here the ships were refitted, and water taken in.
The news of their intended retreat, and its untoward interruption, so raised the spirits of the Syracusans, that they resolved to risk another sea-fight, and after some days spent in training their crews, they sailed out with seventy-six ships, and offered battle, and Gylippus at the same time attacked the Athenian lines by land.
Towards the middle of October the Republicans took their departure. Even at this distance of time it is provoking to learn that they got back to Brest without meeting an enemy that had teeth to bite. The African climate, however, reduced the squadron to such a plight, that it was well for our frigates that they had not the chance of getting its fever-stricken crews under their hatches.
Select crews of entirely unmarried men volunteered for the enterprise. John Cornelisz van der Ryp, an experienced sea-captain, was placed in charge of one of the vessels, William Barendz was upper pilot of the other, and Heemskerk, "the man who ever steered his way through ice or iron," was skipper and supercargo. The ships sailed from the Vlie on the 18th May.
The crews had fitted them, from the captured junks, with an extraordinary variety of sails, some of matting, others of coloured cloths, or any material which could be stretched on spars to hold wind. In this guise they returned to the steamers. The town thus unexpectedly entered was found to be Tunkoon.
There are no braver men on land and sea than the officers and crews of the French Navy, but when the giant bulk of the Britain loomed up out of the westward in the growing light, gradually gathering way with her stately train of nineteen-knot battleships behind her, and swept down in front of the French line, many a heart stood still for the moment, and many a man asked himself what the possibilities of such a Colossus of the ocean might be.
"They have forgotten or neglected to couple the airbrake pipes up. Someday one of these crews will wreck us all. I have talked until I am tired. You see there is air on the front end of this train, but these show cars have not been coupled up with the air pipes of the regular train. It is very bad business. I'll report it when we get in tomorrow." "Let me. I know how to do it up brown."
From the 25th until the 29th of September, all the boats of the Saghalin and of the Palmetto, with the crews of both vessels, were constantly engaged in transporting stores from the bark to the shore, and on the 30th at least half of the Palmetto's cargo was safely discharged. So far as we could judge, there would be nothing to prevent her from going to sea with the first high tide in October.
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