Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 409, November 1849

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. 20

Another book from the active pen of our American acquaintance, the able seaman. The question having been raised whether Mr Herman Melville has really served before the mast, and has actually, like the heroine of a well-known pathetic ballad, disfigured his lily-white fingers with the nasty pitch and tar, he does his best to dissipate all such doubts by the title-page of his new work, on which, in large capitals, is proclaimed that Redburn is "The Sailor-boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the son of a gentleman in the merchant service;" and, collaterally, by a dedication to his younger brother, "now a sailor on a voyage to China." An unmerited importance has perhaps been given to the inquiry whether Mr Melville's voyages were made on quarterdeck or on forecastle, and are genuine adventures or mere Robinsonades. The book, not the writer, concerns the critic; and even as there assuredly are circumstances that might induce a youth of gentle birth and breeding to don flannel shirt, and put fist in tar-bucket as a merchant seaman, so the probably unpleasant nature of those circumstances precludes too inquisitive investigation into them. We accept Mr Melville, therefore, for what he professes to be, and we accept his books, also, with pleasure and gratitude when good, just as we neglect and reject them when they are the contrary. Redburn, we are bound to admit, is entitled to a more favourable verdict than the author's last previous work. We do not like it so well as Typee and Omoo; and, although quite aware that this is a class of fiction to which one cannot often return without finding it pall, by reason of a certain inevitable sameness, we yet are quite sure we should not have liked it so well as those two books, even though priority of publication had brought it to a palate unsated with that particular sort of literary diet. Nevertheless, after a decided and deplorable retrogression, Mr Melville seems likely to go a-head again, if he will only take time and pains, and not over-write himself, and avoid certain affectations and pedantry unworthy a man of his ability. Many of the defects of Mardi are corrected in Redburn. We gladly miss much of the obscurity and nonsense that abound in the former work. The style, too, of this one is more natural and manly; and even in the minor matter of a title, we find reason to congratulate Mr Melville on improved taste, inasmuch as we think an English book is better fitted with an English-sounding name than with uncouth dissyllables from Polynesia, however convenient these may be found for the purposes of the puff provocative.

Redburn comprises four months of the life of a hardy wrong-headed lad, who ships himself on board a trading vessel, for the voyage from New York to Liverpool and back. As there is no question of shipwreck, storm, pirates, mutiny, or any other nautico-dramatic incidents, during Wellingborough Redburn's voyage out and home; and as the events of his brief abode in England are neither numerous nor (with the exception of one rather far-fetched episode) by any means extraordinary, it is evident that a good deal of detail and ingenuity are necessary to fill two volumes, on so simple and commonplace a theme. So a chapter is devoted to the causes of his addiction to the sea, and shows how it was that childish reminiscences of a seaport town, and stories of maritime adventure told him by his father, who had many times crossed the Atlantic, and visions of European magnificence, and, above all, the frequent contemplation of an old-fashioned glass ship which stood in his mother's sitting-room, and which is described with considerable minuteness, and some rather feeble attempts at the facetious – how all these things combined had imbued young Wellingborough with a strong craving after salt water. Other circumstances concurred to drive him forth upon the world. He hints at family misfortunes. His father had been a merchant at New York, in a flourishing business. Things were now less prosperous. "Some time previous, my mother had removed from New York to a pleasant village on the Hudson river, where we lived in a small house, in a quiet way. Sad disappointments in several plans which I had sketched for my future life; the necessity of doing something for myself, united to a naturally roving disposition, had now conspired within me to send me to sea as a sailor." And yet it would appear that he might have done better than plunge thus recklessly into the hardships and evil associations of a merchantman's forecastle; for he more than half admits that he was erring and wilful, and that he had kind relatives and sympathising patrons, who would have put him in the way of earning a living otherwise. Redburn, however, seems to have been in some respects as precocious as in others we shall presently find him simple and inexperienced. A mere boy, adversity had already converted him into a misanthrope, at an age when most lads are as yet without plans for their future, and know not disappointment in any more important matters than a treat to the play, or an extra week's holiday. The forwardness of the rising generation is remarkable enough in England, and has been amusingly hit off by one of our cleverest caricaturists. In America, therefore, which notoriously goes a-head of the old country in most particulars, and whose inhabitants lay claim to an extraordinary share of railroad and earthquake in their composition, boyish precocity is possibly still more remarkable; and one must not wonder at finding Master Redburn talking in misanthropic vein of the world's treatment of him, how bleak and cheerless everything seemed, and how "the warm soul of him had been flogged out by adversity." This, at an age when the stinging memory of the schoolmaster's taws must still have been tolerably vivid about the seat of his breeks, seems rather absurd to begin with. It was under the influence of such feelings, however, that this infant Timon left his home to cast his lot upon the wide waters. His friends were evidently either very angry with him or very poor; for they allowed him to depart with but one dollar in his pocket, a big shooting-jacket with foxes' heads on the buttons, and a little bundle, containing his entire kit, slung at the end of the fowling-piece which his good-natured elder brother pressed upon him at parting. Thus equipped, he tramps of to the steamer that is to carry him down the Hudson, early on a raw morning, along a muddy road, and through a drizzling rain. The skyey influences will at times affect even the most stoical, and the dismal aspect of external nature makes Master Redburn revert to his blighted prospects – how his soul is afflicted with mildew, "and the fruit which, with others, is only blasted after ripeness, with him is nipped in the first blossom and bud." The blight he complains of is evidently of a most virulent description, for it "leaves such a scar that the air of Paradise might not erase it." As he has just before told us how, whilst walking along, his fingers "worked moodily at the stock and trigger" of his brother's rifle, and that he had thought this was indeed "the proper way to begin life, with a gun in your hand," we feel, upon hearing him croak so desperately, some apprehension for his personal safety, and think his brother would have done as well to have kept his gun. On this last point we quite make up our minds, when we shortly afterwards find him levelling the weapon at the left eye of a steamboat passenger who is so imprudent as to stare at him, and bullying the steward for demanding the fare, (which is two dollars, whereas Redburn has but one,) and looking cat-a-mounts at his less needy fellow-voyagers, because they have the rudeness to enjoy their roast beef dinner, whilst he has had the improvidence to leave home without even a crust in his wallet. It seems the author's aim to start his hero in life under every possible circumstance of disadvantage and hardship; and to do this, he rather loses sight of probability. At last, however, Redburn reaches New York, with gun and bundle, foxes' heads and shooting-jacket, and hastens to visit a friend of his brother's, to whom he is recommended. A kind welcome, good supper, and warm bed, go some way towards dissipating his ill humour; and next morning the friend accompanies him to the docks to seek a ship. But none of his brother's kindnesses prosper him. The gun, as we have seen, has already led him to the verge of homicide, the foxes' heads are yet to be the source of innumerable vexations; and Mr Jones, a silly young man, does more harm than good, by taking the direction of Redburn's affairs, and acting as his spokesman with Captain Riga, of the regular trader, Highlander, then loading for Liverpool.

"We found the captain in the cabin, which was a very handsome one, lined with mahogany and maple; and the steward, an elegant-looking mulatto, in a gorgeous turban, was setting out, on a sort of sideboard, some dinner-service which looked like silver, but it was only Britannia ware highly polished. As soon as I clapped my eye on the captain, I thought to myself he was just the captain to suit me. He was a fine-looking man, about forty, splendidly dressed, with very black whiskers and very white teeth, and what I took to be a free frank look out of a large hazel eye. I liked him amazingly."

The scene that ensues is quietly humorous, and reminds us a good deal of Marryat, in whose style of novel we think Mr Melville would succeed. The upshot of the conference is that Redburn ships as a boy on board the Highlander. By vaunting his respectability, and the wealth of his relations, his injudicious friend furnishes Riga with a pretext for withholding the customary advance of pay; and although the sale of the fowling-piece to a Jew pawnbroker produces wherewith to purchase a red woollen shirt, a tarpaulin hat, and jack-knife, Redburn goes on board but slenderly provided. His reception is not very cheering.

"When I reached the deck, I saw no one but a large man in a large dripping pea-jacket, who was calking down the main-hatches.

"'What do you want, Pillgarlic?' said he.

"'I've shipped to sail in this ship,' I replied, assuming a little dignity to chastise his familiarity.

"'What for – a tailor?' said he, looking at my shooting-jacket.

"I answered that I was going as a 'boy;' for so I was technically put down on the articles.

"'Well,' said he, 'have you got your traps aboard?'

"I told him I didn't know there were any rats in the ship, and hadn't brought any 'trap.'

"At this he laughed out with a great guffaw, and said there must be hay-seed in my hair.

"This made me mad; but, thinking he must be one of the sailors who was going in the ship, I thought it wouldn't be wise to make an enemy of him, so only asked him where the men slept in the vessel, for I wanted to put my clothes away.

"'Where's your clothes?' said he.

"'Here in my bundle,' said I, holding it up.

"'Well, if that's all you've got,' he cried, 'you'd better chuck it overboard. But go forward, go forward to the forecastle; that's the place you live in aboard here.'

"And with that he directed me to a sort of hole in the deck of the bow of the ship; but looking down, and seeing how dark it was, I asked him for a light.

"'Strike your eyes together and make one,' said he, 'we don't have any lights here.' So I groped my way down into the forecastle, which smelt so bad of old ropes and tar, that it almost made me sick. After waiting patiently, I began to see a little; and, looking round, at last perceived I was in a smoky-looking place, with twelve wooden boxes stuck round the sides. In some of these boxes were large chests, which I at once supposed to belong to the sailors, who must have taken that method of appropriating their 'bunks,' as I afterwards found these boxes were called. And so it turned out.

"After examining them for a while, I selected an empty one, and put my bundle right in the middle of it, so that there might be no mistake about my claim to the place, particularly as the bundle was so small."

The ship is not to sail till the next day; the crew are not yet aboard; there is no mess, and Redburn has no money. He passes a wretched night in his evil-smelling bunk, and next morning is crawling about the deck, weak from hunger, when he is accosted by the first mate, who curses him for a lubber, asks his name, swears it is too long to be handy, rebaptizes him by that of Buttons, and sets him to clean out the pig-pen, and grease the main-topmast. Having accomplished these savoury duties, and narrowly escaped falling overboard from his unwonted elevation, Redburn is ordered to the quarterdeck, where the men are divided into watches, and he falls to the lot of his friend the first mate, who tries hard to get rid of him to Mr Rigs, the second mate; but Mr Rigs refuses the tyro, even as a free gift. Redburn now gets sea-sick, and, when ordered on deck to stand the first night-watch, from eight o'clock to midnight, he, feeling qualmish, requests one of the sailors to make his excuses very civilly to the chief mate, for that he thinks he will go below and spend the night in his bunk. The sailor, a good-natured Greenlander, laughs at his simplicity, and doctors him with a canikin of rum and some ship biscuits, which enable him to get through his watch. Minute incidents of this kind, reflections, reminiscences, and thoughts of home, occupy many chapters; and, at times, one is inclined to think they are dwelt upon at too great length: but, as before hinted, it is necessary to do something to fill two volumes. A slight inconsistency strikes us in this first portion of the book. Redburn, a sharp enough lad on shore, and who, it has been seen, is altogether precocious in experience of the world's disappointments, seems converted, by the first sniff of salt water, into as arrant a simpleton as ever made mirth in a cockpit. Mr Melville must surely have had Peter Simple in his head, when describing "Buttons" at his first deck-washing. "The water began to splash about all over the decks, and I began to think I should surely get my feet wet, and catch my death of cold. So I went to the chief mate and told him I thought I would just step below, till this miserable wetting was over; for I did not have any waterproof boots, and an aunt of mine had died of consumption. But he only roared out for me to get a broom, and go to scrubbing, or he would prove a worse consumption to me than ever got hold of my poor aunt." Now Redburn, from what has previously been seen of him, was evidently not the lad to care a rush about wet soles, or even about a thorough ducking. On the Hudson river steamer, he had voluntarily walked the deck in a dreary storm till soaked through; and his first night on board the Highlander had been passed uncomplainingly in wet clothes. He has borne hunger and thirst and other disagreeables most manfully, and the impression given of him is quite that of a stubborn hardy fellow. So that this sudden fear of a splashing is evidently introduced merely to afford Mr Melville opportunity of making a little mild fun, and is altogether out of character. Equally so is the elaborate naiveté with which Redburn inquires of a sailor whether, as the big bell on the forecastle "hung right over the scuttle that went down to the place where the watch below were sleeping, such a ringing every little while would not tend to disturb them, and beget unpleasant dreams." The account of his attempts at intimacy with the captain, although humorous enough, is liable to a similar objection; and, in so sharp a lad, such simple blunders are not sufficiently accounted for by ignorance of sea usages. His recollection of the bland urbanity with which Captain Riga had received him and Mr Jones, when they first boarded the Highlander, induces him to believe that he may reckon on sympathy and attention in that quarter, when bullied by the rough sailors, and abused by the snappish mate. He had vague ideas of Sunday dinners in the cabin, of an occasional lesson in navigation, or an evening game at chess. Desirous to realise these pleasant visions, but observing that the captain takes no notice of him, and altogether omits to invite him aft, Buttons, as he is now universally called on board the trader, thinks it may be expected that he, the younger man, should make the first advances. His pig-sty and chicken-coop cleanings have not greatly improved the aspect of his clothes, or the colour of his hands; but a bucket of water gets off the worst of the stains, and a selection from his limited wardrobe converts him into a decent enough figure for a forecastle, although he still would not have excited much admiration in Broadway or Bond Street.

"When the sailors saw me thus employed, they did not know what to make of it, and wanted to know whether I was dressing to go ashore. I told them no, for we were then out of sight of land, but that I was going to pay my respects to the captain. Upon which they all laughed and shouted, as if I were a simpleton; although there seemed nothing so very simple in going to make an evening call upon a friend. When some of them tried to dissuade me, saying I was green and raw; but Jackson, who sat looking on, cried out with a hideous grin – 'Let him go, let him go, men; he's a nice boy. Let him go; the captain has some nuts and raisins for him.' And so he was going on, when one of his violent fits of coughing seized him, and he almost choked… For want of kids, I slipped on a pair of woollen mittens, which my mother had knit for me to carry to sea. As I was putting them on, Jackson asked me whether he shouldn't call a carriage; and another bade me not forget to present his best respects to the skipper. I left them all tittering, and, coming on deck, was passing the cook-house, when the old cook called after me, saying I had forgot my cane."

The Jackson here referred to is a prominent character in the book, an important personage amongst the inmates of the Highlander's forecastle. He was a yellow-visaged, whiskerless, squinting, broken-nosed ruffian, and his head was bald, "except in the nape of his neck and just behind the ears, where it was stuck over with short little tufts, and looked like a worn-out shoe-brush." He claimed near relationship with General Jackson, was a good seaman and a great bully, and, although physically weak, and broken down by excess and disease, the other sailors gave way to, and even petted him. He had been at sea ever since his early childhood, and he told strange wild tales of his experiences in many lands and on many distant seas, and of perils encountered in Portuguese slavers on the African coast, and of Batavian fevers and Malay pirates, and the like horrible things, which composed, indeed, all his conversation, save when he found fault with his shipmates, and cursed, and reviled, and jeered at them – all of which they patiently endured, as though they feared the devil that glared out of "his deep, subtle, infernal-looking eye." All who have read Omoo, (the best of Mr Melville's books,) will remember that the author is an adept in the sketching of nautical originals. Jackson is by no means a bad portrait, and doubtless he is "founded on fact;" although much of his savage picturesqueness may be attributed to the clever pencil of his former shipmate. Riga is another good hit. The handsome captain, with the fine clothes and the shining black whiskers, who spoke so smooth and looked so sleek when his craft lay moored by New York quay, is altogether another sort of character when once the anchor is up. Seamen never judge a captain by his shore-going looks. Tyrants and martinets afloat are often all simper and benevolence across a mahogany plank ashore. But certainly there never was a more thorough metamorphosis than a four-and-twenty hours' sail produced in Captain Riga. His glossy suit and gallant airs disappeared altogether. "He wore nothing but old-fashioned snuff-coloured coats, with high collars and short waists, and faded short-legged pantaloons, very tight about the knees, and vests that did not conceal his waistbands, owing to their being so short, just like a little boy's. And his hats were all caved in and battered, as if they had been knocked about in a cellar, and his boots were sadly patched. Indeed, I began to think he was but a shabby fellow after all, particularly as his whiskers lost their gloss, and he went days together without shaving; and his hair, by a sort of miracle, began to grow of a pepper and salt colour, which might have been owing, though, to his discontinuing the use of some kind of dye while at sea. I put him down as a sort of impostor." This the captain certainly is, and ultimately proves to be something worse, for he swindles poor Buttons and another unfortunate "boy" out of their hard-earned wages, and proves himself altogether a far worse fellow than the rough mate, whose first salutation is often a curse or a cuff, but who, nevertheless, has some heart and humanity under his coarse envelope. Of various other individuals of the ship's company sketches are given, and prominent amongst these is the dandy mulatto steward, called Lavender by the crew, from his having been a barber in New York. Following the example of the captain, whose immediate dependant he is, Lavender, when at sea, lays by his gorgeous turban, and sports his wool, profusely scented with the residue of his stock in trade. "He was a sentimental sort of darky, and read the Three Spaniards and Charlotte Temple, and carried a lock of frizzled hair in his vest pocket, which he frequently volunteered to show to people, with his handkerchief to his eyes." It must have been sympathy of race, not congeniality of disposition, that made cronies of Lavender and the methodistical black cook. Thompson, the sable Soyer of the Highlander, was known as the Doctor, according to the nautical practice of confounding the medical and the gastronomical professions. He is a capital portrait, scarcely caricatured. On a Sunday morning, "he sat over his boiling pots, reading out of a book which was very much soiled, and covered with grease spots, for he kept it stuck into a little leather strap, nailed to the keg where he kept the fat skimmed off the water in which the salt beef was cooked." This book was the Bible, and what with the heat of the five-feet-square kitchen, and his violent efforts to comprehend the more mysterious passages of scripture, the beads of sweat would roll off the Doctor's brow as he sat upon a narrow shelf, opposite the stove, and so close to it that he had to spread his legs out wide to keep them from scorching. During the whole voyage he was never known to wash his face but once, and that was on a dark night, in one of his own soup-pots. His coffee, by courtesy so called, was a most extraordinary compound, and would not bear analysis. Sometimes it tasted fishy, at others salt; then it would have a cheesy flavour, or – but we abridge the unsavoury details with which Redburn disgusts us upon this head. Sambo's devotional practices precluded due attention to his culinary duties. For his narrow caboose he entertained a warm affection. "In fair weather he spread the skirt of an old jacket before the door by way of a mat, and screwed a small ringbolt into the door for a knocker, and wrote his name, 'Mr Thompson,' over it, with a bit of red chalk." The old negro stands before us as we read; cooking, praying, perspiring, and with all the ludicrous self-sufficiency of his tribe. Mr Melville is very happy in these little touches. Max the Dutchman is another original. Although married to two highly respectable wives, one at Liverpool and the other at New York, at sea he is quite an old bachelor, precise and finical, with old-fashioned straight-laced notions about the duties of sailor boys, which he tries hard to inculcate upon Redburn. Upon the whole, however, Red Max, as he is sometimes called – his shirt, cheeks, hair, and whiskers being all of that colour – is tolerably kind to the youngster, in whose welfare he occasionally shows some little interest. Jack Blunt, to whose description the author devotes the greater part of a chapter, is not quite so happy a hit – rather overdone – overloaded with peculiarities. Although quite a young fellow, his hair is turning gray, and, to check this premature sign of age, he thrice in the day anoints his bushy locks with Trafalgar Oil and Copenhagen Elixir, invaluable preparations retailed to him by a knavish Yankee apothecary. He is also greatly addicted to drugging himself: takes three pills every morning with his coffee, and every now and then pours down "a flowing bumper of horse salts." Then he has a turn for romance, and sings sentimental songs, which must have had an odd enough sound from the lips of one whose general appearance is that of "a fat porpoise standing on end;" and he believes in witchcraft, and studies a dream-book, and mutters Irish invocations for a breeze when the ship is becalmed, &c., &c. Rather much of all this, Mr Melville, and not equal, by a long chalk, to what you once before did in the same line. As we read, we cannot help a comparison with some former pencillings of yours, which, although earlier made, referred to a later voyage. Involuntarily we are carried back to the rat-and-cockroach-haunted hull of the crazy little Jule, and to the strange collection of originals that therein did dwell. We think of bold Jermin and timid Captain Guy, and, above all, of that glorious fellow Doctor Long-Ghost. We remember the easy natural tone, and well-sustained interest of the book in which they figured; and, desirous though we are to praise, we are compelled to admit that, in Redburn, Mr Melville comes not up to the mark he himself has made. It is evident that, on his debut, he threw off the rich cream of his experiences, and he must not marvel if readers have thereby been rendered dainty, and grumble a little when served with the skim-milk. Redburn is a clever book, as books now go, and we are far from visiting it with wholesale condemnation; but it certainly lacks the spontaneous flow and racy originality of the author's South Sea narration.