Reported By the Navigator
Many years ago (1881-84), I made a cruise in the U.S.S. Pensacola. When I joined her, she was our flagship in the Pacific, and bore the flag of the late Rear Admiral George B. Balch.
Peru and Chile were at war, and, for the first two years of the cruise, we were closely confined to the west coast of South America, most of the time being spent at anchor in the harbor of Callao, engaged in the occupation of “watchful waiting’’—though that particular expression was then unknown. Both Lima and Callao were held by the Chilean Army of Occupation. All activities on shore were dead, and, indeed, none of our people were allowed out of the ship after sundown. (A little extravaganza called The Off-shore Gull, published in the U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings for August, 1923, throws a side light on life in the wardroom at that time.)
At last came a joyous day in July, 1883, when we were relieved as flagship by the Hartford and a few days later started on a ten- months’ homeward bound cruise around the world, under command of Captain “Bully” Erben, who was by no means the fearsome thing his name would imply. It may interest some of my readers to know that among the members of our crew was “Dave” Ireland, who, a few years later, was to appear as one of the four old salts in the well-known, inimitable picture taken by Doctor Whittaker, in the Mohican, in 1888, a good sized copy of which now hangs in Recreation Hall, in the midshipmen’s quarters at the Naval Academy. (In this picture, Ireland is on the left, seated on a ditty box, arms folded, with his head turned towards his three shipmates—Purdy, Griffiths, and King.)
It is not my purpose to go into many details of this cruise—the best that ever fell to my lot. Suffice it to say that we circumnavigated the globe, mostly under sail, visited Honolulu, three ports in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Batavia, two ports in Madagascar, two in South Africa, St. Helena, Barbados, and Bermuda, arrived at Hampton Roads in May, 1884, and went out of commission in Norfolk the next month.
During the entire cruise, we made a good deal of national holidays, the dinner in each case being the principal feature of the day. This was particularly true on the coast of Peru, where there were no attractions extraneous to the ship, and where everybody had to be on board by dinner time. I especially remember two Fourth of July dinners at Callao. Of course, at the present time, these dinners would be thought nothing extraordinary, but we were under certain handicaps. Our dining hour was primitive, we were limited to oil and tallow for illumination, we had no imposing array of silverware, chinaware, glassware, and napery, and we lacked the presence of the other sex to give grace and charm to the occasion.
We had, on the other hand, a good steward, an excellent cook, and a very decent orchestra of stringed instruments. The coming permanently closed season on wine was not then even dimly discernible in the distance, and the caterer of our wine mess—not called “treasurer” then—always kept on hand an adequate supply of good Havana cigars, better and lower priced then, be it said, than in the present degenerate days.
When the dinner hour arrived, all hands dressed in their “glad rags” took their seats at the mess table, each member being ready to do his best for his fellows, in the way of yarn, joke, or toast. The dinner passed off with fun and banter, each member striking his own little note at the opportune time. Our navigator—-Lieutenant Franklin Hanford-—was always the last to have his “little say.” And he always told the same yarn. After its first appearance, he had to. The mess would tolerate no other. And he never told it at any other time. I shall try to give it in his own words, but the result will be no more than an approximation.
“In the summer of 1865, there was an unusual concourse of Americans gathered in Paris, most of them doubtless being brought there by the reaction after four years of the Civil War. The last battle of that memorable conflict had been fought not many weeks before, and most of the men present were fresh from the discipline and privations of army life, and so were out to have a ‘good time’ in the French capital. One form of their activity was the prospective celebration of the Fourth of July. A committee was formed and went systematically to work, and succeeded in producing a most satisfactory result. On the anniversary in question, a goodly company assembled at one of the leading restaurants, Voisin’s perhaps, where they had their palates tickled by viands prepared by accomplished chefs and washed down by the best of French wines. Gaiety and light-heartedness prevailed throughout the evening. When the post prandial period—no, not ‘post brandial’—I say when the post prandial period of the evening arrived, the chairman, rising to his feet and rapping for silence said, ‘Gentlemen, I propose that we drink to the good old United States of America, once more bounded on the north by the British possessions, on the south by tbe Gulf of Mexico, on the east by the Atlantic, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.’ (Applause.)
“No sooner had the chairman finished than a more enthusiastic member of the company jumped to his feet, and said, ‘Mr. Chairman, I think I have a better toast than yours. I propose that we drink to the good old United States of America, a country, as I see it, bounded on the north by the North Pole, on the south bv the South Pole, on the east by the rising, and on the west by the setting, sun.’ (Great Applause.)
“No sooner had number two taken his seat than a still greater enthusiast sprang to his feet and said, ‘Mr. Chairman, I think I have a better toast than either of its predecessors. I propose that we drink to the good old United States of America, a country, as I see it in my vision, bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, on the south by the precession of the equinoxes, on the east by primeval chaos, and on the west by the Day of Judgment.’ (Long continued and tumultuous applause.)
“And now gentlemen,” concluded the navigator, “in order to show our entire accord with the spirit of these three toasts, let us each drink a full glass of champagne.” (Prompt compliance.)
Gone are the “wooden walls,” the spars, the sails of our Navy of forty years ago; and gone are nearly all of my fellow members of the Pensacola’s pleasant wardroom mess at the time of which I write; “they lived their lives, they had their day, and time and tide have swept them away.”
And the few survivors that still cumber the earth are in the so- called “senile seventies”; indeed the navigator—now Rear Admiral Hanford—is an octogenarian. Since we have passed the scriptural limit of “three score and ten,” the burden of years bears more or less heavily on us. To adopt an expression of one of our number, Rear Admiral Delano, we can’t make as many revolutions as we could in the old Pensacola days. However, such is life. Have we not been told that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward?
Speaking for myself alone, though a few of my service hopes are unfulfilled, a few aspirations ungratified, nevertheless I have fortunately found that the kindly hand of Time alleviates disappointments, calms hurt minds, soothes heart burnings.
(Note: Somehow, somewhere, I have gathered the impression that toast number three quoted by the Navigator originated with that well-known humorist the late Artemus Ward, but the impression is elusive and may well be entirely erroneous. If any reader of the foregoing sketch should be able to throw any light upon this point, I hope that he will do so.)