the keel to the deck, measurements which no other vessel at the time could approach. Her huge ribs, which were a perfect forest, supported four decks. When she was first built 116 port-holes gaped in her sides which were thick walls of timber; after she was enlarged in 1796 she had 130, and when she was newly fitted in 1805 she was made to carry 140 guns, cannons and carronades. The interior was a marvel of arrangement; there were decks for the guns, the forecastle for the crew, holds for stores of all kinds, state-cabins for the officers, the galley, the cock-pit and other offices. I was quite bewildered as I ran through the passages and endless nooks of this floating fortress. The stern cabins on the main deck were a little palace within, and outside like some fantastic castle; the galleries, the flag-turrets at the corners of the poop—exactly like the oriels of a Gothic tower—looked like huge cages open to the sea, whence the eye could command three quarters of the horizon.
Nothing could be grander than the rigging—those gigantic masts thrust up to heaven like a menace to the storm. It was difficult to believe that the wind could have strength enough to fill those vast sails. The eye lost its way and became weary in gazing at the maze of the rigging with the shrouds, stays, braces, halyards, and other ropes used to haul and reef the various sails.
I was standing lost in the contemplation of all these wonders when I felt a heavy hand on the nape of my neck; I thought the main-mast had fallen on the top of me. I turned round in alarm and gave a cry of horror at seeing a man who was now holding me by the ears as if he were going to lift me up by them. It was my uncle.
“What are you doing here, Vermin!” he asked, in the amiable tone that was habitual with him. “Do you want to learn the service? Hark ye Juan,” he added, turning to a sailor of most sinister aspect, “send this landlubber up to the main-yard to take a walk there.”
I excused myself as best I might from the pleasure of taking a walk on the main-yard, explaining that I was body-servant to Don Alonso Gutierrez de Cisniega and had come on board with him. Three or four sailors, my affectionate uncle’s particular friends, wanted to torment me so I decided on quitting their distinguished society and went off to the cabin in search of my master. An officer’s toilet is no less elaborate on board than on shore, and when I saw the valets busied in powdering the heads of the heroes they waited on, I could not help asking myself whether this was not, of all occupations, the least appropriate in a man-of-war, when every minute was precious and where everything that was not directly serviceable to the working of the ship was a hindrance. However, fashion was as tyrannical then as now, and even at such a moment as this enforced her absurd and inconvenient rules with inexorable rigor. The private soldiers even had to waste their valuable time in tying their pigtails, poor men! I saw them standing in a line, one behind another, each one at work on the pigtail of the man in front of him; by which ingenious device the operation was got through in a short space of time. Then they stuck on their fur hats, a ponderous head-piece the use of which no one was ever able to explain to me, and went to their posts if they were on duty or to pace the deck if they were not. The sailors did not wear this ridiculous queue of hair and I do not see that their very sensible costume has been altered to any great extent since that time.
In the cabin I found my master eagerly conversing with the captain in command of the ship, Don Francisco Xavier de Uriarte, and the commander of the squadron, Don Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros. From what I overheard I could have no doubt that the French admiral had ordered the fleets to put out to sea the next morning.
Marcial was highly delighted at this, and he and a knot of veteran sailors who held council on their own account in the forecastle, discoursed grandiloquently on the imminent fight. Their society suited me far better than that of my amiable uncle, for Marcial’s companions indulged in no horse-play at my expense; and this difference was of itself enough to mark the difference of training in the two classes of sailors; for the old sea-dogs were of the pure breed originally levied as voluntary recruits; while the others were pressed men, almost without exception lazy, refractory, of low habits, and ignorant of the service.
I made much better friends with the former than with these and was always present at Marcial’s conferences. If I did not fear to weary the reader, I might report the explanation he gave us that day of the diplomatical and political causes of the war—a most comical parody of all he had heard said, a few nights previously, by Malespina at my master’s house. I learnt from him that my young mistress’ lover was on board the Nepomuceno.
All these colloquies came round at last to the same point, the impending battle. The fleet was to sail out of the bay next morning—what joy! To ride the seas in this immense vessel—the largest in the world; to witness a fight at sea; to see what a battle was like, how cannon were fired, how the enemy’s ships were taken—what a splendid triumph! and then to return to Cadiz covered with glory.—To say afterwards to all who cared to hear: “Yes, I was there, I was on board, I saw it all. …” To tell Rosita too, describing the glorious scene, winning her attention, her curiosity, her interest.—To say to her: “Oh yes! I was in the most dangerous places and I was not afraid;”—and to see her turn pale with alarm, or faint, as she heard my tale of the horrors of the battle—and then to look down in contempt on all who would ask me: “Tell us, Gabrielito, was it so terrible after all?”—All this was more than enough to fire my imagination, and I may frankly say that I would not, that day, have changed places with Nelson himself.
The morning of the 19th dawned, the day I hailed so eagerly; indeed it had not yet dawned when I found myself at the stern of the vessel with my master, who wanted to look on at the working of the ship. After clearing the decks the business of starting the ship began. The huge topsails were hoisted, and the heavy windlass, turning with a shrill clatter, dragged the anchor up from the bottom of the bay. The sailors clambered along the yards, while others handled the braces, obedient to the boatswain’s call; and all the ship’s voices, hitherto mute, filled the air with threatening outcries. The whistles, the bell, the discordant medley of men’s voices, mixed with the creaking of the blocks, the humming of the ropes, the flapping of the sails as they thrashed the mast before they caught the wind—all these various sounds filled the air as the huge ship got under way. The bright ripples seemed to caress her sides, and the majestic monster made her way out of the bay without the slightest roll or even lurch, with a slow and solemn advance which was only perceptible to those on board by watching the apparent motion of the merchantmen lying at anchor and the landscape beyond.
At this moment I stood looking back at the scene behind us. And what a scene it was! Thirty-two men-of-war, five frigates, and two brigantines, Spanish and French together—some in front, some behind, and some abreast of us—were bursting into sail, as it were, and riding before the light breeze. I never saw a lovelier morning. The sun flooded those lovely shores with light; a faint purple tinge colored the sea to the east, and the chain of hills which bound the horizon on the side of the town seemed to be on fire in the sunrise; the sky was perfectly clear excepting where, in the east, a few rose and golden clouds floated above the horizon. The blue sea was calm, and over that sea and beneath that sky the forty ships with their white sails rode forward, one of the noblest fleets that human eyes ever rested on.
The vessels did not all sail with equal speed. Some got ahead, others were slow to get under way; some gained upon us, while we passed others. The solemnity of their advance, the height of their masts, covered with canvas, and a vague and obscure harmony which my childish ears fancied they could detect proceeding from those glorious hulls—a kind of hymn, which was no doubt the effect of my own imagination—the loveliness of the day, the crispness of the air, the beauty of the sea, which seemed to be dancing with joy outside the gulf at the approach of the vessels—all formed the grandest picture that the mind of man can conceive of.
Cadiz, itself, like a moving panorama, unfolded itself before our eyes, displaying in turn every aspect of its vast amphitheatre. The low sun, illuminating the glass in its myriad windows, sprinkled it with living sparks of gold, and its buildings lay so purely white above the blue water that it looked as if it might have been that moment called into being, or raised from the sea like the fanciful
