The Indian Ocean

by Michael Pearson

The third class is confined to foreigners, by which, I mean persons who are not Europeans; viz. the difficulty of shaving oneself; the cutting of one's own beard and nails; not having any private place for ablution; the necessity of eating with a knife and fork; and the impossibility of purification. From the latter I suffered much inconvenience; for as it was only customary on board to draw up water in buckets early in the morning, at which time all the crew washed themselves and whatever else they required, I was frequently under the necessity of drawing it up when I wanted it, in one of my own copper vessels; but during the rough weather many of these were lost in the attempt, and I was at last reduced to one ewer. I therefore relinquished the practice of purification, and was consequently incapacitated from the other duties of our religion.

  The fourth is confined to ships not belonging to the English; viz. noise and tumult when any business is done; the abusive language made use of while heaving the anchor; the quantity of bilge water allowed to remain in the ship; and the unnecessary destruction of every thing on board. To these may be added, the quantity of stinking salt fish and putrid eggs of which the sea store is composed, and the absurd custom of the crew lying on the wet decks; with a total want of discipline in the sailors, and science in the officers.108

  All standard enough, but the third complaint should have given the game away, for indeed this traveller on a Danish ship was an Indian Muslim. But apart from this his observations fit well with a host of other accounts of long voyages before the age of steam. He was unlucky in the matter of food, but this was because he was travelling on the cheap. In 1811 Mrs Graham sailed on a Royal Navy frigate, and the admiral in charge had laid in stores – a lot of stores. 'I found on board stores of every kind, sheep, milch goats, wine, preserves, pickles, fruit, vegetables, in short, everything that could possibly add to the comfort or convenience of a long voyage.'109 She passed the time pleasantly, 'after breakfast I always write or study for three hours, after which I draw, or do needle-work, till dinner-time, when I again read for an hour or two before I take my evening's walk, so that my time will not hang heavy on my hands in fine weather.' A cabin passenger bound for Australia in the late 1830s wrote that 'You will think we do nothing but eat and drink when I tell you that we have hot breakfast at half past eight, meat and new rolls, tea and coffee at twelve, grog and biscuit at half past three, dinner all fresh meat and very good at seven and at nine grog and biscuit.' Should this not be sufficient, one could provide one's own food, and take on fresh supplies when the ship called in at any port.110

  In 1845 Emma Roberts published a book which was full of practical advice for the traveller from England to the east: what to take, what to expect, how to behave. It gives a good impression of life on board in the time before steam and Suez. The best cabins were on the poop deck, even though they were noisy, as

  the hen-coops are usually placed upon the poop, and though the unfortunate denizens of these prisons may occasionally be quiescent, every movement of the ship causes the feet of the coops to strike against the deck. In bad weather, or during the working of the vessel, the noises made by trampling overhead, ropes dragging, blocks falling etc etc are very sensibly augmented by the cackling, chuckling, and screaming of the poultry....

  But this was actually good training: 'Without, however, wishing to alarm those per sons whose destinies are fixed in India, it may be said that the noise on ship should be looked upon with some indulgence, it being merely preparatory to the disturbances which must be endured on shore.' One should take a couch to have in one's cabin, 'since, when the ship is rolling, a recumbent attitude is exceedingly desirable.' One should also take a filtering machine for water so as to 'be furnished with a fair portion of wholesome water with which to perform their ablutions, instead of having every sense offended by the wretched stuff so often served out from the casks.' A supply of brandy was advised, to ensure good service from the crew. 'There is, generally speaking, more gaiety on board outward, than homeward bound vessels; few of the former sail without taking passengers visiting India for the first time, and these, buoyant in spirit, and enjoying the freshness of youth, usually endeavour to beguile the tediousness of the voyage by getting up a play or a concert.' She also provided a long list of desirable clothing.111

  Frederick Trench left from Chennai on a small French ship bound for Europe. The passage was bearable, but hardly exciting:

  The days are passed as usual at sea very dully. Turn out at day light, read, chat and walk a constitutional till breakfast and then at the sound of the cloche de dejeuner descend to the cuddy and sit down before the following cheer – an omelet, a hash or mutton chop, a dish of chopped grilled potatoes, a cheese, and three or four bottles of claret and after breakfast, in compliment to the Anglais, comes a weak cup of tea without milk. To this fare, however incongruous, I have at length accustomed myself and make a hearty meal of it in general. We have dinner at four and the intermediate hours we passed in writing, reading, smoking, chatting, walking and listening to and learning the lingo of those around. Yesterday we came across a huge shoal of porpoises, which remained playing round the ship. Pleasant to have any thing to relieve the harmony of the sea and sky or afford a topic for conversation.112

  Food was a constant preoccupation on these long voyages. Mrs Fay's voyage from Mocha to Calicut was unpleasant; she liked none of her fellow passengers, and once the ship nearly had to put back to Mocha so that the captain and one of the passengers could fight a duel. Food soon became scarce, and she learnt to grab it as soon as it appeared. She kept busy by retiring to her cabin and making shirts for her husband. 'How often since, in this situation have I blessed God, that he has been pleased to endow me with a mind, capable of furnishing its own amusement, in despite of every means used to discompose it.'

  It was a case of feast or famine. Mrs Fay in 1786 wrote that 'The table was at first profusely covered; being our Captain's favourite maxim "never to make two wants of one"; Every one foresaw what must be the consequence, but he would not listen to reason.' He announced that the ship was nearing St Helena, where provisions could be had, but then they discovered that they were still off the east coast of Africa:

  On examining the state of our water and provisions, after the error was discovered, we were put on an allowance of a quart of water a day, for all purposes; and for nearly a month before we arrived here, we were forced to live on salt provisions; even the poor children and the sick, had no better fare.

  There was another problem with food on this ship too, at least for the ladies. Her travelling companion, Mrs Tottingham,

  at first took her meals in the Cuddy, but the gentlemen were in general too fond of the bottle to pay us the least attention; after tea, we were never asked to cut in at cards, though they played every evening. Captain Lewis swore so dreadfully, making use of such vulgar oaths and expressions; and became so very rude and boisterous, that Mrs Tottingham withdrew entirely from table, and never left her cabin for the last thirteen weeks; but the Colonel [her husband] took care to send her whatever was necessary; I had no one to perform the like kind office for me, and was therefore forced to venture up among them, or risk starvation below.

  On her voyage out in 1815 Mrs Fay also was confined to her cabin, but on this occasion because she was escorting six young ladies to India. They 'were only five times on deck during the passage, which was owing to the previous arrangement between the Captain and me, to guard against imprudent attachments, which are more easily formed than broken – and I am happy to say the plan succeeded to our wish.'113

  As more people travelled the quality of food for the common immigrant was far different from what the elite had and continued to have. Lancelot L. Earl was an assisted immigrant to Australia in 1882. When they were sixty-seven days out from London they ate a porpoise, 'perhaps what made it seem so nice to us was because it is going on for 3 months since we eat any other than salt or preserved meat or salt junk, as the sailor's term is, but salt leather would be a better name for it, and the
refore anything of a fresh nature is a treat for us.' Three days later 'There is not even a potato left, so we have to be contented with what is called preserved potato, which looks something like sawdust, and don't taste much better, but there is plenty of sea biscuit left so there is no fear of starving.'114 Convicts and assisted immigrants to Australia lived for months on a diet essentially of bread and water, some salt beef, and occasional cheese, sugar, tea and pork.

  Long voyages could be tedious. Fanny Parks had a fine time coming out to India as there were lots of gallant officers on board and she flirted to her heart's content. Coming back in 1822 was less fun:

  This has proved a most uninteresting voyage as far as it has gone, nothing to be seen; one solitary albatross appears now and then, and a few Cape pigeons. The other day I saw a sperm whale blowing at a distance. There is nothing to look at but the boundless ocean; even the sunsets and sunrises have not been remarkably fine....115

  So also Lancelot L. Earl in 1882:

  The days have hung very heavy on us as we do not have much to do, although we pass the time along by playing various games, such as ship quoits, which are made of rope, and have to be thrown within a chalk ring. We also find a deal of sport in playing at Touch, as we chase each other up and all about the riggings and ropes. Slipper [?] and Tugs of War between married and single men caused a great deal of sport, as the married men pulled us all over the ship, and a great many other games the sailors have put us up to.116

  If the weather allowed people danced and put on plays, learnt languages preparatory to arriving in India, and found other improving ways to pass the time.

  The weather controlled everything in these sailing ships. We will write about storms presently, but being becalmed in the tropics was also at the least unpleasant. In October 1822 Fanny Parks was stationary in latitude 4° S.

  The heat was very great; the vertical sun poured down its sickening rays, the thermometer in the shade of the coolest cabin 86°; not a breath of air.... The sails flapped against the mast, and we only made progress seventeen knots in the twenty-four hours! Thus passed eleven days – the shower bath kept us alive, and our health was better than when we quitted England. M. mon mari, who was studying Persian, began to teach me Hindostanee, which afforded me much pleasure. In spite of the heat there was gaiety on board; the band played [that is the band of the soldiers on the ship] delightfully, our fellow-passengers were agreeable, and the calm evenings allowed of quadrilles and waltzing on the deck, which was lighted up with lanterns and decorated with flags.117

  Storms were a fearful event indeed, and we have numerous hair-raising accounts of severe ones, especially in the southern reaches below the Cape. Here is one from 1880, by an immigrant travelling to Australia, Richard James Whyte, on a small sailing vessel, the Helena Mena. In heavy weather in the southern ocean,

  the wind blows the ship on one side till the bulwarks are level with the water, then – BUMP – BANG – comes the sea against the side sounding (if you are below) as if the side of the ship was being knocked in, the vessel trembling like a leaf at every blow, if your duty happens to take you along the deck when she is so struck you know directly you hear it that you are doomed to get drenched if you are on the side which she is struck, but there is no real danger to the ship....

  Soon after, in a violent gale,

  the sailors were as busy as bees furling the sails, the water being thrown up as high as the main stay sail, the sea running mountains high and over the edge of the bulwark, till it looked every time as if the ship must go over. I scrambled down below and with some difficulty got to bed, between 12 and 3 the gale reached its height, and the ship pitched, rolled and plunged to an extent alarming, everything was being rolled from one side of the ship to the other in the most fantastic confusion.118

  Steamers and the canal produced a quantum change. The main thing was regularity and predictability. One could guarantee that the voyage would take so many days, and even that one would arrive at a certain time. Voyages lost some of their tedious and dangerous aspects. Human relations also changed, for there is a major difference between being fellow passengers for a few weeks as compared with months. The age of steam also coincided with the high point of British imperialism: indeed P&O especially typified and represented this, and also helped to create it. The stately liners, marvels of technology in the second half of the nineteenth century, were a visible symbol of British dominance. As they eased their way through British dredged channels to British built berths in British colonial ports they visibly and metaphorically pushed aside the host of smaller indigenous craft in their way.

  This is very much a later nineteenth century matter. The opening of the Canal made a huge difference, as now one did not have to trans-ship at Alexandria and travel overland to Suez, there to pick up another ship to travel down the Red Sea. The itinerary of Emma Roberts, travelling from London to India in 1838, shows that even with steam a voyage could be long and arduous. Travelling by small steamers and diligences, it took fourteen days to reach Marseilles from London. She then took a steamer to Leghorn, Malta and Alexandria, and then a small boat to Cairo. The next part of the journey was overland to Suez, which took three nights and two days. The passage on a steamer from Suez to Mocha and then Mumbai took another sixteen and a half days. In total her trip took sixty-one days,

  Once the Canal was open the journey became very routine, and very fast. The P&O line was always considered to be the poshest, even if the appealing notion that POSH is an acronym for Port Out Starboard Home, these being the preferred shady sides of the ship, unfortunately has no linguistic validity. They carried the mails, had the gilt edged, official, passenger trade, and never allowed dogs on board. When Leonard Woolf went out to Colombo on the P&O liner Syria in 1904 he had to send his dog on another, less restrictive, line. Mark Twain left an agreeable account of first-class travel in 1896 as he went from Ceylon to Mauritius:

  Customs in tropic seas. At 5 in the morning they pipe to wash down the decks, and at once the ladies who are sleeping there turn out and they and their beds go below. Then one after another the men come up from the bath in their pyjamas, and walk the decks an hour or two with bare legs and bare feet. Coffee and fruit are served. The ship cat and her kitten now appear and get about their toilets; next the barber comes and flays us on the breezy deck. Breakfast at 9.30, and the day begins. The people group themselves about the decks in their snowy white linen, and read, smoke, sew, play cards, talk, nap, and so on.... If I had my way we should never get in [to a port] at all.119

  The imperial aspect was very strong indeed, even when not on a British ship. Isabel Burton and her husband Richard sailed on an Italian ship, he being Consul at Trieste. Nevertheless, there were plenty of occasions for imperial activity. In the Red Sea in May 1876 they passed a lighthouse, and

  They dipped flag to us, as the Captain paid us the compliment of flying the red Union Jack for the Queen's birthday. Lloyd's made us an extra good dinner for this occasion, and I brewed a claret-cup, and we drank Her Majesty's health 'three times three,' with a fervent 'God bless her!' at the end. Then followed the healths of Emperor Franz Joseph and the Empress, the Captain and the officers. The old Captain was quite affected by this unusual scene, for we made the old Italian ship ring with British cheers, and he ordered champagne and drank to our Queen and to us, in a very pretty speech; we afterwards sang 'God Save the Queen' on deck, and then the Austrian national hymn.120

  Indeed, so British was the whole route that some even found it disappointing. Harding, later to be an important mandarin in London, travelled out to the colonies on the Medina, a magnificent 12,400 ton steamer, in 1913. He was Secretary of the Dominions Royal Commission. There was some exotica to be sure. Port Said was 'a compound of a second rate French watering place... and a fourteenth rate Eastern town. The most attractive parts of it were the children in various stages of costume from half a nightshirt to what one is accustomed to see, and the goats taking around the morning milk. They bring
it to the door and are milked into bottles.' The crew was mustered, the lascars on one side and the white crew on the other, 'and very curious they looked – with a variety of coloured sashes and Company's uniform.' But mostly it was all too familiar: when he got to Aden he said it was all worthwhile,

  if only to realise the extraordinary 'Britishness' of this particular route. One sails on comfortably for three or four days and then, when things are perhaps becoming a trifle monotonous, one finds a relaxation in the shape of a port very British-looking (in all but the houses and population [hard to tell then what he does include as being 'British']) and with all the necessary appliances for buying Kodak films, Whisky, Picture Postcards and other British delights. I think it really ought to be called 'the Imperial Piccadilly.'121

  The first-class passengers travelled in great style; indeed Isabel Burton complained that her English fellow-passengers on the Austrian ship 'want their huge lumps of beef and mutton four times a day. They eat up the provisions like locusts, and drink the cellar dry almost before we got to Aden.' The well-connected Ruby Madden, from an elite Melbourne family, may have been a typical traveller in the heyday of the empire. Once her ship left Fremantle, bound for Colombo in 1902, 'I always breakfast in bed and then dress at my leisure, and it makes the day not so long and dreary.' Ruby had a new outfit every day, and dirty underwear was simply chucked out the porthole, as washing facilities were minimal. Singing and duets, just as in a country house weekend, helped to pass the time. Her account is mostly about her clothes, and which men paid welcome (or unwelcome) attention to her. She changed ship in Colombo, and rested in the Galle Face Hotel while her luggage was transferred. Arriving in Mumbai, she was met by an important official who further eased her arrival. 'I need not have worried myself at all about the Customs for he left word for everything to be passed and his servant waited to bring it home, and we drove off in a sweet victoria, with rubber tyres and footman and coachman. They look so smart with green and gold livery and broad belts and turbans.'122