Having got our tow-line aboard the barque, we started on our return journey to Liverpool, but had scarcely got clear of land before it commenced to blow heavily, and the sea became so rough that we had to part company with the barque, which, fortunately, drifted back to Rotterdam, while we found ourselves with only sufficient coal to take us into Dover.
I did not stop long with the tug, as I came to the conclusion that there was little chance of getting on in my profession if I was content to simply knock about from ship to ship. If I was ever to get an officer’s certificate, I must start by getting a berth as A.B. (able seaman), in an ocean-going ship, so that I could put in the four years’ regular sea service which I should have to show before going up for my certificate, of which at least twelve months had to be on a sailing ship trading to foreign ports. I therefore looked out for a suitable berth, and at last shipped on a barque, the _Lake Simcoe_, trading to South America.
I had, as usual, my share of incident during the voyage.
Whilst trading in Brazil, we made a trip up the River Amazon, during which I got a touch of yellow fever, and on arriving at Laguna, where we had to take some logwood on board, I was put ashore to go into hospital. I do not know what alterations have been made since I was there, but at that time the hospital was a gloomy enough building, with heavily barred slits in the wall for windows, and used indifferently as hospital, lunatic asylum, and gaol, while the strong resemblance to a prison was heightened by the fact that the place was always guarded by a detachment of soldiers.
The hospital arrangements were disgusting and reckless, no regard being paid either to sanitation or the prevention of infection. All manner of diseases were mixed indiscriminately in the same ward, while the duties of orderlies and attendants on the patients were undertaken by some of the more harmless among the lunacy cases!
One gruesome discovery which I made soon after my entry was that the establishment possessed only one coffin, which had to do duty for each fatal case in turn, being made with a sliding bottom, which reduced the work of lowering the corpse into the grave to a minimum. When a case ended fatally, the corpse was placed in this coffin—which was always kept in the ward—and taken out for burial, the coffin being afterwards returned to its place in the hospital, in full view of the other patients! As there were generally three or four funerals every day, it may be easily imagined that the effect on those left behind was not the most cheering.