The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, Part 1: The English at the North Pole

MP3 Audio CD. The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, Part 1: The English at the North Pole

CHAPTER I

THE "FORWARD"


"To-morrow, at low tide, the brig Forward, Captain K. Z----, Richard
Shandon mate, will start from New Prince's Docks for an unknown
destination."

The foregoing might have been read in the Liverpool Herald of April
5th, 1860. The departure of a brig is an event of little importance
for the most commercial port in England. Who would notice it in the
midst of vessels of all sorts of tonnage and nationality that six
miles of docks can hardly contain? However, from daybreak on the 6th
of April a considerable crowd covered the wharfs of New Prince's
Docks--the innumerable companies of sailors of the town seemed to
have met there. Workmen from the neighbouring wharfs had left their
work, merchants their dark counting-houses, tradesmen their shops.
The different-coloured omnibuses that ran along the exterior wall
of the docks brought cargoes of spectators at every moment; the town
seemed to have but one pre-occupation, and that was to see the
Forward go out.

The Forward was a vessel of a hundred and seventy tons, charged
with a screw and steam-engine of a hundred and twenty horse-power.
It might easily have been confounded with the other brigs in the port.
But though it offered nothing curious to the eyes of the public,
connoisseurs remarked certain peculiarities in it that a sailor
cannot mistake. On board the Nautilus, anchored at a little distance,
a group of sailors were hazarding a thousand conjectures about the
destination of the Forward.

"I don't know what to think about its masting," said one; "it isn't
usual for steamboats to have so much sail."