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Stopping Leaks in the Ship
Engravers: Butterworth and Heath
Illustrators: Justyne, Leitch, Macquoid, Morgan, Pasquier, and G. H. Thomas
1864
Wood-engraving
15.5 cm high by 13.8 cm wide, framed.
Cassell's Robinson Crusoe, page 341.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
My partner endeavoured to encourage me by describing the several ports of that coast, and told me he would put in on the coast of Cochin China, or the bay of Tonquin, intending afterwards to go to Macao, where a great many European families resided, and particularly the missionary priests, who usually went thither in order to their going forward to China. [page 339]
I have observed above that our ship sprung a leak at sea, and that we could not find it out; and it happened that, as I have said, it was stopped unexpectedly, on the eve of our being pursued by the Dutch and English ships in the bay of Siam; yet, as we did not find the ship so perfectly tight and sound as we desired, we resolved while we were at this place to lay her on shore, and clean her bottom, and, if possible, to find out where the leaks were. Accordingly, having lightened the ship, and brought all our guns and other movables to one side, we tried to bring her down, that we might come at her bottom; but, on second thoughts, we did not care to lay her on dry ground, neither could we find out a proper place for it.
The inhabitants, who had never been acquainted with such a sight, came wondering down the shore to look at us; and seeing the ship lie down on one side in such a manner, and heeling in towards the shore, and not seeing our men, who were at work on her bottom with stages, and with their boats on the off-side, they presently concluded that the ship was cast away, and lay fast on the ground. On this supposition they came about us in two or three hours’ time with ten or twelve large boats, having some of them eight, some ten men in a boat, intending, no doubt, to have come on board and plundered the ship, and if they found us there, to have carried us away for slaves to their king, or whatever they call him, for we knew nothing of their governor.
When they came up to the ship, and began to row round her, they discovered us all hard at work on the outside of the ship’s bottom and side, washing, and graving, and stopping, as every seafaring man knows how. They stood for a while gazing at us, and we, who were a little surprised, could not imagine what their design was. . . . [Chapter XII, "The Carpenter's Whimsical Contrivance," page 340]
Among the previous illustrators none has represented the beginning of the incident which Crusoe describes as "The Carpenter's Whimsical Contrivance," although both George Cruikshank and Phiz have represented (or, rather, somewhat misrepresented or caricatured) the repelling of the too-curious and none-too-friendly Cochin Chinese (that is, Vietnamese) in "Tarring the Blacks" (1831 and 1864).
At the point depicted in the illustration, the graving work is proceeding with the boiling of tar and resin with which the carpenter and his assistant, Jack, and several other sailors intend to patch the seams of the hull. Several boatloads of local inhabitants in the left foreground seem merely curious, and do not appear to harbour hostile intentions, so that the illustration seems to suggest the whole operation will go smoothly. However, as the reader arrives at the bottom of the previous page, the Indo-Chinese have dramatically increased in numbers and are preparing to seize the vessel, its cargo, and crew.
Above: George Cruikshank's caricatural, half-page illustration of the
discomfort visited upon the attacking Cochin Chinese,
Above: Phiz's comedic, full-page illustration of the ship's carpenter and a British seaman's using boiling pitch to terminate the invasion of the vessel by the "inhabitants," whom Phiz depicts as South-Sea islanders rather than Cochin Chinese: Tarring the Blacks. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Above: Paget's far more realistic full-page illustration of the ship's carpenter and his assistant about to use boiling pitch to combat the "inhabitants," who look again likeSouth-Sea islanders or North American aboriginals rather than Cochin Chinese: "Well done, Jack! Give them some more of it.". [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.
Last modified 10 April 2018