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4 Jul 57 John on 'Lord Raglan' Mother ______________________________________________________________________________________________

on board ‘Lord Raglan’

July 4^th 1857

My dear Mother

It has been so hot ever since we came near the Line that it was almost impossible to stay down in the cabin to write letters, so I have put it off until we have got out of the tropics & here we are at last, getting into cooler weather. I think the hottest day that we had all through, was the day that the Irene – the ship that we sent our letters by – passed us. I certainly never saw such a scene. The cabin tables were crowded, as at meals. Every one writing as if for bare life. What is our latitude; what is our longitude. What is the day of the month. Pens would not write, ink was dried up & we only had about ten minutes to complete the letters. Who has a stamp. Lend me an envelope etc. Such confusion. Every body on board seemed to have written. There were about seven hundred letters went away.

We had light winds for two or three days after speaking the Irene and then were becalmed. Plenty of rain & then, when the sun came out, we were steamed. For two days we lay rolling about, pulling the yards about to try & catch any stray breath of wind. One day our observations showed us that we had made a mile backwards in the last 24 hours. Pleasant that, with the thermometer over 90 & obliged to dine buttoned up to the throat. At last the S.E. trade wind caught us & away we ran, close hauled, until we got within 150 miles of the northern part of South America & since then we have been running to the South, making a little to the East until, by yesterday’s observations, we were in Longitude 30º W & Latitude 26º S, * so you see we are progressing.

It is six weeks today since we came on board & I hope in a little more than that time we shall be safely landed in the Mauritius. When it was calm we fished for sharks, putting out a stout rope with a large hook – something of the sort that butchers have in their shops for hanging whole oxen to & on this we stuck a four pound piece of pork. We had seen a shark swimming about the ship & he swam very quietly up to this, turned over on his back & seized the bait. Whether we did not play him right, or whether the line was not strong enough, after pulling him half out of the water, the line snapped & he was off. He was nearly ten feet long & a troublesome companion in a swimming match. At least I had sooner he kept away from me. It is only in calms that they can be caught & I hope to have no more calms as we shall have plenty of opportunities of examining the genus shark in the Mauritius. I hope he will not have the chance of examining me.

It is very slow on board here, nothing to do.

July 19^th

We have had very fine weather for sailing – that is to say, strong winds – since I wrote the first part of this letter & we had one very severe gale which took us along at a fine pace, the sea running to any height that you like to imagine. Sometimes seas went over us, wetting all the lower sails & when I tell you that our deck is 21 feet above the water & the bulwarks five feet higher, you can imagine a little of the size of the waves. One evening, when we were taking in our topgallant sails, one of the men on the yards lost his hold & fell to the deck, a distance of about 140 feet. He fractured his skull & died in about ten minutes, poor fellow. He was the only support of a blind father in Wales. We buried him the next day. Only a few days before, another of the sailors fell from the mizzen or crossjack yard, but wonderful to say, did not break any bones, altho’ he was sorely shaken. It is more than a month now since it happened & he still looks very stiff. It was wonderful how a man could fall so much as 60 feet without killing himself.

The day before yesterday one of our color serjeants died – the only death on board amongst the soldiers (the man that was carried overboard by a rope of course did not die on board) & we buried him yesterday, playing the dead march & going through as much of the formality as was convenient. But as we never use arms on board ship of course there was no firing over the grave (or rather deep). The poor fellow died of heart disease & consumption. In fact he ought not to have been brought out with us.

So much for death. Now then, to say what the live stock are doing. Off Cape Agulhas, the southern point of Africa, we were becalmed & actually drifted back towards the West but after two days of that sort of fun we got a spanking breeze & here we are again with it blowing half a gale, running under close reefed topsails with every probability of making a splendid passage. In fact, if we knock off the first twelve days of our passage when we had strong head winds, and only got as far as off Lisbon, we ran from off Lisbon to the Cape in 41 days – a splendid passage & rarely, if ever, beaten.

We have walked past every ship that we have seen, English or Yankee. We go right past them & as yet we have not seen any other ships than those of the two nations I have mentioned.

We had a ‘sovereign’ lottery, drawing the days of the month & the possessor of the date of the day on which we arrive gets £31, and the days on each side receive £5 apiece. For instance, my day is 24^th August & if the ship arrives that day I get £31 & if she gets in on 23^rd or 25^th I receive £5. If I had been asked to choose a date at first starting, that is the ticket I would have chosen, as three months is the average passage. But this ship beats that out & out, so I shall not have much chance of winning any prize.

I suppose that if we go on at this rate, that I shall have a very good chance of getting to the Mauritius before Peter & so see him on his way up & knowing what his plans are & how to communicate with him. You must let me know Teddy’s address, so that we can make a little circle of our own on this side of the Cape. How odd it would be if we were to meet, & so many thousand miles apart as we are. But I should not be at all surprised to see Teddy paying me a visit some fine day, as medical men can get carried about for nothing, working their passages, so to speak. The servants want to

lay the table, so I must knock off for the present.

July 26^th

Sunday appears to be my day for writing. I find on looking back that the last time I wrote anything was last Sunday. We have had a calm for two or three days and now we are going thirteen knots an hour towards our destination and if we have any luck, ought to be there in about ten days. Still the old routine. Reading, parading & backgammon during the day, which is broken by morning parade & by the four meals. Then, in the evening, a game at whist, lights out at ten o’clock & after that we lounge about deck till eleven o’clock or later & then to bed until breakfast time. But being in very

small berths, one only can get up at a time, so that the dressing process begins soon afterwards. The Captain lets us see his charts every Sunday & there is great excitement, looking over the distance travelled and over what we have to go still.

Our men remain very healthy and of course, like ourselves, are longing to get ashore & with good reason too. No beer & very little chance of even taking exercise or of showing themselves to admiring servant maids etc. with their medals on. My Color Serjeant, who has the Crimean medal and clasps and also has received the Legion of honor is going to get the Good service medal for having been 18 years in the service of which he has been 8 a non-commissioned officer. He is a very brave little soldier and did his duty very well in the trenches where we were continually together & know one another well. The duties of a color serjeant are very important. He pays my company for me, receiving some times as much as ninety pounds at a time and he issues all the stores to the Company, being my representative in the Company in everything. In fact, commanding it under my order. His wife has been confined since we came on board and I told him that I would be Godfather to the little girl, at which he was delighted. Christina was to be her name. I suggested the addition to it of Helen. Those grand names will scarcely accord with the surname of Flint – he is a Devonshire man, a fine old soldier – though anything but a smart looking man. In fact, but for the Crimea, he would never have got on so well as he has, but he shewed his worth there & of course was brought forward.

I think about fifteen children have been born on the voyage and it must be wretched work for the poor mothers. No comfort of any sort. I have sent port wine and porter to some of them, but they cannot get it of themselves altho’ they may have any amount of money. However they will, we hope, soon be out of it & then they can manage better. Every body is getting very stout from want of exercise etc. but a dash of the Mauritius will soon pull them down. At least, in all these warm places, people either get very thin or very stout. Pleasant look out that, is it not.

August 11^th

We arrived here on the 2^nd of this month and disembarked on the afternoon of the 3^rd, being towed into harbour. But of course could not get near any wharf, so were put on board a small steam tug & taken ashore in that way. We got our light baggage up to barracks the same evening. I had taken the precaution of putting my Camp bed out and Willis of the 33^rd asked me to dine with him (he is an old Sandhurst fellow student) & I made my shakedown in his rooms & lent part of my bedding. I put up Stokes of ours while most of our fellows were laying on bare boards, as the races are going on here & the town is crowded with people from all parts so that there is no room in the wretched apologies for hotels.

When the pilot boarded our vessel to bring us into the anchorage ground, he said I suppose you are going on to India & then we first heard of this insurrection of the native troops in India which you probably know all about before I write this. Steamers were sent down from Bombay to get troops anywhere. Six companies of the 33^rd and one of the Companies of Artillery were sent from here, leaving only about 400 men for duty in the island and there are about 140,000 of the Malabars * here & the Creoles are, or rather were, before we arrived, in a terrible state of mind lest they should rise and massacre all the whites, but as they could gain nothing by doing so, I really think that all the fears were quite groundless.

It was a debateable question whether we should be landed here or go on at once to India, but the General, to quiet the fears of the people, thought it better to keep us & the other two companies of the 33^rd go on in the ‘Lord Raglan’ tomorrow unless bad news comes by the mail which is hourly expected and, indeed, is some time overdue. Peter has not turned up yet, but all those auxiliary screw steamers are bad sailing vessels and take longer to come from England than we have taken. We were seventy days, and fourteen days of that were almost lost when we first started, so that we have made a remarkably short passage.

I have got a month before me to write another letter and have been so much employed ever since I came here for my men wore out all their clothes on board ship and what with issuing, trying on and altering clothes and necessaries of all sorts – ammunition etc. and general’s inspections, after that I began to beat about the bush to make myself comfortable, but found some of my traps missing and they did not turn up for a week afterwards, when they were found on board, below the ship’s stores. I had just settled my men down pretty well, when an order came, telling me to prepare two detachments; one of a Serj^t and twenty men to go to the Governor’s country seat to be his guard, as I thought – but it turns out they are to be his gardeners, and I have sent one of my subalterns (Maule) with 30 men to the other end of the Island to a place called Flacque * where, I believe he can get nothing to eat. We have not heard from him yet, but he started with his men at 11 o’clock p.m. to march 22 miles, so I suppose he got in sometime during the next day.

I must tell you all about the island in my next & how we are situated etc. and also mention my wants, which will be not a few, as every thing is shamefully dear here. In fact the planters have such a lot of money here that they do not know what to do with it & squander it away so that money becomes cheap and of course, provisions are very dear and as for horses, nothing, even of the most weedy description under at least £50. The prices are perfectly frightful. I shall get my Father to send me out a trap here. It would be worth twice its value and besides, it is almost impossible to go into society without one as to go out to a party costs one £2 for a trap, not to speak of the white gloves which cost 5/ a pair and those are the commonest sort.

I wish my Father could get me introduced to the new Governor of this island, as then I might be made his Aide-de-Camp. There is also a new General coming out here and there again would be a good chance, if his Aide-de-Camp’s place were filled up, perhaps I might get to be his military Secretary. Any of these places would be worth at least £200 a year to me and I should probably live at less expense than I do at present, so that they are worth some exertion to obtain & they ought to be filled up by officers of the regiments here & if neither of the swells know of any of the officers here, a word in time would get me one of the appointments, or at least ‘might’ and they are worth holding. The new General is not appointed yet & the new Governor’s name is Stevenson. * So if my Father has any spare time, they would be worth looking after.

I want to write to Teddy by this mail so as to establish a communication in this part of the world. Altogether this sort of chain round the world brings forcibly to one’s mind the old saying that the sun never sets on the British Empire.

I must now finish this long, & I think almost unmeaning scrawl, but I have been so much called away when I was writing – first for one thing, then for another – that I do not think my writing is very connected.

I have got both your miniatures out and say ‘good morning’ to you both every day. That is something on the principle of keeping my newspapers when they come by the mail & having one brought in damp every morning – anything to make the place as much like home as possible.

Give my best love to my Father and all at home. I hope all are well & Believe me ever

Your affectionate Son

J Wimburn Laurie

4^th Kings Own Regiment

Port Louis

Mauritius

August 12^th 1857

* 30º W, 26º S – between southern Brazil and Namibia, but much closer to Brazil

* Malabars – Malabar is a term used in Mauritius to describe Hindu immigrants from Northern Indian, although the Malabar Coast is principally in Kerala, in the South West of India

* Flacque – now Flacq on the North Eastern side of the island

* Stevenson – Sir William Stevenson.KCB.(1805– 1863) was a Jamaican-born British colonial administrator who served as the 9^th Governor of Mauritius from 20 September 1857 to 9 January 1863, when he died of dysentery