belem's history
1896-1897, first voyage
In July 31st, 1896: the Belem left Saint-Nazaire in ballast for the capital of Uruguay, Montevideo, under the command of his first captain, Mr Lemerle, known as “le merle noir” or the blackbird. It was the last command of this fifty-year-old man that would retire when returning to Nantes.
The boat is foreseen for a crew of 12 men: a chief officier, a boatswain, a cook, 8 sailors (4 men of the port watch and 4 men of the starboard watch ) and finally one ship’s boy. With the captain and an apprentice possibly, it could total 14 men. The cook lived in front under the forecastle. The crew’s accommodation for the boatswin and the sailors, was located in the deckhouse where was also located the kitchen. All others were more comfortably installed under the poop.
September 20th: the boat arrived at Montevideo and took care of a load of 121 she-mules to the Belém’s port, a city of the province of Pará in Brazil. Very cumbersome load for which it was necessary to fit out parks in the hold and that asked daily extra work to the sailors.
October 16th: the day after getting under way, a strong gale, the pampero, obliged the captain to scud, under foresail in reef, fixed topsails and inner jib. The pampero is a wind coming from the Andes blowing generally during the summer season. It passes over Pampa towards the maritime coasts (where it took its name from). It is a very dry and cold South/Southwest wind with squalls.
The she-mules of Pampa were not used to the violent rolling… Once, the crew could finally open the hatch covers and inspect the park, they discovered a spectacle of desolation: six she-mules died crushed and trampled, and the others suffered from hardship.
November 15th: 30 days after her departure from Montevideo, the Belem arrived for the first time of her career at Belém.
In berth, on Rio Pará, the vessel waited for a long time for the inspection of the customs and the veterinarian services. In the night of the 16, the men were woken by the noise of she-mules in the hold. A fire broke out. The fight lasted till early in the morning. The 115 surviving she-mules from the pampero suffocated and died quickly in the fire. Shortly after, the crew should battle with the port authorities.
This first campaign of Belem was a disaster. The boat wasn’t able to charge any cocoa for Nantes and the damages were important.
After emptying the hold of its carrions and its ashes, cleaning it, making some makeshifts and setting ballast, the damaged ship resumed her road towards Nantes which she reaches after 46 days of crossing in difficult wind on January 26, 1897.
The boat joined then the ship yard Dubigeon where where will be done the repairs after an examination from the insurers.
On this first journey, we have Louis Lacroix’s testimony, ocean trade captain, which based its story on the information given by its colleague Julien Chauvelon, captain of the Belem for numerous years. We also know that Louis Lacroix had access to various documents relative to this journey (he quotes a sea report).
She left Saint-Nazaire in ballast on July 31th, 1896 to Montevideo, where it arrived September 20th after fifty days in sea and left it on October 15th, having on board one hundred and twenty one she-mules for Pará. Captain Lemerle, nicknamed “Le Merle Noir” (Blackbird) of which I shall speak again farther, had taken command of her at the shipbuilding yards and had only of bad luck.
Just the day after her departure, one of these tremendous squalls known under the name of “pamperos” and special in the estuary of Plata, came down on the vessel. At five o’clock in the evening, the sea was raging; scuding under her foresail in reef, her fixed topsails and her inner jib, the Belem, ruling in the blade, knocked by violent rolling making more than one afraid for her masting.
In the hold, the terrified and tumbled animals, breaking their halters, passed over their mangers by bitting and stamping each other. These storms are of short duration, and, early in the morning, it was possible to open the panels of the hold, which had been condemned because of the fury of the storm: they found six dead and half crushed animals.
Thirty days later, without other worth-mentionning incident, the three-master of Nantes cast anchor in natural harbour of Pará, ready to discharge her load two days later in the morning, as soon as the Customs and the Health would have given the authorization. In the night of October 16th, in spite of frequent rounds, a fire burst out in the parks of the orlop and spread with a speed such that all means used to fight it were ineffective and it was impossible to save one of the hundred and fifteen poor she-mules locked under the bridge.
The sea report which I have under my eyes made clear that the emergency help required by signals to ground was slow to come and that after the fire had been put out after long efforts, the customs and its helpers took advantage of it to plunder the vessel from top to bottom, in spite of the resistance of the captain and his crew which were forced to go ashore.
After important temporary repairs, the Belem took ballast to return to Nantes, where the insurers had decided with the shipowners that she would be repaired completely. Out of the Northeast trade winds region, Captain Lemerle found big variable West winds that make the crossing painful, obliging to maneuver sails constantly and to modify them according to the irregular force of the breeze. The pilot of the Loire embarked on board only on January 26th, 1897, after forty six days of crossing and Mr Lemerle, who had gained his pensions and exceeded fifty years of age, withdrew in his region, leaving command to Captain Rioual. This one followed the repair works and, as soon as they ended, came to the quai de l’Aiguillon and embarked pavements from Sainte-Anne’s career, to serve as ballast to return in Montevideo for a second time. [Louis Lacroix, on 1945].
[This text contains a strange error: the fire is dated October 16th instead of November 16th. It is an impossible date because the boat left Montevideo on October 15th. We don’t know if it due to an inattention of the author or a misprint left by the publisher.]
Jean Noli, in the text of the album Le siècle du Bélem published in 1996, give away a version which differs by certain points: he indicates for example a crossing of 75 days to rejoin Montevideo (instead of about fifty days), what seems to be a mistake (he confused probably the arrival date to Montevideo, on September 20th, with the departure date of the same port, on October 15th). He speaks also about “a brief stopover in Montevideo” while it lasted 25 days… As for the story of Belém’s incidents, he takes up again more or less Lacroix’s indications.
Daniel Hillion, in its book Le Belem, cent ans d’aventure, proposes a version of this story very different and richer in explanations, a history which seems more true and more realistic in all respects. The author had access probably to others sources than those of Louis Lacroix (Jean Noli manifestly took up his story according to Lacroix’s testimony). We can also think that the old captain Lacroix had hesitated to tarnish the memory of Captain Lemerle by corporatism and allegiance in a certain spirit of La Marchande. Or more simply than Chauvelon passed on him only the “official” story as testified in the sea report.
So, here is the summary of the story astold by Daniel Hillion of this somber and disastrous (for the she-mules) first journey :
On July 31st, 1896, Belem leaf Saint-Nazaire’s natural harbour. On board, the captain Lemerle, known as le merle noir (blackbird), and Alphonse Rio, the young 23-year-old chief officier. Hillion lets us understand that the relation among these two, the one that is soon going to take his pension after a well-filled life, and one young, fiery and inexperienced officier, is strained at least. Lemerle was, it seems known, as much for his hardness towards crewmen as for his scorn of young officers.
Charged with she-mules from Montevideo which survived the pampero, the boat arrived in Belém on November 15th, the day before a holiday, and had to remained for two days anchored on the river waiting for the visit of the customs officers and the health service. The crew took charge of current maintenance on the vessel and set back on foot the weakened she-mules.
The fire broke out in the night of the 16th to the 17th. Fed by the litter straw, it spread very quickly in parks. In front of the failure of the first fight attempts, there was nothing more to do except to close hatches and to seal ventilators. Help was asked to ground by light signals, but it dawdled on the way.
Lemerle, woken by the hullabaloo of she-mules, boiling with rage, take it out on his own son, a 18-year-old, embarked young man as an apprentice. He needs a culprit! The chief officer, Rio, took the defence of the apprentice and Lemerle turns against the boatswain, who will desert next night in the matter of fact, leaving clear field to suspicions, justified or not.
Fire brigades arrived finally. Panels were opened, reviving the fire which begins to spread on the bridge. After a long fight, the fire is brought under control early in the morning. All the she-mules died for a long time, were half carbonized.
The vessel is tugged to quay. Just after the manoeuvre completed, the sailors announced that they were going to do a tour in town. Captain Lemerle didn’t believe its ears. “And the protests of the captain, his orders, the threats changed nothing. The captain, so authoritarian he was on sea, was not any more the incontested master on ground. The sailors know, besides, that it was easier for them to find another embarking than for the Captain Lemerle to get a new crew for a damaged vessel.”
The sailors left the boat, and Lemerle, full of fury, ordered the chief officer Rio to follow him it in town for bring back the men. Rio refused this order which would have for result to leave the vessel without surveillance while fire brigades were already quarrelling over the plunders of the Belem. We imagine the effect of the insubordination of this young officer on the old captain…
The Crouan’s representative arrived and put an end to the quarrel among them. He thought as Rio that a damaged and immobilized vessel alongside quay was going to attract looters. He invited the captain to go run aground in river and to throw the she-mules in the water before they stank.
Hours later, the sailors returned and agreed to embark provided access to food and drink in good quantity. A guard duty is established just the time to get food and to take advantage of the city’s pleasures until the next day.
The boat was brought to the rio Tocantin where began the macabre evacuation work of the hold and the first repairs. Lemerle did not leave his bad mood, especially since his son abandoned the boat to take refuge on the other one the dat before. Furthermore, his young chief officer, Alphonse Rio, gave him still evidence of insubordination by refusing to modify certain passages of the ship’s log unfavourable to Lemerle. It is too much for him! Lemerle came to blows and the affair was settled with fists. And it was the old man who had the upper hand! But this physical victory didn’t succeed in imposing a rewriting of the ship’s log…
After cleaning the hold and consolidation works of lower masts, the Belem was anchored in the mouth of the river looking forward to favorable wind conditions. At dawn, on order of the second officer, the new boatswain called “Up the hammocks” to the crew. And when Lemerle came to give the order to heave out sails, nobody is at his post. When Rio get the man of the watch asking for explanations, he only got this reply : “Sir, both watches are asleep.” They were close to a rebellion at this moment.
A real wrestling match began between the crew and Lemerle. The sailors want to return to Belém, argueing the bad state of the ship, and asking for other repairs. The captain then decided to cut them foods and threatened to use fire weapons at the slightest uprising. More than forty eight hours after, the boatswain comes to the rear with the new of the surrender. “The men are prepared to obey orders but they ask to eat. — Not before we are at sea; the captain retorted.” It will be necessary to wait another 24 hours for the arrival of favorable winds to sail and finally men to eat in the crew’s quarters.
No doubt that Melville, or Conrad, would have been able to write with brio a striking story of this pathetic voyage with heroes like Rio and Captain Lemerle…