It is now blowing hard again,and we have just been taken right aback.Luckily,I had lashed my desk to my washing-stand,or that would have flown off,as I did off my chair.I don't think I shall know what to make of solid ground under my feet.The rolling and pitching of a ship of this size,with such tall masts,is quite unlike the little niggling sort of work on a steamer -it is the difference between grinding along a bad road in a four-wheeler,and riding well to hounds in a close country on a good hunter.I was horribly tired for about five days,but now I rather like it,and never know whether it blows or not in the night,I sleep so soundly.The noise is beyond all belief;the creaking,trampling,shouting,clattering;it is an incessant storm.We have not yet got our masts quite safe;the new wire-rigging stretches more than was anticipated (of course),and our main-topmast is shaky.The crew have very hard work,as incessant tacking is added to all the extra work incident to a new ship.On Saturday morning,everybody was shouting for the carpenter.My cabin was flooded by a leak,and I superintended the baling and swabbing from my cot,and dressed sitting on my big box.However,I got the leak stopped and cabin dried,and no harm done,as I had put everything up off the floor the night before,suspicious of a dribble which came in.
Then my cot frame was broken by my cuddy boy and I lurching over against S-'s bunk,in taking it down.The carpenter has given me his own,and takes my broken one for himself.Board ship is a famous place for tempers.Being easily satisfied,I get all Iwant,and plenty of attention and kindness;but I cannot prevail on my cuddy boy to refrain from violent tambourine-playing with a tin tray just at the ear of a lady who worries him.The young soldier-officers,too,I hear mentioned as 'them lazy gunners',and they struggle for water and tea in the morning long after mine has come.
We have now been ten days at sea,and only three on which we could eat without the 'fiddles'(transverse pieces of wood to prevent the dishes from falling off).Smooth water will seem quite strange to me.I fear the poor people in the forecastle must be very wet and miserable,as the sea is constantly over it,not in spray,but in tons of green water.
3d Aug.-We had two days of dead calm,then one or two of a very light,favourable breeze,and yesterday we ran 175miles with the wind right aft.We saw several ships,which signalled us,but we would not answer,as we had our spars down for repairs and looked like a wreck,and fancied it would be a pity to frighten you all with a report to that effect.
Last night we got all right,and spread out immense studding-sails.
We are now bowling along,wind right aft,dipping our studding-sail booms into the water at every roll.The weather is still surprisingly cold,though very fine,and I have to come below quite early,out of the evening air.The sun sets before seven o'clock.
I still cough a good deal,and the bad food and drink are trying.
But the life is very enjoyable;and as I have the run of the charts,and ask all sorts of questions,I get plenty of amusement.
S-is an excellent traveller;no grumbling,and no gossiping,which,on board a ship like ours,is a great merit,for there is ADNAUSEAM of both.
Mr.-is writing a charade,in which I have agreed to take a part,to prevent squabbling.He wanted to start a daily paper,but the captain wisely forbade it,as it must have led to personalities and quarrels,and suggested a play instead.My little white Maltese goat is very well,and gives plenty of milk,which is a great resource,as the tea and coffee are abominable.Avery brings it me at six,in a tin pannikin,and again in the evening.The chief officer is well-bred and agreeable,and,indeed,all the young gentlemen are wonderfully good specimens of their class.The captain is a burly foremast man in manner,with a heart of wax and every feeling of a gentleman.He was in California,'HIDEDROGHING'with Dana,and he says every line of TWO YEARS BEFORE THEMAST is true.He went through it all himself.He says that I am a great help to him,as a pattern of discipline and punctuality.
People are much inclined to miss meals,and then want things at odd hours,and make the work quite impossible to the cook and servants.
Of course,I get all I want in double-quick time,as I try to save my man trouble;and the carpenter leaves my scuttle open when no one else gets it,quite willing to get up in his time of sleep to close it,if it comes on to blow.A maid is really a superfluity on board ship,as the men rather like being 'AUX PETITS SOINS'.
The boatswain came the other day to say that he had a nice carpet and a good pillow;did I want anything of the sort?He would be proud that I should use anything of his.You would delight in Avery,my cuddy man,who is as quick as 'greased lightning',and full of fun.His misery is my want of appetite,and his efforts to cram me are very droll.The days seem to slip away,one can't tell how.I sit on deck from breakfast at nine,till dinner at four,and then again till it gets cold,and then to bed.We are now about 100miles from Madeira,and shall have to run inside it,as we were thrown so far out of our course by the foul weather.
9th Aug.-Becalmed,under a vertical sun.Lat.17degrees,or thereabouts.We saw Madeira at a distance like a cloud;since then,we had about four days trade wind,and then failing or contrary breezes.We have sailed so near the African shore that we get little good out of the trades,and suffer much from the African climate.Fancy a sky like a pale February sky in London,no sun to be seen,and a heat coming,one can't tell from whence.To-day,the sun is vertical and invisible,the sea glassy and heaving.Ihave been ill again,and obliged to lie still yesterday and the day before in the captain's cabin;to-day in my own,as we have the ports open,and the maindeck is cooler than the upper.The men have just been holystoning here,singing away lustily in chorus.
