It Was Far More Formidable Than The
First Gale, But Less Beautiful; And We Made So Much Lee-Way That We
Lost Ten Days, And Only Arrived Here Yesterday.
I recommend a
fortnight's heavy gale in the South Atlantic as a cure for a blase
state of mind.
It cannot be described; the sound, the sense of
being hurled along without the smallest regard to 'this side
uppermost'; the beauty of the whole scene, and the occasional crack
and bear-away of sails and spars; the officer trying to 'sing out',
quite in vain, and the boatswain's whistle scarcely audible. I
remained near the wheel every day for as long as I could bear it,
and was enchanted.
Then the mortal perils of eating, drinking, moving, sitting, lying;
standing can't be done, even by the sailors, without holding on.
THE night of the gale, my cot twice touched the beams of the ship
above me. I asked the captain if I had dreamt it, but he said it
was quite possible; he had never seen a ship so completely on her
beam ends come up all right, masts and yards all sound.
There is a middy about half M-'s size, a very tiny ten-year-older,
who has been my delight; he is so completely 'the officer and the
gentleman'. My maternal entrails turned like old Alvarez, when
that baby lay out on the very end of the cross-jack yard to reef,
in the gale; it was quite voluntary, and the other newcomers all
declined.
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