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. I always called him 'Mr. -, sir', and asked his leave
gravely, or, on occasions, his protection and assistance; and his
little dignity was lovely. He is polite to the ladies, and
slightly distant to the passenger-boys, bigger than himself, whom
he orders off dangerous places; 'Children, come out of that; you'll
be overboard.'
A few days before landing I caught a bad cold, and kept my bed. I
caught this cold by 'sleeping with a damp man in my cabin', as some
one said. During the last gale, the cabin opposite mine was
utterly swamped, and I found the Irish soldier-servant of a little
officer of eighteen in despair; the poor lad had got ague, and
eight inches of water in his bed, and two feet in the cabin. I
looked in and said, 'He can't stay there - carry him into my cabin,
and lay him in the bunk'; which he did, with tears running down his
honest old face. So we got the boy into S-'s bed, and cured his
fever and ague, caught under canvas in Romney Marsh. Meantime S-
had to sleep in a chair and to undress in the boy's wet cabin. As
a token of gratitude, he sent me a poodle pup, born on board, very
handsome. The artillery officers were generally well-behaved; the
men, deserters and ruffians, sent out as drivers. We have had five
courts-martial and two floggings in eight weeks, among seventy men.
They were pampered with food and porter, and would not pull a rope,
or get up at six to air their quarters. The sailors are an
excellent set of men. When we parted, the first lieutenant said to
me, 'Weel, ye've a wonderful idee of discipline for a leddy, I will
say. You've never been reported but once, and that was on sick
leave, for your light, and all in order.'
Cape Town, Sept. 18.
We anchored yesterday morning, and Captain J-, the Port Captain,
came off with a most kind letter from Sir Baldwin Walker, his gig,
and a boat and crew for S- and the baggage. So I was whipped over
the ship's side in a chair, and have come to a boarding house where
the J-s live. I was tired and dizzy and landsick, and lay down and
went to sleep. After an hour or so I woke, hearing a little
gazouillement, like that of chimney swallows. On opening my eyes I
beheld four demons, 'sons of the obedient Jinn', each bearing an
article of furniture, and holding converse over me in the language
of Nephelecoecygia. Why has no one ever mentioned the curious
little soft voices of these coolies? - you can't hear them with the
naked ear, three feet off. The most hideous demon (whose
complexion had not only the colour, but the precise metallic lustre
of an ill black-leaded stove) at last chirruped a wish for orders,
which I gave. I asked the pert, active, cockney housemaid what I
ought to pay them, as, being a stranger, they might overcharge me.
Her scorn was sublime, 'Them nasty blacks never asks more than
their regular charge.' So I asked the black-lead demon, who
demanded 'two shilling each horse in waggon', and a dollar each
'coolie man'. He then glided with fiendish noiselessness about the
room, arranged the furniture to his own taste, and finally said,
'Poor missus sick'; then more chirruping among themselves, and
finally a fearful gesture of incantation, accompanied by 'God bless
poor missus. Soon well now'. The wrath of the cockney housemaid
became majestic: 'There, ma'am; you see how saucy they have grown-
-a nasty black heathen Mohamedan a blessing of a white Christian!'
These men are the Auvergnats of Africa. I was assured that bankers
entrust them with large sums in gold, which they carry some hundred
and twenty miles, by unknown tracks, for a small gratuity. The
pretty, graceful Malays are no honester than ourselves, but are
excellent workmen.
To-morrow, my linen will go to a ravine in the giant mountain at my
back, and there be scoured in a clear spring by brown women,
bleached on the mountain top, and carried back all those long miles
on their heads, as it went up.
My landlady is Dutch; the waiter is an Africander, half Dutch, half
Malay, very handsome, and exactly like a French gentleman, and as
civil.
Enter 'Africander' lad with a nosegay; only one flower that I know-
-heliotrope. The vegetation is lovely; the freshness of spring and
the richness of summer. The leaves on the trees are in all the
beauty of spring. Mrs. R- brought me a plate of oranges, 'just
gathered', as soon as I entered the house - and, oh! how good they
were! better even than the Maltese. They are going out, and DEAR
now - two a penny, very large and delicious. I am wild to get out
and see the glorious scenery and the hideous people. To-day the
wind has been a cold south-wester, and I have not been out. My
windows look N. and E. so I get all the sun and warmth.
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