To Build An Exploring Ship Of Untried Material
Was A Mistake.
Some chemical action on this preparation of steel
caused a minute hole; from this point, branches like lichens, or the
little ragged stars we sometimes see in thawing ice, radiated in all
directions.
Small holes went through wherever a bend occurred in
these branches. The bottom very soon became like a sieve, completely
full of minute holes, which leaked perpetually. The engineer stopped
the larger ones, but the vessel was no sooner afloat, than new ones
broke out. The first news of a morning was commonly the unpleasant
announcement of another leak in the forward compartment, or in the
middle, which was worse still.
Frequent showers fell on our way up the Zambesi, in the beginning of
August. On the 8th we had upwards of three inches of rain, which
large quantity, more than falls in any single rainy day during the
season at Tette, we owed to being near the sea. Sometimes the cabin
was nearly flooded; for, in addition to the leakage from below, rain
poured through the roof, and an umbrella had to be used whenever we
wished to write: the mode of coupling the compartments, too, was a
new one, and the action of the hinder compartment on the middle one
pumped up the water of the river, and sent it in streams over the
floor and lockers, where lay the cushions which did double duty as
chairs and beds. In trying to form an opinion of the climate, it
must be recollected that much of the fever, from which we suffered,
was caused by sleeping on these wet cushions.
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