A Voyage in the Sunbeam | Page 6

happy to say, are as well as possible. I read and write a great deal, and learn Spanish, so that the days are all too short for what we have to do. The servants are settling down well into their places, and the commissariat department does great credit to the cooks and stewards. The maids get on satisfactorily, but are a little nervous on rough nights. We hope not to have many more just at present, for we are now approaching calmer latitudes.
In the course of the day, whilst Tom and I were sitting in the stern, the man at the wheel suddenly exclaimed, 'There's land on the port bow.' We knew, from the distance we had run, that this could not be the case, and after looking at it through the glasses, Tom pronounced the supposed land to be a thick wall of fog, advancing towards us against the wind. Captain Brown and Captain Lecky came from below, and hastened to get in the studding-sails, in anticipation of the coming squall. In a few minutes we had lost our fair breeze and brilliant sunshine, all our sails were taken flat aback, and we found ourselves enveloped in a dense fog, which made it impossible for us to see the length of the vessel. It was an extraordinary phenomenon. Captain Lecky, who, in the course of his many voyages, has passed within a few miles of this exact spot more than a hundred and fifty times, had never seen anything in the least like it. As night came on the fog increased, and the boats were prepared ready for lowering. Two men went to the wheel, and two to the bows to look out, while an officer was stationed on the bridge with steam-whistle and bell ready for an emergency; so that, in case we ran into anything, or anything ran into us, we should at least have the satisfaction of knowing that, so far as we were concerned, it had all been done strictly according to Act of Parliament.
Saturday, July 15th.--Between midnight and 4 a.m. the fog disappeared, as suddenly as it had come on. We must have passed through a wide belt of it. At 5.30 a.m., when Tom called me to see a steamer go by, it was quite clear. The vessel was the 'Roman,' and she passed so close to us that we made our number, and exchanged salutations with the officers on the bridge.
Towards the afternoon a nice breeze sprang up, and we were able to bank fires and sail.
CHAPTER II.
MADEIRA, TENERIFFE, AND CAPE DE VERDE ISLANDS.
Full many a green isle needs must be In this wide sea of misery, Or the mariner worn and wan Never thus could voyage on.
[Illustration: Our First View of Madeira]
Sunday, July 16th.--Porto Santo being visible on the port bow, a quarter of a mile ahead, by 3.55 a.m. this morning, our three navigators congratulated themselves and each other on the good land-fall they had made.
It looks a curious little island, and is situated about thirty-five miles north-east of Madeira, with a high peak in the centre, of which we could only see the extreme point, appearing above the clouds.
It is interesting to know that it was from his observation of the drift-wood and débris washed on to the eastern shore that Columbus, who had married the daughter of the Governor of Porto Santo, derived his first impressions of the existence of the New World. Here it was that he first realised there might possibly be a large and unknown country to the westward; here it was that he first conceived the project of exploring the hitherto unknown ocean and of discovering what new countries might bound its western shores.
An hour later we saw Fora and its light, at the extreme east of Madeira, and could soon distinguish the mountains in the centre of the latter island. As we rapidly approached the land, the beauty of the scenery became more fully apparent. A mass of dark purple volcanic rocks, clothed on the top with the richest vegetation, with patches of all sorts of colour on their sides, rises boldly from the sea. There are several small detached rocks, and one curious pointed little island, with an arch right through the middle of it, rather like the Percé Rock on the coast of Nova Scotia. We steamed slowly along the east coast, passing many pretty hamlets, nestled in bays or perched on the side of the hills, and observing how every possible nook and corner seemed to be terraced and cultivated. Sugar-canes, Indian corn, vines, and many varieties of tropical and semi-tropical plants, grow luxuriantly in this lovely climate. Nearly all the cottages in the island are inhabited by a simple people, many of whom have never left their native villages,