Letters from the Cape | Page 4

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. I have 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. Last night I got leave to sling my cot under the main hatchway,
as my cabin must have killed me from suffocation when shut up. Most
of the men stayed on deck, but that is dangerous after sunset on this
African coast, on account of the heavy dew and fever. They tell me that
the open sea is quite different; certainly, nothing can look duller and
dimmer than this specimen of the tropics. The few days of trade wind
were beautiful and cold, with sparkling sea, and fresh air and bright sun;
and we galloped along merrily.
We are now close to the Cape de Verd Islands, and shall go inside them.
About lat. 4 degrees N. we expect to catch the S.E. trade wind, when it
will be cold again. In lat. 24 degrees, the day before we entered the
tropics, I sat on deck in a coat and cloak; the heat is quite sudden, and
only lasts a week or so. The sea to- day is littered all round the ship
with our floating rubbish, so we have not moved at all.
I constantly long for you to be here, though I am not sure you would
like the life as well as I do. All your ideas of it are wrong; the

confinement to the poop and the stringent regulations would bore you.
But then, sitting on deck in fine weather is pleasure enough, without
anything else. In a Queen's ship, a yacht, or a merchantman with fewer
passengers, it must be a delightful existence.
17th Aug.--Since I wrote last, we got into the south-west monsoon for
one day, and I sat up by the steersman in intense enjoyment--a bright
sun and glittering blue sea; and we tore along, pitching and tossing the
water up like mad. It was glorious. At night, I was calmly reposing in
my cot, in the middle of the steerage, just behind the main hatchway,
when I heard a crashing of rigging and a violent noise and confusion on
deck. The captain screamed out orders which informed me that we
were in the thick of a collision-- of course I lay still, and waited till the
row, or the ship, went down. I found myself next day looked upon as
no better than a heathen by all the women, because I had been cool, and
declined to get up and make a noise. Presently the officers came and
told me that a big ship had borne down on us--we were on the starboard
tack, and all right--carried off our flying jib-boom and whisker (the sort
of yard to the bowsprit). The captain says he was never in such
imminent danger in his life, as she threatened to swing round and to
crush into our waist, which would have been certain destruction. The
little dandy soldier-officer behaved capitally; he turned his men up in
no time, and had them all ready. He said, 'Why, you know, I must see
that my fellows go down decently.' S- was as cool as an icicle, offered
me my pea-jacket, &c., which I declined, as it would be of no use for
me to go off in boats, even supposing there were time, and I preferred
going down comfortably in my cot. Finding she was of no use to me,
she took a yelling maid in custody, and was thought a brute for begging
her to hold her noise. The first lieutenant, who looks on passengers as
odious cargo, has utterly mollified to me since this adventure. I heard
him report to the captain that I was 'among 'em all, and never sung out,
nor asked a question the while'. This he called 'beautiful'.
Next day we got light wind S.W. (which ought to be the S.E. trades),
and the weather has been, beyond all description, lovely ever since.
Cool, but soft, sunny and bright--in short, perfect; only the sky is so
pale. Last night the sunset was a vision of loveliness, a sort of

Pompadour paradise; the sky seemed full of rose-crowned amorini, and
the moon wore a rose-coloured veil of bright pink cloud, all so light, so
airy, so brilliant, and so fleeting, that it was a kind of intoxication. It is