Letters from the Cape | Page 6

about
frightfully, and our masts were in much jeopardy. Then a foul wind,
S.E., increased into a gale, lasting five days, during which orders were
given in dumb show, as no one's voice could be heard; through it we
fought and laboured and dipped under water, and I only had my dry
corner by the wheel, where the kind pleasant little third officer lashed
me tight. 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. 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.