Letters from the Cape | Page 5

saw a whale spout like a very tiny garden fountain. The Southern Cross is a delusion, and the tropical moon no better than a Parisian one, at present. We are now in lat. 31 degrees about, and have been driven halfway to Rio by this sweet southern breeze. I have never yet sat on deck without a cloth jacket or shawl, and the evenings are chilly. I no longer believe in tropical heat at sea. Even during the calm it was not so hot as I have often felt it in England--and that, under a vertical sun. The ship that nearly ran us and herself down, must have kept no look- out, and refused to answer our hail. She is supposed to be from Glasgow by her looks. We may speak a ship and send letters on board; so excuse scrawl and confusion, it is so difficult to write at all.
30th August.--About 25 degrees S. lat. and very much to the west. We have had all sorts of weather--some beautiful, some very rough, but always contrary winds--and got within 200 miles of the coast of South America. We now have a milder breeze from the SOFT N.E., after a BITTER S.W., with Cape pigeons and mollymawks (a small albatross), not to compare with our gulls. We had private theatricals last night--ill acted, but beautifully got up as far as the sailors were concerned. I did not act, as I did not feel well enough, but I put a bit for Neptune into the Prologue and made the boatswain's mate speak it, to make up for the absence of any shaving at the Line, which the captain prohibited altogether; I thought it hard the men should not get their 'tips'. The boatswain's mate dressed and spoke it admirably; and the old carpenter sang a famous comic song, dressed to perfection as a ploughboy.
I am disappointed in the tropics as to warmth. Our thermometer stood at 82 degrees one day only, under the vertical sun, N. of the Line; ON the Line at 74 degrees; and at sea it FEELS 10 degrees colder than it is. I have never been hot, except for two days 4 degrees N. of the Line, and now it is very cold, but it is very invigorating. All day long it looks and feels like early morning; the sky is pale blue, with light broken clouds; the sea an inconceivably pure opaque blue--lapis lazuli, but far brighter. I saw a lovely dolphin three days ago; his body five feet long (some said more) is of a FIERY blue-green, and his huge tail golden bronze. I was glad he scorned the bait and escaped the hook; he was so beautiful. This is the sea from which Venus rose in her youthful glory. All is young, fresh, serene, beautiful, and cheerful.
We have not seen a sail for weeks. But the life at sea makes amends for anything, to my mind. I am never tired of the calms, and I enjoy a stiff gale like a Mother Carey's chicken, so long as I can be on deck or in the captain's cabin. Between decks it is very close and suffocating in rough weather, as all is shut up. We shall be still three weeks before we reach the Cape; and now the sun sets with a sudden plunge before six, and the evenings are growing too cold again for me to go on deck after dinner. As long as I could, I spent fourteen hours out of the twenty-four in my quiet corner by the wheel, basking in the tropical sun. Never again will I believe in the tales of a burning sun; the vertical sun just kept me warm--no more. In two days we shall be bitterly cold again.
Immediately after writing the above it began to blow a gale (favourable, indeed, but more furious than the captain had ever known in these seas),--about lat. 34 degrees S. and long. 25 degrees. For three days we ran under close-reefed (four reefs) topsails, before a sea. The gale in the Bay of Biscay was a little shaking up in a puddle (a dirty one) compared to that glorious South Atlantic in all its majestic fury. The intense blue waves, crowned with fantastic crests of bright emeralds and with the spray blowing about like wild dishevelled hair, came after us to swallow us up at a mouthful, but took us up on their backs, and hurried us along as if our ship were a cork. Then the gale slackened, and we had a dead calm, during which the waves banged us 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