Station Life in New Zealand | Page 2

was almost impossible to bend them; but, thank God, there were no casualties among the men. The last gale was the most severe; they said it was the tail of a cyclone. One is apt on land to regard such phrases as the "shriek of the storm," or "the roar of the waves," as poetical hyperboles; whereas they are very literal and expressive renderings of the sounds of horror incessant throughout a gale at sea. Our cabin, though very nice and comfortable in other respects, possessed an extraordinary attraction for any stray wave which might be wandering about the saloon: once or twice I have been in the cuddy when a sea found its way down the companion, and I have watched with horrible anxiety a ton or so of water hesitating which cabin it should enter and deluge, and it always seemed to choose ours. All these miseries appear now, after even a few days of the blessed land, to belong to a distant past; but I feel inclined to lay my pen down and have a hearty laugh at the recollection of one cold night, when a heavy "thud" burst open our cabin door, and washed out all the stray parcels, boots, etc., from the corners in which the rolling of the ship had previously bestowed them. I was high and dry in the top berth, but poor F--- in the lower recess was awakened by the douche, and no words of mine can convey to you the utter absurdity of his appearance, as he nimbly mounted on the top of a chest of drawers close by, and crouched there, wet and shivering, handing me up a most miscellaneous assortment of goods to take care of in my little dry nest.
Some of our fellow-passengers were very good-natured, and devoted themselves to cheering and enlivening us by getting up concerts, little burlesques and other amusements; and very grateful we were for their efforts: they say that "anything is fun in the country," but on board ship a little wit goes a very long way indeed, for all are only too ready and anxious to be amused. The whole dramatic strength of the company was called into force for the performance of "The Rivals," which was given a week or so before the end of the voyage. It went off wonderfully well; but I confess I enjoyed the preparations more than the play itself: the ingenuity displayed was very amusing at the time. You on shore cannot imagine how difficult it was to find a snuff-box for "Sir Anthony Absolute," or with what joy and admiration we welcomed a clever substitute for it in the shape of a match-box covered with the lead out of a tea-chest most ingeniously modelled into an embossed wreath round the lid, with a bunch of leaves and buds in the centre, the whole being brightly burnished: at the performance the effect of this little "property" was really excellent. Then, at the last moment, poor "Bob Acres" had to give in, and acknowledge that he could not speak for coughing; he had been suffering from bronchitis for some days past, but had gallantly striven to make himself heard at rehearsals; so on the day of the play F--- had the part forced on him. There was no time to learn his "words," so he wrote out all of them in large letters on slips of paper and fastened them on the beams. This device was invisible to the audience, but he was obliged to go through his scenes with his head as high up as if he had on a martingale; however, we were all so indulgent that at any little contretemps, such as one of the actresses forgetting her part or being seized by stage-fright, the applause was much greater than when things went smoothly.
I can hardly believe that it is only two days since we steamed into Hobson's Bay, on a lovely bright spring morning. At dinner, the evening before, our dear old captain had said that we should see the revolving light on the nearest headland about eight o'clock that evening, and so we did. You will not think me childish, if I acknowledge that my eyes were so full of tears I could hardly see it after the first glimpse; it is impossible to express in a letter all the joy and thankfulness of such a moment. Feelings like these are forgotten only too quickly in the jar and bustle of daily life, and we are always ready to take as a matter of course those mercies which are new every morning; but when I realized that all the tosses and tumbles of so many weary days and nights were over, and that at last we had reached the haven where