Station Life in New Zealand | Page 2

sailors from the bottom of my heart,
at their work all night on decks slippery with ice, and pulling at ropes
so frozen that it 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