Yr Ynys Unyg | Page 8

you may imagine us now, all so happy, so weary, so enchanted, so sleepy, but wide-awake enough to be able to send the dear party at home a bit of our pleasure, and the wish that they were all with us to delight also in such scenes. I don't think the mother will ever get us all away. We have quite forgotten our pretty La Luna; indeed she is at present as little thought of as her great prototype in broad daylight. So I will now say good-bye, hoping you will set down all deficiencies and incoherences in this long dispatch to the new and delightful feelings such a place and such a new pleasure have produced in our wondering heads. But in Gibraltar as at home, you must believe me ever, dearest mamma, your dutiful and affectionate daughter, and dearest sisters, your loving and affectionate sister,
"SYBIL."
My eldest son's letter to his grandpapa was as follows:
"DEAR GRANDPAPA,
"I like the sea quite as well as I expected; but I would rather go out shooting at home. I hope mamma, however, will allow us to go to the Cape or Canada. Smart says he should like to shoot a bear, and I wish to kill an elephant. In the Bay of Biscay we had a rolling sea. The captain told us the waves were 30 feet high; the wind was very great, and blew from the South-West; but the captain did not seem afraid, he laughed and liked it, so I thought it better not to be afraid either. But Smart was very ill, and said, whenever we spoke to him, 'Oh! I wish I was at home with my old woman.' Felix told him he was a coward and afraid; but he said, 'I ain't afeard, but I be going to die, I be sure.' The dogs are very happy and so is the cow; we feed her every day, and she knows us quite well; she has not been sea-sick, or the dogs, or Felix and I, or the captain and sailors, but I think everybody else has. Pray give my love to grandmamma and my aunts. I am tired of this long letter, and I think you will be also. I remain, your dutiful and affectionate grandson,
"OSCAR."
Gatty's letter was to her sister:--
"MY DEAREST LIFFY,
"This is such glorious fun; but I am so hot. I declare if I stay here much longer I shall flow away, and nothing be left of me but a rivulet. I eat oranges all day long. We have a basket full put by our bedsides at night, and I never leave one by breakfast time if I can help it. It is a horrid nuisance being so sick at sea. I really thought in the Bay of Biscay that I should make a fool of myself and wish I was at home again. I don't like this place much, one is so stewed; there is not a shadow, all seems baked hard as pie-crust twice done. I like being on the sea better now I have got over being ill; there is a breeze to cool one, besides it is so jolly having nothing to do but watch the waves and the wind and learn to mind the helm. I have made great friends with all the sailors, and they are very nice fellows, all but one crabbed old Scotchman, who says, when he sees us on deck, 'ladies should always stay down stairs.' I crawled up stairs in the Bay of Biscay, because they said it was such a glorious sea, and, at first, I thought we were in a vast quarry of bright blue marble, all the broken edges being crested with brilliant white spar. Suddenly we seemed to go over all, all my quarry disappeared, and I was as near as possible going headlong down the companion ladder, and if I had how they would have laughed. The captain said the ship was on an angle of twenty degrees, what that means I cannot precisely say, but leave you to find out. I can only tell you I thought we were topsy-turvy very often, and I hope we shall not experience any more angles of that kind again. Sybil was awfully frightened, and as white as a sheet. Serena was too ill to care whether the ship was in angles or out. Felix is such a jolly boy, and likes the winds roaring and the waves foaming, and he struts and blusters about as if he was six feet two, and stout in proportion, instead of being a shrimp of the smallest dimensions. He is getting a colour though, and his mother looks at him quite happy. Winny is such an innocent little donkey, so quaint and matter-of-factish.
"I suppose you don't care