All the rest have thirty-one, without a blessed ray of sun;
And if their days were two and thirty, they’d be just as wet and
quite as dirty.”
The evenings were now long, and our share of daylight was curtailed, so that a still greater proportion of our time was spent below in conversation, cards, chess, &c.
Our habits with regard to “turning-in” were somewhat primitive; all lights had to be out by 10 p.m., and a responsible officer went the rounds to see that the dictum was scrupulously carried out.
The very thought of “fire” on a wooden ship well saturated with tar, and far away in mid-ocean, was enough to make one’s blood run cold; and so it is not to be wondered at that the captain showed his teeth on one occasion, when one of the passengers was reported for infringing this law, and threatened to place him in irons for the rest of the voyage. Need I say that the offender gave no further cause for complaint?
We may be thankful that nowadays the chances of a fire breaking out on board ship are, thanks to the electric light and the less combustible materials of which our ships are built, reduced to a minimum.
The ladies were invariably the first to retire, though they probably continued prattling until long after we were in bed and asleep; a habit which, as Dundreary said, “No fellow could understand.” Precept and example have been tried in vain: for as it was in the beginning, &c., &c.
After we had been at sea for some time without seeing a living thing other than fish, the air suddenly became alive with Cape pigeons and albatrosses; and I managed to capture one of the latter on a stout hook baited with a piece of pork. After a little hesitation, he pounced upon the prize, and, raising his beak, swallowed it at a gulp.
I was fully prepared for his taking flight, and, indeed, had he got my line foul of the rigging, I should soon have been in difficulties. But, discarding such a course, he planted his webbed feet firmly before him, offering thereby such resistance to the water that it was no easy matter to get him alongside. At last, after I had received timely assistance from a passing sailor, the bird stood on deck, and was at once violently sick, vomiting great quantities of a clear, oily liquid. I have since learnt that all sea-birds are sick on board ship, and quite unable to use their wings.
According to my invariable practice of despatching my victims as quickly as possible, I killed this one immediately—one might almost add painlessly—with a small dose of prussic acid. He turned out to be a very plump bird, measuring fifteen feet from tip to tip of his outspread wings. By an unfortunate misunderstanding on the part of one of the sailors, my capture was thrown overboard before I had set up the skeleton; the only use that was made of it being the employment of a few of the feathers to show the direction of the wind, or, as one of our passengers with a poetical turn of mind put it: