He has provided for me everything of comfort and elegance that a young girl could wish. For the “Petrel” is a small brig which goes over all the world where a keel may float, in order to trade. It may be to purchase shells in the Indian ocean, furs in St. Petersburg, fruits at Havana, spices in Ceylon, silks at Nankin, diamonds or ostrich feathers at Cape Town, knick-knacks in London, or bijouterie at Havre—anywhere and everywhere that a bargain may be made, we go. And in every port the ladies of the consignee, or the American consul, will have me at their homes, and are so good to me. They take me to the galleries of art and places of interest. I attend the service of the church with them, and at their homes I meet people who are delightful. Thus I have learned to love things which are beautiful, and the captain is only too willing to get for me what I desire. He has had built for me into the cabin a little cabinet organ. We took as passengers to the Sandwich Islands last year, a good missionary, and his wife, who accompanied him, taught me the music, and to sing and play, so that I am never ennuyéed at sea. I have a great abundance of books; I have my music, my studies (navigation is among them), my sewing, a canary bird, and a pot of ivy—beside my journal from which these pages are recorded—what would you more? It does not matter that we meet storms—sometimes terrible ones. I do not say it to boast, but I have not anything of fear within. I love to be on deck; I have the long oil coat which buttons close about me like that of the captain, and boots of rubber. Oftentimes the captain permits that I give the orders for taking in the light sails, or tacking the brig. And I can steer with the wheel as well as old Dan himself, or trace the vessel’s course upon the chart when I have figured the reckoning.
You of the young ladies who murmur because of the space of closets, should visit my room. It has a length of ten feet, a breadth of six. My berth, with three drawers beneath it, takes much of the room. But I have a tiny wash-stand, a small chair, and a trunk also.
Pictures too. The one, “Christ Stilling the Tempest,” is a small painting in oil, which was a present to myself from a lady in Rome whose husband is a great artist.
Opposite hangs a photograph of the “Immaculate Conception,” also a present from a lady in Liverpool, Mrs. Fancher. There is fastened to the wall a swinging lamp of solid silver. A diver of the submarine brought it up from the wreck of a steam yacht which, belonging to Omar Pacha, was lost with all those on board in the Persian Gulf. The man gave it as pay for his passage to Foochow. But imagine to yourself the curtains of my berth being of silk damask worked with gold thread! They are of much value, yet when one asks of their price, the captain says, with his laugh, that he bought them for a song. It was while we were loading with a few teas at Foochow. A man habited as a sailor came on board at the evening, and offered this for fifty dollars. He had been a runaway from a ship, and seeking the country, was impressed into the army of Chinese insurgents. They had sacked the emperor’s country seat at Ningpo, and this was torn from the hangings of the couch of the princess—or he thus said. The captain told him he could not give but twenty dollars, though it was of more worth. But the man said “no,” and went out. It was then, thinking that he had gone, I began to sing and play the song of Adelaide Proctor, “The Lost Chord,” which I so love. And the strange man came back and began to cry! He said to the captain if I would sing it once more, he should have the stuff at his own price, which I did willingly, and thus it was purchased.
My book-shelves are of sandal-wood inlaid with ebony. They were given me in Madras by the merchant with whom the captain has done business these many years. The ewer and jug in my wash-stand are of bronze. They were discovered from a tomb in the Island of Cyprus.
But it is in especial of one voyage—the last—of which I have to tell, for it came near to become an adventure. We were bound to Lisbon, seeking a cargo of the light wines for the market of New York, and the captain had with him for the purchase three thousand dollars in gold. He had shipped for the voyage a different chief mate, and also two men of the crew who came on board with him. It happens to me to notice small things, and I remember that I looked with surprise at the familiarity which these common sailors had secretly with the first mate. Old Jacques would hardly have spoken to a sailor even upon the land, except in the way of duty. I had for this Mr. Atkin, as he called himself, a strong dislike. His face had a smooth badness, but he was fluent of tongue with an appearance of education, and the captain smiled at what he said was my childish prejudice. Yet the good God has given me to read the human face, and I often have chosen out those from the crew who I felt would make trouble to the officers, and was seldom with mistake.
The second officer was Waters, a man very young but brave and active. He too regarded this Atkin with suspicion. “Tell your father, Miss,” he said to me in private, “to keep his weather eye open, and look out for Atkin.”
The captain did but laugh when I told him, and bade me not trouble my little head with fears. But I found him watchful in a quiet way after that, though there happened nothing for some time of suspicion.
I find as I copy from my journal that I do not sometimes frame these sentences in the exact order that I read them in books. I cannot seem to readily correct myself, so I have made a point to put down all the conversation which I remember, exactly as it was spoken by those of whom I shall write. It will be a good practice for me. I began to keep my journal three years since, with view of having a better command of language.
We finally made sight of the Teneriffe peak among the Canary Islands. It rises many thousand feet above the sea, and for miles is visible in the clear weather.