Russian lamp—Breakfast—Store rooms—Mast-light—Run down—Rule of the road—Signal thoughts—Sinking sands—Pilot caution—French coast.
After a wash and morning prayers the crew are piped to breakfast, so we must now turn to the kitchen, which after constant use some hundred times I cannot but feel is the most successful “hit” in the whole equipment.
Much thought and many experiments were bestowed on this subject, because, first, it was well known that the hard and uneven strain of bone, muscle, and energy in a voyage of this sort needs to be maintained by generous diet, that cold feeding is a delusion after a few days of it, and that the whole affairs would fail, or at any rate, enjoyment of the trip would cease, unless the Rob Roy had a caboose, easy to work, speedy in result, and capable of being used in rain, wind, and rough weather, and by night as well as by day.
Of course, all stoves with coal or coke, or similar fuel were out of the question, being hard to light, dusty when lighted, and dirty to clean. Various spirit lamps, Etnas, Magic stoves, Soyers, and others, were examined and tried, and all were defective in grand points.
The wickless lamp used by the Alpine climber who occupies the responsible post of “Cook of the Canoe Club,” and modified (after consulting Professor Tyndall), is less than three inches each way, and it acts after the manner of a blow-pipe. It was also adopted in the Abyssinian expedition. In two minutes after lighting it pours forth a vehement flame about a foot in height, which with a warming heat boils two large cups full in my flat copper kettle in five minutes, or a can of preserved meat in six minutes. [44]
While the kettle is boiling we bring forward the box marked “Eating,” take the loaf of bread out of its macintosh swathing, prepare the egg pan with two eggs, the teapot, and put sugar into the tea-cup, and a spoonful of preserved milk (Amey’s is most convenient, being in powder; but Borden’s, in a kind of paste, is most agreeable); lastly, we overhaul the butter tin, a pot of marmalade or anchovies.
The healthful relish with which a plain hot breakfast of this sort is consumed with the fresh air all round, and the sun athwart the east, and the waves dancing while the boat sails merrily all the time, is enhanced by the pleasure of steering and buttering bread, and holding a hot egg and a tea-cup, all at once.
Then, again, there is the satisfaction of doing all this without giving needless trouble in cleaning up, for every whit of that work, too, is to be yours. A crumb must not fall in the boat, because you will have to stoop down afterwards and pick it up, seeing that whatever happens, one thing is insisted on—“the Rob Roy shall be always smart and clean.”
All the breakfast things are cleared away and put by, each into its proper place, and a general “mop up,” has effaced the scene from our deck, but we can still take a look below and notice what is to be seen.
Some of the articles chiefly important in the well of our boat have been already described, but only those on the left of the steersman sitting. Now, turning to the right we find a water-tight door, like that on the opposite side, to be opened by folding down, and it reveals to us, first the “Bread store,” a fourpenny loaf wrapped in macintosh, which makes the best of table cloths, as it may be laid on a wet deck, and can be washed and dried again speedily; next there is a butter keg (as in the coolest place), and a box of biscuits, and a flask of rum—the “Storm supply”—only to be drawn upon when things of air and sea are in such a state that to open the main hatch would be questionable prudence.