Visitations—pleasant, and the reverse
Our entry into Las Palmas savoured of a circus come to town. We were the "act" where the music stops for effect. No one seemed to know who we were or why we were, which after all is not surprising, and the curious, consisting of gaping crowds on the breakwater and a heterogeneous fleet of anything from powerful launches to frowsy bumboats, seemed intent on finding out.
There is an immense and almost constant swell off Las Palmas, and the performance started when, in answer to our signal, a pilot stepped aboard, and came as near to measuring his dignified and bedizened length on the deck as was possible without actually doing it. He was evidently unused to dream ships in a swell. Regaining a certain amount of equilibrium, he tottered to the mast and clung there affectionately, until informed that we were from England, when he risked changing his grip to shake us all warmly by the hand, and point dramatically harbourward.
This last I took as a signal for the engine which, to my relief, "went," and we rounded the breakwater with the entire fleet of bumboats and their yelling occupants in our wake. Peter was at the tiller, in pyjamas she had not had time to change, frenziedly following the course indicated by the pilot's outstretched arm. Steve was attempting in halting Spanish to communicate the fact that our engine had no "reverse," and failing utterly. And I had made the distressing discovery that there was something amiss with our water circulation. Above all rose the clamour of the bum-boatmen:—"Hi, washing, Señor!" "Hi, hi, bananas!" "Hi, hi, hi...."
So the dream ship threaded the intricacies of Las Palmas's inner harbour, missing coal hulks by a bare foot, shaving schooners and, by means of the anchor dropped in sheer desperation, barely saving herself from ramming the Club Náutico.
Even then our troubles were by no means at an end. A boarding party of eternal bumboatmen broke through our defenses, and thronged the deck. In vain we pointed out that all we needed at the moment was sleep, and that if they had any for sale we would buy large quantities, otherwise they must go, or be pushed. They chose to be pushed, and there was something in the nature of a mêlée afoot when a sleek launch came alongside and a short, corpulent gentleman, literally glittering with gold lace, and using a sword as a walking stick, stepped aboard. He was the chief of the harbour police, and the effect of his august presence was magical. The enemy retired in disorder, and our saviour, who honoured us with his company over a glass of rum, gave us the key to peace and quiet in a Spanish port. It consisted in presenting the law (embodied in himself) with a trifling donation, and running the international code flag "P" up to the mast head, after which one is at liberty to shoot any one who comes aboard without permission. It is worth knowing, for we of the dream ship did both these things, and from that hour suffered no further molestation.
Unless you are a coal magnate, a ship's chandler, a banana agent, or a consumptive, it is hard to find a reason for living at Las Palmas. It is a dreary sort of place built on, and occasionally smothered by, sand blown across the ocean from the Sahara, hundreds of miles distant, and the only diversion appears to be dances and roulette at the Club Náutico.
We of the dream ship promptly "fell" for the roulette, in company with most of the inhabitants, until it was borne in upon us that if we "fell" much further we should plumb the depths of our slender resources. It is a pathetic sight to see workers, not the leisured "profitocracy" one encounters at a place like Monte Carlo, handing over their hard-earned week's wage to a stony-faced croupier, and borrowing from any one who will lend for "just one more spin." No, we remained for the most part well out amongst the cooler breezes of the harbour, under the thrice-blessed squaresail which now did service as an awning—sleeping, swimming, fishing, and again sleeping, for we had some arrears to make up in this last respect.
Our splendid isolation, however, did not prevent us from meeting interesting people, foremost amongst whom was the skipper of the four-masted schooner Dorothy of New York, a hard-bitten Yank if ever there was one. He caught us clinging to his anchor chain for a breather during the morning swim, and was treating us to an entirely new vocabulary of invective when suddenly, and with no apparent cause, he changed his mind and invited us aboard.
In his remarkably comfortable quarters, and standing in pools of our own making, we discussed things in general and a bottle of Madeira in particular.