Monday.
We know what a good swell in mid-Atlantic means at last. We were pitching when I went to bed, finding it hard to get on with my penmanship. Off I went as fast as usual, and never woke except for one moment to grunt and turn round, or rather, try to turn round, in my tray on top of the drawers at something which sounded like a crash. In the morning we were swinging and bowing and jerking, so that I had to wait for a favourable moment to bolt out of bed for fear of coming a cropper if I didn’t mind.
As soon as I was out I saw what the crash had been in the night. My big portmanteau, which had been set on its end the night before, had had a jumping match with my water-jug in the night. Both of them had thrown a somersault across the cabin against the door, but the jug being brittle (jugs shouldn’t jump against portmanteaus), and coming down undermost, had gone all into little bits, and the water, all that wasn’t in my shoes at least, had soaked my carpet at the door end. But it was a glorious bright morning and the dancing hills of water and the bounding ship sent me up dancing on the deck. My high spirits were a little subdued after breakfast, for I had scarcely got on deck when parson H——— came to me to say the emigrants wanted me to give them an address. Well, I couldn’t refuse, as my heart is full of them, poor dear folk, so down I went to get my ideas straight, and put down the heads on paper. I thought I wouldn’t miss the air, though, so set open my porthole window, which as I told you is about a foot across, and set to work—as I write, this blessed porthole is about a yard away from my right ear, and perhaps two feet above my head. Well, I was just getting into swing with my work, when suddenly a great pitch, and kerswash! in comes all of a wave that could squeeze through my porthole, right on to my ear and shoulder, over my desk, drenching all my papers, lucifer-match boxes, hair-brushes, wideawake, tobacco-pouch and other chattels, and flooding all of my floor which my water-jug had left dry. I bolted to the porthole and closed him up before another curious wave could come prying in, and soon rubbed everything dry again with the help of the Captain’s cabin-boy, and no harm is done except that I have to sit with my feet up on my portmanteau while I write. This sheet was dowsed in my shower-bath this morning, but I laid it on my bed, and it seems all right now and doesn’t even blot; I shall however envelope it now with another sheet for safety, as I’m not going to keep my porthole shut notwithstanding the warning, and I don’t want my letters to you floated again.
Peruvian, 9th August 1870.
Since I put my last sheet into No. 1 envelope, everything in the good ship Peruvian has been dancing. The long tables in the saloon, at which we are always eating and drinking, have been covered with a small framework, over which the cloth is laid, and which has the effect of dividing them into three compartments; a sort of trough down each side in which are the dishes. Notwithstanding these precautions there are constant catastrophes in the shape of spoons, forks, tumblers, and sometimes plates, jumping the partitions suddenly as the ship heels over. The story of the Yankee skipper saying to the lady on his left, “I’ll trouble you, marm, for that ’ere turkey—” the bird in question having fled from the table into her lap as he was beginning to serve it—becomes quite commonplace. How the steward’s men get about with plates and dishes, goodness knows; but though there is a constant clatter and smash going on all over the ship I haven’t seen them drop anything. I am almost the only passenger who hasn’t even had a twinge of squeamishness, but we muster pretty well considering all things. The Captain is one of the cheeriest fellows alive, and keeps up the spirits of all the women. If he sees any one of them who is still about looking peeky, he whisks her off under his arm and walks her up and down the deck, where they stagger along together, and the fresh breeze soon revives the damsel. He is a sort of temporary father to all the girls, and constantly has, it seems, three or four entrusted to him to take over or bring back.
Of course there is a great deal of discomfort on board, but I have visited the steerage and am delighted with the arrangements for feeding, ventilation, etc. To poor seasick people, however, it must be very trying. This morning I carried off to my cabin a poor forlorn young married couple, whom I had noticed on shore at Moville, and afterwards on board. I am sure they hadn’t been married a week, and they were evidently ready to eat one another. When I saw them settling down on a large bench in a covered place amidships where were twenty or thirty folk, mostly ill, and several men smoking, she with her poor head tied up tidily in a red handkerchief nestling on to his shoulder, I couldn’t stand it, and took them off to my cabin, where they could nurse one another for a few hours’ in peace. We have had a birth too on board, and mother and child, I am glad to say, are doing well. She is a very nice woman, I am told by one of the ladies who visits her, the wife of a school teacher. The baby is to have Peruvian for one of its names. I have really enjoyed the rough weather much; it has never been more than half a gale, I believe, though several men have been thrown from the sofas to the cabin floor, and more or less bruised. The cheery Captain has comforted us all by announcing that we shall be through the storm before midnight.
Up the St. Lawrence they say we shall want light summer clothing. If the weather settles down we are to have an amateur concert on board, which will be, I take it, very lame on the musical side, but amusing in other ways.
R——— was entrusted by the Captain with the task of getting it up, and before we got into rough weather had booked some six or seven volunteers. I daresay he will be well enough to-morrow morning to go on with it. My address is of course postponed for the present.