They were certainly strenuous days, but we were well and had good appetites for the excellent meals which were served to us by our capable Chinese steward and cook. The doings and sayings of our cabin boy would fill a book, but he was trustworthy and attended faithfully to our wants. One night after I had retired, a heavy thunder storm came up which might have caused us considerable trouble had not our usual strict discipline been carried out. Having become so used to confused sounds on deck I did not realize that the ship had been struck by lightning, though I heard a sound which in my dozing condition I laid to something falling down in the bathroom. When the Captain came in to ask if I were all right I sleepily said, "Why not? I think something has fallen down." He did not tell me until morning that the ship had been struck and had caught fire aloft. By changing the course the sparks were made to fall overboard while men were sent aloft to cut away the blazing fragments. About ten minutes before the vessel was struck, a dozen men were aloft furling a sail just where the lightning struck us, and when the storm was over it seemed a special act of Providence that we still had these men with us.
I have so often been asked what could we possibly have to eat that would be appetizing for such lengthy voyages. We always carried fowl in large numbers and it was very seldom that we did not have fresh eggs enough for our table during the voyage. Potatoes, onions, and lemons we always had in abundance and they were very important items of our food. The following is one of the menus served to us on quite a stormy day as we were running across the Indian Ocean. For breakfast: baked beans, fish balls, brown bread, hot biscuits, tea and coffee. For dinner: soup, roast chicken, cold tongue, boiled potatoes, squash, and onions, English pudding, hard sauce, and coffee. For supper: warm biscuit, cold chicken, cold tongue, fried potatoes, cake and tea. In fine weather our menus were more elaborate and I never knew any one to complain of being hungry aboard ship while I was going to sea.
After eighty-seven days of such sea life I was aroused one morning to go on deck and see if I could see anything that looked like land and saw what at first seemed to me to be a small cloud in the distance about thirty miles away. As the morning wore on, the Australian coast gradually loomed up before us, the land first seen proving to be Cape Bridgewater. We sighted Cape Otway in the afternoon, the lighthouse being plainly seen in the evening, and such a beautiful evening as it was! Not a cloud in the sky! The stars shone like diamonds and the reflection on the water of the beautiful moon put a finish to the charm of a perfect night. The Southern Cross was almost directly over us, while in close proximity to the moon was the brilliant Venus. We remained on deck very late that night to enjoy our beautiful scene. During the evening a very pretty phenomenon took place when the sky became a brilliant red, like the reflection of a fire, forming an arc through which the stars could be plainly seen. It remained thus for some time, until it gradually changed into a white light, the Southern Lights or Aurora Australis as the change is called.
The Old Town Crier
PROSPERITY IS HERE
Whatever may be the situation throughout the country, Cape Cod shows evidences of prosperity that cannot be overlooked. In fact, dull times on the Cape are a thing of the past and each year sees a steady growth, increasing land values and larger summer population.