I am disappointed in the tropics as to warmth.Our thermometer stood at 82degrees one day only,under the vertical sun,N.of the Line;ON the Line at 74degrees;and at sea it FEELS 10degrees colder than it is.I have never been hot,except for two days 4degrees N.of the Line,and now it is very cold,but it is very invigorating.All day long it looks and feels like early morning;the sky is pale blue,with light broken clouds;the sea an inconceivably pure opaque blue -lapis lazuli,but far brighter.Isaw a lovely dolphin three days ago;his body five feet long (some said more)is of a FIERY blue-green,and his huge tail golden bronze.I was glad he scorned the bait and escaped the hook;he was so beautiful.This is the sea from which Venus rose in her youthful glory.All is young,fresh,serene,beautiful,and cheerful.
We have not seen a sail for weeks.But the life at sea makes amends for anything,to my mind.I am never tired of the calms,and I enjoy a stiff gale like a Mother Carey's chicken,so long as I can be on deck or in the captain's cabin.Between decks it is very close and suffocating in rough weather,as all is shut up.We shall be still three weeks before we reach the Cape;and now the sun sets with a sudden plunge before six,and the evenings are growing too cold again for me to go on deck after dinner.As long as I could,I spent fourteen hours out of the twenty-four in my quiet corner by the wheel,basking in the tropical sun.Never again will I believe in the tales of a burning sun;the vertical sun just kept me warm -no more.In two days we shall be bitterly cold again.
Immediately after writing the above it began to blow a gale (favourable,indeed,but more furious than the captain had ever known in these seas),-about lat.34degrees S.and long.25degrees.For three days we ran under close-reefed (four reefs)topsails,before a sea.The gale in the Bay of Biscay was a little shaking up in a puddle (a dirty one)compared to that glorious South Atlantic in all its majestic fury.The intense blue waves,crowned with fantastic crests of bright emeralds and with the spray blowing about like wild dishevelled hair,came after us to swallow us up at a mouthful,but took us up on their backs,and hurried us along as if our ship were a cork.Then the gale slackened,and we had a dead calm,during which the waves banged us about frightfully,and our masts were in much jeopardy.Then a foul wind,S.E.,increased into a gale,lasting five days,during which orders were given in dumb show,as no one's voice could be heard;through it we fought and laboured and dipped under water,and Ionly had my dry corner by the wheel,where the kind pleasant little third officer lashed me tight.It was far more formidable than the first gale,but less beautiful;and we made so much lee-way that we lost ten days,and only arrived here yesterday.I recommend a fortnight's heavy gale in the South Atlantic as a cure for a BLASEstate of mind.It cannot be described;the sound,the sense of being hurled along without the smallest regard to 'this side uppermost';the beauty of the whole scene,and the occasional crack and bear-away of sails and spars;the officer trying to 'sing out',quite in vain,and the boatswain's whistle scarcely audible.Iremained near the wheel every day for as long as I could bear it,and was enchanted.
Then the mortal perils of eating,drinking,moving,sitting,lying;standing can't be done,even by the sailors,without holding on.
THE night of the gale,my cot twice touched the beams of the ship above me.I asked the captain if I had dreamt it,but he said it was quite possible;he had never seen a ship so completely on her beam ends come up all right,masts and yards all sound.
There is a middy about half M-'s size,a very tiny ten-year-older,who has been my delight;he is so completely 'the officer and the gentleman'.My maternal entrails turned like old Alvarez,when that baby lay out on the very end of the cross-jack yard to reef,in the gale;it was quite voluntary,and the other newcomers all declined.I always called him 'Mr.-,sir',and asked his leave gravely,or,on occasions,his protection and assistance;and his little dignity was lovely.He is polite to the ladies,and slightly distant to the passenger-boys,bigger than himself,whom he orders off dangerous places;'Children,come out of that;you'll be overboard.'
