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| Monday August 30 Off the Bay of Biscay - almost a calm and very warm - Very busy all day long getting things for the mess - Found it really hard work - One young lady still very ill - A man in the hospital with the mumps - Several of the passengers amuse themselves with singing on the deck in the evening. Tuesday August 31 Very warm - still in the Bay - A calm - the ship drifting backward - busy as a messman - My chum much better - Found that a filter very useful - for the water is dirty and bad. In the evening - someone tried to get up a dance - but for want of decent music failed. Wednesday September 1 Very warm - a calm still - The sea a deep blue - and when I went on the deck in the morning it quite cheered me to see how beautiful the sea looked with the sun shining on it. In the afternoon I roasted the coffee - or rather fixed it - This is another of Mr Gull�s misrepresentations - for we do not even have our coffee roasted for us - Oh the heat while roasting it cannot be described without we might say it resembled a certain very hot place below. The moon rose and being at its full let fall its silvery rays upon the water making quite a contrast with the morning. The salt Pork and Beef the worst part of the diet - the preserved meat the best . Cannot keep clean for the salt-water too uncomfortable to wash in - found that the marine soap very useful to wash with. Have been very thirsty all the day. Still in the Bay. Coffee and Tea very dreadful - and bags of all kinds very useful to put stores in for we have the things given out for the week for the Mess. The Mates and Captain appear as yet very nice men. The Captain is very quiet. Thursday Sept 2 A breeze sprang up and during the day we proceeded at a good pace. During the night a squall sprang up which was the heaviest we have had since we have left London. This I heard for I as usual slept through it. 9 Friday Sep 3 A fine day with a fair wind - found that it would have been advisable to have provided oneself with a pair of scales - for the food is not all weighed and we are apt to get short allowance - this we have found out. In the afternoon we caught up a vessel and spoke with her - Her name was �Ida� from �Newcastle� for �Celone�. 56 in all on board - did not carry passengers. - We all mess together - 8 of us - we therefore find it no use to provide things that are only large enough for yourself - for it would look very selfish. - Saw several large �Black fish� as they are called a sort of Porpoise - The Latitude 45�10� - In the evening one of the Cabin passengers (which by the bye are a most contemptable & ignorant lot of persons) one does not pronounce his �h�s� another puts them in the wrong places - another does not visit coffee shops. Of this one there is an amusing anecdote - Another passenger and myself were playing at chess together a few nights after we had left London - and he sauntered to where we were playing (a most unusual thing). We got talking of Chess - and happened to mention �Pursels on Cornhill� as being a good place to have a good cup of coffee and a game of Chess "Where�s Pur-sels?" he drawled out. We told him - Oh! - Ah - ah! a Coffee shop - I don�t visit Coffee shops! Since then he has had the name of the Coffee Shop Man - Another gets drunk as often as he can - The Best of them are Three brothers a Mother and sister. It seems that they are being taken over by one of the brothers, who was a pauper - sent over by government to California - from Southampton some few years since he has made his fortune and is now taking his sister, brothers and Mother to Australia. - The Coffee Shop Man happened to be showing his agility on the ropes - and got lashed there by the sailors until he had paid his footing - a bottle of Rum - In the evening three of the sailors dressed themselves up in women�s dresses, and danced - then we had some dancing to a violin - and the sailors came and danced again - and concluded with a sham fight - We subscribed a few pence to get them some extra grog. Saturday Sep 4 During the night my head ached more and more. I was so ill that I could not rise - my head aching violently - I lay in this state, the pills not acting. I sent for the doctor who gave me a dose of Colomile and a black draught - but it did me no good. 11 Sunday Sept 5 Still got most dreadful pains in my inside. The doctor gave me a dose of Castor Oil the other medicine not acting - In my berth all day in the most excruciating pain, but felt much better in the evening. They had a service on the poop - both in the morning and evening. 12 Monday Sept 6 Much better, but not the thing - Having a berth that was intended for four, and the other two not being engaged - My chum and I knocked down the unused berths to make more room for ourselves. This made us very busy all today (Ay - did anything happen on this day at home - for Frank Hewer (my chum) declares that something must be happening for he kept thinking of my father all the day. 13 Tuesday Sep 7 Much better but not perfectly serene. We knocked the berths down on the left hand side and put up a washing stand a desk besides shelves - nails etc to hang things on. And both sleep one above the other on the right . |
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