Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/273

of but sickness and so forth; but I must say they were all good-hearted, good-humoured, and good-natured, and their kindness to each other on the voyage nothing could exceed. The two terrible children aforesaid were a great amusement in Ye Shippe. One used to tease a monkey by boiling an egg hard and giving it him hot, to see him toss it from paw to paw, and then holding a looking-glass before him, for him to see his grimaces and antics and other tricks; and the other child was always teasing a poor Armenian priest born in Jerusalem. He had taken a second-class passage amongst the sailors and common men. The first class was bad enough. God help the second! They would not give the poor man anything to eat, and bullied and teased him. He bore up in such a manly way my heart ached for him and made me blush for the British snob. I used to load my pockets with things for him when I left the table, and got the first class to admit him to our society under an awning; but the captain would not have him in the cabin or on the upper deck. Our skipper was a rough man, having risen from a common sailor, but pleasant enough when in a polite humour. The third amusement was the fallals of our maids, who were much more ill and helpless than their mistresses. They were always 'dying,' 'wouldn't get up,' 'couldn't walk,' but had to be supported by the gentlemen. There was great joy on the sixth day because we thought we saw land. It might have been a fog-bank; it might have been Portland Bill; anyway, we began to pack and prepare and bet who would sleep ashore. We awoke on the seventh day in a fog off Beachy