Letters from India Volume I/To Blank 1
We are so squalled, and rolled, and pitched, poor things! Not but what those squalls are very often advantageous.
It was a beautiful, sunshiny, quiet morning till twelve, and yet the ship rolled so I could have cried, and was obliged to get George to go up on deck with me, I was so headached. Then the squall began, and the wind howls as if it were the bitterest English winter’s night, when we all ‘pity the poor souls at sea,’ and yet the ship is flying on, and as steady as a church, and the poor souls at sea are able to fetch out their portfolios and begin their letters to their poor bodies of friends on shore. It is three weeks to-day since we left Rio, and we have had great varieties of weather and amusements, calms and fine sailing, and these three horrid days of what sailors call ‘a gale of wind,’ but what, in common English, and speaking correctly, we call a storm, and shocking work it is! I hope one is enough.
I have written an account of it to Mary, but I think you will like to know a clever trait of that little black angel commonly called Chance. All the dogs on board were frightened, Captain G.’s dog the worst of any, though he was bred and born at sea, and Chance was in a great twitter for a time, but after having been pitched off my bed, and then off George’s bed, he saw it was time to act with decision, so he carefully climbed up to the washhand basin (which is, of course, a fixture), scratched one of my shawls, which was near at hand, into it for a cushion, and then rolled himself up into the basin, which exactly held him, and stayed there the rest of the day. George and I saw him do it, and quite wished we had as good a resource for our wretched selves, but the foot-tub would not hold us. The midshipmen acted the ‘Mayor of Garrett’ the other day for our diversion. They made a very pretty theatre, and acted wonderfully well—considering that none of them had ever acted before; and the officers gave us a grand supper in the gun-room afterwards. One of them wrote a prologue, of which I send you some lines, as you like anything about us:
If such examples fire the sailor’s mind,
Shall a good ship—shall we remain behind,
Who, with fair breezes and with sails unfurled,
Convey the ruler of our Eastern world?
For some slight honours we can claim, at least,
Who plant new Edens in the gorgeous East.
The sailors were so exhilarated by the officers’ play, that the following Friday they announced that, in the ‘Theatre Royal Oriental,’ His Majesty’s servants would perform ‘All the World’s a Stage,’ with a dance—there is no dancing prettier than their reels—‘performances by young Paganini,’ the ship’s fiddler, and songs, &c. The captain of the foretop, who acted Miss Kitty Sprightly, was really an excellent actress, and I have seen much worse actors in the little theatres than some of the others. Then there are three of them that sing all the old English glees beautifully, and, whenever it is their evening watch, they always sit and sing and tell long stories to each other; and it is one of the few really pleasant things I know on board ship. I wonder whether knows a Scotch song about Lady Gowrie, which one of these sailors sings. I asked him for ‘Home, sweet Home,’ one night, but I shall not try that again—it is playing with edged tools. I could not stand the way in which he sang ‘There is no place like home.’ It was so undeniable and so melancholy.
I have done a quantity of sketches at Rio. If I have a book full before the ‘Jupiter’ goes back, I shall very likely send it to to keep for me, as she likes sketches; but I cannot finish them up well, as I never can stoop to my work in this unsteady vehicle, so my lines are rather of the crookedest. I have got a new pet, given me by the doctor; he brought me a little paroquet from Rio, about the size of a sparrow—green, with blue wings. It has no cage, and is so tame it does not want one, and it makes no noise; but , who has seen some of them at Calcutta, says they can speak. The blacks call them ‘Jemmy Green.’ So he stuck my Jemmy Green instantly into the open breast of his waistcoat, where it made a little purring noise of delight and went to sleep, and now, whenever I put it in my handkerchief, it chuckles itself to sleep. I should have liked to send it home to you, but these very small birds always die of cold in the Channel. It is a great diversion to Wright and Jones. So, God bless you! Of course you are always writing to your most affectionate