Sept. 6th. Wind increasing, perhaps we are reaching the northeast trades. At nine the screw propeller is lifted in fifteen minutes by 40 men, with power to aid. The Great Britain is a heavy, fullrigged auxiliary with a screw propeller weighing twenty-nine tons. The temperature in the shade is 79 degrees.
At 3:00 P.M. the sailors "Buried the dead horse", as the termination of their advance pay. It was an amusing affair. Dressed in burlesque, with rope yarn hair and whiskers, they marched three times around the deck with a stuffed dummy horse mounted on a gun carriage which was lifted with much demonstration up the fore hatch. Then the horse was sold at auction by a witty Irishman who added each bid to all the others, with a clerk taking the name and amount of each bid, which amounts we were told would be called for, of course, as a donation, (I had nothing to bid). Then the horse and rider were run out to the end of the starboard foreyard, twenty feet over the side and sixty feet above the water. Then taking a knife, the rider cut a rope and the horse fell into the sea with a shout from the sailors.
This evening I conversed with Mr. Robinson, an engineer, minister, Sunday School and University teacher going to Australia as an engineer. We talked on science, religion and infidelity. He expressed a wish to converse again. The wind is light and the screw is lowered.
No comments:
Post a Comment