Books: Letters from the Cape
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Lady Duff Gordon >> Letters from the Cape
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8 Transcribed from the 1921 edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk. Second proof by Margaret Price.
LETTERS FROM THE CAPE
LETTER I--THE VOYAGE
Wednesday, 24th July.
Off the Scilly Isles, 6 P.M.
When I wrote last Sunday, we put our pilot on shore, and went down
Channel. It soon came on to blow, and all night was squally and
rough. Captain on deck all night. Monday, I went on deck at
eight. Lovely weather, but the ship pitching as you never saw a
ship pitch--bowsprit under water. By two o'clock a gale came on;
all ordered below. Captain left dinner, and, about six, a sea
struck us on the weather side, and washed a good many unconsidered
trifles overboard, and stove in three windows on the poop; nurse
and four children in fits; Mrs. T- and babies afloat, but good-
humoured as usual. Army-surgeon and I picked up children and
bullied nurse, and helped to bale cabin. Cuddy window stove in,
and we were wetted. Went to bed at nine; could not undress, it
pitched so, and had to call doctor to help me into cot; slept
sound. The gale continues. My cabin is water-tight as to big
splashes, but damp and dribbling. I am almost ashamed to like such
miseries so much. The forecastle is under water with every lurch,
and the motion quite incredible to one only acquainted with
steamers. If one can sit this ship, which bounds like a tiger, one
should sit a leap over a haystack. Evidently, I can never be sea-
sick; but holding on is hard work, and writing harder.
Life is thus:- Avery--my cuddy boy--brings tea for S-, and milk for
me, at six. S- turns out; when she is dressed, I turn out, and
sing out for Avery, who takes down my cot, and brings a bucket of
salt water, in which I wash with vast danger and difficulty; get
dressed, and go on deck at eight. Ladies not allowed there
earlier. Breakfast solidly at nine. Deck again; gossip; pretend
to read. Beer and biscuit at twelve. The faithful Avery brings
mine on deck. Dinner at four. Do a little carpentering in cabin,
all the outfitters' work having broken loose. I am now in the
captain's cabin, writing. We have the wind as ever, dead against
us; and as soon as we get unpleasantly near Scilly, we shall tack
and stand back to the French coast, where we were last night.
Three soldiers able to answer roll-call, all the rest utterly sick;
three middies helpless. Several of crew, ditto. Passengers very
fairly plucky; but only I and one other woman, who never was at sea
before, well. The food on board our ship is good as to meat,
bread, and beer; everything else bad. Port and sherry of British
manufacture, and the water with an incredible borachio, essence of
tar; so that tea and coffee are but derisive names.
To-day, the air is quite saturated with wet, and I put on my
clothes damp when I dressed, and have felt so ever since. I am so
glad I was not persuaded out of my cot; it is the whole difference
between rest, and holding on for life. No one in a bunk slept at
all on Monday night; but then it blew as heavy a gale as it can
blow, and we had the Cornish coast under our lee. So we tacked and
tumbled all night. The ship being new, too, has the rigging all
wrong; and the confusion and disorder are beyond description. The
ship's officers are very good fellows. The mizen is entirely
worked by the 'young gentlemen'; so we never see the sailors, and,
at present, are not allowed to go forward. All lights are put out
at half-past ten, and no food allowed in the cabin; but the latter
article my friend Avery makes light of, and brings me anything when
I am laid up. The young soldier-officers bawl for him with
expletives; but he says, with a snigger, to me, 'They'll just wait
till their betters, the ladies, is looked to.' I will write again
some day soon, and take the chance of meeting a ship; you may be
amused by a little scrawl, though it will probably be very stupid
and ill-written, for it is not easy to see or to guide a pen while
I hold on to the table with both legs and one arm, and am first on
my back and then on my nose. Adieu, till next time. I have had a
good taste of the humours of the Channel.
29th July, 4 Bells, i.e. 2 o'clock, p.m.--When I wrote last, I
thought we had had our share of contrary winds and foul weather.
Ever since, we have beaten about the bay with the variety of a
favourable gale one night for a few hours, and a dead calm
yesterday, in which we almost rolled our masts out of the ship.
However, the sun was hot, and I sat and basked on deck, and we had
morning service. It was a striking sight, with the sailors seated
on oars and buckets, covered with signal flags, and with their
clean frocks and faces. To-day is so cold that I dare not go on
deck, and am writing in my black-hole of a cabin, in a green light,
with the sun blinking through the waves as they rush over my port
and scuttle. The captain is much vexed at the loss of time. I
persist in thinking it a very pleasant, but utterly lazy life. I
sleep a great deal, but don't eat much, and my cough has been bad;
but, considering the real hardship of the life--damp, cold, queer
food, and bad drink--I think I am better. When we can get past
Finisterre, I shall do very well, I doubt not.
The children swarm on board, and cry unceasingly. A passenger-ship
is no place for children. Our poor ship will lose her character by
the weather, as she cannot fetch up ten days' lost time. But she
is evidently a race-horse. We overhaul everything we see, at a
wonderful rate, and the speed is exciting and pleasant; but the
next long voyage I make, I'll try for a good wholesome old
'monthly' tub, which will roll along on the top of the water,
instead of cutting through it, with the waves curling in at the
cuddy skylights. We tried to signal a barque yesterday, and send
home word 'all well'; but the brutes understood nothing but
Russian, and excited our indignation by talking 'gibberish ' to us;
which we resented with true British spirit, as became us.
It is now blowing hard again, and we have just been taken right
aback. Luckily, I had lashed my desk to my washing-stand, or that
would have flown off, as I did off my chair. I don't think I shall
know what to make of solid ground under my feet. The rolling and
pitching of a ship of this size, with such tall masts, is quite
unlike the little niggling sort of work on a steamer--it is the
difference between grinding along a bad road in a four-wheeler, and
riding well to hounds in a close country on a good hunter. I was
horribly tired for about five days, but now I rather like it, and
never know whether it blows or not in the night, I sleep so
soundly. The noise is beyond all belief; the creaking, trampling,
shouting, clattering; it is an incessant storm. We have not yet
got our masts quite safe; the new wire-rigging stretches more than
was anticipated (of course), and our main-topmast is shaky. The
crew have very hard work, as incessant tacking is added to all the
extra work incident to a new ship. On Saturday morning, everybody
was shouting for the carpenter. My cabin was flooded by a leak,
and I superintended the baling and swabbing from my cot, and
dressed sitting on my big box. However, I got the leak stopped and
cabin dried, and no harm done, as I had put everything up off the
floor the night before, suspicious of a dribble which came in.
Then my cot frame was broken by my cuddy boy and I lurching over
against S-'s bunk, in taking it down. The carpenter has given me
his own, and takes my broken one for himself. Board ship is a
famous place for tempers. Being easily satisfied, I get all I
want, and plenty of attention and kindness; but I cannot prevail on
my cuddy boy to refrain from violent tambourine-playing with a tin
tray just at the ear of a lady who worries him. The young soldier-
officers, too, I hear mentioned as 'them lazy gunners', and they
struggle for water and tea in the morning long after mine has come.
We have now been ten days at sea, and only three on which we could
eat without the 'fiddles' (transverse pieces of wood to prevent the
dishes from falling off). Smooth water will seem quite strange to
me. I fear the poor people in the forecastle must be very wet and
miserable, as the sea is constantly over it, not in spray, but in
tons of green water.
3d Aug.--We had two days of dead calm, then one or two of a very
light, favourable breeze, and yesterday we ran 175 miles with the
wind right aft. We saw several ships, which signalled us, but we
would not answer, as we had our spars down for repairs and looked
like a wreck, and fancied it would be a pity to frighten you all
with a report to that effect.
Last night we got all right, and spread out immense studding-sails.
We are now bowling along, wind right aft, dipping our studding-sail
booms into the water at every roll. The weather is still
surprisingly cold, though very fine, and I have to come below quite
early, out of the evening air. The sun sets before seven o'clock.
I still cough a good deal, and the bad food and drink are trying.
But the life is very enjoyable; and as I have the run of the
charts, and ask all sorts of questions, I get plenty of amusement.
S- is an excellent traveller; no grumbling, and no gossiping,
which, on board a ship like ours, is a great merit, for there is ad
nauseam of both.
Mr.--is writing a charade, in which I have agreed to take a part,
to prevent squabbling. He wanted to start a daily paper, but the
captain wisely forbade it, as it must have led to personalities and
quarrels, and suggested a play instead. My little white Maltese
goat is very well, and gives plenty of milk, which is a great
resource, as the tea and coffee are abominable. Avery brings it me
at six, in a tin pannikin, and again in the evening. The chief
officer is well-bred and agreeable, and, indeed, all the young
gentlemen are wonderfully good specimens of their class. The
captain is a burly foremast man in manner, with a heart of wax and
every feeling of a gentleman. He was in California, 'HIDE
DROGHING' with Dana, and he says every line of Two Years before the
Mast is true. He went through it all himself. He says that I am a
great help to him, as a pattern of discipline and punctuality.
People are much inclined to miss meals, and then want things at odd
hours, and make the work quite impossible to the cook and servants.
Of course, I get all I want in double-quick time, as I try to save
my man trouble; and the carpenter leaves my scuttle open when no
one else gets it, quite willing to get up in his time of sleep to
close it, if it comes on to blow. A maid is really a superfluity
on board ship, as the men rather like being 'aux petits soins'.
The boatswain came the other day to say that he had a nice carpet
and a good pillow; did I want anything of the sort? He would be
proud that I should use anything of his. You would delight in
Avery, my cuddy man, who is as quick as 'greased lightning', and
full of fun. His misery is my want of appetite, and his efforts to
cram me are very droll. The days seem to slip away, one can't tell
how. I sit on deck from breakfast at nine, till dinner at four,
and then again till it gets cold, and then to bed. We are now
about 100 miles from Madeira, and shall have to run inside it, as
we were thrown so far out of our course by the foul weather.
9th Aug.--Becalmed, under a vertical sun. Lat. 17 degrees, or
thereabouts. We saw Madeira at a distance like a cloud; since
then, we had about four days trade wind, and then failing or
contrary breezes. We have sailed so near the African shore that we
get little good out of the trades, and suffer much from the African
climate. Fancy a sky like a pale February sky in London, no sun to
be seen, and a heat coming, one can't tell from whence. To-day,
the sun is vertical and invisible, the sea glassy and heaving. I
have been ill again, and obliged to lie still yesterday and the day
before in the captain's cabin; to-day in my own, as we have the
ports open, and the maindeck is cooler than the upper. The men
have just been holystoning here, singing away lustily in chorus.
Last night I got leave to sling my cot under the main hatchway, as
my cabin must have killed me from suffocation when shut up. Most
of the men stayed on deck, but that is dangerous after sunset on
this African coast, on account of the heavy dew and fever. They
tell me that the open sea is quite different; certainly, nothing
can look duller and dimmer than this specimen of the tropics. The
few days of trade wind were beautiful and cold, with sparkling sea,
and fresh air and bright sun; and we galloped along merrily.
We are now close to the Cape de Verd Islands, and shall go inside
them. About lat. 4 degrees N. we expect to catch the S.E. trade
wind, when it will be cold again. In lat. 24 degrees, the day
before we entered the tropics, I sat on deck in a coat and cloak;
the heat is quite sudden, and only lasts a week or so. The sea to-
day is littered all round the ship with our floating rubbish, so we
have not moved at all.
I constantly long for you to be here, though I am not sure you
would like the life as well as I do. All your ideas of it are
wrong; the confinement to the poop and the stringent regulations
would bore you. But then, sitting on deck in fine weather is
pleasure enough, without anything else. In a Queen's ship, a
yacht, or a merchantman with fewer passengers, it must be a
delightful existence.
17th Aug.--Since I wrote last, we got into the south-west monsoon
for one day, and I sat up by the steersman in intense enjoyment--a
bright sun and glittering blue sea; and we tore along, pitching and
tossing the water up like mad. It was glorious. At night, I was
calmly reposing in my cot, in the middle of the steerage, just
behind the main hatchway, when I heard a crashing of rigging and a
violent noise and confusion on deck. The captain screamed out
orders which informed me that we were in the thick of a collision--
of course I lay still, and waited till the row, or the ship, went
down. I found myself next day looked upon as no better than a
heathen by all the women, because I had been cool, and declined to
get up and make a noise. Presently the officers came and told me
that a big ship had borne down on us--we were on the starboard
tack, and all right--carried off our flying jib-boom and whisker
(the sort of yard to the bowsprit). The captain says he was never
in such imminent danger in his life, as she threatened to swing
round and to crush into our waist, which would have been certain
destruction. The little dandy soldier-officer behaved capitally;
he turned his men up in no time, and had them all ready. He said,
'Why, you know, I must see that my fellows go down decently.' S-
was as cool as an icicle, offered me my pea-jacket, &c., which I
declined, as it would be of no use for me to go off in boats, even
supposing there were time, and I preferred going down comfortably
in my cot. Finding she was of no use to me, she took a yelling
maid in custody, and was thought a brute for begging her to hold
her noise. The first lieutenant, who looks on passengers as odious
cargo, has utterly mollified to me since this adventure. I heard
him report to the captain that I was 'among 'em all, and never sung
out, nor asked a question the while'. This he called 'beautiful'.
Next day we got light wind S.W. (which ought to be the S.E.
trades), and the weather has been, beyond all description, lovely
ever since. Cool, but soft, sunny and bright--in short, perfect;
only the sky is so pale. Last night the sunset was a vision of
loveliness, a sort of Pompadour paradise; the sky seemed full of
rose-crowned amorini, and the moon wore a rose-coloured veil of
bright pink cloud, all so light, so airy, so brilliant, and so
fleeting, that it was a kind of intoxication. It is far less grand
than northern colour, but so lovely, so shiny. Then the flying
fish skimmed like silver swallows over the blue water. Such a
sight! Also, I saw a whale spout like a very tiny garden fountain.
The Southern Cross is a delusion, and the tropical moon no better
than a Parisian one, at present. We are now in lat. 31 degrees
about, and have been driven halfway to Rio by this sweet southern
breeze. I have never yet sat on deck without a cloth jacket or
shawl, and the evenings are chilly. I no longer believe in
tropical heat at sea. Even during the calm it was not so hot as I
have often felt it in England--and that, under a vertical sun. The
ship that nearly ran us and herself down, must have kept no look-
out, and refused to answer our hail. She is supposed to be from
Glasgow by her looks. We may speak a ship and send letters on
board; so excuse scrawl and confusion, it is so difficult to write
at all.
30th August.--About 25 degrees S. lat. and very much to the west.
We have had all sorts of weather--some beautiful, some very rough,
but always contrary winds--and got within 200 miles of the coast of
South America. We now have a milder breeze from the SOFT N.E.,
after a BITTER S.W., with Cape pigeons and mollymawks (a small
albatross), not to compare with our gulls. We had private
theatricals last night--ill acted, but beautifully got up as far as
the sailors were concerned. I did not act, as I did not feel well
enough, but I put a bit for Neptune into the Prologue and made the
boatswain's mate speak it, to make up for the absence of any
shaving at the Line, which the captain prohibited altogether; I
thought it hard the men should not get their 'tips'. The
boatswain's mate dressed and spoke it admirably; and the old
carpenter sang a famous comic song, dressed to perfection as a
ploughboy.
I am disappointed in the tropics as to warmth. Our thermometer
stood at 82 degrees one day only, under the vertical sun, N. of the
Line; ON the Line at 74 degrees; and at sea it FEELS 10 degrees
colder than it is. I have never been hot, except for two days 4
degrees 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. I
saw 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. 34 degrees S. and long. 25
degrees. 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 I
only 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 blase
state 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. I
remained 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.'
A few days before landing I caught a bad cold, and kept my bed. I
caught this cold by 'sleeping with a damp man in my cabin', as some
one said. During the last gale, the cabin opposite mine was
utterly swamped, and I found the Irish soldier-servant of a little
officer of eighteen in despair; the poor lad had got ague, and
eight inches of water in his bed, and two feet in the cabin. I
looked in and said, 'He can't stay there--carry him into my cabin,
and lay him in the bunk'; which he did, with tears running down his
honest old face. So we got the boy into S-'s bed, and cured his
fever and ague, caught under canvas in Romney Marsh. Meantime S-
had to sleep in a chair and to undress in the boy's wet cabin. As
a token of gratitude, he sent me a poodle pup, born on board, very
handsome. The artillery officers were generally well-behaved; the
men, deserters and ruffians, sent out as drivers. We have had five
courts-martial and two floggings in eight weeks, among seventy men.
They were pampered with food and porter, and would not pull a rope,
or get up at six to air their quarters. The sailors are an
excellent set of men. When we parted, the first lieutenant said to
me, 'Weel, ye've a wonderful idee of discipline for a leddy, I will
say. You've never been reported but once, and that was on sick
leave, for your light, and all in order.'
Cape Town, Sept. 18.
We anchored yesterday morning, and Captain J-, the Port Captain,
came off with a most kind letter from Sir Baldwin Walker, his gig,
and a boat and crew for S- and the baggage. So I was whipped over
the ship's side in a chair, and have come to a boarding house where
the J-s live. I was tired and dizzy and landsick, and lay down and
went to sleep. After an hour or so I woke, hearing a little
gazouillement, like that of chimney swallows. On opening my eyes I
beheld four demons, 'sons of the obedient Jinn', each bearing an
article of furniture, and holding converse over me in the language
of Nephelecoecygia. Why has no one ever mentioned the curious
little soft voices of these coolies?--you can't hear them with the
naked ear, three feet off. The most hideous demon (whose
complexion had not only the colour, but the precise metallic lustre
of an ill black-leaded stove) at last chirruped a wish for orders,
which I gave. I asked the pert, active, cockney housemaid what I
ought to pay them, as, being a stranger, they might overcharge me.
Her scorn was sublime, 'Them nasty blacks never asks more than
their regular charge.' So I asked the black-lead demon, who
demanded 'two shilling each horse in waggon', and a dollar each
'coolie man'. He then glided with fiendish noiselessness about the
room, arranged the furniture to his own taste, and finally said,
'Poor missus sick'; then more chirruping among themselves, and
finally a fearful gesture of incantation, accompanied by 'God bless
poor missus. Soon well now'. The wrath of the cockney housemaid
became majestic: 'There, ma'am; you see how saucy they have grown-
-a nasty black heathen Mohamedan a blessing of a white Christian!'
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