146 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE CARNEGIE 



vessel for the coming six months, and supervising repairs while 

 we were in dry-dock. Besides this several changes in the crew 

 were made here; two seamen and the mechanic were signed off, 

 and a third seaman deserted. To replace these four men, Sudron 

 was engaged as mechanic; the two mess-boys were promoted to 

 seamen; and Kidd was signed on as seaman. He had recently 

 arrived from the training-ship Nantucket, which we had met in 

 the English Channel. Two sons of a Canal Zone employee were 

 taken on as the new mess-boys. 



The "desertion" of the seaman, Nass, was somewhat mys- 

 tifying. It was not Captain Ault's custom to keep any man 

 on board against his will, and this man would, no doubt, have 

 been signed off in the usual way had he asked to be relieved. He 

 left behind him a tidy sum of money in accumulated wages. On 

 our arrival in San Francisco we heard that he had shipped on a 

 freighter to Honolulu, become a seaman on the schooner Vigilant 

 bound for Gray's Harbor, and was at that time in a hospital in 

 Aberdeen following a serious accident. He had been arrested in 

 Panama on some trifling charge, and was on his way to the police 

 station; the "black maria" got into a smash-up and unfortunately 

 his leg was broken — thus an overnight stop in the local jail had 

 turned into a long sentence to a hospital. 



In Balboa we were initiated into the heat of the tropics. Merely 

 typing a letter sent streams of perspiration down one's back. 

 But the cloudbursts which swept down from the mountains 

 every afternoon seemed to clear the sky for a time of its op- 

 pressiveness. The hour after dawn and the hour after sunset 

 were delightful. Tennis and swimming were our only outdoor 

 recreations, and at our front door there were wonderful facilities 

 for both. The Balboa Club is famous for its "Red, White, and 

 Blue" juvenile swimming-troupe, whose home-pool we had the 

 privilege of using. 



The heat was so intense that we were not able to live on the 

 ship while she was in dry-dock, shut off from every trace of breeze. 

 So the party took quarters at the Grand Central Hotel in Panama 

 City. The change of surroundings had a fine effect on everyone, 

 and soon we were anticipating rather than dreading the eighty- 



