6 A SPRING TOUR IN PORTUGAL. 



consumed a vast amount of fuel : such force was not to be 

 maintained without a proportionate supply of food ; but 

 yet it was startling to be assured, and the assurance seemed 

 ahnost incredible, that from eighty to ninety tons of coal 

 were the daily average rations of which our huge engines 

 easily disposed. 



Our fellow-passengers were a motley set : the greater 

 part South Americans, of Portuguese and Spanish extrac- 

 tion, their dark sallow complexions proclaiming at once 

 their nationality ; but there were many Germans as well, 

 on their way to Brazil, and a small sprinkling of French, 

 as well as about thirty of our fellow-countrymen. And as 

 national peculiarities are never so conspicuous as at meals, 

 and all the passengers required their respective tastes 

 to be considered, our dinners, and more particularly our 

 breakfasts, had a remarkable character, which had reference 

 to the habits of no country in particular, but were a medley 

 of East and West, North and South, German and Brazilian, 

 English and Portuguese combined. 



With regard to daily routine: the watches, the bells, the 

 officers' uniform, the hours of meals, to which we were 

 summoned by trumpet, — all were arranged on very much 

 the same system as that which prevails in the boats of the 

 Peninsular and Oriental Company, with which I was already 

 familiar, and which I have described elsewhere. 



We had ample time for exploring our vessel, and 

 making ourselves acquainted with its general arrangement 

 before we weighed anchor ; for, though carried on board 

 by the steam tender at 11 a.m., it was 3 p.m. before the 

 mails were shipped ; and then, when unmoored from the 

 buoy which held us, it was a long and tedious business 

 to turn our unwieldy ship within the narrow channel of 

 Southampton water; but, once under weigh, we soon 

 steamed down the river, and past the Isle of Wight and 

 the Needles, and long after dark descried at a distance the 



