132 WITH NATURE AND A GAMEBA. 



the answer was judged to be good for his mental 

 comfort, without the slightest regard whatever for 

 the truth. 



We had a number of ladies on board, and in 

 justice to them I must say that as a whole they 

 were much cooler than the men. One level-headed, 

 practical little Scotswoman, with a delightful accent 

 and hapj^y phraseology, was conspicuous for her 

 good sense and reassuring coolness. Another, who 

 turned out to be a hospital nurse on her holidays, 

 earned my profound admiration by comforting a 

 poor, half-blind St. Kilda woman on her way to a 

 Glasgow Eye Infirmary to have some ophthalmic 

 disease, from whicli she was suffering acutely, 

 attended to. The poor creature fell into the most 

 pitiable state of fear when she became aware of 

 our j^light, and cried and wailed in a heartrending 

 fashion. I could not bear to look upon her distress 

 as she clung tightly to her comforter and swayed 

 back and forth moanino: in anouish all the while. 



Two things struck me particularly during the 

 scene of excitement. One was that several men 

 whose physical appearance was suggestive of robust 

 health and strong nerves were the greatest cowards, 

 and the other that nine out of ten of the male 

 passengers could, according to their expressed 

 opinions to each other, have managed the boat 

 far better than the captain himself, who had been 

 born within a mile or two of the rock we were on, 

 and had steered his ship past it in all weathers for 

 twenty years without a mishap. 



Luckily for us the sea was smooth and the tide 

 rising. By shifting all the passengers and a quan- 

 tity of the deck cargo aft, and steaming full-speed 

 astern, after aljout twenty minutes of suspense we 

 ground our way off the rock into deep water. An 



