354 Life on the Wreck [1900 



find a dreary satisfaction in helping each other in ways which human 

 nature cannot really be satisfied with. All the same, one clings a bit 

 to life. There is a certain physical menace in death which it is ill 

 to face, and I feel it more strongly this afternoon than I did last night 

 when the danger was vaguer and newer. The poor man drowned has 

 saddened us, and made the danger seem more real, but as yet we have 

 not even begun to feel discomfort. No water has reached the cabins, 

 or even the decks, except now and then the spray of a wave, and the 

 sun is shining brightly, and we are surrounded by flights of happy 

 seagulls. The shore is romantic and beautiful between Serbal, in front 

 to the north-east and Ghareb to the south-west, both mountains which 

 I love and on which I could be content to die. It is the physical re- 

 pulsion that one has, that of being knocked to pieces on the reef, or 

 drowned in one's cabin. Two ships have been sighted far off, but 

 they took no notice of our signals, and we are fully ten miles away from 

 the usual Red Sea course. My own only satisfaction is to think Anne 

 did not come with us. She has a terror of water, though of nothing 

 else, and would have been unhappy. Both Cockerell and Miss Law- 

 rence are cheerful and undisturbed ; indeed, every one is behaving 

 well. We are all three sitting on the upper deck now, on a carpet 

 with one of the pilgrims next us, a man from Mitgamr. At every 

 blow of a wave which shakes the ship he ejaculates, ' Ya robb ! Ya 

 robbina' ! (From God are all things. Yes, all. Our Lord is mer- 

 ciful. Ya, Robb!) Below there is an old lady who puts her head 

 out of the cabin and calls to her son, ' Ya, Yusuf ! Ya, Yusuf ! ' 

 The rest are devout and quiet, and there is none of the affectation 

 of merriment one would see under like circumstances on board a P. 

 and O. 



" 10th March (Friday). [N.B. This part of my Diary is splashed 

 with sea water, but still legible.] We have had a very bad night and 

 things this morning look almost hopeless. With the rise of the tide 

 at sunset the wind increased in violence, blowing still from the north- 

 west, and the waves swept the upper deck. I went up to try and 

 persuade Suliman and Hassan to come below, but they would not 

 move. The whole night through the ship was banged upon the reef — 

 raised by each wave, and let down with a thundering bang upon her 

 keel, which prevented much sleeping. At times it seemed as if she 

 must break her back. At midnight it was quieter, but it is worse than 

 ever this morning, and the ship has settled lower into the water. 

 There is only one comfort, she is now wholly aground, and cannot 

 sink lower. It depends all on the wind. If it goes on like this for 

 another night she will break up, and there is no chance of a rescue. 

 There are practically no boats and no sailors. The captain would 

 not risk trying to land the passengers except in a calm. Even the 



