VOYAQE TO ALaEKIA. 145 



mals. The tiller-rope, as the blue-jackets strained in 

 concert, seemed hardly to move ; still it did move a 

 little, until finally, by timing the pull to the lurching 

 of the ship, the mastery of the rudder was obtained. I 

 had previously gone on deck. Round the saloon-door 

 were a few members of the eclipse party, who seemed 

 in no mood for scientific observation. Nor did I ; but 

 I wished to see the storm. I climbed the steps to the 

 poop, exchanged a word with Captain Toynbee, the 

 only member of the party to be seen on the poop, and 

 by his direction made towards a cleat not far from the 

 wheel. 1 Round it I coiled my arms. With the excep- 

 tion of the men at the wheel, who stood as silent as 

 corpses, I was alone. 



I had seen grandeur elsewhere, but this was a new 

 form of grandeur to me. The ' Urgent' is long and 

 narrow, and during our expedition she lacked the steady- 

 ing influence of sufficient ballast. She was for a time 

 practically rudderless, and lay in the trough of the sea. 

 I could see the long ridges, with some hundreds of feet 

 between their crests, rolling upon the ship perfectly 

 parallel to her sides. As they approached, they so grew 

 upon the eye as to render the expression 'mountains 

 high ' intelligible. At all events, there was no mistaking 

 their mechanical might, as they took the ship upon their 

 shoulders, and swung her like a pendulum. The deck 

 sloped sometimes at an angle which I estimated at over 

 forty-five degrees ; wanting my previous Alpine practice, 

 I should have felt less confidence in my grip of the 

 cleat. Here and there the long rollers were tossed by 

 interference into heaps of greater height. The wind 

 caught their crests, and scattered them over the sea, the 

 whole surface of which was seething white. The aspect 



1 The cleat is a T-shaped mass of metal employed for th 

 fastening of ropes. 



