IV 



My Log 361 



chintz, and appear in an ungraceful attitude and 

 indecorous condition before the reverend chaplain 

 and all the sucking Nelsons. I found that the only 

 way to avoid this catastrophe was to hook on to the 

 handle of the drawers with one hand and use one's 

 sponge with the other. I want to know what 

 necessity there is for the mariner (whose tramp up 

 and down within six inches of my nose is bad 

 enough) to order his arms directly over me and then 

 to dance the double shuffle ; likewise in the morning 

 when I am getting a little sleep, after having been 

 frightened out of my wits every half-hour by that 

 dreadful ship's bell, why I am to have a hundred- 

 weight of holy -stones emptied from a vast height 

 on the same place ? I mind less the eruption of the 

 chaplain and all his young gentlemen into the cabin 

 in the middle of the night, ' to rub up some blessed 

 old star,' as the young gentlemen say, because it 

 interests me to try and imagine what on earth they 

 are about, and to hear their little innocent confidences 

 and opinions of each other and things in general. 



Thursday. — We are well round the corner, and 

 in the Atlantic somewhere off Rochefort on the 

 French coast. There must have been a gale from 

 the eastward lately, for though we are far away from 

 land, a number of shore birds have come on board, 

 poor little things ! quite beaten. As they are all 

 soft-billed birds I am afraid that they must die. I 

 could only make out a redstart who tried pertina- 

 ciously to settle on the patent log line. Before we 



