A DOCK AT SEA. 



193 



afterwards beaten by all her companions, although the prognostications about her talents in 

 this direction had been of the most lugubrious description. It must be understood that the 

 bottom of her hold, so to speak, was only some ten feet under the surface of the water, and 

 that her hollow sides towered some sixty feet above it. On the top of each gunwale were 

 wooden houses for the officers, with gardens in front and behind, in which mignonette, 

 sweet peas, and other English garden flowers, grew and flourished, until they encountered 

 the parching heat of the tropics. The crew was quartered in the sides of the vessel; 

 and the top of the gunwales, or quarter-decks, as they might be called, communicated with 

 the lower decks by means of a ladder fifty-three feet long. 



VOYAGE OF THE " BERMUDA." 



To return, however, to the voyage. Her next lendezvous was at Porto Santo, a small 

 island on the east coast of the island of Madeira. On July 4th, about six o'clock 

 in the morning, land was signalled. This proved to be the island of Porto Santo; and 

 she brought up about two miles off the principal town early in the afternoon, having 

 made the voyage from Sheerness in exactly eleven days. Here the squadron was joined 

 by the Warrior, Slack Prince, and Lapwing (gunboat), the Helicon leaving them for 

 Lisbon. Towards nightfail they started once more in the following order, passing to the 

 south of Bermuda. The Black Prince and Warrior led the team, towing the Bermuda, 

 the Terrible being towed by her in turn, to prevent yawing, and the Lapwing following 

 close on the heels of the Terrible, All went well until the 8th, when the breeze freshened, 

 the dock rolling as much as ten degrees. Towards eight o'clock in the evening a mighty 

 crash was heard, and the whole squadron was brought up by signal from the lighthouses. 

 On examination it was found that the Bermuda had carried a\vay one of the chains of 

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