VOYAGE TO ALGERIA. 109 



alarmed inquiries immediately followed. Amid the noises 

 I heard one note of forced laughter; it sounded very 

 ghastly. Men tramped through the saloon, and busy 

 voices were heard aft, as if something there had gone wrong. 



I rose, and not without difficulty got into my clothes. 

 In the after-cabin, under the superintendence of the able 

 and energetic navigating lieutenant, Mr. Brown, a group 

 of blue-jackets were working at the tiller-ropes. These 

 had become loose, and the helm refused to answer the 

 wheel. High moral lessons might be gained on shipboard, 

 by observing what steadfast adherence to an object can 

 accomplish, and what large effects are heaped up by the 

 addition of infinitesimals. 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 ob- 

 tained. I had previously gone on deck. Eound 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 toward a cleat not far from the wheel.* 

 Round it I coiled my arms. With the exception 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 steadying 

 influence of sufficient ballast. She was for a time practi- 

 cally rudderless, and lay in the trough of the sea. 1 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 cleat is a T-shaped mass of metal employed for the fasten- 

 ing of ropes. 



