XX] LONDON: VOYAGE TO SINGAPORE 311 



afterwards that balsam-capivi is liable to spontaneous com- 

 bustion by the constant motion on a voyage, and it is for that 

 reason that it is always carried in small kegs and imbedded 

 in damp sand in the lowest part of the hold. Captain Turner 

 had never carried any before, and knew nothing of its 

 properties, and when at the last moment another boat-load 

 of small kegs of balsam came with no sand to pack them in, 

 he used rice-chaff which was at hand, and which he thought 

 would do as well ; and this lot was stored under the cabin 

 floor, where the flames first burst through and where the fire, 

 no doubt, originated. 



Captain Turner had evidently had no experience of fire 

 in a ship's cargo, and took quite the wrong way in the 

 attempt to deal with it. By opening the hatchways to pour 

 in water he admitted an abundance of air, and this was what 

 changed a smouldering heat into actual fire. If he had at 

 once set all hands at work caulking up every crack through 

 which smoke came out, making the hatchways also air-tight 

 by nailing tarpaulines over them, no flame could have been 

 produced, or could have spread far, and the heat due to the 

 decomposition of the balsam would have been gradually 

 diffused through the cargo, and in all probability have done 

 no harm. A few years later a relative of mine returning 

 home from Australia had a somewhat similar experience, in 

 which the captain adopted this plan and saved the ship. 

 When in the Indian Ocean some portion of the cargo was 

 found to be on fire, by smoke coming out as in our case. But 

 the captain immediately made all hatches and bulkheads air- 

 tight ; then had the boats got out and prepared for the worst, 

 towing them astern ; but he reached Mauritius in safety, and 

 was there able to extinguish the fire and save the greater 

 part of the cargo. 



On the receipt of my letter Dr. Spruce, who was then, 

 I think, somewhere on the Rio Negro or Uaupes, wrote to 

 the " Joao de Lima," referred to by me (and usually men- 

 tioned in my " Travels " as Senhor L.), giving him a short 

 account of my voyage home ; and a few months later he 

 received a reply from him. He was a Portuguese trader who 



