MAKING OUR EASTING DOWN 29 
two horizontal handles, much as a bucket is wound up on 
the drum of a cottage well. Unfortunately, this part of the 
main deck, which is just forward of the break of the poop, 
is more subject to seas breaking inboard than any other 
part of the ship, so when the ship was labouring the task of 
those on the pump was not an enviable one. During the 
big gale going South the water was up to the men’s waists 
as they tried to turn the handles, and the pumps themselves 
were feet under water. 
From England to Cape Town these small handles werea 
great inconvenience. There was very much pumping to be 
done and there were plenty of men to do it, but the handles 
were not long enough to allow more than four men to each 
handle. Also they gave no secure purchase when the ship 
was rolling heavily, and when a big roll came there was 
nothing to do but practically stop pumping and hold on, 
or you found yourself in the scuppers. 
At Cape Town a great improvement was made by ex- 
tending the crank handles right across the decks, the out- 
side end turning in a socket under the rail. Fourteen men 
could then get a good purchase on the handles and pump- 
ing became a more pleasant exercise and less of a nuisance. 
Periodically the well was sounded by an iron rod being 
lowered on the end of a rope, by which the part that came 
up wet showed the depth of water left in the bilge. When 
this had been reduced to about a foot in the well, the ship 
was practically dry, and the afterguard free to bathe and 
go to breakfast. 
Meanwhile the hands of the watch had been employed 
on ropes and sails as the wind made necessary, and, when 
running under steam as well as sail, hoisting ashes up the 
two shoots from the ash-pits of the furnaces to the deck, 
whence they went into the ditch. 
It is eight bells (8 o’clock) and the two stewards are 
hurrying along the decks, hoping to get the breakfast 
safely from galley to wardroom. A few naked officers are 
pouring sea-water over their heads on deck, for we are 
under sail alone and there is no steam to work the hose. 
The watch keepers and their snotties of the night before 
