8 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. chap. i. 



on board tlie fine iron screw steam-ship, "Indiana," of 1800 

 tons' burden ; and in the afternoon of the following day, having 

 taken in our mails at Plymouth, we stood out to sea. The 

 evening became cold and cloudy, but many of my fellow- 

 passengers remained on deck until a late hour, watching the 

 varied objects of interest on the land, till the shadows of 

 evening, spreading over cliff and cove, concealed the shore 

 and all beyond it from our view. 



My own thoughts and feelings were very different from 

 those with which, in early life, I had, when sailing over the 

 same course, looked, as I supposed, for the last time on England 

 and all its highly-prized and fondly-cherished associations ; 

 and I sought afresh to commit myself, and all connected with 

 me, to His divine protection whose goodness had been hither- 

 to so constantly enjoyed. 



The wind in the commencement of our voyage was light, 

 but we felt no discouragement on that account, as we found 

 by noon on the first day that we had traversed the space of 206 

 miles. The breeze soon became more favourable, and for the 

 first seven days of our passage we sailed about 240 miles 

 each day without the aid of steam; and when the wind 

 ceased, we were propelled at about the same rate by steam 

 alone. This was my first voyage in an ocean steamer of such 

 dimensions ; and when the water was tolerably smooth, the en- 

 gine-room became a place of great attraction to me, where the 

 wonderful adjustment of the vast machinery and the exact 

 and easy working of the whole, notwithstanding the motion of 

 the sea, often excited intense admiration. Our chief engineer, 

 an intelligent young Scotchman, told me that when using full 

 steam force the engine-fires consumed thirty tons of coal per 

 day, that the screw made 3540 revolutions in the hour, that 

 each single revolution of the screw propelled our unwieldy iron 

 vessel nineteen feet through the water, and that in ordinary 

 weather our usual speed was nine or ten miles an hour. Un- 



