From Newcastle to Port Said. 239 



they are awful when they do rage, but that on the whole there 

 are many other latitudes more dreaded by the mariner. 



We naturally expected to meet with a rude Biscayan 

 reception in the month of January, but we encountered 

 nothing unpleasant save a ludicrous rolling motion, due 

 rather to some previous disturbance than to present tempest. 

 The dark billows had never a crest, and were scarcely curled 

 by the breeze ; but they were long and high notwithstanding 

 — very innocent and smiling of countenance, but downright 

 teasers in their actual effects. A steadier or better sea-boat, 

 or a better handled, than the Eastern and Australian Com- 

 pany's R.M.S. Queensland* never sailed the seas, but she was 

 compelled to give in to the Bay of Biscay ; after a few gallant 

 attempts at resistance she rolled until the decks described 

 angles of any number of degrees. 



If you intend to travel on the ocean never write a book 

 about shipwrecks. That was an enormity I once perpetrated, 

 as I had good cause to remember during the first night's roll 

 and racket in the Bay of Biscay O ! Disasters that had long 

 since, as I imagined, escaped my memory were brought to 

 mind by some evil spirit, which took a delight in marshalling 

 before me the details uTtheir most harrowing form. 



" Look you, my brave comrade," it would whisper, " you 

 pretend that you are enjoying the fun of this midnight 

 uproar, the portmanteau rushing after the hat-box, the glasses 

 crashing in the saloon, the cabin floor the arena of contend- 

 ing pieces of furniture. Remember, it was in the Bay of 

 Biscay that the Kent, East Indiaman, was lost through just 

 such rolling as this ; here went down the ill-fated Amazon ; 

 and what of the London with her 230 lives, or the Captain 

 with her 500 brave blue jackets, off Cape Finisterre yonder?" 



* Run down and lost, within a few months, on the Australian coast, 

 by a clumsily-sailed steamer. 



