Chap. XXVIII. HEAVY GALE. 579 



hawser. We might never have picked it up, had not a 

 Kjooman jumped overboard and fastened a second line to the 

 cask; and then we drew the hawser on board, and were 

 again in tow. During the whole time of the hurricane the 

 little vessel behaved admirably, and never shipped a single 

 green sea. When the Ariel pitched forwards we could see 

 a large part of her bottom, and when her stern went down we 

 could see all her deck. A boat, hung at her stern davits, was 

 stove in by the waves. The officers on board the Ariel 

 thought that it was all over with us : we imagined that 

 they were suffering more than we were. Nautical men may 

 suppose that this was a serious storm only to landsmen ; but 

 the Orestes, which was once in sight, and at another time 

 forty miles off during the same gale, split eighteen sails ; and 

 the Pioneer had to be lightened of parts of a sugar-mill she 

 was carrying; her round-house was washed away, and the 

 cabin was frequently knee-deep in water. When the Orestes 

 came into Mosambique harbour nine days after our arrival 

 there, our vessel, not being anchored close to the Ariel, for 

 we had run in under the lee of the fort, led to the surmise on 

 board the Orestes that we had gone to the bottom. Captain 

 Chapman and his officers pronounced the Lady Nyassa to be 

 the finest little sea-boat they had ever seen. She certainly 

 was a contrast to the Ma-Eobert, and did great credit to her 

 builders, Tod and Macgregor of Glasgow. We can but regret 

 that she was not employed on the Lake after which she was 

 named, and for which she was intended and was so well adapted. 

 What struck us most, during the trip from the Zambesi 

 to Mosambique, was the admirable way in which Captain 

 Chapman handled the Ariel in the heavy sea of the hurricane ; 

 the promptitude and skill with which, when we had broken 

 three hawsers, others were passed to us by the rapid evolu- 

 tions of a big ship round a little one ; and the ready appliance 



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