-138- 
Davls has worked out all new formulas for his birds, based on 
the current shortage of bananas* Melons and pumpkins ere chopped 
up and so disguied that even the fruit pigeons pre taking them readi- 
ly # One big West Coast hornbill has a raucous call that sounds 
exactly like "Davisl Davis I T ' and keeps it up ell morning until he 
is fed. Our old friend Jacob, from Piroe, is in a cage with several 
yellow-crested cockatoos, and they have all learned to say his name 
now* I went over to the cag e and called Jacob yesterday, and 
one of the sulphur-crested birds came right to the front and said 
fT Jacob Tf to me* ?f Shame on you/' I said, "you f re not Jacob at all, ft 
and had little difficulty in picking out our pet, as he is the largest 
and handsomest of all our cockatoos. 
All the gibbons (there are only six now, and we started with 
thirteen) know me, and begin to sing the moment they see me coming 
down the line with food. If I sit on the floor in front of the 
cage and start saying "Whoo - whoo - whoo ?t to them, they mimic me 
exactly* I call them my choir. One of them will sit and hold 
hands with me for hours at a time. The black and white boys from 
Bangkok decided today that they didn f t care for oranges or bananas 
any longer - rather a strrin on one* s dietetic planning. 
/bout eight-thirty we passed Gibraltar. It was too dark 
to see more than a cloud-like outline of the famous rock. Our 
si gan for Bails and Jennier now is ?, Join the Zoo and see the 
world - by flashlight." We signalled ashore in Morse to let 
them know" that the Silverash was passing Gibraltar, and the word 
could be passed on to Lloyd's that we were safely out of the war zone. 
We thought we had been pretty lucky to get by with nothing more than 
a warning of a floating mine, especially as ™e had seen one ship 
being towed into Morocco, under escort by a battleship; and fcfeg 
KEftoJCK had seen a grim reminder of a British oil tanker's fate when 
we sailed through a long stretch where the surface of the sea was 
rainbow-hued with floating oil. We were all in the little lounge, 
known as the ?? day-room r , about ten o f clock, when we noticed powerful 
lights on deck, and went out to see what was up. A ship, with 
terrifically powerful search lights, was swiftly approaching us 
aft. When it was so close I thought it would hit us in a second 
more, it swerved, came along the port side, still very close, and 
playing that glaring head light all over our ship. The young 
red-headed apprentice ran like mad to the stern to fly our ensign, 
and from the bridge we heard the signal to the engine room ?? Stand 
By. Our strange visitor turned, swiftly and noiselessly, passed 
in back of us again, came up the starboard side, then wheeled and 
vanished into the night. It was an uncanny performance. Nobody 
could make out who she was, except that it was a cruiser, and 
the concensus of opinion was that she was a Spanish Insurgent 
battleship, for no srfckEr ship of any other country would be so 
curious and so mysterious about it. P British battleship, check- 
ing up on passing ships, would have wirelessed or signalled in 
Morse. 
September 12 - 
Today we are well out in the Atlantic, and although it is 
cool, the weather is fine, and so far not too chilly for our animals 
on deck. We are taking the southern curse on account of our 
perishable cargo, and will be south of the Azores, in fact wouth of 
the Gulf Stream all the way, until we cut north to make Halifax. 
