AN OLD-FASHIONED SEA. 
21 
load, — a heavy loss to the expedition, as it consisted of all 
our spare spars. 
‘‘This gale itself was nothing remarkable: it was the 
really awful height and steepness of the seas that alarmed 
ns. I look back to it now and wonder how we lived 
through it, and, as I wonder, I shudder. At one time we 
took on board such a sea that the old ship hesitated to 
lift it lip; had another followed it, we must have gone 
down. It "was time to think of lightening her; so we, at 
the risk of various broken legs, cut adrift the forty tons 
of deck-load, and managed to get it overboard at the cost 
of a single leg : the owner of that one, however, made 
noise enough to bring up the doctor without his hat, who 
soon abused him into silence, after which he splintered 
it with tender care, and got him comfortably stowed away 
in a cot. Poor II , rough of speech and tender of 
heart! We lingered sadly under a granite shaft which 
rears itself over your narrow home in the unknown land 
of the Eastern heathen. 
“At the end of three days the weather moderated, 
after which we had a calm, and, finally, a fine breeze on 
the quarter: we made all sail and boomed away towards 
our longed-for port. 
“No one can tell how much we enjoyed the first day's 
moderating weather. We had suffered so terribly during 
the gale from the effects of bilge-water that some of the 
mess had been thrown on the sick-list by it; and, now that 
fair weather was retuimed, we knew its fumes would settle 
down with the sea. It had a fair sweep at us as long as 
the gale lasted; for, having to batten down all of the 
hatches, we were Avithout both light and air; and when 
