PORPOISES AND DOLPHINS 
5 
ringleaders head foremost overboard into a boat, and quelled 
the mutiny. 
The ship proved so small that we were obliged to sleep 
on chairs on deck. There were no cabins. Dinner was 
served in a poky little hole below, with a tablecloth more 
black than white. And, ugh ! how dirty the dishes were, 
and how tough the so-called ‘ chicken,’ and hot the soda- 
water ! On settling myself to try to sleep, I found I could 
not get comfortable owing to the extremely hard chair and 
the cold. The vessel pitched and rolled, and I began to 
get very sea-sick. Every now and then the boat would 
give a huge lurch, and the water would rush in over the 
side, half drowning the men who were lying on the lower 
deck. Anyone could see that she was utterly unfit to be 
upon the sea, and might go down at any moment.^ 
Next morning I roused myself to find it Easter Sunday, 
and began the day with a bad headache. During the 
morning I amused myself by watching a number of por- 
poises and dolphins (the former have round and the latter 
pointed noses). On sighting the ship they would swim up 
to her and play about in front of her bows, so close to her 
that they must now and then have been touched by the 
ship. Two of them would then do a kind of ‘ Dutch roll ’ 
before the ship, their action reminding one exactly of two 
persons skating together. Thus they would proceed for 
several miles, occasionally coming up to the surface to blow. 
The Somalis kept constantly coming up on deck and 
praying in the usual Mohammedan fashion. First of all 
they stood up, crossed their arms over their chests, and 
touched their foreheads and beards ; next they bent down 
as they mumbled out their prayers ; and lastly they knelt 
down, putting their foreheads between their knees on the 
ground. They ended this performance by getting up and 
spitting. 
* Since writing the above, some few years ago, I learnt at Aden when 
I was last there that this same boat, which was carrying Her Majesty’s 
mails, a lot of specie, and a crowd of passengers, not long after capsized, 
and every soul on board was drowned. 
