What will you do with yourself during the two six-day stretches from Lisbon to St. Vincent of the Cape Verde Islands and from St. Vincent to Pernambuco?
You find yourself an old resident of the ship now, and mean to gain some sense of the real life of the people about you. The passengers are clannish at table and on deck. The English and Americans fall together in groups according to their taste or experience. The Portuguese, Brazilian and Argentine elements do the same. If you speak French you can converse with any of the three latter, for they are not confined to their mother tongues. "You Americans speak so few languages," said one, once, to me with polite derogation.
You soon settle into a routine. Early salt bath to which your steward calls you on schedule time, a cup of black coffee, breakfast at nine. Perhaps you have already been on deck and greeted your fellow-passengers, as they all do, "Have you slept well?" After breakfast a "constitutional" on deck, pausing now and then at the end railing to look down a few feet upon the five hundred steerage passengers, the common details of whose lives are very public. They are nearly all barefooted, fearfully dirty, and you gratefully watch the ship's doctor going among them with energetic disinfectants, and take perhaps your first lesson in seeing English officers control the ignorant and unclean Latin. Your admiration rises; for their discipline is perfect even of this temporary charge. The "Nile" carries a thousand souls. Among those poor steerage people there are nearly always deaths at sea, but all is managed with quietness and consideration, and you probably will not know when the sorrowful burials take place.
You have had your walk, or your energetic game of ring-toss or shuffle-board, and sit down to rest and read, when up comes a charming young English passenger and says, "May I include you in our sweepstakes for the ladies?" and you may be as ignorant as I and answer "Yes," in response. "Two shillings, please;" and your best friend will explain to you that you have been betting on the ship's run for the day. If you say no, you will probably be the only woman on the ship, rich or poor, who has no chance to win, and you must be as gracious and clever as you know how to make up for your incomprehensible Puritanism. At 12.30 P.M. the ship's run is posted, and by the time that excitement is over you go to luncheon. At 4 o'clock comes the cozy cup of tea, when perhaps some English lady will give you a slice of delicious cake she has brought from the famous Buzzard's in London, and you will offer her American ginger snaps crisp from the can in return.
When you left England your 7 o'clock dinner not only began, but ended in brdaylight. As you near the equator the days shorten rapidly until at 6 o'clock you see the sun at the horizon, take out your watch, in three minutes you are in darkness without twilight. A week later when you land at Rio de Janeiro the sun will set at 5.15 P. M. You change temperature as well as the length of your days. Leaving England with cool weather and thick clothing, you graduate yourself into the lightest of raiment soon after leaving Lisbon. The water, the air and the sides of your cabin all maintain a temperature of 82 day and night for five or six days, and you keep yourself sheltered from the hotter rays of the sun.
One could easily imagine one's self a guest at a summer house-party—the decks some great verandas overlooking an illimitable lawn of the bluest blue, so quiet is the water. For dinner the gentlemen wear their dinner coats, the ladies make careful toilets, and Englishmen who have lived in India wear dress suits of white linen with short jackets and brsashes of rich silk.
At least four days before the equator is reached the young people, with the assistance of the officers, make out a two days' program of athletic sports. Every first-class passenger is asked to enter his name for one or more of the contests, and nearly all are obliging enough to do so. Then comes the fun of appointing judges and committees; the ladies search their trunks for ribbons for badges, and trinkets for prizes are selected. Then the two days of "sports." The veterans' race in which old men run who haven't done it for years, and young men's and young women's and children's, three-legged races and "obstacle races," "potato races" and "thread-and-needle races," and the ship's company is going from side to side and up and down to watch it all, or try to win, or compliment the winners. Well! you will have your exercise and many a good laugh, and in the evening the prizes will be distributed in the music-room by the captain or the most distinguished passenger.
After dinner you will watch the phosphorescent water gleaming like a trail of fire at the stern, take more walks with the promenaders around the decks, and repair to the music-room where your talented fellow-passengers are sure to furnish a concert, including everything from the classics to Irish ballads and college songs. Even a prestidigitator may give you a performance some night. Oh! you are all great friends now. The Portuguese Countess and you have been having an hour's womanly visit; and you are anxious about the baby of the fascinating English wife of the Argentine ranchman who lives in such dignity in their little colony on the pampa. The baby feels the rapid change to summer heat, and you advise the mother to fill her rubber (hot) water-bag with ice-water and slip it under baby's little pillow, and she thinks it might be well and says she has always heard the Americans were "keen after ice."
You will be glad to see land for a few hours, though it is a dreary, treeless spot, picturesque St. Vincent. Thirty-five English telegraph operators form the nucleus of the town and are there to repeat cablegrams from the systems of wires which center there in mid-ocean. At a center of information, yet what fearful isolation! Other steamers stop for coal as yours does.
The second Sunday at sea is one to be remembered. It is spent in mid ocean, in the tropics. In the companionway is posted a notice of service in the great dining-saloon at 10.30 A. M. At ten you are sitting on deck, in a fresh white dress, waiting. Soon after the crew begins to gather, stewards, cooks, quartermasters, every one who can be spared from duty. They come in neat uniform, white trousers, navy blue jackets and caps with the Royal Mail device embroidered in color. The line of men, over a hundred, stretches the length of the deck. The captain and purser, followed by all the officers walk the length of the line for roll-call and review. The officers lead the way to the dining-saloon followed by the crew, then by the passengers. The stately service of the Church of England is read by the captain; the psalms are all sung, led by an accomplished English lady at the organ.[1] How many fine voices there are among those sailors! It is an impressive service, and you are glad that it is required by law, and that all sorts and conditions of men join in it.
[1]As the hymns and chants are those of the English Church an English musician is naturally chosen, and there are always those among the English passengers who are fully competent to render this service.
After this luncheon, and a deck unusually full of readers, for some of the gentlemen do not play "poker" in the smoking-room Sundays.
I remember we saw during that Sunday afternoon two men whom we had not seen before. They were reading Bibles. A notice of a Gospel service at 8 P. M. by the forward hatch was posted. We went; so did all the passengers. The two new men were the evangelists. They gave out a Gospel hymn and started it, but no one seemed to know it or joined in the singing. They read the Scripture and exhorted, expressing themselves strongly on unrighteousness, betting and the use of tobacco, while the listeners occasionally took their cigarettes out of their mouths long enough to smile derisively. We felt pained at the apparent failure and asked the captain for the cause. "Well," said he, "these men are in the world but not of it. They have shut themselves away from the passengers, the sports; shown no friendliness to the sailors. My men are very obliging and often sing well when these missionaries come along, but this sort offends them, makes them ugly." We saw no more of the men until they landed four days later.
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