When the weather was good their spirits rose and there were many rounds
of singing and story-telling as they sat clustered together like bees
under the lee of the deck-house, and in all of these Stevenson joined
heartily.

"We were indeed a musical ship's company," he says, "and cheered our way
into exile with the fiddle, the accordion, and the songs of all nations,
good, bad or indifferent--Scottish, English, Irish, Russian or
Norse--the songs were received with generous applause. Once or twice, a
recitation, very spiritedly rendered in a powerful Scotch accent, varied
the proceedings; and once we sought in vain to dance a quadrille, eight
men of us together, to the music of the violin. The performers were
humorous, frisky fellows, who loved to cut capers in private life; but
as soon as they were arranged for the dance, they conducted themselves
like so many mutes at a funeral. I have never seen decorum pushed so
far; and as this was not expected, the quadrille was soon whistled off,
and the dancers departed.

"But the impulse to sing was strong, and triumphed over modesty and even
the inclemencies of the sea and sky. On one rough Saturday night, we got
together by the main deck-house, in a place sheltered from the wind and
rain. Some clinging to the ladder which led to the hurricane-deck and
the rest knitting arms or taking hands, we made a ring to support the
women in the violent lurching of the ship, and when we were thus
disposed, sang to our hearts' content.

"There was a single chess-board and a single pack of cards. Sometimes as
many as twenty of us would be playing dominoes for love. There were
feats of dexterity, puzzles for the intelligence and a regular daily
competition to guess the vessel's progress; at twelve o'clock when the