my man trouble; and the carpenter leaves my scuttle open when no
one else gets it, quite willing to get up in his time of sleep to
close it, if it comes on to blow. A maid is really a superfluity
on board ship, as the men rather like being 'aux petits soins'.
The boatswain came the other day to say that he had a nice carpet
and a good pillow; did I want anything of the sort? He would be
proud that I should use anything of his. You would delight in
Avery, my cuddy man, who is as quick as 'greased lightning', and
full of fun. His misery is my want of appetite, and his efforts to
cram me are very droll. The days seem to slip away, one can't tell
how. I sit on deck from breakfast at nine, till dinner at four,
and then again till it gets cold, and then to bed. We are now
about 100 miles from Madeira, and shall have to run inside it, as
we were thrown so far out of our course by the foul weather.

9th Aug.--Becalmed, under a vertical sun. Lat. 17 degrees, or
thereabouts. We saw Madeira at a distance like a cloud; since
then, we had about four days trade wind, and then failing or
contrary breezes. We have sailed so near the African shore that we
get little good out of the trades, and suffer much from the African
climate. Fancy a sky like a pale February sky in London, no sun to
be seen, and a heat coming, one can't tell from whence. To-day,
the sun is vertical and invisible, the sea glassy and heaving. I
have been ill again, and obliged to lie still yesterday and the day
before in the captain's cabin; to-day in my own, as we have the
ports open, and the maindeck is cooler than the upper. The men
have just been holystoning here, singing away lustily in chorus.
Last night I got leave to sling my cot under the main hatchway, as
my cabin must have killed me from suffocation when shut up. Most
of the men stayed on deck, but that is dangerous after sunset on