“I got a light, and proceeded to mop up, as best I could, and then endeavored to find a dry place to sleep in.  This, however, was no easy task, for my own bed was drenched, and every other berth occupied.  The deck, too, was ankle-deep in water, as I found when I tried to get across to the deck-house sofa.  At last I lay down on the floor, wrapped in my ulster, and wedged between the foot stanchion of our swing bed and the wardrobe athwart-ship; so that as the yacht rolled heavily, my feet were often higher than my head.”

No wonder that a woman who could make the best of such circumstances could make a year’s trip on the Sunbeam a delight to all on board.  Their first visits were to the Madeira, Teneriffe, and Cape de Verde Islands, off the coast of Africa.  With simplicity, the charm of all writing, and naturalness, Lady Brassey describes the people, the bathing where the sharks were plentiful, and the masses of wild geranium, hydrangea, and fuchsia.  They climb to the top of the lava Peak of Teneriffe, over twelve thousand feet high; they rise at five o’clock to see the beautiful sunrises; they watch the slaves at coffee-raising at Rio de Janeiro, in South America, and Lady Brassey is attracted toward the nineteen tiny babies by the side of their mothers; “the youngest, a dear, little woolly-headed thing, as black as jet, and only three weeks old.”

In Belgrano, she says:  “We saw for the first time the holes of the bizcachas, or prairie-dogs, outside which the little prairie-owls keep guard.  There appeared to be always one, and generally two, of these birds, standing like sentinels, at the entrance to each hole, with their wise-looking heads on one side, pictures of prudence and watchfulness.  The bird and the beast are great friends, and are seldom to be found apart.”  And then Lady Brassey, who understands photography as well as how to write several languages, photographs this pretty scene of prairie-dogs guarded by owls, and puts it in her book.

On their way to the Straits of Magellan, they see a ship on fire.  They send out a boat to her, and bring in the suffering crew of fifteen men, almost wild with joy to be rescued.  Their cargo of coal had been on fire for four days.  The men were exhausted, the fires beneath their feet were constantly growing hotter, and finally they gave up in despair and lay down to die.  But the captain said, “There is One above who looks after us all,” and again they took courage.  They lashed the two apprentice boys in one of the little boats, for fear they would be washed overboard, for one was the “only son of his mother, and she a widow.”

“The captain,” says Lady Brassey, “drowned his favorite dog, a splendid Newfoundland, just before leaving the ship; for although a capital watchdog and very faithful, he was rather large and fierce; and when it was known that the Sunbeam was a yacht with ladies and children on board, he feared to introduce him.  Poor fellow!  I wish I had known about it in time to save his life!”