and noticed the sails filling.  We rowed with all our strength, stripped to the waist, and succeeded in getting up when the ship was well under weigh.  It was a stiff piece of work, and the captain was so concerned and annoyed at our disobedience of his orders that he refused to allow us to boat again during the voyage.  We suffered sorely for our escapade, for not knowing the strength of a tropical sun, we exposed ourselves so that the skin was burned and peeled off, and we were in misery for several days, while our arms and necks were swathed in cotton wool and oil.

After leaving the tropics we had a pleasant voyage and fair winds until we rounded the Cape, where we encountered some rough weather, and at 56 deg.  S.L., it being then almost winter in those latitudes, we passed many icebergs of more or less extent.  Few of them appeared to be more than ten or fifteen feet above water, but the greater portion of such blocks are submerged, and considerable caution had to be observed night and day to steer clear of them.  They were usually observable at first from the large number of birds resting on them, causing them to appear like a dark speck on the horizon.  One of these icebergs (according to an entry made in the ship’s log) was stated to be five miles long and of great height, and we were supposed to have passed it at the latter end of the night so near that “a biscuit might be thrown upon it.”  I am afraid the entry was open to criticism, and that the existence, or at any rate, the extent of this particular iceberg might have been due to an extra glass of grog on the mate’s imagination.

We sighted no land during the voyage, except the Peak of Teneriffe, as it emerged above a cloud; and but few vessels, and of those only two closely.  One was a Swedish barque, homeward bound, the other a large American clipper ship.  We spoke the latter when the vessels were some miles apart, but as the courses were parallel, she being bound for London, while we were from thence, we gradually neared, when an amusing conversation by signals took place.  Our captain, by mistake of the signaller, invited the Yankee captain to dinner, and the reply from the American, who good-naturedly took it as a joke, was “Bad roadstead here.”  Our captain thought they were chaffing him, and had not the mistake been discovered in time, the rencontre might not have ended as pleasantly as it did.  Our captain and second mate went on board the Yankee, and their captain returned the visit.  While this was proceeding the two ships appeared to be sailing round each other, and the sight was very imposing.  When the ceremonies were over, and a few exchanges of newspapers, wines, etc., were made and bearings compared, the vessels swung round to their respective courses, up flew the sails, and a prolonged cheer from both ships told us this little interchange of courtesies in the midst of the South Pacific was at an end.