2110-1-7-18

UNION-CASTLE LINE R.M.S. "BRITON"

Sunday. Sept: 22:: 1901 off Sierra Leone.

My dear old Nan

This is my second Sunday at sea and I shall begin my second letter home, though it will not be posted till Tuesday week at Capetown. We have been in the Tropics now for three days, and at present are somewhere just off Sierra Leone. Tomorrow we shall cross the Equator. Last Wednesday morning we arrived at Madeira. When I woke up in the morning I found myself in a bay among enormous rocky hills with a white foreign-looking town on the shore, and boat-fuls of little naked boys diving for pennies. I went ashore with some people and went up a little railway to the Convent of Bella-vista on the top of a small hill, 2000 ft up. There we had breakfast in Portuguese fashion, fish dressed with garlic, a very good omelette, vile tea which tasted of bad pencils, and quantities of delicious grapes, peaches, plums, & mangoes.

Every garden was blazing with sub-tropical flowers. I walked up a little ravine to where I could get a view of the central mountain scenery, and extraordinarily fine it was. Splintered hills like Glencoe, rising about 6000 ft high, with aloes and vines half-way up them. We went down from the convent in a toboggan pushed by two yelling Portuguese. You slide down the narrow cobbled streets, taking the sharpest corners, and doing the 2000 ft in 10 minutes. Then I went to lunch at the mess of the Eastern Telegraph Company, who entertained me very kindly, and then I went back to the steamer. They sell wonderful native lace & basket chairs, and I must buy some on my way home. The population of Madeira is of two kinds - the pleasant type which is exactly like John Edgar, and the sinister type, which is simply Joe Menzies. I had two Joe Menzieses to guide my toboggan. They stopped at a small cabaret & wanted me to give them what they called 'la Malvoisie.' I objected and explained as best I could that Malvoisie was the drink of mediaeval barons & monks &

only survived in the pages of 'Ivanhoe.' However it turned out to be a cheap kind of Madeira wine at about 2d a bottle. On the quay I met two old nuns, of the 'Little Sisters of the Poor' persuasion. One asked me for a contribution in a very Scots tongue. I said "Whair do ye come frae, mistress?" She said 'Dumfries.' And sure enough she did, as I found on cross-examining her. But it is surely a far cry from Dumfries to Madeira.

The voyage since then has been quite eventless. Very early on Thursday morning we passed through the Canary Islands. I went on deck in pyjamas and gazed at the famous Peak of Teneriffe (12000 odd ft high), with the summit just breaking over its snows, and its base (I quote from the guide-book,) "clothed luxuriantly with masses of the Euphorbia Canariensis. By and by a funny old lady came on deck in a pink dressing-gown & two pigtails of hair and gazed at the scene through an enormous spy-glass. Early yesterday morning we passed Cape Verd - our last sight of land till we get to Cape Town. On Thursday we fell in with the N-E Trade Wind, which lasted till last night when we struck the tail of the S.W. Monsoon. Once past the Line, and we get the S.E. Trade wind which will accompany us to Capetown. At this season of the year we get nothing of the placid waveless Tropic seas

There is always a strong wind blowing in the [bows?] and last night we had to have our portholes closed, the seas were so heavy. I have become most hopelessly burned, for if you sit in the sun the Tropics make themselves felt and if you sit in the wind, the wind, being rather hot, burns you even worse. As far as weather and seas go we might be on the road to Colonsay. It is only at night when we have gigantic castles and crimson clouds to the West and dophins and flying fish playing round the vessel that one realises that one is in a very different bit from Quothquan.

The people on board are very amiable but rather monotonous. They are constantly getting up concerts and dances and sports which bore me. It is much nicer to read by oneself. Much the nicest are the young naval officers, who are full of the wildest stories, and the Rathdonells. I have struck up a great friendship with old Lord Rathdonell, and his wife is a very nice dainty old body. They are going out to see the grave of their eldest son, who was killed near Kimberley in the war. It is a sad errand, but the Captain told me that a lot of the pasengers were on the same business.

I have read most of themy S. African book, as well as re-read from the Ship's library, 'The Egoist' 'Marcella,' 'Q's 'Wandering Heath' and 'The Carissima,' which last has influenced me very much on re-reading