William Strapps Diary Part 2

these sheep look strange to us about the head all have white faces & seem all together adapted for this climate & to endure the scorching sun When skinned they were about the size of a good English lamb with about as much fat on as would grease a gimblet. The moon was very beautiful to-night (full) A bright halo in the form of a semicircle which widened to a whole one surroun ded it & it looked like a frame. Our steward was shifted to a lower berth to-day for striking the Quarter-master last night & our chaps petitioned him but the captain said he could not let him off but would see how he went on so he had to go & scrub the deck clean the brasses etc A captain of a vessel like ours is like a petty King & governs all misbehaved persons

are paraded before him for judgement.

Thu Jan 29th 1880 [text in left margin] 286 miles 40°1" lat S 33°12" Long E last night we had the best fun yet experienced on board Today was the expiration of one month of the voyage The men are paid one months wages in advance & no doubt many of them had not got a farthing of it by the end of the month which anniversary they celebrate by what they call the funeral of the Dead Horse one of the crew is dressed up & is enclosed (that is his lower limbs) in a mummy horse which is very well made & sham horse resemble very much the description given of accounts of different authors of the various modes of accounts Mumming in the olden time

[Diagram of a man in a Mumming horse] A few of the sailors attached a rope to the fore part of this mummy & real man & pulled him along the deck one of them sings the air of the funeral song & all sailors, passengers, & any body joins in that pleases. They parade all round the vessel & then stop on the first saloon deck where they sell him by auction the sailors now go round collecting for the "Dead Horse". The old arm chair was then sung after some other little affairs both man & Horse are brought & tied to a rope & pulled up the yard-arm & dangling over the water kicking or being made to kick like a live horse. One of the sailors had climbed up the mast & along the yard-arm & held a firy bright light & burning

so blue & then a red one was flashed all of a sudden the lights went out & down falls the poor old horse into the water leaving the sailors hanging up on the yard who descend amid the applause of the spectators. He is then to the forecastle on the shoulders of his mates. The worst part of the business is carried out of our sight many were the black bottles that went down the forecastle & I doubt not had we been allowed to go down we should have found many of the "Dead Horse" men "dead" "drunk"! Running about the deck with bare feet just now is quite a luxury but to treat on a rusty nail does not improve the feeling of pleasure. It stops your little games on deck & prevents you joining in the double

shuffles They have many kind of games to pass the time on one was a good sized rope was fastened to the side of the vessel & the other end to the boom in the centre of the vessel lashed with a piece of string A young lady gets on & has a swing & invites others to sit on with her then she gets off & gets perhaps 1/2 a dozen others to sit & They have a swing some one then cuts the rope at one end & down they all fall on the deck to the merriment of the on lookers. The longer the drop the louder the laugh The young lady was a good decoy duck & if she can decoy men into her chamers net she will make a rare husband or flirt killer The fiddler turned up to-night after a long absence. It seems he had broken all his strings