Читать книгу Lolóma, or two years in cannibal-land. A story of old Fiji онлайн

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As we cleared the South Head the wind freshened, the gaff-topsails were run up, and soon the long line of Australian coast faded into dim perspective.

The Molly Asthore was a roughly-built vessel. She had not the sharp, yacht-like bows of the island traders of to-day. Her decks where neither white nor well-kept; rope ends usually trailed about instead of being Flemish-coiled, and she was innocent of brass work or ornamentation of any kind. The cuddy, to which access was obtained by a short perpendicular ladder, was furnished with two rude bunks for the master and mate, and a little square table, round which there was barely room to walk. The schooner had carried cocoanut oil, a commodity whose penetrating scent is never eradicated from ships in which it has once been stored, and the offensive odour of rancid oil and bilge-water was almost overpowering in this little room. The men who slept forward were not so well off, but they counted on a fine weather voyage, which would admit of lying on deck through the nights. The provisions consisted chiefly of weevily biscuits and bad salt meat, and the cockroaches which abounded in all parts of the schooner showed a shocking tameness.