Читать книгу Gold Hunting in Alaska онлайн

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This sort of experience is, so new to me. I thought I knew something of life on a schooner, during the trip to San Clemente and San Nicholas last year, but this is more and better. Nearly everyone save myself is longing for land, and they watch our course each day as it is traced on the chart with more interest than anything else. Just now I am sitting alone on a bench in the little galley, watching the potatoes and salt-horse boiling. The sun has come out and everyone is on deck, the "crips" lying against the stern rail or along the side of the cabin. By orders of the doctor all the bedding is airing on the deck and rails amidships, and some of the boys are taking advantage of the fair weather to do their washing. I did my own yesterday, although it was raining, and, as I have a "pull" with the cook, I dried the clothes in the galley at night. Of course all washing has to be done in salt water and it is scarcely satisfactory, to say the least. This necessary laundry work of ours is destined to occupy a good deal of our time and patience, and I suspect that before our cruise is over we shall long for a glimpse of a good, faithful washerwoman with her suds, and her arms akimbo, and her open smile.