Читать книгу Into the Frozen South онлайн

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There’s one thing about the sea, I find—it either makes you or breaks you. You get salted through and through, and in some cases it toughens you, whilst in others it rots all your pluck away and makes you feel you’d like to live in the very middle of the Sahara desert and never see salt water again in your life.

But during the passage from Lisbon to Madeira I didn’t feel like keeping a very exhaustive diary. Anyhow, there was nothing exciting to recount, for the weather wasn’t alarmingly bad; it was only the vicious run of the seas that made the little vessel so lively.

On the 15th, however, we had a reward in a brilliantly fine day, with smooth water and not much wind, and this brightened the spirits of all aboard, though Mooney and Mason still continued under the weather and longed for the peace of dry land.

Notwithstanding the exhaustive overhaul we’d been given at Lisbon, the engines developed trouble once more; the knocking began again, and it seemed as though the days spent in Portugal were completely wasted. Madeira promised to be another welter of refitting.