The morning bucket was a transient happiness. To disturb the "gradual dusky veil" now unescapable, since the bunkers were now chiefly filled with coal-dust, was not too simple in a limited space, with limited hot water. My porthole, looking over those fuming bunkers, had to be shut at all hours. According to everybody, the _Bonadventure_ was "a dirty ship"; although it seemed unlikely that a carrier of coal by thousands of tons should be clean.
She at least began to please the chief with his coveted "Ten knots"; and at dinner on the seventeenth day out, he asked whether anyone had seen a disturbance in the water. The old gentleman was expected. I was sorry that he did not come, after all, with his "baptism," shave, and medicine (and I believe other rites), when at about four in the afternoon the _Bonadventure_ crossed the Equator; but old customs can scarcely be eternal. The steward's cough mixture was the only medicine I got that day. Neptuneless, the ship furrowed a sea almost silent, and evening came on tranquilly among woolpacks of warm-kindled colouring.
Mary, what news?-- The lands, as I suppose, Are drenched with sleet or drifted up with snows, The east wind strips the slates and starves the blood, Or thaws and rains make life a sea of mud. You close each door, draw armchairs nigh the fire, But draughts sneak in and make you draw 'em nigher-- No matter: still they come: play parlour gales And whisk about their hyperboreal tails; Bed's the one hope, and scarcely tried before Next morning's postman thunders at the door.
Meanwhile--if I may gently hint--I wear But scanty clothes, though all the sun will bear; A red-hot sun smiles on a hot blue sea And leaves my bunk to laziness and me: I read, until a lethargy ensues, Tales of detectives frowning over clues And last month's papers; then the strain's too strong, Man wants but little, nor that little long, The deck-chair in the shadow now appeals, Until the next hash-hammer rings to meals.
But not alone in climate may I claim Advantage; while you feel the slings of fame, Beset at all hours by the shapes of those Who volunteer your wants to diagnose, Who come with merchandise and go with cheques; No licensed interrupter haunts these decks, No vans of wares along these highways clatter. None urges to insure, buy broom or platter. There is no sheaf of letters every day, Regretting, and so forth: no minstrel's lay: Proofs, none: reminders, none--while daily you, Poor creature, tear your hair and struggle through, And darken paper till you light the lamps, And the last shilling disappears in stamps.