There were various incidents between this and Hobart more or less unpleasant, one in particular. A young married couple had the misfortune to see a child of theirs die of some infantile ailment and it had to be buried that evening. There was in the saloon a very charming elderly lady who was great on evangelism and preaching, appealing to the emotions after the style of the Salvation Army. While I was reading the Burial Service this lady had got an audience of women in the saloon and was rapidly making a scene. The burial had been kept as quiet as possible, but after it was over the doctor came up to me and said, “I wish you would come down to the saloon, sir, and say a few words, or else Mrs. ---- will have every woman in the ship in hysterics.” I did so, and many speedily recovered sufficiently to suggest that I was a brute for stopping the proceedings--very funny the ideas that strike people under certain conditions.
It was always my endeavour to have the men prepared for emergencies, and many have thought at times that I was unduly particular in this matter. The crew, for instance, never knew when they would be called to fire quarters. Saturday was of course the most convenient day, but the objection to a fixed day was that every one had a fair surmise that the bell rang for drill only, and that was not the same thing as calling upon people unexpectedly. When it came to the actual test my scheme worked well. Again, when boats were manned, they were always provisioned, for stores were kept in a portable state in order to facilitate this matter. I found that boats could be provisioned and swung out ready for lowering in four minutes, and that as a general thing without taking any undue risks; I have only seen one man go overboard at boat drill. That was in the _African_ during a fresh breeze, but we soon had him again. There is more harm done by undue haste than by the trifling delay in first seeing that things are properly prepared for the work to be done. Another very good spirit to introduce is to make the crew fancy themselves and take a pride in their ship. It seemed to me that this plan also worked excellently.
There was no further incident on that passage, but on arriving at Port Chalmers we discovered that our misfortunes were not quite over. There was a Government tug assisting to get us alongside the jetty, and by some bad management on its part it ran into our propeller, which cut through its side as though it had been a piece of paper. The tug consequently made the best of her way to the beach, getting lower in the water as she proceeded, but she eventually reached the shore. This was the third smash I had had in just over seven weeks. I was about tired of being made a cockshy of, and the occurrence generally had not improved my equanimity.