Thamanampalli Surekha

attend to these necessary duties, besides carrying down the food when cooked to the ling deal table, and then either eating alone or in messes of six or eight, each one washing the dishes in turn after meals. Such duties become rather disagreeable to ladies and gentlemen who have taken cheap passages on board uniform-rate ships, or intermediate passengers, with the supposition that all the difference between their accommodation and that of the cabin-passengers consists only in the quality of food and cabin furniture. We are confident, however, that a medium arrangement could be adopted, satisfactory to the passengers and profitable to the owners. The latter could provide vessels at rather higher rates, in which the requisite attendance might be supplied. Suppose the 'tween decks to be partitioned off into three or four separate components, with companion-ladders at the fore, main, and after hatchways, thus dividing the long workhouse-looking table which its thirty or forty passengers should be attended to by a man and a boy, whose services could be easily obtained gratuitously for their free passage out, Add to this a more liberal scale of fresh provision, fewer berths in each cabin, with more conveniences, and better ventilation, and we are sure that the majority of intending emigrants of this class would freely give half as much more passage-money if they knew all the disagreeable upon the present unsatisfactory arrangements. Is there no inventive talent amongst our ship-builders to suggest some improvement upon the interior construction of a ship? Are there no better plans for the accommodation of passengers, and stowing cargo, than the old stereotyped model of a hold' tween decks, cabin, and steerage? It is a disagree to this great maritime nation to suffer the departure of some of those floating pesthouses, which are constantly leaving the docks of London and Liverpool for our colonies, with less attention to their sanitary arrangements than will be found in the lames of St. Giles's! Particularly those bound for the colonies under consideration, where needy ship-owners and unprincipled shipping-agents send their vessels to sea, each with its human freight of some two or three hundred souls stowed away in bunks and cabins like pigs in an Irish drogher, there to be stewed up for a couple of months in the stifling atmosphere created by this overcrowding beneath the blazing sun of the torrid zones from Cancer to Capricorn. This digression has lengthened our log; but we can by such remarks be instrumental in improving the accommodation on board ship for further passengers, we shall consider that we have done our duty. Our course now lay across the South Atlantic towards the Cape of Good Hope. Fortunately, after the two days' tossing amongst the "variables," we met with a fine generous westerly breeze, which carried us all the way. The weather not much cooler than within the tropics, in consequence of the sun nearing his summer solstice in the southern hemisphere. Observed also that he rose upon our right, and set upon our left, attaining his noon-day altitude in the northern heavens, Anchored in Table Boy on the fifty-seventh day from London, which may be considered a good "run" for a sailing-vessel, The some distance is easily accomplished now by ocean steamers in twenty days less. Remained three days in harbour. A break in the passage, by calling at this "half-way house" of all nations, is agreeable change to the monotonous life on board ship. In two days more we sailed over the Agullus bank with a strong westerly breeze. The wind was right astern, which caused our barque to toss about on the mountain waves of these soundings, rolling about from part to starboard like an old tub; which made it the most uncomfortable description of sailing we had yet experienced. This is contrary to a landsman's nations of sailing with a fair winds. Nevertheless, we did not quarrel with the breeze, as it carried us gallantly on our course at the rate of two hundred miles per day; so that in five days we had sailed a thousand miles into the Indian Ocean, which bounds Australia on the west coast. Most vessels, in order to take advantage of these westerly winds, which prevail in the higher latitudes of this ocean, run down their longitude in about 40° south. Our captain followed the usual practice of ship- masters, and steered east by south until we attained that latitude. The effect of this proceeding upon the domestic arrangements of our company was an entire change of clothing; everyday appeared op deck with their winter garments on, which at once reminded us of the aspect of the ship and the occupants when we started from England. In the sharp bracing air which brushed our faces, we could almost fancy that we were nearing the old country instead of its antipodes, as one of our fellow-passengers remarked, there was a "scent of home about it." We were not destined to carry this favourable wind all the way across with us, for it suddenly chopped round to south-east when we were about midway; and blow a gale of wind which caused us to lie-to for nearly three days. This is the most unpleasant condition for passengers to be in at sea, as there are few who can hold up their heads while the ship is pitching and labouring; and the worst of it is that she is going astern all the time. It is at such times also that the want of order and regularity amongst a large body of passengers, such as our intermediates were, shows itself more plainly. The utter helplessness of some, and the lazy and dirty habits of