Page:Recollections of a Rebel Reefer.pdf/196

 150 many a day. I also found that Her Majesty's troopship Himalaya had come into port with a regiment of Highlanders on board bound for India. One day, while returning from shore in one of our cutters, I steered her very close to the troopship. The band was playing on the quarter-deck, and as we approached the band struck up "Dixie," and I stood up in the boat and took off my cap. The Himalaya's crew and the soldiers raised a cheer which was quickly suppressed, and I afterwards heard that the bandmaster and the officers who had instigated him to play "Dixie" had been reprimanded. We afterwards met some of these officers on shore and they invited us to dine with them on their ship. The dinner was a very picturesque affair—the gay uniforms of the officers with their gold lace and the beautiful toilets of their wives and daughters the scene was not one to be easily forgotten. The Highland pipers playing their bagpipes marched three times around the table and a more awful screeching noise than they made it had never before been my misfortune to hear. A Scotch officer greatly embarrassed me by asking if I did not think it delightful music. When the table was cleared of all the good things, the colonel arose and said, "Gentlemen, will you fill your glasses?" This having been done, he again arose and solemnly proposed the toast which consisted of only two words, "The Queen!" The glasses were emptied, and the function was at an end.

The weather around the Cape of Good Hope is notoriously treacherous. One afternoon I asked permission to go on shore and it was granted me on my solemn promise that I would be back in time to keep the mid-watch. I had a most enjoyable time until about ten o'clock when I had to leave my companions so as to catch the Georgia's boat. I was disappointed to find that no boat had come for me, and that it was blowing "great guns." I wanted to keep my promise, but none of the native watermen would undertake to put me aboard, saying that the sea was too high.