Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/221

Rh mixture. Out of the seven ladies on board, two were wives of Protestant missionaries, excellent men, who had done good service of their kind at Sierra Leone and Abeokuta, and were returning with young and pretty wives. The thirty-two men passengers were of all kinds—military, naval, official, clergymen, invalids, five black people, and "Coast Lambs," as the palm-oil merchants are ironically termed. We formed a little knot of a picked half-dozen at the top of the table, and "feeding time" was the principal event of the day.

A laughable incident occurred one day on board at dinner. There was a very simple-minded Quaker, with a large hat, who had evidently been browsing on the heather in the north all his life, and on this occasion a fine plum-pudding, swimming in lighted brandy, was put upon the table at second course. The poor Quaker had never seen this dish before, and in a great state of excitement he exclaimed, "Oh, my God! the pudding's on fire!" and clapped his large hat over the pudding, and put it out, amidst roars of laughter, which had to be explained to him when his fright was over. After dinner we formed whist parties. In fine weather cushions and railway-rugs covered the deck, and knots of loungers gathered under gigantic umbrellas, reading or talking or working, and also in the evening moonlight, when the missionaries chanted hymns. On Sunday there was Protestant service in the saloon, and those of other faiths did their private devotions on deck.

Monday morning, February 2.—We dropped our anchor a quarter of a mile from the town of Funchal.