Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/198

 *fore it is six hours and twenty-four minutes behind Greenwich time. The ship today is in 80 degrees longitude, and therefore five hours and twenty minutes ahead of Greenwich. To be exact, the difference in time between Atchison and the position of the ship today is eleven hours and forty-four minutes The lady who has five children and two nurses on board says that babies should be made to mind when six months old. I told her that in America we did not begin spanking that young; that our rule was to spank girl babies at eight months, and boy babies at one year Which recalls the fact that I have lately been reading R. A. Wallace's "Malay Archipelago." Wallace spent several years in that section in hunting the orang-utan, the monkey-like animal which is most like man. One day he killed an adult female, and found that it had a baby six or seven weeks old. This he tried to raise, hoping to present it to the British Museum. He found the baby orang-utan very much like a human baby. It cried for food, or when uncomfortable, and became so badly spoilt that he was compelled to spank it when it became four or five months old. Unfortunately the little orang-utan contracted an illness about this time, and all Professor Wallace could do was not sufficient to save its life.

—A howling gale has been raging all day. On the upper deck this afternoon, many of the passengers were soaked by a wave which came aboard. The wind is following us, and pushing the