Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/45

 language, and who do not associate much with each other except locally, but the English and American see enough of each other to get together in pronunciation.

—Last night I laid my case before the chief steward, and he said he would fix me up; that he would take me out of 27, where Mr. Bond devotes the nights to snoring, and put me in No. 7, with Mr. Martin. I went to bed in No. 7, complimenting the chief steward for his disposition to please the passengers, but in ten minutes Mr. Martin began snoring, and I spent the night trying to decide if his snore was not rather more rasping than that of Mr. Bond. At a late hour I dressed and retreated again to a sofa in the music-room. But I have not lost my temper; I am rather disposed, on the contrary, to laugh at myself for spending a large amount of money in an attempt to have a "good time." The sea has been smooth today and we are all much more comfortable, although I do not believe anyone is getting his money's worth. About the only excitement on board is the fact that a flock of albatross are following us. I have always understood that albatross are rather scarce at sea, but certainly twenty are in sight as I write this. They often fly within twenty feet of the ship, and we have opportunity to examine them carefully. They follow the ship for hours without moving a wing; they seem to fly by taking advantage of the wind We saw several whales today, and the captain, at whose table we sit, says he once ran into one, and was compelled to back out of it.