Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/126

 Our battery was made doubly secure, and everything put in good order for housekeeping or rough and cold  weather.

This was one of those days familiarly known on sea and land as a "weather breeder." The sea was placid, but the sky lowering, and had a wintry appearance to  which we had been strangers for a long time. We had been sailing rapidly in a due south course for several  days with a rising sea, and the weather had been misty.

January 5. At muster this morning three stowaways made their appearance aft at the mainmast, and surrendered themselves. They looked anything but convictlike, for they were dressed in the rig of our crew, with blue trousers, blue flannel shirts, black silk neckerchiefs,  and black tarpaulin hats. The commodore was much surprised at their appearance, and informed us that we  were mistaken if we expected that they would be harbored on board of his ship, and declared that if the ship  was so fortunate as to weather the southern cruise, he  should do his duty by sending them back to Sydney to  be given over to the authorities. The stowaways were then entered on the ship’s rolls for rations only, and  stationed on the afterguard.

January 6. We were favored with a view of the sun and found our latitude to be 53° south. This day we rigged up our crow’s nest at the foretop-mast-head. During the night we double reefed our topsails.

January 7. Weather misty and squally, with a heavy sea running.

January 8. The air very raw and chilly. None of the rest of the squadron in sight.