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trade sails left to change but when the squall came they were
there one minute and gone the next - torn to ribbons and blown away.
The wind howled thru' the rigging, great waves washed over the
deck and it got dark almost as night. Thank goodness it wasn't
very cold nor happened at night. Both watches were called out &
all hands from the captain down, except cook and steward, worked till
dark cleaning up and replacing blown out sails and furling, or taking in,
most of the others i.e. rolling them up and tying them to the yards.
Whisky was handed round to all hands at dark but I didn't have any.
My great regret is that I had no chance to take photos for I could
have got some good ones but we were too busy working. I was aloft on
several occasions helping to take in sails. Now it is fine warm
weather again and mild moonlight nights with very little wind and we are
sailing very slowly.

Thursday May 21st.
We are now at 7° East long., 25° South lat, in the South.
Atlantic Queen heading north west and 62 days from Port Victoria. We lost a lot of
time in waiting for a good wind to get us around the Cape of Good Hope. The
wind was mostly from the west and we just had to keep going north & south;
then the wind dropped and we hardly moved at all & only did 30 miles one
day. Then a wind, with some cold rough weather came from the south and we
finally got around and into the S.E. Trades where we are going rather slowly
about 4 knots (1 knot is a little more than a mile) an hour - 13 is very serious
going, which we did rounding the Cape. The weather is gradually becoming
finer & warmer but I'm still wearing socks, underpants and shirt. A passenger
steamer passed us a week ago; came quite close & did a circle around us
within half a mile. Its name started with "K" & I think it was Kanimbo (Kanimbla) but

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