But half-a-dozen blackguards in the ship took
delight in spoiling everything, and as there
was no order in the ship and no "public
spirit," they were allowed to spoil everything.
In vain had Arrowsmith declared aloud on
the poop deck, in the hearing of all around,
that the ship was in a most disorderly and
unsafe condition, to say nothing of discomfort,
from the want of all systematic arrangements;
and that all these arrangements, together
with the requisite authority, devolved, so far
as the passengers were concerned, upon Dr.
Bannister and not upon the captain. All the
good he effected was to make an enemy of
Captain Pennysage, for the doctor's long
period of sea-sickness had rendered him
totally unable to assume any authority; until
the captain, having taken all upon himself,
would allow of no interference in his management.
But as he had no sort of head to
devise, or skill or firmness to carry out anything
beyond the sailing of the ship on the
most slow and economical principles, we were
constantly in a scene of discomfort and
confusion. Dr. Bannister made one or
two attempts to take his proper position,
but it was too late. Not only was the
captain averse to resigning any claim to
authority, but all the intermediates now
resisted it, as an unjustifiable interference. They
said his duty was only to attend to those who
were ill, and not to meddle with those who
were well and hearty:—so they all refused to
obey his directions, as to getting up in the
morning and taking their bedding on deck to
be aired; as to ranging themselves for their
proper turns at the serving out of provisions;
as to leaving their hot and fuming cabins and
coming up, one and all, from the 'tween
decks or to the upper deck, while the sailors
scraped and scrubbed and cleansed their
place of abode below; as to extinguishing all
private candles and lamps in cabins at ten
o'clock. The consequences were, that many
who were well made themselves ill in various
ways; the berths and cabins were in a most
dirty, close, and unaired state, and the lower
decks filthy with the mud of trodden biscuits,
fat and gristle and skin of salt beef
and pork, carelessly dropped, or recklessly
thrown down, cooking refuse, slush-buckets,
foul swabs, brimming pails, dishcloths, and
broken candles, with the froth and suds from
attempts to wash with marine soap, and a
running leeward gutter-stream from the
occasional shipping of seas, and the frequent
upset of water-kegs or fall of rain down the
open hatchways. The obtaining provisions
for the messes was often a scene of brutal
selfish scrambling, and it seldom happened
that anybody got his proper weight, his sugar
free from sticks and straws, his butter without
a plentiful sprinkling of loose tea and
tobacco shreds, his coffee without sand and
stones from the hold, his flour without an
ounce or two of incidental mustard, or his
mustard without being speckled with chloride of lime.
This latter article Dr. Bannister
ordered to be given to everybody who asked
for it, and in abundance; but scarcely three
of the passengers in the 'tween decks took
any of it, and with the exception of those
three, (Arrowsmith, myself, and Mrs. Cowthorne,
who had a large family) nobody could
be induced to make use of it in any shape
or way, unless with the unavoidable
mustard medium.

July I4th.—Two children, one of five years
of age, and the other of seven, playing at
chasing each other about the deck, fell down
the fore hatchway, and down through the
open hatchway of the hold. The youngest
was killed on the spot, and the elder child
was taken up insensible, and with both legs
broken. The only wonder was, as there was
no sort of protection round these open abysses,
that among so many children, and with
crowded and lumbered up deck, that something
of the kind didn't happen every day.

July 15th.—Passed the Canary Isles. Was
very anxious to see Teneriffe. Don't exactly
know why, but rather think it was on account
of the Peak. The day very fine and clear.
Wind fair and fresh, so that we went along
much faster than we had almost ever done
before. A bright blueish greyish cone was
pointed out to me in the distance, rising
above the clouds, and this being, of course,
the celebrated Peak, a great many of us were
anxious to contemplate it, both with and
without glasses, but were disturbed, and
indeed put to the rout by the ejaculations and
hurryings to and fro of the mothers of the
two poor children who had been killed by the
fall yesterday, and were ordered by Dr.
Bannister to be buried this evening, which the
mothers vehemently opposed. They said they
only wished no more harm would come to the
health of the ship than what would happen
by keeping those two sweet innocents aboard.
The babes had been murdered, they said, by
the want of proper protection and fenders,
and insisted that they should be kept till we
touched at some place where they could be
buried properly, like in a Christian country.
As this could not be listened to, a shocking
scene took place—the mothers had to be taken
down below by force, where they continued
to scream—the husband of one of them
collared Dr. Bannister as he was reading a bit
of the burial service—and one of the mothers
made her way by force on deck with her hair
all flying in the wind, just as the dead body of
her child was launched over the side, when she
gave a loud scream with a leap upwards, and
fell flat upon the deck without further motion.

July 16th.—The weather getting hotter and
hotter. Begin to think of the tropics. Anxious
to know if there were not certain ceremonies
often performed at sea on crossing the Line,
some of which, if I had been correctly
informed, were extremely disagreeable. Heard
Captain Pennysage say that he would not
allow anything of the kind to take place in