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for bedchambers. A stratum of boxes serves me as a
bedstead: on that I lay the matress belonging to my cot.
I squeeze in through a square hole just big enough to
receive my body: it requires no small exertion to
turn my head one way and my feet the other so as
to lay myself at full length: this task accomplished
there may be at the outside utmost from 6 to 8 or so
inches between the my head as I lie and the tester of
my bed or the ceiling of my bedchamber, call it
which you please. As to the dining room to account for the
length of it, you must consider that the passengers for
whose use it was calculated sit with their legs folded under
them like Taylors, and know no such things as Chairs
Being a bran-new ship and this his first voyage, the
Cabbin looked neat enough at first, when decked out with a handsome
carpet, and another spread doubled over it by way
sopha: but this tempting appearance was much the
-ged when upon taking possession of it we found
carpets taken up and the greatest part of the space
filled up by the multifarious assemblage of boxes
hampers bags sacks and baskets that were necessary for
the containing of our provisions, together with such
parts of our baggage as are in most immediate
use. Our provisions are mostly cold: but the Captain
agreed to allows us the occasional use of his kitchen, upon our
giving him a solumn promise not to introduce into
his ship a of any thing that could come under
the denomination of pork. Of the construction of the habitable
part if such it may be called, of the vessel
it is impossible to give a satisfactory description without
a drawing: This cabbin of ours which forms the principal
part of it has no windows looking to the sea
the roof of it forms a sort of quarter-deck: over it moves
the helm, and here in the open air the Captain with
his mess-mates make their meals. The vessel projecting
aslant over the water gives room at this end for a tier
of oblong vessels boxes rising one above another the whole
breadth of it; the lowermost, a little wider than a
man's back is broad, serves the captain for a dormitory
and occasionally in a fit of laziness for a
dining-room. Those above are too narrow to serve
for any thing but shelves and lockers — They are
ornamented with rows of tassels and miniature balustrades.
The Cabbin table, adapted to the posture
of the guests for whom it was designed, is raised but
two or three inches from the floor: the low boxes &
parcels which serve us instead of chairs giving us a
sort of mean elevation between the Turkish of the
Christian mode, my camp-stool reversed gives a suitable
elevation to the table. A piece of broken earthenware
which I found on the shore at Fochia forms a candlestick much preferable to the
filthy ricketty brass one to which it has succeeded.
Considering the ships size the number of passengers
you will acknowledge is not small: in the
when they are stretched out at their length
to
---page break---
to sleep in it is too difficult to find a place to set ones foot on
in passing from one end or one side of the ship to the other
Thursday Novr 10 9 at night
Here we are still, stewing up in a little hole of a harbour
not above 1 1/2 leagues from our former station. The wind
has not only been fair but the weather mild ever since
yesterday afternoon: but we Turks have no idea of sailing
by night. We kept our considering caps on this
morning with the fairest wind & and the finest weather reflecting that as the
weather had once been bad it might be so again: at
last at about 11 we made a desperate effort, and
got out of our former station: we came her at 1/2 after 12 why
would you think? because in case of foul weather
there might be no port to run into before dark.
meantime here we are to lounge till next
as we have been lounging all the afternoon
when we are ready to go tomorrow the weather
have become foul and the fair wind gone.
Having nothing else to do we have been on shore on
the island we happened to be nearest to, one
numerous cluster between the great island
and the Asiatic main. Some of our crew
have counted as they suppose , a dozen; the chart
de Choiseuil's which is the latest and I suppose the
best map of these parts gives 3 or 4. On the
in question I saw no inhabitants but one man
who was ploughing with a pair of oxen
to the shore. His habitation was a
with a flat roof cover'd as it appear
the whole island is broken and
operation seemed to have been the
that had been made in it perhaps for ages
traversed the whole island and
there being no other phabitatin
this Robinson Crusoe. He appears
occasional visitors as De -
had guns and found plenty
-tiful Lesbian kind; but too shy to be killed: I sprung
a hare. Plants we found none but what we have
found every where. The shore yielded pumice-stones
and pieces of sponge. Several other vessels we found
already put in from the several same prudential
reasons as governed us. Even one or two Greek, tho'
they had not the depth of their loading to plead as
we have. Even in the smoothest rate sea the water
comes in at our scuttles, scuppers and we have no vent to let
it out at. The next port we are to try for if wind
and weather permitt is one called Passa Baba or Pawpaw Bawbaw
if ever we reach that, which with on the supposition of our having our choice of wind
we expect to do in a day, the Captain promises us
a safe sea to the Dardenelles: till then we have nothing
but Scylla and Charybedis to encounter with.
Every body has lost all patience, except myself: out of a
spirit of contradiction I keep mine. With little or perhaps
no exception the Asiatic main rises boldly from the Sea.
Here and there we catch a town or a part of a town seated
on
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Identifier: | JB/539/457/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 539.
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1783-10-22 |
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539 |
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457 |
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001 |
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Correspondence |
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Samuel Bentham |
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