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At Galle, in Ceylon, where the usual rise and fall of the tide is 2 feet, the master-attendant reports that on the afternoon of the 27th four remarkable waves were noticed in the port. The last of these was preceded by an unusual recession of the sea to such an extent that small boats at their anchorage were left aground a thing that had never been seen before.
Captain Whalley could not say; had only noticed the carriage going past. The Master-Attendant, plunging his hands into the pockets of an alpaca jacket inappropriately short and tight for a man of his age and appearance, strutted with a slight limp, and with his head reaching only to the shoulder of Captain Whalley, who walked easily, staring straight before him.
Girls are the very devil for worry and anxiety." "Ay! But mine is doing well," Captain Whalley pronounced slowly, staring to the end of the avenue. The Master-Attendant was glad to hear this. Uncommonly glad. He remembered her well. A pretty girl she was. Captain Whalley, stepping out carelessly, assented as if in a dream. "She was pretty." The procession of carriages was breaking up.
This day I was told by Mr. Wren, that Captain Cox, Master-Attendant at Deptford, is to be one of us very soon, he and Tippets being to take their turns for Chatham and Portsmouth, which choice I like well enough; and Captain Annesley is to come in his room at Deptford.
This was the Master-Attendant of the port. A master-attendant is a superior sort of harbor-master; a person, out in the East, of some consequence in his sphere; a Government official, a magistrate for the waters of the port, and possessed of vast but ill-defined disciplinary authority over seamen of all classes.
"Doesn't seem to be so much room on it," growled the Master-Attendant, "since these Germans came along shouldering us at every turn. It was not so in our time." He fell into deep thought, breathing stertorously, as though he had been taking a nap open-eyed.
At Galle, in Ceylon, where the usual rise and fall of the tide is 2 feet, the master-attendant reports that on the afternoon of the 27th four remarkable waves were noticed in the port. The last of these was preceded by an unusual recession of the sea to such an extent that small boats at their anchorage were left aground a thing that had never been seen before.
This particular Master-Attendant was reported to consider it miserably inadequate, on the ground that it did not include the power of life and death. This was a jocular exaggeration. Captain Eliott was fairly satisfied with his position, and nursed no inconsiderable sense of such power as he had.
The master-attendant stood interpreter, and passed backwards and forwards between the ship and the scene of operations not to direct, but merely to signify what things the natives required for their purpose. They first begged us to have a couple of spare topmasts and topsail-yards, with a number of smaller spars, such as top-gallant masts and studding-sail booms.
I could not possibly have hoped for a more favourable reception. I soon found the Master-Attendant, and inexorably button-holed him while I explained what I wanted done, although the poor man was frightfully busy just then, several ships being in harbour, refitting after having been in action with the enemy.
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