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Updated: June 1, 2025
The tents were about seventeen feet long, and at the entrance about seven feet wide, increasing towards the farther end, where the bed-places were situated, where they are about nine feet in width. The beds were formed of a shrubby plant strewed over about a third of the tent, and kept separate by pieces of bone laid across from side to side. The doors opened towards the south-west.
This was now the case at the village, where, though the remaining tenants of each hut had combined to occupy one of the apartments, a great part of the bed-places were still bare, with the wind and drift blowing in through the holes which they had not yet taken the trouble to stop up.
In the bed-places men lay booted, resting on elbows and with open eyes. Hung-up suits of oilskin swung out and in, lively and disquieting like reckless ghosts of decapitated seamen dancing in a tempest. No one spoke and all listened. Outside the night moaned and sobbed to the accompaniment of a continuous loud tremor as of innumerable drums beating far off. Shrieks passed through the air.
The house consisted of one large room, as a dining-room, and the kitchen, with a floor of well-beaten clay, a smaller room, as a sitting-room, and three bedrooms, all of which were floored; one of the largest of them fitted all round with bed-places against the walls, in the same way as on board of packets; this room was for the four boys, and had two spare bed-places in it.
"Have you no light at hand?" said my companion, speaking for the first time, in a very soft yet clear voice. "No, I have not, but I will get some tinder, and make a fire with one of the fagots, and then you will be able to see." "Do so, then, my good lad," replied she. I thought her voice very pleasing. She examined the cabin and the bed-places, and then said: "Where do you sleep?"
On each side were the two bed-places of Marables and Fleming, which I had before then had many a partial glimpse of. In front of the two bed-places were two lockers to sit down upon. I tried them they were not fast they contained their clothes. At the after part of the cabin were three cupboards; I opened the centre one; it contained crockery, glass, and knives and forks.
To shield us somewhat from it, Kallolo and Tim had collected a number of branches, and formed a complete arbour over our heads, in addition to the bed-places they had before made. We could thus lie in the shade, shielded from the burning sun. It served also to hide us from the view of any natives who might approach the neighbourhood.
At a distance from it, however, and in the bed-places, steam and even the breath soon turned into ice, which had to be carefully scraped away. To amuse the people, a newspaper was started, under the editorship of Captain Sabine, and a school was established, at which many of the men, who had never before handled a pen, learned to write well.
Some of the crew slept in standing bed-places ranged round the sides of the vessel, or rather inside her bows, while for others hammocks were slung from the beams which supported the deck. The chests were arranged to serve as seats, while there was a rack for the plates and mugs belonging to their mess. The greater part of the crew was still on shore.
And, although so small, does not its very confined space astonish you, when you view so many comforts so beautifully arranged? This is the dining-room, and where the gentlemen repair. What can be more complete or recherche? And just peep into their state-rooms and bed-places.
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