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The Crown Preserve Co. sent us a quantity of patent fuel which stowed beautifully as a flooring to the lower hold, and all our provision cases were thus kept well up out of the bilge water which was bound to scend to and fro if we made any quantity of water, as old wooden ships usually do.
The rarefaction of the air bothered me a good deal, producing something of the effect of a mirage, and causing the royals of the distant vessel to stand up clear of the horizon as though there were nothing beneath them; yet, as she rose and fell with the 'scend of the sea, shapeless snow- white blotches appeared and vanished again beneath them occasionally.
In an hour and a half after this, we reached and crossed the river Scend, about two miles from the top of the ghaut. Our spies, who had just left the camp of the enemy, informed us that they were not encamped on the top of the ghaut, there being no water there, but that they were lying near a large lake of water, about two miles from the ghaut, apparently unconscious of our approach.
The colliding steamer lifted with the 'scend of the waves and crashed down yet again upon the hapless torpedo-boat, and young Frobisher found himself in the raging sea, clinging instinctively to something he knew not what that had come away in his hands as he flung them out wildly to prevent himself from sliding off the deck.
In two days we reached Ougein, and encamped in a small tope of trees, about a mile from the city, which is situated on the banks of the river Scend, opposite to which are the beautiful and extensive gardens, once the favourite resort of Scindia, but which, of late years, he has not visited.
No sound whatever was to be heard on board save the "swish" of the water alongside, the low roar of the bow-wave as she plunged through it and turned it aside from her bows, the weird crying of the wind through her maze of rigging aloft, and the occasional "cheep" of parral or block-sheave to the 'scend of the ship.
The wind was making weird, wild music as it swept through the tautly-strained rigging; and the topgallant and royal-masts were whipping and bending like fishing-rods with every pitch and 'scend of the ship, while the straining canvas, towering away aloft toward the dusky heavens, stood as firm and steady as though moulded in iron.
Some few priests reside in what was once the zenanah, the lower apartments of which run into the gliding stream of the Scend, and are washed by this beautiful river passing through them. Here we bathed, to the great annoyance and mortification of the priests who resided there, who did not fail to tell us in plain terms, that we had contaminated and polluted the sacred stream.
The immense volume of water thrown forward by the last scend of the ship had burst the lee door of the forecastle. They could see their chests, pillows, blankets, clothing, come out floating upon the sea. While they struggled back to windward they looked in dismay.
The rope was a new and stout one, and there was not much fear that the boats would break away from each other, but the strain set up by the alternate slackening and tautening of the painter, as first one boat and then the other was urged forward by the 'scend of the sea, was tremendous, and strained both craft to a positively dangerous degree.
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