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Updated: June 7, 2025
I was a good swimmer, having won the long-distance prize in our summer sports off Haslar Creek; but, I now found the task of battling with the big billows brought in by the south-easter, which were all the rougher from the cross tide setting against them, none too easy, wind and sea- going one way and the tide another.
Oceans of sand and dust are caught up by it, whirled round as if in mad ecstasy, and dashed against the faces of the inhabitants who tightly shut their mouths and eyes as they stoop to resist the onset. Then the south-easter yells while it sweeps dust, small stones, twigs, leaves, and stray miscellanies, right over Signal Hill into the South Atlantic.
As it was January when we arrived, and the middle of the south-easter season, we accordingly came to anchor at the distance of three miles from the shore, in eleven fathoms water, and bent a slip-rope and buoys to our cables, cast off the yard-arm gaskets from the sails, and stopped them all with rope-yarns.
When we reached the little quay we found the surf of the libeccio still rolling heavily into the gulf. A gusty south-easter crossed it, tearing spray-crests from the swell as it went plunging onward. The sea was rough enough; but we made fast sailing, our captain steering with a skill which it was beautiful to watch, his five oarsmen picturesquely grouped beneath the straining sail.
On the fourth, we took a stiff south-easter, which obliged us to reef our topsails. While on the yard, we saw a sail on the weather bow, and in about half an hour, passed the Ayacucho, under double-reefed topsails, beating down to San Diego.
I had been told it was the prettiest town in the colony, and it IS very pretty, with oak-trees all along the street, like those at Paarl and Wagenmakkers Vley; but I was disappointed. It was less beautiful than what I had seen. Besides, the evening was dull and cold. The south-easter greeted us here, and I could not go out all the afternoon.
With this offing, we could clear Hatteras with anything that wasn't worse than a south-easter. There's a southerly set, in here, down the coast, for two or three hundred miles." "A heavy south-easter would jam us in, here, between the shoals, in a way I shouldn't greatly relish, sir. I like always to get to the eastward of the Stream, as soon as I can, in running off the land."
It was the first vehicle that he had passed, and I sympathised with him. "You needn't grip so hard," said my engineer. "She steers as easy as a bicycle." "Ho! You suppose I ride bicycles up an' down my engine-room?" was the answer. "I've other things to think about. She's a terror. She's a whistlin' lunatic. I'd sooner run the old South-Easter at Simon's Town than her!"
We had very good snipe and wild duck the other day, which Capt. D- brought home from a shooting party. I have got the moth-like wings of a golden snipe for R-'s hat, and those of a beautiful moor-hen. They got no 'boks', because of the violent south-easter which blew where they were. The game is fast decreasing, but still very abundant.
When they came down to us, we found that they were Englishmen, and they told us that they had belonged to a small Mexican brig which had been driven ashore here in a south-easter, and now lived in a small house just over the hill.
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