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Life on board Her Majesty's ships in those days was a very different affair from what it is now, and ours was exceptionally rough, as we were often many months without receiving letters or seeing any civilised people but ourselves. In exchange, we had the interest of being about the last voyagers, I suppose, to whom it could be possible to meet with people who knew nothing of fire-arms as we did on the south Coast of New Guinea and of making acquaintance with a variety of interesting savage and semi-civilised people. But, apart from experience of this kind and the opportunities offered for scientific work, to me, personally, the cruise was extremely valuable. It was good for me to live under sharp discipline; to be down on the realities of existence by living on bare necessaries; to find out how extremely well worth living life seemed to be when one woke up from a night's rest on a soft plank, with the sky for canopy and cocoa and weevilly biscuit the sole prospect for breakfast; and, more especially, to learn to work for the sake of what I got for myself out of it, even if it all went to the bottom and I along with it. My brother officers were as good fellows as sailors ought to be and generally are, but, naturally, they neither knew nor cared anything about my pursuits, nor understood why I should be so zealous in pursuit of the objects which my friends, the middies, christened "Buffons," after the title conspicuous on a volume of the "Suites
'Stick sugar-mats and weevilly four-bins; and a breeding paddock of tarantulas and centipedes and white lizards to clear out. I WAS a bush hobbledehoy in those days, Joan. It's close on twenty years ago. Joan Gildea gave a little shudder. 'Don't remind me how old I am. There's the difference between a man and a woman. My life's behind me: yours in front of you. 'I don't know about that, Joan.
That beset fortress had had no supplies since Rodney's visit, in January of the year before, and was now in sore want, the provisions being scanty and bad, the biscuits weevilly, and the meat tainted.
I could imagine the ancient Scotch air, which the noise of the train kept me from hearing, and the old words you and I used to sing, dancing on the Elk Creek bridge: "'We want no more of your weevilly wheat, We want no more your barley; But we want some of your good old wheat, To make a cake for Charley! "You remember it all!
"You see, Mr Simmons, as how we poor fellows have got to work hard, and except we gets good grub we can't do it," I heard the boatswain remark in an insinuating tone; "it's very hard lines for us to have to eat rancid pork and weevilly bread, when we knows well enough that the captain and mates has good grub in the cabin. Share and share alike, and we sha'n't complain.
A little white wine and a cold bird it is as much as the niggardly Scotchman will allow me." "We should have you on blockading service when the levanters are blowing," said my father. "Salt junk and weevilly biscuits, with a rib of a tough Barbary ox when the tenders come in. You would have your spare diet there, sir."
But he was really wondering whether she expected him to speak first of the grave matters that brought them together in that lonely place. 'I've got some bread and butter, she said, opening a small sandwich-box, 'and there is a lemon instead of cream. 'Your arrangements beat Hare Court hollow, observed the millionaire. 'Do you remember the cracked cups and the weevilly biscuits?
We were chiefly interested because we knew that we should get a supply of fresh meat and vegetables, which we preferred to the salt pork and weevilly biscuits served out to the navy in those days, and for very many days later; indeed, where is the naval officer, under the rank of a commander, or I may say a lieutenant, who does not tap every bit of biscuit on the table before he puts it into his mouth?
"Well, this beats everything I've had to do with," said Hilary, as the hours glided by, and he began to suffer acutely. Visions of delicious country breakfasts, for which he had longed, had now given place to the humblest of desires, for he felt as if he would have given anything for the most mouldy, weevilly biscuit that ever came out of a dirty bag in a purser's locker.
'I suppose you're right, he said reluctantly. 'But it always seems wicked to burn bread, doesn't it? 'Not when it's weevilly, replied the thoroughbred, after sipping the hot tea. He emptied the contents of the tin upon the coal fire, and the room presently began to smell of mouldy toast. 'Besides, he said, 'it's cruel to burn weevils, I suppose.
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