“This is now our 9th Sunday on board, but it doesn’t seem so very long ago since we left home; time passes so quickly. It is nothing else but eating, smoking, drinking & sleeping.
Very rough all day. It would be a trial for you all to have seen us holding on to the cups & saucers this evening, while the tea & coffee is all spilling & wetting the bread & cake & everything else. Clara & Joey went out for a walk this afternoon & fell into the scuppers knocking themselves about a little. Clara had only just remarked that she hadn’t had a fall yet, when down they both went as the decks were wet.
We have now still 5000 miles to do having done about 9,500, the journey being supposed to be about 14,500 the way the sailing vessels take. During the evening we had some sport with our neighbours Smith & Brown. We had previously bored some holes through the partition in our room & were amusing a select company by blowing a lot of smoke into their berth. They soon found out the holes though & filled them up, but then we went outside & blew it through the key hole & port-hole which process completely smoked them out. Bed at 11.45.”
Extract from A.Whelen’s travel journal aboard the Hesperides sailing from England to Australia in 1878
