By the time we drew down to the Cape there was more pleasure in store for us, inasmuch as all the biscuits on board had developed so great a capacity for producing weevils that it began to be a matter for speculation who would eventually consume the biscuits, the weevils or ourselves? We generally tried to extrude the weevils before eating the biscuits, but in this we were not always successful, and we acquired the knowledge that they were very objectionable shipmates. What a helping the Agulhas current is to homeward-bound ships! On this occasion we were lying-to under a close-reefed maintopsail, and all the time being set to windward thirty or forty miles a day directly on our course. I remember perfectly being passed one Sunday by one of the Natal traders called the _Alphington_, outward bound. She was carrying every stitch of canvas with a beautiful fair wind and we were lying-to under the shortest possible canvas. She reported us, however, when she got to port, as having sustained damage. In due course we rounded the Cape and drew up into the S.E. trades, heading for Bahia. In most sea-going ships where a fair ship’s company is carried, there are two cries or shouts from the poop or quarterdeck in the ordinary routine, one is “Heave the log” the other “Trim the binnacle light.” In this craft, however, in my watch I had to attend to the latter business myself, and when the light required attention I would take it down the cabin companion-way, and prick the wick up as required. One night shortly after rounding the Cape I was doing this when in spite of all I could do the light went out. I thought this was funny and got some matches, but as I struck them they went out also. Then I took the lamp and matches into the deck-house, where I slept, and had no difficulty in lighting up. It puzzled me considerably why lamp nor match would burn below, when suddenly the thought arose--where a light won’t burn a man can’t live, so I went below and with difficulty aroused the mate and then the skipper. They both took a deal of awakening before I got them on deck, and then we came to the conclusion that the gas generated by the decaying coffee in the hold had found a vent into the cabin, which had it not been discovered in time would in all probability have been fatal to life. The skipper slept in a hammock on deck between there and New York, and the mate took very good care that the skylight was kept open and a windsail run into his berth. The pinch of hunger was by this time telling on us all--even the rats--and I have repeatedly woke up when sleeping with bare feet in warm weather and disturbed a rat that was making a light meal by nibbling the hard skin from the soles of my feet. It was some time ere I discovered how it was that at times my feet became so tender. The failure of bread at sea is a disaster hard to overcome.