During the first days out we had a heavy swell astern, and the _Emden's_ two cutters performed some wonderful dancing at the ends of the long ropes by which we carried them in tow. In one of its wild gyrations one of the cutters took a notion to catch on to the ship, just under the overhanging stern. Usually such set-to's between a ship and its jolly-boat end to the decided disadvantage of the latter, but in this case the conditions were reversed. With a sharp plunge the nose of the boat buried itself in the rotten wood of the stern, and broke a plank above the water line. I had little desire for a repetition of this performance. We therefore set the ill-mannered cutter adrift, and so had but one left, which, for a while, behaved very well. But this proper behavior was not of long duration, for, seized by an overweening desire for its fellow, no doubt, the remaining cutter departed one night, and carried with it a large piece of the bulwarks to which it had been fastened. And again the break in the ship showed red and rotten wood. In those first days, the _Ayesha_ also leaked badly. In a short time we had so much water in the ship, that it rose to the height of the iron ballast on which the men slept. When we tried to work the ship's pump, we found that it was out of order. The packing of the pistons was gone. So we took the pump to pieces, got the piston out, replaced the missing rubber packing with rags soaked in oil, and finally succeeded in pumping the ship dry. Taking it all in all, the _Ayesha_ cut a pretty sorry figure as a ship. Had we had visitors at this period of our sea voyage, they would have been amazed at the resemblance our costumes bore to those in vogue in the Garden of Eden, for even aside from the times when we took our tropical shower baths--then we wore nothing at all--our clothing was very scant. For the landing at Keeling we had not only clothed ourselves as lightly as possible, but I had given the men orders to wear their oldest clothing. Now, with the continuous handling of the sails, and the other strenuous work aboard the ship, our wearing apparel was fast disappearing. Having neither needles nor thread, we could not even mend it. To be sure, we had some garments that had been given us at Keeling, but these served rather as a source of amusement than as clothing. I had always had the impression that Englishmen generally are tall and spare. Whether those at Keeling were an exception, or what the reason was, I cannot say, but certain it is that most of their trousers reached only to a little below the knees of my men, and their jackets and blouses were big enough for two. CHAPTER IV _A FINE DAY ON BOARD_