This is all from the day-to-day journal. Helen takes in history and environs in Delhi before heading back to the boat. And we shall join her.
Thru the Kashmir Gate to the 1st city of Delhi, founded at end of 12th cent. by the slave dynasty — the Turk, Mohammad Ghori established Mohammedan Rule, having no son, he raised a slave to be his heir. Kutb-Din, the slave, built the Kutb Miner, used by Muezzin to call to prayer, 238 ft. tall. The iron pillar, standing for 1600 years.
Humayun, son of Babar 1st Moghul Emperor ruled briefly, his tomb is red sandstone, used as model for the Taj.
Side note: there will be quizzes!
The Chatta Chowk, arcades of shops, one displaying the richest wares of the East, now ivory merchants, jewelry, carved wood.
Diwan-l-Am, Durbar Hall, where Emperor dispensed justice, even the humblest might present his petition.
The inlay in marble, the canopy incrusted with gems and held by gold poles.
The Hall of Special Audience where the peacock thrones stood, the inscription, "If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this".
The Turkish baths, the fountain of 9 streams for the pregnant woman.
Side note: That is an excellent quote, no? “If there is paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this…”
Drove thru New Delhi — imposing buildings, beautifully laid out, but a come down after the splendors of Old Delhi.
To the Chandi Chowk — to the Ivory Palace — magnificent carving, lovely textiles and brass.
Stopped at the Jumma Masjid — too weary of seeing white marble inlaid in red sandstone.
Had tea at the hotel, dashed to the station to find the train 1/2 hr. late on account of the wreck yesterday of the Punjab Mail. Found we had 1 lower, 2 uppers, 1 middle aged wife of a British Major, very sporty, a mousy governess-y looking person. Resigned to 36 hrs. of grit and dirt, we're off for Calcutta fuel on the hotel bill: 6 As.
Side note: Weary of white marble…
“If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this” – The Hall of Special Audience
Mon. Jan 17: Our compartment companion got off at 6:00 a.m. at Allerabad.
We three had tea and oranges, went back to bed.
Slept occasionally until two p.m. when enormous quantities of luggage arrived — 4 huge suitcases, 4 smaller ones, a wicker box, vegetable basket, birdcage, bedding roll, tennis rackets, coats, toupees, dog, widow with a sweet 14 yr. old child.
She was a fright, but she and Dreyer struck up an acquaintance and babbled for hours.
Side note: Dreyer is Helen’s roommate from the boat (at least when Helen is not in her deck hammock). Like the new train passenger, Dreyer is also a widow.
And again people traveling with toupees! I’ve looked this up on Chat GTP, and if it’s telling the truth, toupees or wiglets were quite popular before the 1930s, but we’re still being used for specific hair styles (I imagine these could be handy whilst traveling) or to add extra oomph or to cover problem spots.
The train was 2 hours late, and the last several hours were interminable.
Dirty, wearying, and at every stop the inevitable bangles, dolls, brass, guavas and the everlasting "No-Go Away".
At long last we pulled in to Howrah Station. The Grand Hotel man got us a feeble taxi to the hotel.
Across the world's busiest bridge and certainly every type of conveyance is on it — autos, ox carts, horse drawn tongas, rickshaws, and many on foot with bedding and baggage piled high on their heads.
A seething mass of humanity and a hollow din of rubber bulb horns — honk, honk.
At 10:00 p.m. dinner in the grill with horrible bleating music.
To crown the day: a dirty tub taking an hour to empty.
We begin here in Helen’s journal as she is approaching the Taj Mahal. For those following, her letter home after the trip also detailed the Taj Mahal and its breathtaking glories, but the below adds elements and context and an intriguing scientist (and there’s even more that I’m leaving out if anyone wants to inquire).
To refresh, Helen is on 10-day shore leave from the ’round-the-world freight, and she is traveling with a few female civilian passengers from the boat. The passengers are, I believe, at least 25 years her senior (she is 34). And we don’t know much about them because she’s been dead set on making the engineers teach her how the boat goes vroom.
We had our first glimpse of it from the train. Dixit generously asked us to go with him. We sent our luggage to the hotel and went in his taxi.
Side note: What Helen did not mention letter home, which spoke of a series of comical-in-retrospect travel bloopers, is that she did get into a first class train car (in 1938, in India, 1st and 2nd class were vastly different).
And it was in first class that she met Dr. Dixit, a professor of physics from Gujarat College in India; he was swinging by the Taj Mahal on his way home from a conference in Calcutta. And they all joined forces.
It was just sunset when we stepped thru the red sandstone entrance gate and looked down the vista of trees and fountains to the Taj Mahal.
Stopped to take two pictures, the 2nd a time exposure. The light faded with dull red across the sky.
Side note: She took two pictures. How many would we take today? Of a sight that is life altering?
I have an 8×10 of one of the picture she mentions, but I cannot currently locate it. When I do I will post it.
By a dim pocket torch we climbed to the top of a minaret, stopping on each balcony to gasp at the ethereal beauty as the moon came up and cast a pale light on the marble.
She wouldn’t see the photos for months. And even when she had them, the ‘dull red across the sky…’ she’d have to describe, because of black and white film.
While writing all this, I have been picturing it in black and white (it was olden times), but I want you to envision the below in all the pretty colors:
We approached close enough to see that the pattern is inlay of lapis, jade, carnelian, black marble, in white marble.
The workmanship is superb, the labor colossal.
It was dark inside and we saw the tomb of Numtaz Mahal and of Shah Jaahn, her husband (who built the Taj), by the light of a flickering candle.
The screens surrounding the tomb are marble carved in unbelievably lacy patterns.
By a dim pocket torch we climbed to the top of a minaret, stopping on each balcony to gasp at the ethereal beauty as the moon came up and cast a pale light on the marble.
We looked at it from the river side, and lay down on the marble base on the "moon-side".
It took on the soft color of ivory, and the inlay looked like carving and the shadows are not black but gray and purple.
Return to the gate where a great carved brass hanging lamp cast leafy shadows on the sandstone walls - and took our last look thru the arch of the gate.
Words are less than useless.
To the Imperial room, every convenience, quiet dining room with a delightful atmosphere and good food. Lovely shops in the hotel. Bot a white Kashmir shawl for a skirt.
Side note: The beauty of journals is the juxtaposition of the truly spectacular and the mundane. (Bot = bought. She uses her own shorthand at times.)
Sat. Jan 15: Mr. Dixit arranged with his driver to take us for the day for 15 Ru. Drive to Fatenour Sirri, 23 mi, passed several villages — every inch of land under cultivation.
Built by Akbar in 1569 A.D., a great wall, palaces, mosques, Turkish baths, the marble tomb of the Moslem saint Shaik Salim Chisti with its mother-of-pearl sarcophagus, the gate of victory 176 ft. high, and towering above the village outside the walls, the horse stables for 175 horses around an enormous span court. All in red sandstone marvelously carved, we were there 2 hours.
Back to the hotel, then to some shops — got a couple of pieces of marble inlay to remind me of the Taj.
Had only half an hour to see the fort, could only glance at it, but it made an indelible impression.
Dashed back for our baggage and on to the station for our train at 5:30 to Delhi. The ladies' compartment filled with three Indian women and 4 children, we went in with an English couple and their adorable little girl. 3 1/2 hours to Delhi, to Maiden's Hotel, dinner in a vast dining room at 10:30 p.m.
Note to Mary on her birthday.
Side note: The Maiden’s Hotel is still there and I want to go. And also, Mary was my grandmother, who was pregnant at the time with my mother, her second child, my mother.
“But we just left the Taj Mahal”, you say. And you are correct. But before we move forward, first we must circle back a little.
The last post presented passages from Helen’s post-trip letter to family, all nice and curated. But remember there is also a corresponding day-to-day journal, that was for her eyes only (at least until I came along)*, with fun detail and juicy context that doesn’t always make it into the letter. I’ll pare to the best bits.
*Helen gave all of her records to family, with the idea that someone might turn it all into a story and here I am doing that; I assume that she would have (and maybe did) pluck out bits she didn’t want anyone else to see.
The Day to Day Journal
Side note: We left the journal when Helen was luxuriating in a hotel (after over two months sleeping — by choice — primarily in a homemade hammock on a boat deck) before heading inland to the Taj Mahal with the ladies from the boat. But first, Helen networks a bit.
Tue. Jan. 11: Jack Frost came for me at noon, as darling as ever, to Ballygunge to her lovely home — high ceilings, airy, comfortable. Deep chairs covered in soft turquoise, a luscious Persian rug, fine silver and lined — a lawn tennis court, two dogs: Jack & Jill.
Sherry, then lunch: cold baked eggs with whipped cream & catsup, fish, peas, hot grapefruit, Kashmir English walnuts, figs, stuffed dates, Turkish coffee, Greek cigarettes.
Side note: I picture Jack & Jill as a regal, but derpy, long dogs, like Borzois. And I won’t comment on the cold baked eggs with whipped cream and catsup.
Drive with Jack about Maidan, Victoria Memorial, Fort William, cricket grounds, Gov. House, race track, 200 (Indian day, with band, hundreds listening, wrapt.) Hippo-elephants, giraffe, birds of color.
Side note: Hippo-elephant sounds like something to come out of a World’s Fair. I think she must have meant hippos and elephants, like she saw both? She’s too science-y to confuse the two (and yes I Googled whether hippo-elephants exists or have existed… no they don’t/didn’t).
To Tollygunge Club (1000 members) — race track where gentlemen jockeys hold 4 race meeting a year open to public, pays club expenses.
The house was owned by an Indigo Planter — lovely: yellow-orange bougainvillea, enormous cannas, swim pool, golf and tennis. Had tea on the lawn, a restful spot. Thru Alipore, the other residential district (Viceroy's house) past Jodphur Club.
To 1st Empire. Ronald Coleman and Madeleine Carroll in "The Prisoner of Zenda". Nearly everyone in evening clothes. Strange to come out from the American picture to the squalor of an Indian street.
Side note: She might be again job prospecting thru YWCA connections. This sounds like a lovely spot, tea on the manicured lawn and all, but lordy the disparity (see the last two posts).
Wed. Jan. 12: Shag and I wandered back across the Maidan for a couple of precious hours together. Sigrist came to get Dreyer's blanket while D. buys her own bedding, cheap skate! If I ever get like that!
Side note: She would get like that. Precious hours with Shaaag. She won’t see him for a whole 10 days.
Across the river to Howrah Station. Miss Skinner and party on the door of the compartment. As barren as a cattle car, narrow seats around three sides, so someone's feet are in the face of another. (R.R. & Calcutta time 24 min. different). Punjab express. We rented bedding rolls for 1 Ru. per day from Am. Ex. For 6 As. Had them delivered at station. One ladies' 2nd class compartment on each train.
To Dasashwamedh Ghat to take the boat up river first, past bathing ghats.
Everyone bathes in the river each day, then worship under the straw umbrellas where the priests sit. Many temples and palaces with stairs leading to the water's edge. Various postures as prayers are said and rites performed. Down river, where we watched one funeral pyre and saw another corpse prepared - an emaciated middle aged man, whose widow, in white, with low-coiled shining black hair, sat wailing at the top of the steps.
The Hindu belief: body is dust, fire, water, they bury material things, ashes burned in the fire are returned to water. On down the river past more palaces, rest houses, temples and return to the starting place.
Drive thru the city, saw the Monkey Temple, here barren women pray to Durga for fertility. If the prayer is answered, a goat is sacrificed.
Thru narrow alleyways lined with beggars to several other temples - Siva, Goddess of Plenty, Ganesh, the Elephant God, the Sacred Bulls, Well of Knowledge, the Golden Temple whose beautiful spire must be observed from a balcony next door, so narrow are the streets. We were given garlands of the Niwari flower. Peepal tree sacred, may not be cut down.
After lunch to Sarnath, where Buddha preached his first sermon, gained his first 5 converts. Dammekh Stupa, built in 3rd Century B. C. near Buddhist ruins more than 1000 yr. old. Modern Buddhist temple with murals of the life of Buddha done by a Japanese.
After dinner entertained by a magician who was exceptionally good, produced a flock of live birds out of his equivalent of a hat.
Side note: ‘Equivalent of a hat…’ is a good band name, no?
Fri. Jan. 14: Tea at 5:00 a.m., left for the station in the cold gray dark at 5:30. On board the first train for Mogul Serai, our bearers carried our luggage up over the bridge to the waiting room and back again. It was 7:30 when we got away. Had an attractive young Chi-Chi girl in our compartment as far as Allerabad.
Side note: I think Chi-Chi is like shi-shi? Someone who is stylish?
Wild monkeys, gorgeous parrots, peacocks, mud hut villages, bathing in every water hole, wells with oxen every drawing water for irrigation.
Change trains at Tundla at 4:30 p.m., we were put in first class carriage with K.R. Dixit, professor of physics, Gujarat College, Ahmedabad, returning from the Science Congress at Calcutta, stopping over between trains to see the Taj.
Side note: Dr. K.R. Dixit wrote a paper in 1940 (two years after this trip) that appeared in the ‘Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences’, which was published by Springer, which happens to be the publisher for whom I work. And we publish their conference proceedings still, almost 100 years later. La de da!
So here we bid adieu, with the ladies choo chooing along with Dr. Dixit, chewing the rag about Helen’s favorite things: scienceandfacts.
Next time we will, again, visit the Taj Mahal, but from a different perspective.
With ten days of shore leave at hand, Helen embarked on a complicated, multi-day side trip inland — traveling over 1,200km each way — via boat and train. She reflected upon it all quite colorfully in both the after-the-trip letter and the day-to-day journal. So much color in fact, it will take two posts.
First, the shorter after-the-trip summary…
The After-the-Trip Letter
(I mentioned in the last post about the unfortunate state of things for many in India at the time. That state of things is reflected in her observations below.)
The ship went into dry-dock in Calcutta, and while hundreds of coolies swarmed over the boat day and night, riveting, hammering, scouring, repairing, and refurbishing, the passengers had ten days "on their own”.
Three of us, Lysol bottle in hand, braved the so-called perils of travel by train.
“You must travel 1st class, and you MUST take a bearer (servant)", everyone said, so we went 2nd class, without bearers -- you have to take your own bedding on Indian railroads...we rented bedding rolls from American Express for one rupee ($.38) a day...the natives steal everything on the train that is not securely fastened, so the comforts thereof are negligible, if not non-existent.
We found the trains unbelievably dirty, the sleeping accommodations thin (the berths were 2 in. thick, and the mattress...well, to be generous, maybe one-half inch...these came with the roll of bedding), the beggars persistent, the station platforms crowded with squatting Indians surrounded by their luggage, and innumerable peddlers who urged us in all the dialects of Hindustan to buy knives, bangles, brassware, guavas, betel nut (one walks the streets of India mentally holding in one's skirts, for chewing betel nut is the national pastime, and you never can tell from where he sits how far the chewer is going to spit the bright red juice whose spots give India's pavements a perpetually gory aspect).
We wouldn't have missed the experience, and we learned to bargain, and to accept only good rupees (about half the currency is counterfeit, and you have to “ring" every coin before you take it, or they will "take" you…) and how to get off a train without tipping six porters and their uncles and their cousins and their aunts.
Side note: She was warned! By ‘everyone’! But see… up there she says she wouldn’t have missed it.
Oh, and ‘we’ in his passage of the letter is not about Shag, but instead about her two female traveling companions on this side trip. They are both fellow civilian passengers from the boat. Which two right now I cannot recall, but they will appear in the next post in some detail.
And lastly, a public service announcement: The betel nut, like many consumables that are fun and/or frowned upon, can be addictive and harmful to the health.
In Benares we sat in wicker chairs and were rowed up the Holy Ganges River past the spectacle that is the sacred city of the Hindu (for a Hindu to die in Benares is to assure his salvation, and they come in countless thousands, pilgrims of every age, to bathe in the holy river -- pardon me while I hold my nose). It is the bath, the laundry, the medicine, the chapel, the lavatory and the crematory AND the drinking water! UGH!
Side note: Here is a video of what she might have experienced, taken in 1937. I found some photos that aren’t all Benares, but there are great photos from India in the 1930s.
Let's escape to Agra. I'd heard so much about the Taj Mahal that I expected to be disappointed, but that evening has a page all its own in my book of memories. The setting sun shed a rosy glow on the white marble as we saw it first...then it was almost dark inside the mausoleum when we entered, and I had a momentary feeling of stepping into the past...a voice called 'Allah, Allah, Allah', and ages later the echo came back hollowly. By candle-light we examined the exquisitely carved marble screen surrounding the sarcophagi, and the wall panels inlaid with lapis-lazuli, carnelian, jade, jasper, in delicately wrought patterns.
Side note: The Taj Mahal was built in 1631 (!) in honor of the emperor’s favorite wife. I don’t know when I thought it was built, but that is older than I expected.
And did she just know the names of those inlaid rocks and how to spell them? As a child in Colorado, I used to go to a rock and mineral shop almost weekly with my mother — each for our own reasons — and I’ve never heard of lapis-lazuli or carnelian.
Our companion, a young Indian professor of Physics from Ahmedabad, lighted our way with a dim pocket torch up a circular staircase to the top of a minaret. We had not long to wait for the moon to cross the river. It touched the marble with a caress, softening the lines until the Taj looked like a rare old ivory carved by a master craftsman.
In Delhi we saw acres of marble buildings inlaid with semi-precious stones, built by the Mogul Emperors five hundred years ago.
Our eyes stood out on stems and our chins rested on our chests. It was so gorgeous we lost the power to react to it.
Side note: We’ll talk more about this young professor in the next post, but for context, at some point her little group ends up in First Class on the train and there she meets a young professor who is headed to the same place they’re going. And the four of them then travel to the Taj Mahal together.
Another side note: The bit about the phrase, ‘Our eyes stood out on stems…’ evokes old cartoons, no? And it’s fitting. The art and architectures that humans build for their myriad gods are some of the most eyes-on-stems and chin-on-chest inducing of any, even for non-believers.
“Our eyes stood out on stems and our chins rested on our chests. It was so gorgeous we lost the power to react to it.”
The trip back to Calcutta is a volume in itself, so don't get me started on our compartment mates with their 14 suitcases, the garden flowers, the lunch hamper, the tepees, tennis rackets, basket of vegetables, raincoats, birdcage and catch terrier.
After the round-the-world trip ended, Helen sent a three-page, airmail letter to family and friends to summarize it all. Word count and word choice were important back then — each ounce mattered — unlike now where we can just plod along forever and then absentmindedly click send and a typo-laced missive instantly transmits to the nearby and/or far-flung.
Almost one whole page of her three page letter was devoted to an overly complicated in-land side-trip to the Taj Mahal.
Two of the three pages consisted of: colorful descriptions of all of the world that she saw except the part about getting to the Taj Mahal.
One of the three pages consisted of: getting to the Taj Mahal.
She did other things in India though that don’t get covered in the letter, but do in the journal, where there was not a word or weight limit. And we can’t miss the whats and whos of Cocanada and Budge-Budge back in early 1938, can we??
The Day-to-Day Journal
Side note: We start here while still on the Motorvessel Silverwillow and we are forging ahead towards Coconada, India (now Kakinada — both of these similar sounding names came from the British and Dutch). This port town, like so many, has long suffered the deeds of those looking to stake claim and/or pillage — land, resources, women, men, jewels, crops, minerals, power, etc.
Fri. Jan. 7:
Capt. up at 4:00, not long after the engines stopped (we'd been creeping along on one most of the night so's not to arrive too soon). With dawn came barges sailed with lateen rig, from Coconada, 4 miles away.
On one barge breakfast was in progress, process of washing plate with water from a small glass jar, wiping it off with dirty hand, scooping white meal from common bowl, pouring on some water, eating with hand, plantation, betel nut. Four fires kindled in the bottom of boat, iron pots boiling water, cooking rice, spoons of coconut shell with bamboo handle, drain in large mat baskets.
Side note: The above is a window into colonialism and the caste system at work, with the former taking advantage of tenants of the latter (we’ll see more of this, in much more detail, in the next post). The people on the boat were likely Labourers, which is the lowest official caste, but there are countless others who don’t get a caste.
[Present location:] Lat. 20° 22' N; Long. 87° 22" E; Dist. 341 mi.; Av. Speed 14.44 mph.
Sat. Jan. 8: Study in a.m., boat deck at 2:00 for a lesson on "Day's Work". Hooghly River pilots have a very handsome yacht, they're a snooty crowd. Came on board at 4:00 and we start towards the Ganges River, 30 miles away.
Side note: the Hooghly River is a tributary of the Ganges and they are heading up it to Budge Budge on their tug tug. And they are meeting some puffed up yacht snooties along the way.
BUDGE-BUDGE
Sun. Jan. 9:
At 2:30 a.m. woke when the pilot took over my hammock saying, "You shouldn't be sleeping out here, it's the best way to get malaria" — then clutched me in an embrace.
H [a pilot] stayed until 4:45, sitting on the floor talking. He's a fool and an overbearing braggart, if this is the Englishman in Gov't service abroad, heaven preserve us. At breakfast he appeared again — to tell us of the 23 glasses of champagne at the Governor's ball.
Side note: This was all between 2:30am, 4:45am, and breakfast? If this ‘pilot’ is all the same person, we don’t like him. Handsy, overbearing, braggart. There might be more than one pilot being mentioned though, but we definitely don’t like English Pilot H.
“The helmsman stands like Hosea draped in a long robe and standing high above the oarsmen at the stern, makes a strange solitary figure against the sky.”
Went ashore at Budge-Budge when finally we got alongside (it took 3 hours) to the customs house to phone to the city about rooms, with not much success. Wild wind and rain storm while we were there.
Side note: I just learned that Budge-Budge got its name from the sound Portuguese boots would make in the local marshes.
Shag and I walked in Budge-Budge: squalid huts, innumerable people in sanitary arrangements on whatever spot is convenient at the moment. We did find a moon shining on the water off a lagoon.
Mon. Jan. 10: Out in the stream at 11:00 a.m. after three hours getting away. 1/2 is carried aft and we are made fast to the wharf chains by them, a very slow process.
The helmsman stands like Hosea draped in a long robe and standing high above the oarsmen at the stern, makes a strange solitary figure against the sky. Men come down from inland villages and live on the boats and work on the river for months. There are no women on them.
River channel narrow with dangerous shoals, sharp turns, quicksand's (the James and Mary) necessary to wait for tide. Directly to dry-dock. So we had to get off at once. To Grand Hotel on Chowringee, high ceilings, marble floors, dingy, eccentric plumbing — Lysol!
Out to see about travel in India.
Side note: That is the Royal James and Mary, thank you very much. It is also my name reversed. We’re going to ignore that Royal James and Mary refers to quicksand, because I am afraid of quicksand and pretend it doesn’t exist.
Instead we will imagine how wonderful it must have been to stay at a hotel after the months on the hammock.
But she wouldn’t be comfy for long, as soon she’d be on her way to the Taj Mahal, where she’d make a misstep or three….
We saw the hills of India for hours before we came alongside at Madras. There was only one white person, on the quay, and she was meeting me! Jo and I had parted in New York four months before, saying, "See you in India in January!" and here we actually were! I had to pinch myself! We had a most delightful evening with mutual friends (we had been graduate students together) who teach in the college at Saidapet.
And that aggravating boat WOULD sail that same night...cargo first, last, and whenever.
Side note: Only with kismet could two people plan to meet up on a dock several months into the future and then actually do it, right?? Nope. They organized it somehow, even while they were both be-bopping about to different parts of the world, in 1938.
And who is this ‘Jo’, you ask?! Stay tuned!
(For historical context: Madras is now Chennai and Saidapet is and was a neighborhood there.)
The Day to Day Journal
Side note: The journal starts the day before she gets to Madras and to her friend Jo. For here we start while she’s cruising alongside the lovely and lush Ceylon coast…
[Present location:] Lat. 6° 41' N
Tue. Jan. 4: Saw porpoises leaping, many ships visible, sails along the East Coast of Ceylon, mountainous.
Took a Lat. And figured our course by dead reckoning.
1 anna - 2 ½ cents (round coin, square edge)
1/12 anna = pie (copper)
Wed. Jan. 5: Study and the traverse tables are about to get me down. Saw India this afternoon. Could see Madras by 4:00 p.m.
The jetty has a tricky double S curve, I thot my eyes deceived me but the glass confirmed that Jo Rathbone was standing on the quay. It seemed eons before the gangplank went down and our passports stamped — marvelous to see her. Jo's driver got a car for the other passengers and it turned out that Katy came with us, to be dropped at the Theosophical Society H.Q., drove thru spacious grounds to a beautiful building.
Had a panoramic impression of the city as we drove thru at sunset. Stopped at the Cannemora Hotel, very swank European, many of the business buildings have domes and minarets. Everywhere flags and bunting are draped for the visit of the Viceroy next week. The members of the Indian Congress are not to be present at the reception and all Europeans are commanded to be on hand.
How do I suddenly know so much about Helen’s friend Jo? I was fortunate enough to find an informative article, all about Dr. Rathbone, and I reached out to its author, the very helpful Dr. Carol Ewing Garber. She was kind enough to send over an autobiography Dr. Rathbone wrote, and what a life. Worth a checking out.
Herd of water buffalo with enormous horns spreading six ft, white oxen with tall horns drawing carts quite different from those in Ceylon. Indian huts rectangular, with high pointed roofs, palm trees against a red sky.
Not so many people as I expected. New housing development, very square modernistic a la Germany. Wide main streets. (25 Catholic schools for Indians in Madras)
Several cars at Bucks, met several groups just leaving. Mr. Buck remembered me — a charming house, paneled walls, book cases built in, every room has French doors leading out — on 2nd floor to a balcony, bedroom's have sleeping porches. The whole house is open and airy, very unusual, most livable. A young English politician was there, an Indian Rec. Director, handsome, and a Sikh, turban, beard, small clothes, small sword, bracelet - the 5 requirements of the Sikh religion.
Reading this all again, now more in slow motion…. if Helen wasn’t distracted by a certain engineer on this boat trip, would she be happily bound for one of those YMCAs?
She would, a few decades after this meet up in India, work for the YWCA in Canada, so the answer is yes, but it might have been more immediate. Seems the physical education world back then stayed tight.
Tall, fine looking, large sparkling eyes, graceful hands.
Finally, all were shooed away, and we five sat at dinner at 8 p.m. Larkspur and zinnias, fresh fruit, soup in lacquer bowls, chops, fresh peas, grilled tomato, frozen prune whip, celery and raw carrots, grapes from U.S.
Mrs. B. has made a lovely lawn and garden from a rubbish dump. Came back for 10p.m. sailing after an unforgettable evening - found we are staying until morning.
Shag and I walked on the jetty. Many stars, luminous clouds. We found happiness in one another. Coffee and toast in the mess room at 3 a.m. Very cool evening, no heat all day.
Side notes: 1) prune whip; 2) Mrs. B is composting! Also, Mrs. B = Mrs. Marie Buck, who taught P.E. and published a volume entitled “A Programme of Physical Education for Girls’ Schools in India”, mentioned here; 3) and last but not least, after an unforgettable evening ashore schmoozing with sparkly eyed men, Helen finds happiness with Shag there on the jetty, stars and clouds just so. Topped off with coffee and toast at THREE in the A.M.
Hearts are just brimming, it seems. This might be controversial to say, but, just at this port, I wonder if the brimming isn’t just for Shag, but also for the potential of far flung job opportunities. Meeting up with professional associates around the world, planned in advance, seems strategic.
And maybe Shag senses this? No one can know for sure. But one could suspect some tug of war with choices.
On these pages she seems to speak in code… like in case someone found it. The text is tiny, the names abbreviated, language often coy. But she definitely wasn’t averse to family (aka me, as it were) disseminating it, as she gave it to us with her blessing, but more like she didn’t want people on the boat sneaking it. Who can blame her? It’s a small boat with the same people on it more or less for five months. There’s intrigue happening. Who wouldn’t get a bit paranoid or revengeful?
Thu. Jan. 6: Woke at 6, saw a blazing red sunrise, standby at 6:40 - full away by 7. The harbor pilot was 1st Mate on the Palm, under Capt. Tulloch. Dozens of fishing boats — proas with slender lines, a turned up bow, rowed by shovel-shaped oars. "Day's work" is driving me nuts.
Traverse tables still a mystery. Took a sight, got the same as bridge, found the next course and distance. P.m. and p.p.m. with S.
Side note: P.m and p.p.m indeed.
After much Googling, I found that ‘Day’s Work’ is guidance about ship navigation and dead reckoning.
Across the Indian Ocean to the garden city of Colombo, on the beautiful Island of Ceylon. A harbor teeming with shipping, for here the vessels of all the world stop to refuel, and most visitors have only a tantalizing breathless glimpse of it.
Side note: In 1972 Ceylon was renamed The Republic of Sri Lanka*
*Sri Lanka has had many names over the centuries. My very favorite is Serendip. Was it found unexpectedly, or perhaps… serendip-itously??
The Day to Day Journal
100 cents = 1 rupee
Mon. Jan. 3: Woke when the anchor chains started clanging, my first daylight sight of the island was a huge neon sign -- Ceylon for Good Tea.
Out for a look at the harbor, a mass of boats: British, a French gunboat with a seaplane that buzzed about all day, German, the President Pierce of the $ Line, a Chinese ship that was flying the Japanese flag when she sailed in the p.m., twelve large freight and passenger ships at the mushroom buoys at 7 a.m. Continual arrival and departures.
Had our passports stamped and harbor police examined them at the head of the gangway.
Side note: That very day, Roosevelt spoke of the troubled world. Soon, many of those boats and planes buzzing about the harbor would be at war.
Tourist agent came on board, made arrangements for a 3-hour ride at 1£ for the car. Ashore in the passenger launch for a rupee. The first picture was the quay swarming with bullock carts. Thru the customs gate to a wide plaza flanked by the Grand Oriental Hotel and business buildings, in a 7 passenger touring Chrysler, out past the lake, the handsome race track to the Cinnamon Gardens. Leaf and a twig from the cinnamon, rubber, ebony, acacia, mango, frangipani, coffee, cocoa, coconut (here they use the yellow ones for milk, the green for oil, copra), banyan (the shoots hang down and take root, so the tree has a huge trunk and a maze of small trunks), giant bamboo, papaya, bread / fruit, the rain tree. Huge canna, coxcomb, bougainvillea in rosy red and pink and orange, much prettier than our purple. Hibiscus - not a very large flower, gardenias - not in blossom.
Out to Mt. Lavinia, large mansions in luxuriant tropical setting, Colombo is like one large garden.
Side note: It all just sounds so perfectly colorful! I had to look up half the plants she mentions… and what they all have in common is color.
Speaking of, frangipani is not only fun to say, it is also the lovely and fragrant flower that is known, among other things, for its use in Hawaiian leis (which I’ve just learnt). Personally, when I think of tropics, I think of that flower and its extra aromatic fragrance and delicate curly bits. It always was frangipani! Stupid me never asked what the flower was called.
And the banyan, not only is it a magical canopy with a trunk maze underneath, but also it is a badass, resilient old-soul kind of tree. The famous one that recently burned in Lahaina, Hawaii, is showing signs of growth just five weeks after the fire. Don’t mess with banyans!
The Grand Oriental Hotel is still around and was built in 1870s. And Cinnamon Gardens is a fancy neighborhood, not a garden of cinnamon.
Here’s a British-y video about Ceylon from 1940, just two years after she was there. Watch it, but imagine it’s in color.
Stopped at a gem store, watched the ebony carvers chipping elephants with a chisel. Bot some straw bags, a tortoise shell cigarette case. Back to town thru the Indian Bazaar, past Buddhist temples, Moslem mosques, Church of England, Methodist church. 4 million people on the island: 3 million are Buddhists (the shaven headed men in the bright orange robes are Buddhist priests), 1 million live in Colombo. Very dark-skinned, bare-footed, the men wear wrap-around skirts belted at the waist, even when they wear European coats.
Side note: Diospyros ebenum, or Ceylon Ebony was/is highly sought after. The harvesting of it is now super restricted, because the usual suspects over did it.
The women bright colored sarongs, or a tight blouse like our old fashioned corset cover, leaving some skin exposed above the gay skirt. The men (from Madras) wear long hair hanging to the waist, or knotted in the back of the neck, often held by a tortoise-shell comb. In the native quarter we see the history of transportation on a single street: men carrying huge baskets on their heads, other pulling primitive carts, diesel trucks, bullock carts, Buick cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and from one shop comes the shrill piping of oriental music, from another the tinny bleating of ‘I can’t give you anything but love, baby."
Side note: Observation mode! Close your eyes and imagine shrill piping on one side, tinny bleating on another, and in between the whole history (up until 1938) of transportation in action.
Celluloid toys from Japan mingle with glass dishes from a Woolworth fire sale, and luscious oriental silks are separated by a single wall from a market where the flies drone over tracks of uncovered meat. It's a heterogeneous confusion, but fascinating if you can stand outside looking in.
The old Dutch fortifications are 300 years old and descendants of the Burghers, are very - shall I say sunburned. The marine drive (Galle Dr.) has some attractive hotels, might be resort hotels inside South U.S.
To the boat in the Silver Launch, at 4:00, to find the last oil would not arrive before 6 and sailing at 9: and so much to be seen in town. We didn't go back, tho, we stopped here only for fuel oil for our engines, 2700 tons.
Shag in a boiling rage about today.
Side note: I don’t know if Roy Shadbolt (aka Shag) was wheeling and dealing at this port on this trip, but many decades later, Helen would find herself back in Colombo, and her reason was related to Shag and rubber. But she would not travel there with Shag. Stay tuned for more about that!
Was Shag in a boiling rage about ship stuff… or perhaps over rubber dealings??
The M.S. Silverwillow would push off from Colombo after the last bit above.
Then, just five months later, a small group of Nazis, on a racially motivated research expedition, would arrive on that same lush, frangipani-scented shore. Ceylon was a stopover on their way to India, where they were looking for the origin of the aryan race. The Nazis wanted to stay a bit in Colombo, probably to measure heads, but the British stopped them, and they continued on their fools’ errand. How has Werner Herzog not made a film about that trek??
We have nothing from the after-the-trip letter this time, as we are back at sea. Lots is happening though.
For context, we have just left Mombasa and we’re headed east and a little bit north to Colombo in what was then known as Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka.
Day to Day Journal
Tue. Dec. 28:
[Present location:] Lat. 2° 35' S; Long. 49° 54" E; Dist. 383 mi.; Av. Speed 16.23 mph.
Went topside to study, but was sidetracked writing up the past few days.
After lunch called on the invalids, Bath who has a touch of the sun, Jim who has an infected foot.
Evening with Shag.
Capt. bot finches in Lourenco Marques and Mozambique for an official of the Co. who is a fancier in San Francisco. Twitter, twitter, they are pretty little things, but the mortality is high.
Lourenco Marques 100 Centavos = 1 Escudo; 5 Escudos = 1 Shilling
Side note: On a ship with no medic, I wonder if the remedy for the sun-touched and the extremity-infected was whiskey.
I just learned that if the Mozambican finches were young and made it through the voyage, they could live another 15-20 years, which leaves plenty of time for twittering!
Centavos and escudos sound of Latin origin, but shilling, that’s very Anglo-Saxon-y sounding, no? Oh, maybe she’s talking exchange rates? Can you exchange between and among these ports in Colonial times? Like between the Dutch and British?
ChatGTP says sometimes yes, sometimes no. So there you have it.
Wed. Dec. 29:
[Present location:] Lat. 1° 46' S; Long. 55° 52" E; Dist. 356 mi.; Av. Speed 15.00 mph.
Lecture on magnets. Ship has magnetism lying in field in which boat was built. Very strong when boat is sailing in that direction, partially overcome when sailing another direction several days - varies with every change of course.
The ship's compass is corrected by vertical and horizontal magnets to overcome magnetism of the ship and by balls on either side which gather oblique magnetic paths so they will flow straight thru the center of [the] magnet. A piece of soft steel forward the compass overcomes magnetism of ships funnel which changes from + to - as the ship crosses from N to S hemisphere. A new ship is swung on the points of the compass and its deviation noted and its compass set. This changes with the change of course, cargo - may be affected by any metal - a knife, bucket, chipping hammer near the compass, the list of the boat.
Shag, Jim and I read "The Nile" in p.m., chewed the rag in the evening.
Side note: Doesn’t a magnetism analogy work here? Helen might be more right brained, Shag more left…their path might have been oblique, but their connection is magnetic. Get it??
And my goodness the amount of science in those paragraphs. Like a semester of it. I do recognize those words above individually, but certainly not strung together.
Thru. Dec. 30:
[Present location:] Lat. 0" 55' S; Long. 62° 12" E; Dist. 383 mi.; Av. Speed 16.33 mph.
Satisfied with a good morning's work. Worked 15 problems on setting courses (true to compass) from the Masters and Mates' book, and no mistakes.
At noon Capt. gave me the sextant (1st time since Capetown) and I didn't even know where to look for the sun. Found it and derived a latitude, to Capt.'s surprise and my own, it was identical with the one on the bridge!
Visited the chartroom, couldn't find Koilthotham, bottle of Lion's.
Crossed the equator about 11 p.m. a lovely balmy black night with myriads of stars.
Side note: Remember last time when she crossed the equator, two of the crew had her pulled in two directions so she could be in both at once? Just a mere five weeks before. The atmosphere is still novel and frisky now, but in different ways.
Fri. Dec. 31:
[Present location:] Lat. 0° 21' N; Long. 68° 18" E; Dist. 374 mi.; Av. Speed 15.85 mph
Many more problems with no mistakes - so pleased. Found a Lat. Again -1 min. off.
Finished reading "The Nile".
Saw the New Year in with Shag on the boat deck. Ships bell rang 16 time, 8 for the old year, 8 for the new.
The horn bleated once - that was all.
Side Note: “Saw the new year in with Shag on the boat deck,” sounds like a fine ole’ time. Bleat bleat!
Sat. Jan. 1: [Present location:] Lat. 1° 35' N; Long. 73° 36" E; Dist. 327 mi.; Av. Speed 13.83 mph.
Happy New Year. Wrote Mary. Slept most of the afternoon. Good dinner. Aft with S.
Side note: Mary, remember, was Helen’s baby sister, eight years her junior. Mary was also my grandmother (and namesake). On January 1, 1938, Mary was three months pregnant with my mother, who would, some 23 years later, go to visit Helen. And then stay… for 15 or so years. During which, voila… me!
But back on January 1, 1938… there was much more about magnetism to learn, in the literal and figurative sense(s).
Sun. Jan. 2: [Present location:] Lat. 3° 16' N; Long. 77° 55" E; Dist. 341 mi.; Av. Speed 14.38 mph
Spent a very busy morning working on my notebook and just at lunch time Capt. Started me on "Day's Work" (i.e., dead reckoning courses). So interesting I went back up after lunch and worked another couple of hours.
Aft with Shag in the p.m. Sat on the new deck paint with disastrous results.
Aft until 10.
Side note: Sitting around with paint on their afts!
Dropped anchor at Colombo at 11:00 p.m. Brightly lighted P&O boat passed. Bright lights. All of our lights on, so light I had to go in to get any sleep. Today to learn there's a lookout on the fo'castle head all night, standing 2 hour watch, he rings the hour bell and 1 bell for a light on port bow, 2 bells for light on starboard, 3 for light dead ahead, 4 if any of the ship's navigating lights is out. He reports to Mate on watch before he goes forward. The 16 sailors rotate the watch.
Side note: I am surprised she hadn’t been up there ringing bells all this time.
Mombasa: the harbor rimmed with verdant tropic foliage...lush mango trees, grace of coconut palms silhouetted against the sky. The Island reeks with history..for 500 years the Arabs and Portuguese pillaged and massacred to hold the key-port for the ivory and slave trade. Since Britain has made Kenya a crown colony they live peaceably enough...English, Arabs, Hindu, Greek, Mohammedan, Portuguese and Goans (from Portuguese India). The native children learn 5 languages in school, and charming modern European buildings rub elbows with native bazaars.
Side note: A ‘harbor rimmed with verdant tropic foliage…’ likely has a salt and sea-breezy odor; the reeking comes only from the savagery of the ivory and slave trades.
And speaking of things that are glossed over in history, I’ve just learnt (or relearnt) what a crown colony is, versus a regular colony. And as it implies, it is a colony directly represented by the crown and there is a governor for it. Whereas a regular colony doesn’t have that. Also, Mombasa was the first captial of British East Africa. Lesson complete!
The Day to Day Journal
Sun. Dec. 26: Munitions factory at Nairobi working overtime shipping arms to Ethiopia during the war. 32,500 pop, 6 sq mi island, Arabs, Indian, Turks. Brazil coffee shipped here, mixed with Kenya (some of best in world).
Side note: Ethiopia was defending itself against an aggressive Italy (Mussolini era). Kenya was helping Ethiopia.
And blended coffee even back then!!
The ringing of coins everywhere, so many rupees are bad it is necessary to test every one before accepting it.
The red teeth and spit of betel nut chewers. The children beating on their tummies, ‘no mother, no father, hungry, backsheesh m’sab’ [backsheesh = small sum of money]. “Help the poor blind man, please, m’sab”. ‘Chota Hareri’ the pre-breakfast breakfast.
‘Water for hindus’ - ‘water for moslems". The bedding rolls the brass bowls.
The bathing in the water, then drinking it. Sleep in the streets.
The honking of rubber auto horns.
Side note: The above is what 500 years of pillaging and massacring will get you.
Shag got the bike off, we toured the island, bot oranges in the Indian market, ate them under a mango tree. Took the road to Nairobi and got a thrill over travel inland in Africa.
Side note: Remember in the last post, on December 23rd, she said they were going to ‘see less of each other’, but now on December 26th they are back on the bike. Maybe he got in trouble for being late for his watch so they’re just being more chill? And it’s not something big and dramatic?
What happened to Christmas, btw??
Capt. and apprentices sailed in ship's boat across to mainland. Tide went out and left them high and dry, could see it thru the telescope. Agent went in launch, brot Capt. back, pilot (in whites, with shorts) took us out to anchor in stream, Capt., 14 natives went in a launch, with ropes and shovels to take the boat off. Return of very sunburned tired apprentices with coconuts, bananas and maize.
Side note: I feel like this ‘ship’s boat’ was mentioned before? It’s a mini-boat, aka a ‘tender‘, that lives on a boat and is used for small jobs.
That particular day, the tender went out for errands and got stuck in the med. Then enter the ‘launch‘ boat, even smaller than the tender, that fits just a few people, and its job was to unstuck the mud-moored tender. But to do that, the tender needed the right men on board. So the launch goes out and picks up the captain and pilot, who don’t do mud. They are returned. Then it heads back to the tender with natives, hired to do dirty work.
It goes back and forth until everyone – including the tender, the launch, the men, and the loot – are back upon the Silverwillow.
Remember that riddle about the small boat and getting the corn and the fox and chicken to the other side without anyone/thing getting eaten? Reminds me of that.
[Present location:] Lat. 3° 35' S; Long. 43° 41" E; Dist. 238 mi.; Av. Speed 15.29 mph Mon.
Dec. 27: Back to work on navigation, started on my notebook.
At dinner learned that a misunderstanding resulted in no invitations, no sandwiches for party! Some speedy maneuvers, changing to evening clothes and with a calm front we receive the guests, who have no previous engagement, in spite of the lateness of the invitation.
Side note: I imagine there aren’t many other engagements on a ship with only nine civilian passengers. And what are they celebrating on December 27 when there are holidays on either side of it?! Belated Christmas?
Capt. starts the ball rolling with plenty of liquid refreshment and some songs. Bill comes to the rescue in good voice, and the evening is saved. Capt. relieves Norfolk and Chief arrives to carry on, which he does with gusto.
Milian sings lustily, James' voice swells in song, eventually it is midnight (by setting the clock up 20 min.)
The party buys a ticket on the Irish Sweepstakes. Grand National Mar. 21, "Willow Party", XP02905, 02906.
Marconigram from Capt. Cross of the Silvercedar!
Side note: Liquid refreshments, crooning, gambling, and radiotelegraphy!
Waving palms, emerald green grass, huge baobab trees, brilliant shrubbery, all under a cool African sky — that is Mombasa: an enchanting coral isle washed by the waters of the Indian Ocean, swept by cool sea breezes. Mombasa is called by the natives, "Kisiwa Cha M'vita" — "The Island of War".
Side note: Such an enchanting place should not have that nickname. Below are Helen’s notes on the history of Mombasa, and it helps explain the unfortunate ‘Island of War’ moniker.
In 2786 B.C. Egyptian King Sankhhara sent an expedition to Land of Punt, probably Mombasa. Later came Arabs, displaced by Portuguese in 1498 with arrival of Vasco da Gamma. In 1500 Portuguese sacked the town, came under Portuguese control 1528 when Nuno Da Cunha attacked and destroyed it.
* 1585:Ali Bey, Turkish pirate drove out Portuguese
* 1589: Return of Portuguese, capture Ali Bey, massacred people
* 1592: Erection of Fort Jesus* 1630:Yussuf Bin Hassan, King of Mombasa, had all Christians on island put to death
* 1631: See return to control by Portuguese, who ruled cruelly
* 1696: Muscat Arabs set siege to Fort Jesus, stormed it 33 months, thru 2 reinforcements, broke in to find only 11 men, 2 women, who they killed (Dec. 1698). 2 days later a Portuguese rescue fleet from Goa arrived too late to help
* 1699, 1703, 1710, 1728: other Portuguese expeditions, the latter captured the town, but again driven out by Arabs in 1729
* 1823: First British ship, Arab Sultan asked for British protection, was refused
* 1887:Imp. Brit. East Af. Co. began administration of Kenya and Uganda
* 1896: British Capt. took control. Slave trade flourished until 1896. 44,000 pop. (1100 Europeans, 11,000 Indians, 6,600 Arabs, 1,500 other nationalities, 24,000 Natives). Island 5.5 sq. mi. - principal port of Kenya Colony finest harbor in East Africa: Kilindini Harbor, also name of main st.
Side note: Whew. Storming for 33 months sounds pretty tiring for both sides.
Here is a cool picture of Kilindini street from the 1930s.
And study all of the above because there will be a pop quiz later!
Lourenço Marques, Beira, Mozambique: Portuguese...tropical...apple-green water over coral shoals...coconut palms against blue sky and puffy white clouds...lacy-leaf’d royal poinciana trees topped by masses of flame-colored blossoms...the ancient fort whose gates sagged open on rusty hinges, tho it's used as a jail...a prisoner lolled in the doorway of his cell at the noon hour drinking lukewarm tea from a battered "Flit" can!
Again: slamming doors, swirls of dust, window panes crashing to the yard below, and we dashed for shelter as a brief but violent "shower" whipped in from the sea and drenched us before we could find a roof.
Side note: You can kinda smell the rain, huh? The internet and my husband confirm that ‘Flit’ was an insecticide, not a beverage, which would make the exclamation point make sense.
Side note: Lourenço Marques was a Portuguese explorer, who, in 1544, explored a land he would creatively call Lourenço Marques. I say, if you land at a place with people already there you should not get to name it after yourself. In 1975 though, the city became Maputo. It was and is the capital of Mozambique.
The back says “Mozambique, Lourenço Marques, At The Foot of the War Memorial”. Also, look at her cute shoes.
Shag and I to town - the war memorial across from the R.R. Station appealed to me as no other so far. An heroic figure of a woman on a round base with 4 fine plaques.
Side note: The war memorial had its debut two years earlier, in 1935. Though a heroic figure of a woman indeed, it represented the Portuguese fending off Germans, and not struggles of the local people.
It was to be demolished as the city shed colonial relics, but it turned out too fortified, so it stayed. But over time, its significance changed to represent a strong woman fending off snakes in order to save locals, and she was deemed ‘The Snake Lady’, where she fends to this day.
The streets are wide, 3 flank-columns of red plumed royal poincianas standing at attention down the avenue. Most shops have roofs over the street - they're needed, for shade. The workers are prisoners, two men with ankles' chained together - clank, swish, clank - makes an ominous sound.
Side note: Mozambique had horrid colonial history and though slavery was abolished, prison labor doesn’t seem much different.
At 5:00 Shag and I taxied to the beach, made arrangement to be picked up at 11. Thunder and lightning and a full moon! Tropical rain. Shelter under a tin roof at a picnic table. The taxi did not come back - we walked back in 1 1/2 hours! - most amusing. But Shag was an hour late for his watch.
Side note: That beach date sounds like a plot for a romantic comedy, maybe even one with dance numbers in the rain?
Sat. Dec. 18: Lunch at Polana Hotel, high overlooking beach: prawns (like large shrimp, lobster flavor, delicious).
Side note: Her first prawn! I was also in my 30s the first time I had a prawn, but for different reasons than her.
Big wind blowing up as we drove back along the beach, and wavy as we returned to the ship. Up anchor at 7:00 p.m., got into swells that made us roll.
Boat deck with Shag. One wave caught athwart boat deck spills over engine room ventilators. Bottles and dishes rattled back and forth all evening.
Side note: Athwart is a good word
Sun. Dec. 19: Read pages of "The Nile" to Shag.
Side note: Now she is reading The Nile TO Shag. A book about Egypt… where they want to motor off to together. So cute.
Beira
Mon. Dec. 20: Dawn in Beira. The anchor is swung from the bow and the anchor chain fastened to an enormous buoy.
Took a tattered bus for sixpence over bumpy roads. Poked into several unattractive stores and just then the heavens opened, a deluge descended, wind blew, doors banged, glass broke. Shelter in a store until a taxi rescued us, took us to the Savoy Hotel. Lunch back to the ship, very wet - afternoon in Shag's room, reading. Typed cargo lists topside this evening, fascinating - timber, refrigerators, Ping-Pong tables, apples, wax, paint.
Side note: Her love of lists is endearing, and it has been passed down through the generations.
Tue. Dec. 21: a.m. on the boat deck, reading "The Nile" with Shag. I read him yards of figures: r.p.m., per day, per hour, generator, valves, etc. Reading in the hammock, a lovely day, wore shorts for the first time. Peered down #2 Hatch while rolls and crates of paper came swinging out on the lighters.
Side note: When I first read the second sentence above, I thought she meant she was reading to Shag the ‘…yards of figures’, like as pillow talk, which for them, could very well be. But then just below she says ‘more figures for Chief’ so most likely she was studying for Ship Shop (get it? like Wood Shop or Metal Shop in school, but about ships?). Whichever way, it’s cute.
And for our trivia for today: define ‘Lighters’ (in relation to shipping).
[Answer key: Lighters = a mini boat used to move stuff back and forth. Maybe its name derives from it being lighter than the boat it resides on??]
An amber moon cut off on top, sliced its way up thru clouds to sail off majestically into the soft black night
Sailed 6:00 p.m. More figures for Chief, then Shag. An amber moon cut off on top, sliced its way up thru clouds to sail off majestically into the soft black night.
At Sea
Wed. Dec. 22: Very hot in the sun. Engines stopped 1/2 hour during Shag's watch. Paced deck with S., wrote numerous cards, typed more cargo lists. Reading more "Nile" in p.m. with S.
More abstract for Chief at 4:00, first scotch & soda visit topside after dinner - heard the news Frank Billings Kellogg is dead.
To the boat deck, passed a vessel, saw the Morse light work for the first time, could read it, which was a bigger thrill.
Another moon rise, a soft glow swelling to a crescendo of light, lines of cloud-like sooty brush strokes across the sky, the moon-path so bright as to seem elevated from the water. Slept out tonight with the moon in my eyes.
Side note: Frank Billings Kellogg helped usher in a bill (named after him) that would stop wars from being waged. You can ask the year 1945 how that went. But the bill was used to charge people responsible for the war with a Crime Against Peace (or Crime of Aggression) which was, ironically, punishable by death.
And that moon rise she watch from her outdoor hammock, I wish she’d bottled that so we could all live it.
Mozambique
Side note: She’s been in Mozambique this whole post, but is now docking in Mozambique?? I, too, was confused. But it turns out Mozambique is the name of the country and a town in it. Welcome to Mozambique, Mozambique!
Thur. Dec. 23: Katy, Dreyer, Shag and I went ashore - 2 shillings round trip, paid a penny at the gate. The town different from any we've been - no motor traffic, narrow streets, phaeton hooded rickshaws, everything looks clean and newly washed, no wind to stir the dust. Buildings mostly built in long rows, houses distinguished from one another by the color - lovely sun-mellowed shades, crushed raspberry, dull gray-green, terra cotta, mild yellows. The triangles where streets come together with green grass plots and young flamboyance. The yellow wall and the palm trees against most glorious puffs of cumuli. The brick church with its white spire.
Side note: Pottery Barn must have a color called ‘sun-mellowed’, no? And ‘crushed raspberry’? But maybe not ‘dull gray-green’. She was on a tear in that paragraph — the ‘young flamboyance’ of the street corners. ‘Puffs of cumuli’ clouds.
The walk along the beach, the avenue of tall spreading trees with poincianas in between. Looking up thru the lace patterns of the leaves and the flame-red blossoms toward the sun. The marble war memorial "Aos Mortes da Grande Guerra", the ancient bullet scarred fort (1502) its iron gates swung open. Inside-barred doors hanging open while prisoners scarcely guarded carried plates of black beans and rice form the line at the mess hall door some patch of shade for lunch. In one corner of the hot open square a small chapel, one door for "Europeaos", the other for natives.
Side note: Separate doors in a church?? How so very pious of you, Europeaos.
Back to the ship, the P.O. closed 11:00 — 2:00 for siesta — "for only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun", and it was hot! Not humid, like Beira, but blazing white heat — the Portuguese wouldn't let me go ashore without a toupee, borrowed one of Shag's. Under way at 1:00 p.m. along the beach the most vivid apple green water I've ever seen, over coral reefs and dark green water until we'd cleared the bay. Most gorgeous banks of cloud and on the water the exotic touch of lateen sails. One running before the wind like an enormous bird, wings spread. On a coral reef right off the light hangs a freighter much like ours, abandoned last October. S. and I decide not to see so much of each other.
Side note: So first… WHAT!?!? I’ve read all this before and kind of remember that last sentence, but don’t remember it being so matter of fact. It even has the same measured handwriting as all else (her handwriting is tidy, to say the least). My journal would have had one of two things woven into that sentence: a weak, pained chicken-scratch or an heavy-hearted bold. And in both cases, a splash or two of wine. Maybe she was doing the breaking off and Shag is off somewhere with a wine stained journal?? Stay tuned!
Lastly, that song lyric is from by Noel Coward and is about traveling near where she is traveling, but oooh boy the lyrics are a lot dated.
Flying Under the Radar 
