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words would testify his appreciation of their kindness; and he concluded by begging me to pray
that he might have grace sufficient to keep him from his old vice, intemperance, when he should
arrive in Australia. This man's behaviour on board is irreproachable. What a glorious thing -
how practically good was it of these people to attend these haunts of misery, and thus rescue a
fellow-creature from famine and despair. This poor fellow who could get no work in England,
will obtain, as I am told, four or five shillings a day in Australia.
'21 May: Many complaints are made to me of the infidelity which prevails on board. A
Calvinistic Methodist told me that he had a hot argument yesterday with a number of the
disciples of Tom Paine, and that after having exhausted ail
67
S. Across to Australia
The Lady McNaghten forged eastwards, along the invisible 38th parallel of latitude between the
Indian and Southern Oceans. Heavy seas and gaies were usual here, as other diarists attest.
Celeste de Chabrilian, wife of the French consul journeying to Melbourne in 1854, was on a
ship struck by a gale soon after leaving Cape Town. She wrote: 'Three sails were torn as if they
had been made of paper. Their shreds beat against the masts with dreadful violence; the wind
alternately crowed like a cock or hissed like a nestful of serpents; that night seemed to last a
hundred years.'
Those ships sailing the Great Circle route went much further south and experienced the worst of
the weather.
John Fenwick: 'Have had a very squatiy tempestuous night - going at a fearful rate at times... All
day weather ditto - Lee scuppers a long way under. Sea very high... 9pm the ship seems to be
going faster than ever... and every now and then dashing into a sea with a shock that makes
every plank tremble.' A day later: 'We had a very heavy wind till 8.0 pm and much rain. During
these squalls the sea had risen considerably. The waves were tremendous and yet magnificent.
The first really heavy sea came over about seven o'clock - with a shock as if we had gone
ashore - every light forward, and the galley fires, were put out.1
Fanny Davis: 'Of all the days we have had for wind since we sailed this is decidedly the worst; it
blows a perfect hurricane. We have only two sails up and the sea seems to move all in one huge
mass.' Dr Lightoller: 'Blowing a gale of wind and a very heavy sea, wind abeam... I was on my
way back to the poop when I saw a tremendous sea coming up. I rushed into the sailors' deck
house just in time to save myself, when bang like a clap of thunder came the sea; the vessel
shook and trembled as if she were coming to pieces and a soiid mass of water came over, filling
her decks up to the bulwarks... ripped open the covering to the main hatch and sent gallons of
water pouring down between decks... I never saw such a sea in my life... The people below
are in a deuce of a funk; singing hymns and praying is the order of the day.'
On the Lady McNaghten, the Rev John Mereweather recorded a disaster involving a loss of
life.
'About 5.0 pm one of the ship's apprentices, a fine and good iad, the son of a widow, was
hauled from the rnizzen mast into the sea by a very heavy roll of the ship. The two buoys were
immediately thrown towards himr but he could catch neither on account of the heavy sea
running, although he struck out boldly. The lifeboat was then lowered with the two mates and
two sailors in it, as volunteers, but the tackle being rotten, broke at the end, and the four were
launched into the water. With great difficulty they were drawn by ropes up the vessel's side, but
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