Dear Hellena

It is funny the way a currecy can cause the difference between a fit of madness and a funny joke. At the top of the gangway stood an impressive figure in white gloves with a suitcase open in front of him. His patter was convincing. That Africa was deadly and that all old hands would tell you to be prudent. There was malaria, mosquitoes and the dread anopheles and for the sake of a few dollars he would let us have this miricle cure. Nigel and Jane forked out so I thjought I had better follow suit. I managed to pay in shillings our merchant being more pleased with the shillings than a no sale. I opened the miricle cure and had a good laugh but not half as much as Nigel laughed. I take it he was off his head from laughter Nigel not being a vendictive person. It contained two wooden squares with a notice sandwhiched between them. "Hold one square in the right hand and the other in the left. Take aim and squash the mosquito between them"

Jane objected strongly to the boat trip. She seemed to think that a boat trip does you good if you are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for anything less than a week it is wicked.

You start on monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the lads on shore and swagger about the deck as if you are captaian Hook, Sir Francis Drake and Cristopher Colombus all rolled into one. One Tuesday you wish you had never come. On Wednesday, Thursday and friday you wish you were dead. On Saterday you are able to swallow a little balck tea, and sit on deck and answer in quiet little moans and give sweet little smiles when kind hearted people ask how you are feeling. On Sunday you begin to take in solid food and walk about the deck. On monday standing with bag and umbrella in hand, waiting to step ashore you begin to thoroughly like it.

Jane was most definately against the ferry boat. Not as she explained on her own account. She was never queer. She was afraid for Nigel. Nigel said he would be all right but that Keith and I should think it over as he felt sure that the both of us would be ill. keith said that to himself it was a mystery how people managed to get seasick and was convinced people mut do it on purpose to gain sympathy and attention. he had often wished to be seasick but had never been able.

Then he told us anecdotes of how he had gone accross the English Channel when it was so rough that the passanges had to be tied to their births and that he and the captain were the only two living souls that were not ill. Sometimes it was he and the first mate who were not ill but it was generally he and the captain who were not ill. And if it was not he with the first mate or the captain then it was he by himself.

It is a courious fact, but nobody is ever suseptible to being sea sick on land. On water you come across plenty people very bad indeed, whole boat loads of them. But I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was like to be sea sick. Where the thousands and thousands of bad sailors hide themselve when they are on lan is a mystery.

For myself, I have discovered an excellent preventitive against sea sickness, in balancing myself. You stand ni the centre of the deck and as the ship heaves and pitches you move your body about, so as to keep it alwas straght. When the front of the ship rises you lean forward till the deck almost touches your nose and when its backend gets up you lean backwards. This is all very well for an hour or two but you can't balance yourself for days on end.

Besides the fresh air and quiet and constant change of scenery would occupy our minds including what the was og Nigels and the sun would give us good appetite and make us sleep well. The catering on the ferry was to be recomended. For breakfast there would be fish, lunch at one consisted of four courses and dinner at six had fish, poultry, salad and desert followed by cheese and buscuits.

The first lunch of boiled beef, carrots strawberries and cream were easily stuffed down. The whole afternoon we felt like we had been eating strawberries and cream and boiled beef for weeks and at other times it seemed like we had been living off the for years.

Neither the beef nor the strawberries and cream seemed happy either, somehow discontented.

At six the anouncement that dinner was served aroused no enthusiasm amongst the others but as the ferry price included the food I got them all into the dining room. The pleasent odour of onions and hot mince mingles with fried fish and greens. When the steward came over with his oily smile Jane had to be helped to leave and be propped up over to leeward.

For the next four days Jane live a simple and blameless life on soda water and thin Captains buscuits. I mean the buscuits were thin not the captain. He weighed all of seventeen stone and I sometimes had to wonder if he was not on board as balast. Towards Saterday Jane got uppish and went in for week tea and dry toast and even a spoon of chicken broth. When we left the ship Jane gazed regretfully after it and sighed but we all knew that she was just putting on a brave face as were we.

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