We have now finished sailing west and have begun going
east. We are therefore now meeting the sun and it necessary to put clocks and
watches on. Thus today the interval between breakfast and lunch was shortened
by half an hour.
It is interesting how large an importance is given to
meals when activity in other respects is curtailed as it must be to some degree
on board a ship. Nothing goes by the clock, everything is timed by on meal
times. Since the meals are served on the tick of time I suppose all this is
merely two ways of saying the same thing!
We are not so isolated as you might imagine when at
sea. Periodically there is published on board news from the British Wireless
Press – and other countries - notably
France as far as we concerned here – issue similar communiques.
For some part of today we have been sailing within
sight of the African coast. We can just make out the long sandy shore and the
dark green of multitudes of trees beyond. With the glass one can distinguish the
typically tropical trees. The sea dashes on the sand (much as it does at Woolacombe)
making a conspicuous white line all along the shore. This sand stretches for
hundreds, even thousands of miles. We could follow it from here to the Cape if
we cared to!
We cannot see far inland as the ground is not high
until one gets a good way inland - that is quite far out of sight. The African
continent is rather like an enormous inverted saucer with the addition of a
flat edge: at present we can only see
the flat rim. We shall gradually climb the inland plateau as we go up the Congo
river, but as we only rise 12 inches (approx.) for every mile we go it seems
very flat although we are really (or shall be!) rising steadily all the time.
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