Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo by William Makepeace Thackeray

Author:William Makepeace Thackeray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ManyBooks.net

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CHAPTER IX

: THE WHITE SQUALL

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On deck, beneath the awning, I dozing lay and yawning; It was the grey of dawning, Ere yet the sun arose; And above the funnel's roaring, And the fitful wind's deploring, I heard the cabin snoring With universal nose. I could hear the passengers snorting, I envied their disporting: Vainly I was courting The pleasure of a doze. So I lay, and wondered why light Came not, and watched the twilight And the glimmer of the skylight, That shot across the deck; And the binnacle pale and steady, And the dull glimpse of the dead-eye, And the sparks in fiery eddy, That whirled from the chimney neck: In our jovial floating prison There was sleep from fore to mizen, And never a star had risen The hazy sky to speck.

Strange company we harboured; We'd a hundred Jews to larboard, Unwashed, uncombed, uubarbered, Jews black, and brown, and grey; With terror it would seize ye, And make your souls uneasy, To see those Rabbis greasy, Who did nought but scratch and pray: Their dirty children pucking, Their dirty saucepans cooking, Their dirty fingers hooking Their swarming fleas away.

To starboard Turks and Greeks were, Whiskered, and brown their cheeks were, Enormous wide their breeks were, Their pipes did puff alway; Each on his mat allotted, In silence smoked and squatted, Whilst round their children trotted In pretty, pleasant play. He can't but smile who traces The smiles on those brown faces, And the pretty prattling graces Of those small heathens gay.

And so the hours kept tolling, And through the ocean rolling, Went the brave "Iberia" bowling Before the break of day - When a SQUALL upon a sudden Came o'er the waters scudding; And the clouds began to gather, And the sea was lashed to lather, And the lowering thunder grumbled, And the lightning jumped and tumbled, And the ship, and all the ocean, Woke up in wild commotion.

Then the wind set up a howling, And the poodle-dog a yowling, And the cocks began a crowing, And the old cow raised a lowing, As she heard the tempest blowing; And fowls and geese did cackle, And the cordage and the tackle Began to shriek and crackle; And the spray dashed o'er the funnels, And down the deck in runnels; And the rushing water soaks all, From the seamen in the fo'ksal To the stokers, whose black faces Peer out of their bed-places; And the captain he was bawling, And the sailors pulling, hauling; And the quarter-deck tarpauling Was shivered in the squalling; And the passengers awaken, Most pitifully shaken; And the steward jumps up, and hastens For the necessary basins.

Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered, And they knelt, and moaned, and shivered, As the plunging waters met them, And splashed and overset them; And they call in their emergence Upon countless saints and virgins; And their marrowbones are bended, And they think the world is ended.

And the Turkish women for'ard Were frightened and

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