ls for board, &c. Of
course these claims are not listened to. It is a common contrivance with
Jack and these sharks, to endeavor to extort money out of their ships.

The process is simple enough. The landlord gives Jack a glass or two of
bad liquor, and it may be, a meal or two, and it is agreed between them
that a bill of twenty times the value received shall be acknowledged.
The land-shark charges in this exorbitant way for the risk he runs of
not being able to get anything, so he has nothing to complain of when he
happens to come across a captain who is disposed to protect his seamen
from such extortion. Knowing the villains well, I did not permit them to
impose upon me.

_Thursday, September 24th._--Waiting for the chance of getting over my
deserters from Cape Town. Informed by telegraph, in the afternoon, that
it was useless to wait longer, as the police declined to act. It thus
appears that the authorities declined to enable me to recover my
men--fourteen in number, enough to cripple my crew. This is another of
those remarkable interpretations of neutrality in which John Bull seems
to be so particularly fertile. Informed by telegrams from Cape Town that
vessels had arrived reporting the Vanderbilt on two successive days off
Cape Aguthas and Point Danger. The moon being near its full, I preferred
not to have her blockade me in Simon's Bay, as it might detain me until
I should have a "dark moon," and being all ready for sea, this would
have been irksome; so the gale having lulled somewhat, towards 9 P.M., I
ordered steam to be got up, and at half-past eleven, we moved out from
our anchors.

The lull only deceived us, as we had scarcely gotten under way, before
the gale raged with increased violence, and we were obliged to buffet it
with all the force of our four boilers. The wind blew fiercely; but
still we drove her between five and six knots per hour in the very teeth
of it.

Nothing could exceed the peculiar weird-like aspect of the scene, as we
struggled under the full moonlight with the midnight gale. The
surrounding mountains and high lands, seemingly at a great distance in
the hazy atmosphere, had their tops piled with banks of fleecy clouds,
remaining as motionless as snow-banks, which they very much
resembled--the cold south wind assisting the illusion; the angry waters
of the bay breaking in every direction, occasionally dashing on board of
us; the perfectly clear sky, with no sign of a cloud anywhere