The ride, however, showed that I was in good condition. I have always tried to keep myself fit, holding that condition of body regulates condition of mind. Cheery people deserve small credit, because their frame of mind is due to their being right inside. Quarrelsome people are wrong inside.
On our way to England we touched at the Falkland Islands where I visited a relative of mine who kept a ranch. He used bull-dogs to catch his bulls, when he required them for branding. The dogs seized the bulls by the nose and held them while they were lassoed by the guachos.
When we touched at Montevideo, I remember conversing with various persons, who foretold the immense profit which must eventually accrue if the land there was purchased at that time. Their opinion has since proved true. But I had no money to invest; so that the opportunity was only another instance of what might have been.
The _Galatea_ was badly strained in a gale of wind, her deck seams opening so that the water streamed into the cabins beneath. One lieutenant used to say to another:
"How did you sleep last night? It was pretty rough.
"Woke at one o'clock and saw them reefing tops'ls"--meaning that, lying in bed, he could see clear through the seams.
I used my sail-making ability to make a canvas awning { 108} for my bed; fitted it with a ridge rope, laced it down and hauled it taut, led a trough from it to take the water into the slop-pail; and slept dry under it.
It was during the visit of the _Galatea_ to Australia that I was made a Freemason; and I have always regretted that I have never been able to devote as much time to Masonry as I should have liked to give to the Craft. The Australian Lodge into which I was admitted was under the impression that I was the most timid neophyte who had ever joined it.
When the ceremony was ended, one of the members of the Lodge said to me:
"You are safely through it. But do you know that of all the men we have had through this lodge, we never had one so paralysed with fear as yourself. You were shivering like an aspen!"
The fact was that during the initiatory ceremonies something unaccountably struck me as extraordinarily funny. The effort to subdue my emotions caused me to tremble all over.