8 A.M.  Passing Isle de Bourbon.  Broken-up sky-line of volcanic mountains in the middle.  Surely it would not cost much to repair them, and it seems inexcusable neglect to leave them as they are.

It seems stupid to send tired men to Europe to rest.  It is no proper rest for the mind to clatter from town to town in the dust and cinders, and examine galleries and architecture, and be always meeting people and lunching and teaing and dining, and receiving worrying cables and letters.  And a sea voyage on the Atlantic is of no use—­voyage too short, sea too rough.  The peaceful Indian and Pacific Oceans and the long stretches of time are the healing thing.

May 2, am.  A fair, great ship in sight, almost the first we have seen in these weeks of lonely voyaging.  We are now in the Mozambique Channel, between Madagascar and South Africa, sailing straight west for Delagoa Bay.

Last night, the burly chief engineer, middle-aged, was standing telling a spirited seafaring tale, and had reached the most exciting place, where a man overboard was washing swiftly astern on the great seas, and uplifting despairing cries, everybody racing aft in a frenzy of excitement and fading hope, when the band, which had been silent a moment, began impressively its closing piece, the English national anthem.  As simply as if he was unconscious of what he was doing, he stopped his story, uncovered, laid his laced cap against his breast, and slightly bent his grizzled head.  The few bars finished, he put on his cap and took up his tale again, as naturally as if that interjection of music had been a part of it.  There was something touching and fine about it, and it was moving to reflect that he was one of a myriad, scattered over every part of the globe, who by turn was doing as he was doing every hour of the twenty-four—­those awake doing it while the others slept—­those impressive bars forever floating up out of the various climes, never silent and never lacking reverent listeners.

All that I remember about Madagascar is that Thackeray’s little Billie went up to the top of the mast and there knelt him upon his knee, saying, “I see

               “Jerusalem and Madagascar,
               And North and South Amerikee.”

May 3.  Sunday.  Fifteen or twenty Africanders who will end their voyage to-day and strike for their several homes from Delagoa Bay to-morrow, sat up singing on the afterdeck in the moonlight till 3 A.M.  Good fun and wholesome.  And the songs were clean songs, and some of them were hallowed by tender associations.  Finally, in a pause, a man asked, “Have you heard about the fellow that kept a diary crossing the Atlantic?” It was a discord, a wet blanket.  The men were not in the mood for humorous dirt.  The songs had carried them to their homes, and in spirit they sat by those far hearthstones, and saw faces and heard voices other than those that were about them.  And so this disposition to drag