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after and wondered at; strange ships had to be scrutinized through
opera-glasses, and sage decisions arrived at concerning them; and more
than that, everybody took a personal interest in seeing that the flag was
run up and politely dipped three times in response to the salutes of
those strangers; in the smoking room there were always parties of
gentlemen playing euchre, draughts and dominoes, especially dominoes,
that delightfully harmless game; and down on the main deck, "for'rard"
-
-for'rard of the chicken-coops and the cattle--we had what was called
horse billiards." Horse billiards is a fine game. It affords good,
active exercise, hilarity, and consuming excitement. It is a mixture of
hop-scotch" and shuffleboard played with a crutch. A large hop-scotch
"
"
diagram is marked out on the deck with chalk, and each compartment
numbered. You stand off three or four steps, with some broad wooden
disks before you on the deck, and these you send forward with a vigorous
thrust of a long crutch. If a disk stops on a chalk line, it does not
count anything. If it stops in division No. 7, it counts 7; in 5, it
counts 5, and so on. The game is 100, and four can play at a time. That
game would be very simple played on a stationary floor, but with us, to
play it well required science. We had to allow for the reeling of the
ship to the right or the left. Very often one made calculations for a
heel to the right and the ship did not go that way. The consequence was
that that disk missed the whole hopscotch plan a yard or two, and then
there was humiliation on one side and laughter on the other.
When it rained the passengers had to stay in the house, of course--or at
least the cabins--and amuse themselves with games, reading, looking out
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