Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope.
March 28th,1840.
My dear Grandfather *1
Having promised to write to you from St. Helena I dare say you expected ere this, to have received a letter from me, my promise was not intentionally broken but having delayed till the last moment that you might hear the latest news of the expedition, I was unexpectedly thwarted in my purpose about an hour before the letter bag closed, by being asked to visit a man on board a ship in the roads. In my letter to my father I explained what my duties were on board, & as you once requested me to let you know what routine I followed on board when I should be settled, I shall describe a common days work to you, premising that the fine weather we have had, was much more favourable to working than the Antarctic Sea will in all probability be. Except in the want of exercising at arms, quarters & other strictly military duty the ships are regulated in true man of war style. The Captain lives alone in his cabin in solitary grandeur, inviting some of his inferiors at times to dine with him. The 3 Lieutenants, Surgeon, Purser & Master, form another, the gunroom mess, Wilmot the Artillery officer whose duty it will be to conduct the observatory here for 3 years messed in the gunroom. Our mess, consisting of the 3 Mates (or passed Midshipmen*2) the second Master & myself form the third mess. The Warrant Officers, Boatswain, Gunners & Carpenter also have a small mess place. At ½ past 7 all turn out to breakfast which is over at ½ past 8, after breakfast the sick are attended to, there are never above 4 on the sick list at a time often not above one or two so that even adding those who have ailments not requiring them to be put upon the list this seldom takes up above ½ an hour. From 9 when I take the Dewpoint until 12 I am my own master. during this time I have some calculations for the captain to make in a sort of Meteorological Journal, besides my German lessons. At 12 the hands are piped to dinner. I take the Dewpoint again, dine & after dinner go to draw as by that time the towing net has has generally yielded something. We never take tea, but sup at ½ past 7 from which time to 11 or 12 I am most generally drawing or describing in the Captain's Cabin, the evening between 6 -- 9 being the most productive time for Marine Animal culle[?], my work sometimes does not begin till then, & when it does, it is often no joke, the specimens being minute & they will not keep to be worth examining next morning -- This is my general routine of sea life, any thing but monotonous, besides which at times there are my Journals to make up[,] notes to copy, plants to change & the like. The "Terror" is a worse sailor than we are & always astern so we seldom communicate, about once a month or so at sea, when the boats are lowered & we exchange calls.

The other day we lay becalmed for some time near shore, when the Captain commenced dredging with the net in 200 fathoms of water? I of course superintended with him, & with one haul we drew up 30 different kinds of animals, corals. shrimps, crabs, red blooded worms, sponges & no sea weed or any trace of a submarine vegetation, which grievously disappointed me. The Captain sounds every day in the deep sea, with 2 -- 500 fathoms of line & draws up water from different depths of which he takes the temperature & specific gravity, this is hardly ever omitted. The ships in the mean time are hove to & we communicate our longitude, latitude, magnetic variation & slip to the "Terror" by signals, she exchanging hers to us. It would be a most interesting sight for anyone to see two ships hove to in the middle of the Atlantic, with flag signals flying alternately at their mast heads, all the ships company stamping along the decks with a thick sounding line to any tune the fiddler strikes up, he has favoured us with Rob Roy very much of late. This sounding in 500 fathoms is hard work as the line requires to be very thick & strong:-- whale line generally is used & when wetted by immersion requires all the men to haul it up again. Self registering thermometers, & peculiar bottles for bringing the water up from any depths, Massey's*3 & other logs &c. are attached to it. The water from a great depth when brought up is very cold, & foams exactly like soda water & is much less salt than the surface water. We have three or four times tried for bottom with an immense length of line but hardly ever fully succeeded[,] once we did & then gained the bottom with 2477 fathoms!!! The line prepared was 30,000 feet long & of three different kinds, that next to the sinker (of 3 cwt) was just strong enough to hold it, an intervening thicker kind was prepared of what is called spun yarn & the remainder was whale line, a strong small rope. -- Of course very little of the line was rewound again, it breaking on the attempt to haul it up.
In my letter home I told how kindly I had been received by Mr Muir's family, it seemed as if there could be no end to their attentions for not content with feeding me during my stay they sent me on my departure so many oranges & grapes that I did not know what to do with them, most refreshing they were in the hot weather, when we ate them in prodigious quantities. I also told my father of Mr Johnstone who visited me one day on

board who I met afterwards with his wife & some relations at Mr Muir's. They invited me to spend a day (which was fixed upon) with them but then our abrupt departure of course frustrated my intentions. On passing through the Tropics we had the most delightful weather rather hot I must own but with very little rain. Our long cruise from the Cape de Verde to St Helena, upwards of 70 days soon ate into our provisions, first our cheeses, hams potatoes rice, salt fish went steadily & surely till we were thrown alltogether upon ships provisions consisting of Beef, Pork & biscuit, for breakfast, dinner & supper. The Beef is atrociously bad salt junk that has been in cask for 40 years & perhaps more. The salt pork is very good but too fat so that we had to take up more than our allowance to get a meal. The biscuit is good enough in its way. Our tea has grown mouldy with the damp. A gill of grog each day (the best rum) is the only other allowance granted by the Navy, we had further 1oz of pickles & 1oz of lemon juice to every man daily to keep the scurvy out of our bones. On Christmas Day some fresh preserved provisions meats were given out & we all dined in the gun room. On New Years day the Captain gave us all a party. On Sundays, the Captain & one out [part of mss missing] our mess dine in the Gunroom & the Captain occasionally gives din. himself. On Sunday mornings we all assemble to Divine service on the lower deck except the watch & officers required to keep the ship. The Captain reads the service the Purser acting as clerk. -- A pulpit is rudely put up or rather a reading desk covered with an ensign. Since arriving here we have lost the artillery officer who is to take charge of the Cape Observatory & with him 5 men & 2 women who had a passage given them with us & I'm very sorry to lose Wilmot, but the men having previously occupied the sick bay their departure has given that place up to us Naturalists & a great comfort it is as it st is spacious & hitherto I have been very much at a loss where to lay out my plants not liking to take advantage of the Captains cabin for so extensive a job & our berth being too full during the day to grant me room enough. Hitherto I have always laid them out & changed them after my messmates have turned in which often kept me up very late after my excursions, further until the Captain had reduced his cabin into order I had no place to put my collections & they used to get soundly kicked about the lower deck: now however I have a nice cabinet where there is nothing to fear but the

universal dampness of the ship. & a few cockroaches which did me some little damage eating out the stems of some plants & leaving the leaves. I have just laid my hands upon Mr Johnson's card. Andrew Johnson is his name & he passed on board with a Miss Hudderston, Ellis, & Reid & one or two other ladies, he has a very pretty place the "Palle" near Funchal. I was much concerned at hearing from Mr Bowie of the Ludwigsburgh Garden*4 of Allen Cunningham's*5 death. The Duke of Bedford's too I heard off too.
By the bye I have been much disappointed at not being able to *6 get any German books at Cape Town. I have been boring over a little grammar, Donatti's. Will you send over to Van Diemen's Land*7 any odd books you can in German, especially my 3 vol[ume] bible, you gave me years ago & a dictionary. -- I have asked my father for a book of Nee's*8 (Phil[osophy] Bot[any) which is in English Latin & German.
Believe me my very dear parent as usual | Jos D Hooker [signature]