There were just two other passengers on that beastly boat, and
they never appeared till we were out of the Bay. I was pretty bad
myself, but managed to move about all the time, for the frowst in
my cabin would have sickened a hippo. The old tub took two days
and a night to waddle from Ushant to Finisterre. Then the weather
changed and we came out of snow-squalls into something very like
summer. The hills of Portugal were all blue and yellow like the
Kalahari, and before we made the Tagus I was beginning to forget
I had ever left Rhodesia. There was a Dutchman among the sailors
with whom I used to patter the taal, and but for 'Good morning'
and 'Good evening' in broken English to the captain, that was
about all the talking I did on the cruise.

We dropped anchor off the quays of Lisbon on a shiny blue
morning, pretty near warm enough to wear flannels. I had now
got to be very wary. I did not leave the ship with the shore-going
boat, but made a leisurely breakfast. Then I strolled on deck, and
there, just casting anchor in the middle of the stream, was another
ship with a blue and white funnel I knew so well. I calculated
that a month before she had been smelling the mangrove swamps
of Angola. Nothing could better answer my purpose. I proposed
to board her, pretending I was looking for a friend, and come
on shore from her, so that anyone in Lisbon who chose to be
curious would think I had landed straight from Portuguese
Africa.

I hailed one of the adjacent ruffians, and got into his rowboat,
with my kit. We reached the vessel - they called her the _Henry the
Navigator_ - just as the first shore-boat was leaving. The crowd in it
were all Portuguese, which suited my book.