On this day the _Spray_ was trying to stand on her head, and she gave me every reason to believe that she would accomplish the feat before night.

She began very early in the morning to pitch and toss about in a most unusual manner, and I have to record that, while I was at the end of the bowsprit reefing the jib, she ducked me under water three times for a Christmas box.

I got wet and did not like it a bit: never in any other sea was I put under more than once in the same short space of time, say three minutes.

A large English steamer passing ran up the signal, "Wishing you a Merry Christmas." I think the captain was a humorist; his own ship was throwing her propeller out of water.
Two days later, the _Spray_, having recovered the distance lost in the gale, passed Cape Agulhas in company with the steamship _Scotsman_, now with a fair wind.

The keeper of the light on Agulhas exchanged signals with the _Spray_ as she passed, and afterward wrote me at New York congratulations on the completion of the voyage.