7 p.m.
I tried to revive the subject , but he was reserved and diffident . The untidy bookshelf reminded me of the logbook , and when Davies had retired with the crockery to the forecastle , I pulled the ledger down and turned over the leaves . It was a mass of short entries , with cryptic abbreviations , winds , tides , weather , and courses appearing to predominate . The voyage from Dover to Ostend was dismissed in two lines : ` Under way 7 p.m. , wind W.S.W. moderate ; West Hinder 5 a.m. , outside all banks ; Ostend 11 a.m. ' The Scheldt had a couple of pages very technical and _ staccato _ in style . Inland Holland was given a contemptuous summary , with some half-hearted allusions to windmills , and so on , and a caustic word or two about boys , paint , and canal smells . At Amsterdam technicalities began again , and a brisker tone pervaded the entries , which became progressively fuller as the writer cruised on the Frisian coast . He was clearly in better spirits , for here and there were quaint and laboured efforts to describe nature out of material which , as far as I could judge , was repellent enough to discourage the most brilliant and observant of writers ; with an occasional note of a visit on shore , generally reached by a walk of half a mile over sand , and of talks with shop people and fishermen .