This comes from an account of a 12-day sailing trip from Weston-super-Mare in Somerset to the Scilly Isles in the last two weeks of September 1855 made by Wilkie Collins and his close friend Edward Francis Smyth Pigott. — The Schoolmarm
. . . At Bristol we plunged over head and ears in naval business immediately. After ordering a ham, and a tongue, marmalade, lemons, anchovy paste, and general groceries, we set forth to the quay to equip ourselves and our vessel. We began with charts, sailing directions, and a compass; we got on to a hammock a-piece and a flag; and we rose to a nautical climax by buying tarpaulin-coats, leggings, and sou'-westers, at a sailors' public-house. With these sea stores, and with a noble loaf of home-made bread (the offering of private benevolence) we left Bristol to scour the friendly country beyond, in search of further contributions to the larder of the Tomtit. . . .
