hope that enabled him to
triumph over the discomforts of the present, which left his companions
morose and snappish. "His spirits are even," wrote Glover, the
Admiral's secretary, at the equator, "and he appears perfectly
unconcerned about his fate."[545] His recreations were chess, which he
played with more vehemence than skill, and games of hazard, especially
_vingt-et-un_: he began to learn "le wisth" from our officers.
Sometimes he and Gourgaud amused themselves by extracting the square
and cube roots of numbers; he also began to learn English from Las
Cases. On some occasions he diverted his male companions with tales of
his adventures, both military and amorous. His interest in the ship
and in the events of the voyage did not flag. When a shark was caught
and hauled up, "Bonaparte with the eagerness of a schoolboy scrambled
on the poop to see it."

His health continued excellent. Despite his avoidance of vegetables
and an excessive consumption of meat, he suffered little from
indigestion, except during a few days of fierce sirocco wind off
Madeira. He breakfasted about 10 on meat and wine, and remained in his
cabin reading, dictating, or learning English, until about 3 p.m.,
when he played games and took exercise preparatory to dinner at 5.
After a full meal, in which he partook by preference of the most
highly dressed dishes of meat, he walked the deck for an hour or more.
On one evening, the Admiral begged to be excused owing to a heavy
equatorial rain-storm; but the ex-Emperor went up as usual, saying
that the rain would not hurt him any more than the sailors; and it did
not. The incident claims some notice: for it proves that, whatever
later writers may say as to his decline of vitality in 1815, he
himself was unaware of it, and braved with impunity a risk that a
vigorous naval officer preferred to avoid. Moreover, the mere fact
that he was able to keep up a heavy meat diet all through the tropics
bespeaks a constitution of exceptional strength, unimpaired as yet by
the internal malady which was to be his doom.

That one element of conviviality was not wanting at meals will appear
from the official return of the consumption of wine at the Admiral's
table by his seven French guests and six British officers: Port, 20
dozen; Claret, 45 dozen; Madeira, 22 dozen; Champagne, 13 dozen;
Sherry, 7 dozen; Malmsey, 5 dozen.[546] The "Peruvian" had been
detached from the squadron to Guernsey to lay in a stock of French