The Chief Engineer showed me the engine room

TCD MS 10515 folio 12r

TCD MS 10515 folio 12r

[March 4th 1916] points North. Beautiful weather with a gentle head wind and a calm sea, giving the ship a slight, scarcely perceptile roll. We are some thirty miles off the Baluchistan coast, but no land is visible; the haze obscures the dust, which, on a clear day, should be easily visible at so short a distance. The Chief Engineer showed me the engine room and explained the principles of the machinery, though I confess I felt lost in the maze of cranks and pistons and revolving shafts. Some of our Gurkhas also paid a visit. Of all their stange experiences within the last ten days; aeroplanes, ships, deserts, great cities, the open sea, flying fish and many others, new, almost unimaginable to these simple hill-men, none amazed them so much as the mighty fabric of complex machinery