I was cordially welcomed on the _Araguaya_, a fine ship of over 10,000 tons, by my old friend Captain Pope, with whom I had made my first voyage to Brazil nearly a quarter of a century before. There was a full complement of passengers, including (at the captain's table with me) Sir John Benn, _ex_-chairman of the London County Council and {187} M.P. for Devonport, also Canon Valois de Castro, representative of S. Paulo in the Federal Parliament. I landed at none of the Brazilian ports, the ascent and descent of steep companions, sometimes in a heavy swell, being hardly compatible with my semi-blind condition. Leaving Pernambuco, I looked rather wistfully at the unforgotten heights of Olinda, and wondered if I should ever see Brazil's low green shores again. Sir John was my chief companion on deck: he was a clever artist, and kept me amused with his delightful sketches of famous Parliamentarians--Disraeli, Gladstone, R. Churchill, Redmond, Parnell, Hartington, and many others--as well as of some of the more eccentric of our fellow-passengers. At our table was an agreeable captain of the Brazilian Navy, going to Barrow-in-Furness to bring out their new Dreadnought, the _São Paulo_. His 400 bluejackets were on board, smartly dressed in British fashion; but he confided to us that most of them were raw recruits, and that some had never seen the sea till they boarded the _Araguaya_! As our voyage progressed he grew more and more _distrait_, lost, no doubt, in speculation as to how he and his heterogeneous crew were ever going to get their big new battleship from Barrow to Rio. I never heard how they got on.[11] At Madeira I went ashore to see the Consul (Boyle, a cousin of Glasgow's) and his pleasant wife, sat for an hour with them enjoying the enchanting view, and returned on board in company (as I afterwards discovered) with three professional card-sharpers, who, having been warned off Madeira, were returning more or less _incog._ to England. The last days of {188} our voyage were made in a fog that never lifted--an anxious time for my friend the captain. We never sighted Ushant light at all, and steamed far past Cherbourg, to which we had to return dead slow, our dreary foghorn sounding continually all night long. However, it cleared quite suddenly, and we raced across the Channel in bright sunshine, but reached Southampton so late that a kind brother who had come down to meet me there had been obliged to return to London.