While the crews thus named are preparing their boats for the expedition, volunteers in plenty are sending in their names; for a seining, or in other words a fishing-party, which involves a run on shore and a sort of picnic on the beach, is always popular on board a man-of-war. At this time too, we had been nearly a month at sea, and our store of fresh meat in the wardroom having soon been exhausted, we had been living on the ship’s provisions for a fortnight past; and H.M.’s salt beef (generally though disrespectfully known as ‘salt horse’), never very popular at any time, had become extremely distasteful to our palates, though our Chinese cooks had exhausted their science and our patience in inventing new methods of cooking the obnoxious article. I may mention here that the _Lyre_ formed part of a squadron which had assembled in the Straits for the suppression of piracy, for the inhabitants of the Malay states have an interesting custom, handed down from remote ages, of making indiscriminate war on each other. The British government, not taking the view that this was a wise dispensation of Providence for getting rid of a useless race by mutual extermination, instead of leaving them to settle their disputes like the famous Kilkenny cats, resolved to put down this lawless state of affairs with a strong hand; so some of the powers that be, arranged a scheme for sweeping the rivers of the piratical craft which infested them. The plan was beautifully simple and efficacious in theory: part of the squadron was to ascend a branch of the Salangore River, and drive all the boats they should find there round to the Langhat River, where the remainder, of which the captain of the _Lyre_ had command, was to catch them. It ought to have been a success; but somehow or other the ungrateful pirates declined to come out of their hiding-places and be captured; and after spending a fortnight at anchor without making a single haul, our only duty being to send a detachment occasionally to relieve the guard at a stockade we had taken, we began to get tired of the cruise and the invariable ‘salt horse,’ boiled, fried, or devilled, that formed the ‘standing part’ of every meal; so that any proposal to break the monotony of our daily grind, such as this seining-party promised, was eagerly welcomed both by officers and men.