The officers have such a hard life on board. They have to get up before sunrise, and if any of them is at all disobedient he is told to climb up the mast and sit in a kind of basket for several hours with nothing to do. As for the sailors, they live in a dark hole with scarcely any light in it and no air at all. I asked one of them whether this didn’t give them a headache, and he said that some clever mathematician had invented a kind of fan which buzzed round and round so as to ventilate their cabin. He said this was a horrible invention, and made such a draught that nobody could sleep. If you live at sea, he told me, you want to be warm in your cabin. You have quite enough fresh air on deck. Julius said this showed how perverse and conservative sailors are. If he was the captain of a ship he would make the sailors sleep on deck in hammocks without any blankets. The sailor said they were all thankful Julius was a politician and not a sailor. And Julius, who has no sense of humour, thought it was meant as a compliment. There have been heaps of visitors on board all the ships. The captain of the _Servius Tullius_ said it was wonderful what an interest people took in the fleet now, and what intelligent questions they asked, especially the women. I was rather flattered by this, as I have always taken an intelligent interest in naval things, and I had only just said to him (to show I wasn’t ignorant) that my favourite boat was a _spinnaker_. To-morrow there are going to be some races. I am going to try to get Lucius Aemilius to take me on board his schooner, the _Hirundo_. I always think a schooner is a safer boat than a cutter. I don’t really like racing, because nobody will talk to one, and the men are all so rude and absent-minded while the race is going on, and whatever one does one is always in the way and in the wrong place, but I shall get rid of Julius for a whole day, because he is a very bad sailor and nothing would drag him on board a racing yacht. Capreae is terribly crowded. I was invited upon Sejanus’ yacht, but I think it much more comfortable to live in the most uncomfortable villa than in the most comfortable yacht. There is no privacy in a yacht, and salt water ruins my skin. Our villa, which we have hired for the week, is quite clean, only there is only one bath in it, so that we all have to use it by turn.