We made, as well as we could, a tour of the vessel, laying firm hold of bulwarks and ropes and seats as we went. There were few people aboard, but there was a great deal of miscellaneous cargo on deck, beside the remains of the wrecked steamer’s engine-room. We coasted round a pile of petroleum barrels, coloured that hideous blue which identifies them anywhere; and then one of us fell over a basket full of squawking live ducks, voyaging to Plymouth market. Then, doubling a promontory of empty beer barrels, we came upon the engine-room, smelling to heaven with boiling oil and rancid fat. We could see it, bubbling and greasy, on the hot metal, and that “finished” us. We leant over the side of the vessel, and were very and continuously ill. * * * * * I think it must have been after the lapse of a few years that we came in sight of Plymouth Sound. Plymouth Sound is perhaps one of the most soul-stirring places in the world to an Englishman who knows its story; but we had had, were having, too much physical stirring to be even languidly interested in it, which shows, by the way, the gross enthraldom of mind by matter: soul-stirring has a poor chance when you’re fearfully sea-sick. [Illustration: BOLT HEAD.] We passed the Mewstone Buoy, and fondly imagined that, as the Breakwater came in sight, the threshing and the buffeting of the sea was done; but, though Plymouth seemed so near, it was a weary three miles yet, and Britannia only rules the waves in a metaphorical sense. Some one who passed us, unmoved by all the uproar of the sea, let off that antique joke. I could have killed him, but refrained: his time will come, without doubt. We landed at Millbay Docks, and never before was I so pleased to set foot on shore. The day had brightened considerably. We left our knapsacks at a cloak-room, and set out for a preliminary survey of Plymouth. We made at once for the Hoe: I suppose everybody does the same thing. The Hoe still affords a glorious outlook upon the Sound and the sea beyond, although a great deal of its western end has been quarried away for building operations. There, third or fifth-rate streets and tramways conspire to render sordid a neighbourhood which any other nation than our own would have kept sacred, both for the satisfying of the æsthetic and the patriotic instinct. But we have, I suppose, despite the wind-bags of that House of Zephyrs at Westminster, so much glorious tradition that we can afford the destruction, or partial desecration, of sites historic in the best sense. We can even afford, so imperishable are our laurels, to set up memorials of our achievements in arms, memorials whose uninspired tawdriness would wither with unconscious ridicule the scanty bays of other nations.