We made the run to Singapore at the change of the monsoon, towards the end of September; and at that time a quiet passage is likely, unless you are so unlucky as to encounter one of the cyclones which frequently attend the break-up of the season at this transition period. There is a tendency nowadays to discredit the equinox as a storm-breeder. As regards the particular day, doubtless recognition of a general fact may have lapsed into superstition as to a date; but in considering the phenomena of the monsoons, the great fixed currents of air blowing alternately to or from the heated or cooled continent of Asia, it seems only reasonable, when the two are striving for predominance, to expect the uncertain and at times terrific weather which as a matter of experience does occur about the period of the autumnal equinox in the India and China seas. But after we had made our southing from Bombay our course lay nearly due east, with a fresh, fair, west wind, within five degrees of the equator, a zone wherein cyclonic disturbance seldom intrudes. One of the complaints made by residents against the climate of Singapore, so pleasant to a stranger, is the wearisome monotony. Close to the equator, it has too much sameness of characteristic; _toujours perdrix_. Winter doubtless adds to our appreciation of summer. For all that, I personally am ready to dispense with snow. From Singapore, another commercial centre with variety of inhabitants, we carried the same smooth water up to Manila, where we stopped a few days for coal. This was the first of two visits paid while on the station to this port, which not our wildest imagination expected ever to see under our flag. Long as American eyes had been fixed upon Cuba, in the old days of negro slavery, it had occurred to none, I fancy, to connect possession of that island with these distant Spanish dependencies. Here our quiet environment was lost. The northeast monsoon had set in in full force when we started for Hong Kong, and the run across was made under steam and fore-and-aft canvas, which we were able to carry close on the wind; a wet passage, throwing a good deal of water about, but with a brilliant sky and delightful temperature. It would be hard to exaggerate the beauty of the weather which this wind brings. In the northern American states we have autumnal spells like it; but along the Chinese coast it continues in uninterrupted succession of magnificent days, with hardly a break for three or four months; an invigorating breeze always blowing, the thermometer ranging between 50 deg. and 60 deg., a cloudless sky, the air perfectly dry, so that furniture and wood fittings shrink, and crack audibly. As rain does not fall during this favored season, the dust becomes objectionable; but that drawback does not extend to shipboard. The man must be unreasonable who doubts life being worth living during the northeast monsoon. Hong Kong is just within the tropics, and