the same man when drunk flew at the captain like a tiger, and had to be taken below and fastened to the main-deck like a wild beast, spread-eagle fashion, to keep him quiet. Of the captain and officers, on the other hand, we see a great deal. Nothing can exceed their patience in listening to anything, reasonable or unreasonable, which the passengers have to say or to complain of, and in answering any questions, sensible or foolish. It is a hard, wearing, anxious life for them, requiring nerve, temper, and power of endurance. A ship often has only two responsible officers, so that each has at least half of every night for his watch on deck (in all weathers be it remembered) in addition to his work by day. Yet for this a chief officer gets the miserable pittance of 7_l._ a month, and a second mate and doctor 5_l._ a month, sometimes even less, ceasing immediately at the end of the voyage. One could wish that the great shipowners, wealthy as they must be, were a little more liberal in this respect. The butcher, on the other hand, is a man of capital, and comes furnished with a crowd of bulldogs, canary-birds, thrushes, and other animals, which bring him in a handsome profit at the end of the voyage. The _Mercia_ is a sailing-ship, as all but two of the Australian ships are, and has no auxiliary screw. It is a real pleasure, for once, to be out of the way of steam-power, to be entirely at the mercy of winds and waves, and dependent on good old-fashioned seamanship. If a voyage lasts longer without steam, it is far more interesting and pleasant. There is an interest in seeing the sails worked, in pulling at a rope now and then. There is a little excitement in watching for a change of wind, in welcoming the moment in bad weather when the sensitive aneroid ceases falling and takes a turn, in anticipating a good or a bad day’s run, in tracing the sometimes tortuous course on the chart, in speculating on the chance of an island being sighted or passed three or four hundred miles off. And in the morning there is something to be said about what the ship has done in the night; perhaps she has unexpectedly been put on the other tack, whereby somebody who had gone to sleep with his window open got a sea into his cabin. Or a sail has been split, or a spar carried away by a squall. All this is better at any rate than the everlasting monotonous throb of a steamer’s screw, the uniform day’s run which you can predict within twenty knots, the even sameness of the course drawn like a straight line across the ocean, and the smoke and smells of steam and oil (it is castor-oil) of the engines. And as for beauty, to stand by the wheel on the poop of a large ship, when the wind is light and fair and the studding-sails are set, projecting like wings over the ship’s sides, and to look up amongst the towering curves of canvas and the maze of ropes and spars, is a very beautiful sight, a sight which tourists do not often see