We had now entered colder latitudes, where we were glad to put away the easy-chairs and fold up the awning, and in lieu thereof pace the decks in a vigorous manner enveloped in warm clothing. But we were not unprepared for the change, which came on gradually; and, even in its extremes, did not approach that which was once experienced by a Bishop of Newfoundland, who had to visit a small island in his diocese that lay right in the Gulf Stream. He left his main charge, so he told me, enveloped in furs, but the moment his steam yacht crossed the line of demarcation—perceptible by the change of colour in the water—he had to exchange them for the thinnest garments he could muster. The exact readings of the thermometer plunged in on either side the line, as he told them to me, I no longer remember; but I do recollect being struck by the great difference—so great, indeed, that, had the information not come from such a source, I should have been incredulous. Great as are the irregularities in the weather that one experiences during a sea voyage, they vanish when compared with the caprices of the true British climate. And yet we take a kind of gloomy national pride in it; and I have known homeward-bound Englishmen quite looking forward to a “Channel fog” from the moment they left Bombay. A juster appreciation of its merits is shown by our Yankee cousins, one of whom said of our atmosphere: “No climate, not even weather; nothing but samples”; while another is responsible for the following excellent parody of a well-known rhyme: “Dirty days hath September, April, June, and November; From January to May, the rain it raineth every day; From May until July, there’s not a dry cloud in the sky; All the rest have thirty-one, without a blessed ray of sun; And if their days were two and thirty, they’d be just as wet and quite as dirty.” The evenings were now long, and our share of daylight was curtailed, so that a still greater proportion of our time was spent below in conversation, cards, chess, &c. Our habits with regard to “turning-in” were somewhat primitive; all lights had to be out by 10 p.m., and a responsible officer went the rounds to see that the dictum was scrupulously carried out. The very thought of “fire” on a wooden ship well saturated with tar, and far away in mid-ocean, was enough to make one’s blood run cold; and so it is not to be wondered at that the captain showed his teeth on one occasion, when one of the passengers was reported for infringing this law, and threatened to place him in irons for the rest of the voyage. Need I say that the offender gave no further cause for complaint? We may be thankful that nowadays the chances of a fire breaking out on board ship are, thanks to the electric light and the less combustible materials of which our ships are built, reduced to a minimum.