Our passenger list in the saloon was not a large one. There were about forty people, but let it be said at once that a more agreeable set were never got together in any ship. We called at Plymouth to embark mails and passengers, and I also received a wire from the manager telling me not to be beaten to the Cape by the _Athenian_; but as we were not calling there, it must have been sent under a misapprehension, which I could easily understand when I came to consider the track we had to follow to make the shortest mileage to Hobart. To decide upon a composite track is not an easy matter when the application of the great circle is possible. In this particular case, taking Cape Verde as the westernmost longitude, the great circle track to Hobart would pass somewhere close to St. Helena, but to follow it would have been to steam against the very heart of the S.E. trades, and that I knew would be a heartbreaking performance if they were blowing hard. I therefore decided to pass about 600 miles to the westward of the Cape, which would entirely do away with any chance of being reported from Cape Point, but which would, I hoped, bring me sooner into the region of the “brave west winds” and also to the latitude where the degrees of longitude were greatly shorter in actual distance, for according to the best advice I could then obtain latitude 45° S. was about the best parallel on which to run down the Easting. In later voyages when I had more experience I formed a somewhat different opinion.