chief engineer, and pointed out that it was not desirable we should be made a laughing-stock of. He replied that he “supposed it was to be Elder (meaning Fairfield) against Denny,” to which I assented, and he went below, but I shall always hold the opinion that there had been some talk on shore between the rival engineers. Be that as it may, the lead the _Rotomahana_ had got by this time did not increase, but she still ostentatiously trailed her coat. There was no doubt under ordinary steaming conditions our then rival was the faster ship, for she had far greater horse-power proportionately than we, but on this occasion she had a full load of cargo and we were flying light. Our displacement, in fact, was inconsiderable, and as the water was smooth as a mill pond, it was equal to having our horse-power in a vessel half our size. To make a long story short, we let my ship go and we simply raced past our friend _Rotomahana_, got to Lyttelton an hour and a half to the good, and were safely moored and piped down before she got into dock. The race caused a good deal of comment, for the result was surprising. Every one did not see that we owed the win to being light, and having the luck of smooth water, but the fact remained that we had the fastest run between those ports to our credit for many years, until H.M.S. _Orlando_ took it away from us. The captain of the _Rotomahana_ was a very splendid skipper named Cary. He had done numbers of fine things on the coast, and was commonly spoken of by a somewhat fiery sobriquet. I was informed that he did not like his beating, but he was not the first challenger to fail. I had two outbreaks of fire which deserve to be chronicled. One happened at sea and the other in harbour. On the first occasion it was midway between New Zealand and Cape Horn when it was reported to me that one of the coal bunkers was on fire. It gave me a nasty sensation for a moment, but it was night time, no fuss was made, and a few hours put an end to the trouble. It tires me to hear men talk about the bad behaviour of British merchant seamen in emergencies of this sort. It is my experience that, except during periods of strike or general labour unrest, you can do anything with them.