but there was no more trouble and we sailed to time next day. That time when we arrived in London we had to get the ship loaded as best we could, the officers driving winches and hydraulic cranes. It was then that the rumour was spread that John Burns was coming down with a crowd of dockers to stop the work, but fortunately the rumours were never crystallised, and I know that the ship’s reputation at this time facilitated greatly the task of getting a crew for the next voyage. CHAPTER XII “And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward.”--BYRON. [Illustration: SHAKING A REEF OUT] The late Clark Russell and I were at one time great cronies, and consumed a good deal of midnight oil, and other things, discussing the sea and its varied incidents. He was a seaman more by instinct than by experience. He had, of course, served at sea, but for some few years only, and yet he seemed to be the embodiment of sea lore for all time. Trifles that would be passed without notice by the ordinary observer, were absorbed by him and fitted into their proper place in his conception of the grandeur of the sea and all that appertained to it. No one man in his experience ever saw one half of the incidents Clark Russell has related, but his instinct was unerring, and as to his power of description there can be no question. Let me instance one example. “A slip of a moon westering fast” may not appeal to the uninitiate, but to a nautical mind it is most eloquent and expresses exactly the meaning it was intended to convey in the fewest possible words. To my mind this phrase is only equalled by Kipling in “as foot by foot we creep o’er the viewless, hueless deep, to the sob of the questing lead.” Both these quotations stand out as unique in compression of vast matter. There was one point on which Clark Russell and I did not agree. He maintained that it was possible to have at the same time a dense fog and a gale of wind. I maintained the contrary, for at that time I had never seen the combination, and believed, like most people, that wind was the enemy of fog and soon dispersed it. As it happened I was wrong, for on my very next voyage I had a most convincing proof of my error, which I duly acknowledged. We were running our easting down on the parallel of 46° S., and from Lon. 62° E. to 140° E. we got no observation of sun, moon or stars. I find the distance between observations is logged as 3,216 miles for ten days; during a great part of which period it was blowing a hard gale and a thick fog. To make matters better we also shed a propeller blade, but that was only an incident which slightly lengthened the passage. The really interesting point about this experience was the demonstration of the invaluable qualities of Lord Kelvin’s compass.