Sandridge Pier in those days was a beautiful sight to any lover of salt water. It belonged to a period that will never again come round--the time when ships were beautiful, and no pains were spared to make them so. Steam had not then got all the passenger trade, and the ships of Green, Wigram, Smith and Dunbar were the lineal descendants of the old East Indiamen. They carried big crews, and they were mostly commanded and officered by men who were splendid seamen as well as gentlemen. The command of one of these vessels for a voyage extending over nine months might be worth a thousand pounds; that was before the world woke to the period of extreme competition. But beautiful though these ships were, they only pleased the eye because they were to our belief the embodiment of all that was the finest to be found afloat. Many of the best specimens of them can be found to-day in various ports of the world serving as coal hulks. When I made a trip to the docks some years ago to see the _Essex_, it was difficult to believe that she was the ship one had known teeming with life, brilliancy and smartness. She was, I suppose, about 240 feet long, which was then considered a very fair length for any sailing-ship. What is known as “taking the time ball” was one of the events of the day. A midshipman belonging to each vessel would be perched in some prominent part of the poop of each ship, and in close proximity would be the boatswain and his mates, ready to pipe to dinner and grog at the instant the signal was given that the ball had dropped. The chorus of pipes was a thing to hear and remember, as it was taken up by the assembled ships; there was always a laudable ambition to be the first ship to commence. The names of the ships there escape my memory, but there was more than one belonging to Money, Wigram & Co., and there was also a splendid old frigate-built ship called the _Holmesdale_. I am not quite sure whether the celebrated packet-ship the _White Star_ was there then, or whether I came across her the next voyage, but both she and the _Champion of the Seas_ were magnificent-looking vessels, and the captain of the latter ship, Outridge, I think, was his name, was in appearance quite in keeping with the name of his command. The point I want to bring out is that these two last-mentioned ships, fast sailers and “packet-ships” though they were, did not rank among the aristocracy of the sea, such as the Blackwell ships proper were then considered. They were regarded in the same manner as, ten years later, a Union Steamship man would regard a Donald Currie ship. He would throw a condescending glance upon a Donald Currie ship as much as to say, “Very worthy, no doubt, but you are not _us_, although you try your hardest to get the set of our sail covers and to keep your yards decently square.” But of that more anon.