Up through the Straits of Sunda and the smooth tract of sea immediately north of them, which always struck me as being so eminently quiet and peaceful. The passage through Gaspar Straits was not looked forward to by many masters with much pleasure, but I suppose that with steam all its difficulties have disappeared. We had only to anchor once, but when we got higher up the sea into the Bashee Channel we caught something that was worth having from the point of view of experience. I cannot state the exact position of the ship when this happened, seeing that I did no navigation save an occasional star latitude when the skipper wanted one, but it was somewhere in the Bashee Channel and the wind blew from one direction only--I think it was N.N.E. We took in bit by bit every scrap of canvas down to a lower maintopsail and a mizzen-staysail; in due course both these sails disappeared in rags, and it was a brand-new maintopsail too. It was blowing far too hard for a big sea to get up, but at times a vicious one would come along and smash something; for instance, one hit her on the starboard bow and started the knight-heads--a very curious accident. There she lay for the better part of twenty-four hours without a rag of canvas, and heeling over about a steady forty-seven degrees--(I may say that a clinometer I had rigged early on the trip was regarded as one of my fads). I suppose the rain also helped to keep the sea down, but on one occasion I saw the watch at the pumps fairly overwhelmed, and I scarcely expected to find any of them left. At last it ended. The ship came upright, we got canvas on her, and found that we were not very far from land. It is really comical the manner in which sailors take things for granted. I should not have dared to ask the skipper to see the chart, and had we all known of the danger it would have done no good, so perhaps it was for the best. The following story I believe to be true, it was told me by Captain Ballard, C.M.G., in these words: “Once in a cyclone the ---- was off Mauritius; we could not help ourselves, and I saw we must be swept upon ---- Island, when it would all have been over. I went aft to tell the people in the saloon, but stopped half-way; I thought it could do no good, and would only worry them before it was necessary; but she was either swept over the island by the tidal wave or else we missed it.” But what an awful mess that ship was in; as a rule she was spic and span, the acme of neatness, but now a survey of our state was pitiable. The laniards of the lower rigging on the lee side were so chafed that it was doubtful if they would last to port, and altogether the rigging had suffered greatly. But Providence was good to us, and we got in without much more trouble, although it was a beat up the China Sea.