When I speak of the customary neatness of our rigging I in no way exaggerate. As an instance of my meaning, most people know that to save chafe on the backstays in the way of the lower yards, wooden battens are usually seized to the backstays. That was far too rough a method for us. We had the backstays served with unlaid strands of wire rigging, and if any one wishes to try his hand at putting that on, he is welcome to the job so far as I am concerned, for it came to my lot frequently to have to show men that the operation of serving with stiff wire was a possible one. It was early winter when we arrived at Shanghai and fairly cold. There were a lot of ships in the harbour, and among them was the _Lauderdale_, of which George Davies was now mate. We renewed our friendship, and had lots to talk over. I think he obtained command of that ship on her next voyage, and was never again heard of. There was also a ship called the _Loudoun Castle_, whose skipper had the dire misfortune to incur the enmity of our mate, which led to disagreeables for the following absurd reason. A party of skippers were with our old man talking in the cabin, and the topic of discussion was the writing of letters home to the owner, an operation sometimes considered a difficulty. One of the guests happened to say that when he wrote home he turned the mate out of the cabin, imagined he had the owner opposite him, and then wrote as if he were speaking to him. There was no great harm in that, one would say, but our mate heard it, and attributing it rightly or wrongly to the captain of the _Loudoun Castle_, made it a personal matter that a mate should be asked to leave the cabin. There was considerable trouble over the matter, and I very stupidly went to a lot of trouble to make peace in a business in which I had no concern whatever. We discharged our cargo in due course, and in spite of the bucketing we found there had been no leaking or damage to speak of. Then we commenced preparing for the homeward cargo of tea. Now, as all people know, tea is a very light commodity, and the ship had to be ballasted to stiffen her. The second mate is supposed to supervise the stowage, but in this case the mate did. To save space he did not leave a sufficient thickness of ballast on the turn of the bilge, and so some tea was spoiled. I heard afterwards it was put down to the fault of “that second mate,” although I had nothing whatever to do with it. It is one of the prettiest operations conceivable to see Chinamen stowing a cargo of tea--great heavy mallets are used, and the tiers are built up with almost mathematical accuracy.