The remainder of the voyage passed without any event of interest, and in due course we got to Algoa Bay and commenced to load for home. We had started a new plan of stowing our own cargoes of wool, and naturally the second officer had charge of the business. This was rather a novelty and I was taking a great interest in the entire job. One day the chief and I wanted to go on shore to a ball to which we had been invited, and the captain had given us free permission to do so, saying with a certain amount of sarcasm, that if all the officers went, and the boatswain as well, he thought we might find the ship afloat when we returned. However, we made allowance for the fact that the atmosphere was a little sultry. I was on that day just finishing the stowing of the after orlop deck, when a voice from above gave notice that the captain was coming down. He duly made his appearance, being lowered in a big basket known as a cheese basket, variously used for discharging small boxes of cheese and also for landing timid passengers into boats in bad weather. There was a space into which I was determined to get a bale of wool, but there was considerable trouble in doing so, and Baynton, having comfortably seated himself in a chair I had procured for him, expressed a decided opinion that the job was impossible. His remarks continued to be of a very caustic nature, until the bale being in its place, he observed: “Now I suppose you think you are a dam clever fellow,” and as he did not patronise hold ladders, shouted out for his return conveyance. There must be many still alive who can picture this scene to themselves. We went to our dance and had a splendid time, and I know that in this season of the Coronation I shall meet stately ladies who though unfortunately no longer young, helped on that occasion to make the sun rise far too quickly. On our return to Table Bay, Nemesis overtook me. I was far too comfortable and contented and consequently had to turn over to the coasting steamer _Natal_, a little craft of under 500 tons. The man I relieved was named Borlase, commonly known as “handsome Henry”; he was my senior and had managed to work the oracle with the Company’s agents, and my skipper had not objected. My shipmates in the _Danube_ gave me a very cheery farewell dinner and send off, and I entered upon my new experience with a lot of curiosity, for the tales of the coast were many and various.