When I left the _Roman_, Leigh presented me with a suit of canvas clothes which he had found useful. In the daytime I lived in them, for the forehold of the Natal was not a place adapted for the wear of fine raiment. The principal articles we took away were raw hides, sugar and wool, and the smell of those hides was a thing to remember. There was no trouble in getting cargo either stowed or discharged, but an officer had to be there all the time, and in a canvas rig it was possible to sit down. The Zulus would work well if you did not lose your temper, and as they happened to approve of me I never had any trouble with them. One voyage was much like another, but sailing day at Natal offered considerable variety, for it depended upon the vagaries of the bar. I have known passengers and their friends come down four days in succession and be detained for want of water. Those days, however, usually resulted in a sort of picnic on the bluff--and were most enjoyable. It was a treat to see the way the girls could negotiate the steep slope under the lighthouse, and if the idea was to go up town, there would be a rush for the point, with not too much care exercised as to whose pony you mounted to get there. Upon one occasion we stuck on the bar for over half-an-hour, bumping fairly heavily, but she was a well-built little ship and it did not seem to do much harm; it used to jar the spars a good deal though. On the passage down the coast we would call at the ports, weather permitting and pick up such passengers and cargo as we could, transhipping to the mail steamer in Cape Town Docks. After a few trips I got some knowledge of the upper part of the coast, and experienced a dislike to being set off miles in the middle watch by the current. I therefore sounded the skipper as to whether he would let me exercise my judgment in keeping her in when I could see well. I found he was agreeable that I should do so, and I used to report to him every hour, and hand the ship over to the chief at 4 a.m. well in shore. This led to a considerable shortening of the passage up the coast; but it told against me in one way, for when I wanted to get home the old man said, “No, the ship has made much better passages up since you’ve been here and I shan’t let you go.” That was a bit hard, for there was a lot of promotion going on at home, new men being taken in as chief, and I out of it all, as was said, for lack of experience.