I wonder if you will be able to make this letter out? I am writing it a little bit at a time, to keep myself from getting too dreadfully down-hearted. G. and I have both very damp handkerchiefs under our pillows to testify to the depressed state of our minds. "When I was at home I was in a better place, but travellers must be content." I don't even care to read any of the books I brought with me, except now and then a page or two of _Memories and Portraits_. It comforts me to read of such steady, quiet places as the Pentland Hills and of the decent men who do their herding there. Is it really only three days since I left you all, and you envied me going out into the sunshine? Oh! you warm, comfortable people, how I, in this heaving uncertain horror of a ship, envy you! _25th_. (_Still in pencil_.) You mustn't think I have been lying here all the time. On Tuesday we managed to get on deck, and on Wednesday it was warm and sunny, and we began to enjoy life again and to congratulate ourselves on having got our sea-legs. But we got them only to lose them, for yesterday the wind got up, the ship rolled, we became every minute more thoughtful, until about tea-time we retired in disorder. It didn't need the little steward's shocked remark, "Oh my! You never 'ave gone back to bed again!" to make us feel ashamed. However, we reach Marseilles to-day at noon, and, glorious thought, the ship will stand still for twenty-four hours. Also there will be letters! This isn't a letter so much as a wail. Don't scoff. I know I'm a coward. _S.S.Scotia, Oct. 27_. ... A fountain-pen is really a great comfort. I am writing with my new one, so this letter won't, I hope, be such a puzzle to decipher as my pencil scrawl. We are off again, but now the sun shines from a cloudless sky on a sea of sapphire, and the passengers are sunning themselves on deck like snails after a shower. I'm glad, after all, I didn't go back from Marseilles by train.