Then, too, ships steer differently in shallow water than in deep. Sometimes a ship which, at sea, is responsive to the lightest shift of her rudder will behave like mad in a shallow channel. This is due to the shape of the hull and the paths followed by the displaced water as it flows past her sides and beneath her keel. In shallow water, the water that normally would flow beneath her cannot all do so, and the result is likely to be a difference in the way she answers her helm. For other reasons a ship must not be driven too rapidly through a shallow channel. I once saw a ship drawing seventeen feet ground sharply in the eighteen-foot channel leading into St. George, Bermuda, for at the speed she was making she was pushing a part of the water ahead of her and lowering the water level of the channel by more than a foot. Ships running on parallel courses at a considerable speed should not permit their courses to be too close, else a similar thing might happen, bringing them forcibly together. This happened to the _Olympic_ and a British cruiser years ago in the English Channel. These are only a few of the many things that might arise in handling ships. Other possible contingencies are almost infinite in number. Furthermore, it is the experience of sailors that no two ships, no matter how nearly they may be alike, are identical in their actions. This belief (and it has a very great deal of truth behind it) has probably had more than a little to do with the habit, that seems natural to seamen, of personifying ships. In addition to the fact that all ships have characteristic ways of their own, most ships react differently under different conditions of loading and when carrying their varying cargoes. A tramp loaded with iron ore will sometimes be uncomfortable in heavy weather even though she may be thoroughly comfortable in a similar storm when loaded with coal. The reason for this lies in the fact that iron ore, being heavy, loads a ship to her Plimsoll mark without filling her holds. Thus the heavy cargo gives the ship a low “centre of gravity” and she may roll heavily and constantly. Coal, on the other hand, is lighter than ore, and a cargo fills her hold to overflowing, raising her centre of gravity and reducing the roll. The captain, however, must know just how his ship handles whether she is carrying ore, or coal, or any of a score of different cargoes.