"Outside polishing brass and holystoning the deck," he went on, "there is a deal more work in a warship in war-time than in days of peace, so that we are never hard put to find a field for extra effort. We learn much quicker from practice than we did from theory, and there is an astonishing amount of work going on all the time to the end that the ship shall be kept as up to date as possible in all her equipment. The increase of a ship's offensive and defensive power, making her better to fight with and safer to fight in, is naturally a work in which the men are vitally interested, and they go into it with a will. We try as far as possible to avoid simply putting the men through the motions of work, like doing unnecessary painting or scrubbing, for instance. If the ship does not provide for the moment enough real work, we try to find it on the beach. For the next few days, for example, we are sending several hundred men ashore to make roads on one of the islands. They are very keen about the change, and I have heard them speaking about it all to-day. That kind of a thing works much better than simply improvising work on board. It gives variety, and the men feel that they are doing something useful instead of simply being kept busy. "So much for work. On the score of play, we aim to give the men rather more athletic sports than they would have in harbour in peace-time, though all of it has to be carried on with many less 'frills'--flag-dressings, tea-parties, and the like--under the limiting conditions of always being ready to put to sea at notice of a few hours. In the ship, doubling round the deck for exercise is kept up regularly, as is also a certain number of Swedish drills. Every encouragement is given to the men to box, and the ship, squadron, and Fleet championships in the various classes are, of course, great events. There is scarcely a drifter or patrol-boat without one or more sets of boxing-gloves, for there is no form of sport quite so well calculated to exercise both mind and body in restricted quarters. "Water-sports--swimming, rowing, and sailing--are kept up about as in peace-time, though here the long spell of inclement weather makes the winter rather a longer 'closed season' than farther south. Ashore there are several indifferent cricket and football grounds, though not, however, nearly enough for the normal demand of the great number--it runs well up into six figures--of able-bodied, sport-loving men in the Fleet. A good deal of hockey is played, and we have found it a better wet-weather game than football. In all of these sports inter-ship and inter-squadron rivalry is encouraged, principally because it stimulates the minds of so many outside the actual participants.