Life at sea, however, is influenced by laws which do not affect it on land. Changes in the weather; changes from calm to rough weather have a marked effect on a floating community, and a few hours often produce the most extraordinary transformations. An oily sea may become raging mountains of water, and the steadiness of a ship is turned into violent pitching and tossing that renders walking to all but the most experienced a matter of great difficulty. At such times soup plates will perform somersaults into your lap, and joints of meat evince a decided objection to remain in their proper positions. While, as for poultry, wine bottles, &c., they suddenly acquire an agility for flying through the air, so that what with dodging these missiles, and holding on like grim death to the table or the back of the settee, one’s life at meal time on board of a ship in stormy weather is by no means as comfortable as it might be in a well-appointed dining-room on shore. Within a week of Christmas it became manifest that the ‘Sirocco’ was destined to encounter some bad weather. There had been sullen calms succeeded by fitful bursts of storm, but the good ship had crept on and on until she had reached the verge of the Bay of Biscay. The bay, although it bears such a bad character, is suggestive of nearing home to those who come from afar, and consequently the passengers were high-spirited, notwithstanding that it was pretty certain that a good deal of knocking about was in store for them. One night during the middle watch a furious squall suddenly burst upon the vessel, and as she had all sail set she heeled over almost on to her beam ends. Several sails were rent to fragments by the force of the wind, and the long strips flying out in the tempest made a tremendous cracking like the cracking of stock whips. ‘All hands’ were called on deck, and there were all the noise, and shouting, and uproar incidental to a sudden squall in the dead of night. To the timid and the inexperienced this is particularly alarming, for as the ship flies along on her side the waters hiss in a strange manner, the shouting and tramp of the sailors, the orders given hastily and in stentorian tones, the cracker-like reports of the torn sails, the groaning and creaking of the rudder chains, the indescribable howling of the wind, and the extreme angle of the vessel, are sufficiently alarming to produce nervousness even in those whose acquaintance with the sea is not of recent date. And this is more particularly the case when such a squall occurs at night; then the sky is inky in its blackness, and nothing can be seen save the spectral-like outlines of the rigging and the masts, and such objects as are immediately near the spectator. When this particular squall struck the ship it happened that the Red Lily’s cabin was on the weather side, and so suddenly did the ship heel over that Lily narrowly escaped being thrown from her bunk. Although this was not