This mid-Victorian account of a passenger ship and her internal decorations is interesting in more senses than one, but I fear that in these days when everyone seems to be an expert in the artistic merits of old furniture and house decoration, many of my readers will shudder at the _Marco Polo’s_ crimson velvet cabin cushions, stained glass panels and richly ornamented pilasters. However, at the time all these fittings and arrangements for passengers were considered a great advance on anything previously attempted. Captain James Nicol Forbes. _Marco Polo’s_ first commander was the notorious Captain James Nicol Forbes, who had previously commanded with great success the Black Ball ships _Maria_ and _Cleopatra_ in the Australian trade. Bully Forbes is one of the best known characters in the history of the British Mercantile Marine. His career was as meteoric as his owner’s and had as sad an end. By two wonderful voyages in the _Marco Polo_ and a still more wonderful one in the _Lightning_, he rushed to the head of his profession. Then came his eclipse in the wreck of the _Schomberg_. A life of Captain Forbes was printed in Liverpool at the time of his triumphs, but it is very scarce and practically unobtainable, and thus the history of this remarkable man has become shrouded in legend and fairy tale, and at this length of time it is difficult to separate the fact from the fiction. He was born in 1821, a native of Aberdeen. In 1839 he left Glasgow for Liverpool without a shilling in his pocket; but he was a man who could not be kept down and he soon gained command of a ship; and at once began to astonish everybody by the way in which he forced indifferent ships to make unusually good passages. One of his first commands appears to have been an old brig, in which he made two splendid passages to the Argentine. His success with the Black Ball ships _Maria_ and _Cleopatra_, which were neither of them clippers, gave him the command of _Marco Polo_ and his chance to break all records. In character Captain Forbes was a most resolute man, absolutely fearless, of quick decisions, but of a mercurial temperament. It goes without saying that he was a prime seaman—his wonderful passages in _Marco Polo_ and _Lightning_ are proof enough of this. And with regard to the _Schomberg_, I have little doubt in my own mind that Forbes was disgusted with her sluggishness and by no means sorry when she tailed on to the sandspit. But he evidently failed to foresee the bad effect her loss would have on his own reputation. In Liverpool, at the many banquets in his honour, he had been rather too ready to give wine-tinted promises as to what he would do with the _Schomberg_, and the chagrin of this, his first failure, was the real cause of his downfall.