Captain Forbes was a very lithe, active man, and one day, as the result of a challenge, he crawled hand over hand from the spanker boom end to the shark’s fin on the jibboom, not such a difficult feat, though not a usual one for the master of a ship. Whilst on the _Lightning_, it was his custom to go out on the swinging boom when the lower stunsail was set, and to calmly survey his ship from the boom end, when she was tearing along before the westerlies. The danger of this proceeding can only be realised by an old sailor. If a man at the wheel had brought the ship a point or two nearer the wind, the probability is that Forbes would have been flung into the sea as the boom lifted or perhaps the boom itself would have carried away, as that was the usual way in which lower stunsail booms were smashed up. Every man is supposed to have a lucky day, and Bully Forbes’ lucky day was a Sunday. On his record voyage in _Marco Polo_, he left Liverpool on a Sunday, sighted the Cape on a Sunday, crossed the line on a Sunday, recrossed the line homeward bound on a Sunday, and arrived back on Liverpool on a Sunday. After this you may be sure that he took care to start his second voyage on a Sunday. “Marco Polo’s” First Voyage to Australia. On her first voyage to Australia _Marco Polo_ was chartered by the Government Emigration Commissioners. She took out no less than 930 emigrants, these were selected with care and reported to be nearly all young and active Britishers. The married couples were berthed amidships, single women aft, and single men forward. There was a special hospital or sick bay and she also carried two doctors. In ventilation and comfort she was far ahead of any previous emigrant ship; on deck there were even provided large tubs, lined with lead, which the women could use for washing clothes. And the proof of her great superiority in arrangements for emigrants was at once proved on her passage out when she only had two deaths of adults on board, both from natural causes, and only a few of children from measles, this at a time when ships carrying half the number of emigrants arrived in Hobson’s Bay with from 50 to 100 deaths aboard. [Illustration: House Flags.] Her officers were chosen from the best ships sailing out of Liverpool, Forbes’ chief mate being McDonald, who succeeded Forbes in command of _Marco Polo_ and afterwards made a great name for himself in command of _James Baines_.