As said, the saloon was 7x14 feet large. In its centre was a table 3-1/2x8 feet large, while the companionway came down just forward of the table. On the whole, the space left seemed scant, especially when I learned that we numbered ten passengers, of whom two were ladies, the wife and daughter of a Frenchman, bound to Santa Cruz to open a wholesale general store. Pretty soon there was a call to breakfast, and then we began to realize just how scant the room was. Besides the ten passengers we had the purser, the ship's agent, and another man at the table, and the table was never intended to seat more than eight. There were six of us on each side of the table that was but eight feet long. The steward could not pass around the table to serve the food; he could only bring the platters and tureens down the ladder and place them at the head of the table, and then the purser had to do the rest without aid. However, the food was abundant, and, by the Italian standard, well cooked. People who don't like garlic might have objected to some of the dishes, but a traveller should learn to like garlic. We had cold beef tongue with onion salad, soup, a beef-stew called puchero that includes squashes among its vegetables, stewed tripe, beefsteak fried with onions and tomatoes, and we finished with fruit and black coffee. It was rather awkward sitting with one's shoulders edgewise to the table, but we got acquainted the easier for the discomfort and enjoyed the meal. After breakfast we went on deck to smoke. We found the steward washing the dishes of the whole six courses in a single soup tureen full of water. The amount of water seemed rather small to me, but perhaps I was mistaken, because when I called the attention of my fellow-passengers to it they did not think it remarkable. They said he used a fresh tureen of water for each course. Perhaps he did, but I'm bound to say the dish water as I saw it was thicker than the soup we had eaten from the tureen an hour before. At 12 o'clock sharp, the hour of sailing, the Captain mounted the bridge. He was a slender, swarthy little fellow with straight black hair and a thin moustache. His name was H. V. Chwaites, and I learned that he had reached a rank corresponding to the Yankee grade of commander in sixteen years. Lighting a cigarette he shoved his hands into his pockets and ordered the lines cast off. Nobody seemed to think it an unusual circumstance that a naval Captain on the bridge should smoke cigarettes or put his hands in his pockets.