The _Undaunted_ visited Sorrento in 1891, when Lord Dufferin was staying there. None who had the privilege of his acquaintance will need to be reminded of the singular charm of a talented, witty and urbane personality. Lord Dufferin had the unconscious art of impressing upon those whom he met that he had been waiting all his life for that moment. The small sailing yacht, _Lady Hermione_, which he kept at Sorrento, was a marvel of ingenious contrivance. She was a decked boat, with a well into which the ropes and gear were led and were attached to all sorts of levers, tackles and winches, to enable her to be sailed single-handed. Lord Dufferin, accompanied by Lady Dufferin, frequently sailed her in the Bay of Naples. On one such voyage, wishing to tauten up the peak halliards, he told Lady Dufferin to heave upon a certain lever. She seized the wrong handle, and away went the anchor with 130 fathoms of chain, which ran out to the clinch. Then the rest of the equipment became really useful, Lord Dufferin rigging up purchase on purchase with it, and so heaving up the anchor. After four hours' incessant toil he succeeded in getting it berthed, and returned in a state of exhaustion. The _Lady Hermione_ persuaded Lord Dufferin to learn Morse and semaphore. She was moored at the foot of the cliff, beneath Lord Dufferin's hotel, from whose balcony he used to shout his orders for the day to the boy who was in charge of her, and who often misunderstood his instructions. I suggested that he should learn to communicate with his ship's company by signal, and drew up both the Morse and semaphore codes for his benefit. In six weeks he sent letters to me written in both codes; an instance of determined application. During that time he insisted on practising for so many hours every day with his wife and daughter, so {375} that at the end of it the whole family were proficient in signals. An interesting example of the manoeuvres of those days occurred at Volo, when Captain Wilson, V.C., disguised his ship, the _Sanspareil_, in olive trees. The _Undaunted_ was told off to make a torpedo attack at night in the narrow channel where lay the _Sanspareil_. Captain Wilson (now Admiral of the Fleet Sir A. K. Wilson, V.C., G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O.) had constructed a dummy ship on the side of the channel opposite to which lay the _Sanspareil_, completely clothed in olive trees. I sent a midshipman to cut the cable of the searchlight playing upon the entrance to the channel. The _Undaunted_ steamed into the channel, discovered first the wrong ship, and then the right one, at which I discharged two torpedoes, which were found next morning under the bottom of the _Sanspareil_.