Now, all these queer-sounding names of duties that the good A.B. must be able to perform would require a vast amount of laborious explanation to make their meaning and purpose clear to any landsman, and it is doubtful whether one person in ten thousand would take the trouble to master their details if an attempt were made to give them. But I think that few will assert that a man who can do all these things as they must be done at sea can be in any sense classed as an unskilled man. And I must add that what I have given are only the broad features, as it were. There remain still an enormous number of smaller matters, knowledge of which is expected of an A.B. But I must admit that the class of A.B. which is capable of answering to such a description as this is growing yearly smaller and smaller. That, of course, is the fault of steam. While sailing ships endure there will always be some of them--there must be--but they are not wanted in steamships, and so the supply dwindles with the demand. But it is a great pity, because these men are capable of rising to the height of an emergency. They have individuality and resource as well as technical ability. And when, as so often happens, a steamer gets into trouble at sea, breaks down, or is overtaken by a gale against which her low power is helpless, the need of skilled seamen is often sorely felt. An old shipmate of my own was telling me the other day of a case in point. He was one of the A.B.'s in a large steamer called the _Bengal_, outward bound to Japan. They were overtaken in the Bay of Biscay by a tremendous gale, before which they scudded with the huge square foresail set, in order to keep her ahead of the sea. (It was being overtaken by such a sea that caused the awful loss of the _London_.) But at last it became necessary to take in that foresail, and heave the ship to; it was unsafe to run her any longer, especially as the sail might carry away at any moment, and the very evil they dreaded come upon them instantly. So all hands were called aft, eight of them, and the skipper said, "D'ye think ye can take that foresail in, my lads?" At which question they were amazed, for none of them had ever heard such a question put before. After a moment's silence one fellow shouted, "Take it in! Why, 'course we can, sir. We c'd _eat_ it!"