Perhaps the most noticeable feature about the marine engineer in the Merchant Service is the high respect in which he is held by every one. The merchant seaman instinctively recognizes in him a man whose attainments are not merely theoretical, but eminently practical. Every merchant seaman realizes that with the engineer has arrived a new stamp of seafarer, whose stern stress of duty cuts him off from those enjoyments common to all seamen. For him there is no meditative contemplation of the glories of the tropical night, when in the midst of the mighty solitudes of the untainted ocean man draws near to the great heart of Nature, feels himself akin to the stars and the wind and the waves; no heart-uplifting view of the apocalyptic splendours of the dawn, when the grey shadow of night melts away before the palpitating glow of the approaching sun; no speechless delight in the indescribable panorama sweeping past when the swift ship skirts closely the wonders of many shores. At such times the engineer and his crew, deep in the bowels of the ship, are shut in from all sights and sounds and perfumes save those of the engine-room and stokehold, which are akin to those of Tartarus. And when through the swart night the vessel plunges madly athwart the raging seas, remorselessly driven against the combined forces of wind and wave and current, the engineer works on, all depending upon him. Then do his anxieties enormously increase, as at one moment the whirling blades of the propeller are buried deep beneath the surface and their thrust vibrates through every fibre and rivet of the ship, and the next by a downward plunge of the vessel's head they are lifted into the air, spinning madly with a frightful acceleration of speed on their release from the element in which they have been toiling. Then, see the engineer erect upon his iron platform, facing his Titanic charges, throttle-valve in hand, and steady eye fixed upon index glasses; every sense on the alert, muscles tense to shut off the supply of force sooner than the "governor" can act, so that the engines shall not be torn from their foundations by the fearful strain imposed upon them by the sudden taking away of their work while the driving steam is still bursting in through the main feed and slide-valves.