I have seen log-books like this. One I remember even now, with the keenest delight, kept by the third mate of a large ship in which I made a voyage before the mast from London to China and back. This gentleman, besides writing a very neat hand, was an artist, and wherever it was possible he decorated his book with little sketches. Landscapes especially attracted him, of course; but passing ships, birds, porpoises, fish, deck scenes, fronds of fucus or gulf-weed, were all utilized, and the result was a book beyond price. As he did a little every day, there was no sense of labour attached to it; yet the finished work gave the impression of a stupendous amount of work having been spent upon the result. I do not know what became of that young man, but I am prepared to hear that, if he lived, he rose to the top of his profession in a very short time. For, as might have been expected, he was no less keen about his duties than he was in his observations and in his efforts to record them. He loved the sea and all that belonged to it, and, in return for that love, the sea was to him an untiring teacher as well as a faithful friend. Another gentleman I know always carried a camera with him, and ornamented his log-book with well-developed snapshot photographs, in this way interpreting his keen remarks upon things in a wonderful way, although his book lacked the artistic grace and finish of the other. Perhaps it may be said that, looking at this matter from a literary point of view, as well as from that of the sailor who has forsaken the sea, I am laying too much stress upon it, and that, after all, it is the sailor-man that is wanted in a mate, and not a bookworm. Such a way of putting the matter is, I maintain, manifestly unfair. I admit that a man may be super-excellent in all that pertains to the working of his ship, and yet be unable to keep a log as it should be kept; but, on the other hand, I am sure that it will be seldom found that a mate who keeps a good log is a bad sailor-man. The efficient officer will not be less but more efficient, if to his capacity for work he brings the seeing eye and the imaginative brain. And, like all other mental or physical faculties, this faculty of observation will improve continually by being exercised, and add to the stature of the inner man, making him more complete. Besides, how immensely it will add to his enjoyment of life. His ideas will be enlarged, his capacity for enjoyment will widen; and instead of being, as so many otherwise good seamen are, discontented with his lot, and looking forward anxiously to the time when he shall look his last upon the solemn wideness of the sea, he will find his days all too short for the full appreciation of the pleasures that will crowd into them.