From the _Majestic_ to the earliest merchantmen of the Mediterranean, even looking back a hundred years to the time when the old East Indiamen of 1000 tons were wallowing along, or the Falmouth packets were braving the Atlantic, seems to us a period of time that is hardly believable. In spite of wars and every kind of crises, never has the merchant ship so utterly and marvellously transformed herself within such a few years. It is a triumph of man over matter that he can build up such a creation as a 50,000-ton ship, but there are just two things which always seem to me more wonderful still. The first is that you can ever launch such a mass of steel safely from the land down the ways into the water; and the second is that, having fitted her out for sea, she can be made obedient to the mind of her commander—checked, spurred on, controlled and moved about across the sea at will, with confidence and remarkable regularity. It is an interesting experience to control finance, it is a great task to control men, and it is a responsible task to control the ship of State. But to control the biggest ship in the history of the world, costing over £1,000,000 sterling and containing several thousands of travellers, from quay to quay, through any kind of weather that may come along—this to me seems, above all, a full-sized man’s job. It is one that brings forth everything that is best and noble in the calling of a sailor—courage, coolness, organising ability, leadership, self-reliance, dependability, tact, discipline. [Illustration: [_By courtesy the White Star Line._ ON THE BRIDGE OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SHIP. Captain Sir Bertram Hayes (third from the right), with the Second Captain and other officers of “Majestic”.] Below are the saloons, orchestra, dancing, laughter, luxury and thousands of brilliant lights. On the bridge the silent darkness of a black, starless night; just the glimmer from the bowls of the gyro-compass repeaters, the quartermaster at the wheel, a couple of messengers standing by, and the officer of the watch. And always the wild roar of the wind as the ship tears on her way at twenty odd knots; while forward is the swish of the sea as the fine bows throw each bursting wave aside. It is a study in contrasts, just that immeasurable gulf which has always existed between the life of the landsman and the sailor from the earliest days of history until the present-day. To the former “the wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor,” as Emerson put it. But it was the same philosopher who admitted that “the sea is masculine, the type of active strength.”