The late Captain W. B. Whall, who died not long since, served as a midshipman in the Blackwaller _Hotspur_ during the ’sixties, and fortunately has left behind in his _School and Sea Days_ some interesting recollections. The commander of this famous 1000-ton East Indiaman was Captain Henry Toynbee, F.R.G.S., F.R.A.S., uncle of Arnold Toynbee, the social economist and philanthropist. Whall describes how, after the _Hotspur_ had anchored off Gravesend, the captain would be received on board in true naval style. This commanding officer, who, by the way was uncle to Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the famous scout, will always be remembered for his amazing skill as a navigator. Captain Whall said he recollected on one occasion when the _Hotspur_ had been ninety days out of sight of land, and had sailed over three oceans bound for Calcutta direct, Toynbee came up on deck about 8 p.m. and told the chief officer to send a man up to the foretopsail yard and to order him to look two points on the starboard bow, and he would then see the Lower Floating Light. The hand had barely got his head over the sail when he cried from aloft: “Light two points away on starboard bow.” And this was without having sighted anything since the Lizard! In contrast to this fine ability of an East Indiaman navigator must be placed the rough-and-ready methods of those fine but ignorant skippers of the fruit-trade schooners which were built and sailed like yachts and went down as far south as the Azores. Often when full-rigged ships were blown by easterly gales from the western end of the English Channel as far west as the Fastnet, these splendid little fore-and-afters would be able to make excellent passages to windward. In old waterside inns of the West country you may still see pictures of these ships with the canvas cut in realistic fashion to obtain verisimilitude. They made wonderfully fast passages, and they were most perfectly handled, but the captains, not being capable always of working out their longitude, used to hail any passing ship and hang out a blackboard with the question: “What is your longitude?”