And then, do you trail your coal around on the _Auvergne_ in hampers, like those in which the negroes of the Antilles carry bananas? It is like trying to empty the Mississippi with a cocktail straw. The hampers break--this breaks the backs of the men--and as for dust...! The English and the Germans do things better than this, it must be admitted. With their Temperly the coal goes up a sort of lift and their ways of getting into the hold are less outlandish. I may be wrong, you’ll put me wise anyway. _Lamartine_ sent us to anchor for the night on a submerged reef, saying that another cruiser would come on the following day to take what was left. Before you could say “Jack Robinson” she was gone in the mist. Fourgues lost no time about anchoring, very glad to draw breath and smoke a pipe in peace. We cleaned up and he had a lot of brandy sent to the bridge; we put it in our coffee to get the coal out of our mouths, and then we yarned till supper. The fog lifted for the sunset and we were both struck dumb. You are lucky to be seeing that every evening! Fourgues wanted to swank and say that in the Rhone Valley and at Marseilles, when the mistral’s blowing, the sunsets are better than that. All brag! As for me, I know this beats the Antilles and the Gulf of Bengal to a frazzle. There was not more light and not so many bright colours, but it was like velvet. You must be grateful to me for telling you all about it when you have seen it every night for three months! But I should be happy to go back there again to look at those sunsets while I think of home. The next morning we expected a cruiser for our lump coal. Instead there arrived a flotilla of destroyers who hooked themselves on all round the _Pamir_. It was neatly done--a cable here and a fender there, and there they were, like good children, all fast, lashed for’ard and aft. The Commodore boarded us and asked for Fourgues. He couldn’t have had his boots off for a long time nor washed either. His beard was full of cinders, his eyes red. When he found out that the _Lamartine_ had taken the special coal and that there was nothing for him but coal in bulk, he fairly let go: “This is the third time! It fouls my gratings and it smokes like hell! And they want us to make twenty-five knots with that dirt!” But he had to get off at noon in order to go on patrol duty in the evening--I forget where--and so he took the coal. Those fellows on the destroyers, I pity them even more than the ones on the cruisers. They haven’t room to swing a cat, and they must ship some awful seas! We had a hundred tons of coal left when the six of them had finished. Fourgues would have liked very much to return empty, for there’s no sense in carrying freight home again. But no ship would coal there for five days, and as it was hardly worth while for the _Pamir_ to go north with so little, the Commander-in-Chief ordered us by wireless (received by the Commodore) to proceed to our destination.