If plenty of open air and a generous supply of ozone were particularly in request, Portland is a very good place to go to; but other considerations will naturally crop up in selecting an anchorage for a training-ship. As a port of assembly for a large fleet it is, by virtue of the breakwater, admirably suited; but they have to take their chance of being occasionally cut off from communication with the shore for a day or two. A good many years ago, the Channel Squadron was so cut off during the best part of a week, while an easterly gale was raging; only one vessel, favourably situated, contriving to send in a cutter under a close-reefed sail, from the stern, the crew and officer using the rope ladder suspended from the taffrail. There was no possibility of acquiring ground for decent playing fields; the island--so called--of Portland presented no great attractions for walking or anything else; there was a stupid little town, with one steep street, climbing up the hill; and Weymouth was too far off for landing the cadets, save on exceptional occasions, and when they got there, there was little or nothing to do, except get into possible mischief. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, however, Portland was determined upon; and when the cadets rejoined on February 2nd, 1862, after their Christmas leave, they found their floating home in the unwonted bustle of "preparing for sea"; and a very welcome distraction it proved to them, in place of the ordinary hum-drum of alternate "seamanship" and "study" days. By February 6th all preparations were complete; at 3 p.m. a lumbering dockyard tug, the _Lucifer_, took the _Britannia_ in tow, and slowly dragged her out of the familiar harbour, making for the eastern end of the Isle of Wight. The voyage was not, however, to be made alone; at Spithead the _Trafalgar_, steam two-decker, was in waiting, and took her station about half a mile astern of the _Britannia_, where she hovered during the whole passage, in case of any accident. The undertaking was not, indeed, without some risk, at that season, and anything in the shape of a gale would have been serious; the ship "flying light," with small frigate's spars, and with only a handful of bluejackets and a few dockyard riggers on board. However, the fates proved propitious; the wind blew fair from east-north-east, the sea was smooth, and none of the cadets were seasick; though they had the unwonted experience, afterwards to become so familiar, of hearing the gentle complaining "creech" of the oak timbers, and the rattle of small-arms and other odds and ends in the racks, with the slight motion of the ship.