Yacht sailors, as a rule, are sober, honest, obliging, good-tempered, original. During the many years I have yachted, I have had crews from north, east, west, and south, and I have almost without exception found them the same. A man must be hard to please indeed, if, after a three or four months' cruise, he does not part from his crew with regret, and with a sincere wish that they may meet again. Amongst yachting skippers, I have come across some of the most honourable, trustworthy, honest men I have met in any class of life, men who know their duty, and are always willing and anxious to do it. The chief peculiarity of all the seafaring class that I have been brought into contact with is their entire freedom from vulgarity. They are obliging to the utmost of their power, but never cringing or vulgar. The winter half of their lives is spent in fishing-boats, or coasters, or sea voyages where they have to face dangers and hardships that must be experienced to be realised. As a rule, they are religious; and their preparations for the Sabbath, their washings and soapings and brushings, show with what pleasure they welcome its recurrence. Yacht minstrelsy, with its accordion, its songs of twenty verses, its never-ending choruses, its pathos, is a thing of itself. Some day perhaps some Albert Chevalier will make it fashionable. Such as they are, I know no class of Englishmen superior, if any be equal, to the sailors who man our yachts. Of course there are sharks, or at any rate dog-fish, in all waters; but where the good so immensely outnumber the bad, that man must be a fool indeed who gets into wrong hands. To say there is no vulgarity in yachting is not true; there is; but it is not amongst the men or among the skippers. And, after all, the vulgarity one sometimes sees amongst yacht-owners does not go for much; it amuses them and hurts nobody. If the amateur sailor wishes to be thought more of a sailor than the sailor born, he soon finds out his mistake, and when he gets into a good club subsides into his proper position. To those who are fond of the sea and of yachting, the yacht is the most 'homey' of residences; everything is cosy, and comfortable, and within reach; and the sensation of carrying your house and all its comforts about with you is unique.