Thirty to forty pounds, or as much as fifty pounds, a week may easily go in hotel bills if there is a largish party. Half the sum will keep a 100- or 150-ton yacht going, wages, wear and tear, food, &c., included, if you are afloat for three or four months. Certainly for a party of four or five yachting is cheaper than travelling on the Continent with a courier and going to first-class hotels. Travelling on the Continent under the best conditions often becomes a bore; the carriages are stuffy and dusty, the trains are late, the officials are uncivil or at least indifferent, the hotels are full, the kitchen is bad, and you come to the conclusion that you would be better at home. Now, on board a yacht you are never stuffy or dusty, the accommodation is always good, everyone about you is always civil, anxious for your comfort, the kitchen is never bad, and you cannot come to the conclusion that you would be better at home, for you _are_ at home--the most cosy and comfortable of homes! The yachting season of 1893 will always be a memorable one. The victory of H.I.M. the German Emperor's 'Meteor' for the Queen's Cup at Cowes; the victorious career of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales's 'Britannia' and the 'Valkyrie'; the series of international contests between the 'Britannia' and 'Navahoe,' with the unexpected victory of the latter over the cross-Channel course; and, finally, the gallant attempt of Lord Dunraven to bring back the cup from America, make a total of yachting incidents, and indeed surprises, that will last for a very long time. The victory of the 'Meteor' in the Queen's Cup was a surprise: it was more than a surprise when the 'Navahoe' beat 'Britannia' to Cherbourg and back in a gale of wind. I don't know that it was a matter of surprise that the Americans kept the Cup; I think, indeed, it was almost a foregone conclusion. In yachting, as in everything else, possession is nine points of the law, and a vessel sailing in her own waters, with pilots accustomed to the local currents and atmospheric movements, will always have an advantage. Whether the 'Vigilant' is a better boat than the 'Valkyrie,' whether she was better sailed, whether her centreboard had anything to do with her victory, I cannot say. But there is the result: that the 'Vigilant' won by seven minutes, which, at the rate they were sailing, means about a mile.