The record of personal experiences must not be further prolonged. To the writer yachting has been to some extent part of a public life, mainly devoted to the maritime interests of the country. To conduct the navigation and pilotage of his vessel seemed fitting and even necessary, if the voyages undertaken were to be regarded in any sense as professional. There is something pleasant in any work which affords the opportunity for encountering and overcoming difficulties. It is satisfactory to make a headland or a light with precision after a long run across the ocean, diversified perhaps by a heavy gale. To be able to thread the channels of the West Coast of Scotland, the Straits of Magellan, the Eastern Archipelago, the labyrinths of the Malawalle Channel of North-East Borneo, or the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, without a pilot is an accomplishment in which an amateur may perhaps take legitimate pleasure. To the yachtsman who truly loves the sea, it will never be satisfactory to remain ignorant of navigation. Practice of the art is not a relaxation. It demands constant attention, and is an interruption to regular reading. It may imply a considerable amount of night-work. On the other hand, the owner who is a navigator can take his proper place as the commander of his own ship. All that goes on around him when at sea becomes more interesting. He is better able to appreciate the professional skill of others. The confidence which grows with experience cannot be expected in the beginning. The writer first took charge of navigation in 1866, on a voyage up the Baltic. It was a chequered experiment. In the Great Belt we ran ashore twice in one day. In making Stockholm we had to appeal to a Swedish frigate, which most kindly clewed up her sails, and answered our anxious enquiries by writing the course on a black-board. On the return voyage to England we struck the coast some sixty miles north of our reckoning. Such a history does not repeat itself now. It is not in books or at the library table that the art of the seaman can be acquired. Quickness of eye, nerve, promptitude of judgment, are the indispensable gifts, which must be gained by long and varied experience at sea. The seamanship required in a gale of wind on the open ocean, the seamanship displayed in sailing matches in over-sparred yachts, sailed mainly in smooth waters, and the seamanship called for in pilotage waters not previously visited, and especially at night, are different branches of a wide profession. There is a skill of a very high order in docking an Atlantic liner at Liverpool. There is a skill of a different but equally high order in knocking huge ironclads about in fleet-exercising at sea. There is a skill in bringing the Channel steamers alongside the pier at Dover. The skill of every description of nautical specialist will never be combined in one individual. There is some risk that the more careful the navigator, the less dashing the same man may be as a seaman.