bells, by which time the ship looked as spick and span as if she had been kept under a glass case, just removed.

When eight bells struck, Beachy Head bore North-North-West by compass, distant fourteen miles. Prompt at the stroke of the bell, Mrs Vansittart came up on deck, dressed in her blue serge seagoing rig, and bade us a cheery good morning. After receiving Kennedy’s report and verifying the bearing and distance of the headland, she gave orders for the course to be altered to west-half-south for the run down channel.

It was at this time a clear and brilliant morning, the sky a hard blue, streaked here and there with mare’s tails, the sun, pallid and without warmth, hanging low over the French coast well on our port quarter. The breeze was blowing fresh and very keen, although, running before it as we were, we did not feel anything like the full strength of it. Of this we could only get a correct idea by observing the run of the short, bottle-green channel surges breaking in foam all round us, and the way in which a few brigs and schooners, the former under single-reefed topsails, beating up channel, lay down to it and flung the spray over their weather catheads. There were a good many craft going our way too, both steam and sail, the latter, like ourselves, making the utmost of the good fair wind by showing to it every rag that they could spread. But we overhauled and passed them, one after the other, with the utmost ease; and when, a little later, the breeze freshened, we began to give some of the steamers the go-by as well.

By noon we had brought Selsea Bill square abeam, some sixteen miles distant; and at two o’clock in the afternoon, when I went on deck after luncheon, Saint Catharine’s was a point abaft the beam, distant eight miles. At nine o’clock that night we were abreast of the Start, when, Mrs Vansittart having determined our distance from the Point by a couple of bearings taken an hour apart, ordered the studding sails to be taken in and the royals and mizen topgallant sail to be furled. We then “took our departure”, and, hauling our wind on the port tack, shaped a course for Ushant, which was sighted and passed at three bells in the following morning watch, our next port of call being, as I now learned, Lisbon.

During the day occupied by our run down channel all hands had an easy time of it, there being nothing much for them to do except keep the ship clean and take an occasional pull at a halyard or brace. I therefore had ample time to take stock of the crew and improve my acquaintance with my shipmates generally.

As regards the crew, I had an idea that in a quiet way they were watching me and seeking to “reckon me up”. I was a “Britisher”, the only one in the ship; and my experience of Americans, which up to that time had been but slight, led me to the belief that the people, taken as a whole, held the Britisher in but light esteem. I therefore decided that, so far at least as the crew of the Stella Maris was concerned, the reputation of my countrymen was to some extent in my hands, and I determined to let slip no opportunity to vindicate it. I was the more strengthened in this resolution by hearing the boy Julius remark to his sister, in tones which I felt were fully intended to reach my ear, that “he had no use for Britishers, and took no stock in them, for they were never of much account.”

I do not know whether my brother officers shared the lad’s view, or whether they, as I half-suspected the men of doing, were quietly waiting to see of what stuff I was made; but, in either case, they never, with the solitary exception of Briscoe, the second mate, permitted such an attitude to appear. On the contrary, they were genial, cordial, and friendly in a very marked degree, so that within the first twenty-four hours of our being at sea I felt thoroughly at home with all of them. If I had a preference for any above the others it was for Monroe, the boy’s tutor, and Harper, the medico of the ship, both of whom were extremely broad-minded men, in addition to being exceptionally well informed and polished in manner. As for our skipper, the more I saw of her the better I liked her. I soon discovered that nothing escaped her notice; she was as smart a seaman as Kennedy himself; she was an expert navigator; the heavens and their portents were an open book to her; she issued her orders with the utmost confidence and decision, and never hesitated to find fault if things did not please her; and yet with it all she was most gracious and friendly in her manner to us all, from the highest to the lowest.

As for Miss Anthea, I am bound to admit that, with the exception of Monroe and the doctor, she treated us all alike with the utmost impartiality, merely acknowledging our salutes with a careless, scarcely perceptible inclination of the head, and otherwise completely ignoring our existence. Her amusements, while on deck, consisted of reading, playing bull, shuffle-board, or deck quoits with her brother, promenading the poop with her mother, and occasionally condescending to exchange a few remarks with the parson or the doctor. But she was a musician of rare ability, and possessed a soprano singing voice of exquisite richness and purity, as I had frequent opportunity of judging by hearing her playing and singing in the drawing-room below while I was on duty on the poop.

That Mrs Vansittart was an ardent sportswoman was evident from the very outset by the way in which she sailed the yacht. She “carried on” consistently, day and night, as though we were sailing in a race, and no sooner were we past Ushant, and the breeze showed signs of freshening, than she ordered preventer backstays rigged fore and aft, and hung on to her canvas until our lee rail was awash and the lee main-deck flooded to such an extent from the topgallant forecastle to the poop that its passage became an impossibility except by swimming.

We swept across the Bay like smoke driven by a strong breeze, overhauling and passing everything that was going our way, excepting a big Cape liner; and we actually held our own with her for some hours, until the breeze eased up sufficiently to allow the steamer to draw gradually away from us. We must have presented a most beautiful picture to the people aboard that boat as we swept along for a time neck and neck with her, our snow-white cotton canvas gleaming in the brilliant sunlight or flecked with sweeping blue shadows as the yacht rushed through and over the foaming surges with the water all aboil about her and every perfectly cut sail, to her three royals, accurately set and drawing like a team of cart horses.

The fresh easterly breeze which had swept us down channel in such splendid style lasted long enough to carry us to the mouth of the Tagus shortly after nine o’clock in the morning of our fifth day out from London; and by noon of that day we were riding at anchor off the city of Lisbon. Here we remained two days, our next destination being the island of Madeira.

From Madeira we went on to Teneriffe, and from Teneriffe to Gibraltar; after which we gradually worked our way up the Mediterranean, calling in at a number of interesting places on the way. We were at Ajaccio on Christmas Day; and it was characteristic of our skipper that she so arranged matters as to spend the day aboard with us, giving the crew a rare good time and inviting the whole of her officers to dine with her in the evening.

We left Ajaccio on the evening of New Year’s Day, and, passing through the Straits of Bonifacio, headed for the Bay of Naples, where we arrived at nine o’clock on the morning of the third of January. From Naples we proceeded to Messina; thence to Malta, Athens, Constantinople, and Jaffa, where we were all afforded an opportunity to make the trip to Jerusalem; and from Jaffa we proceeded to Port Said, where, after remaining at anchor some four or five hours, we ran through the Canal during the night, with an enormous searchlight suspended from our bowsprit end to light us on our way. We anchored at Suez the