Scot and bold British sailor), steamed from the future Metropolis of the World for the shores of Merrie England. She had many passengers, but among them were eleven who outranked all others, if their respective opinions of each other were to be accepted as the true standard of judgment. I had received for many months before the sweetest pleasure imaginable in startling first one and then another with requests to report at headquarters, Windsor Hotel, New York, May 31st, prepared to embark. It was on St. Valentine's Day that the Prima Donna received a missive which caused her young heart to flutter. What a pretty reply came! Here is a short extract:

To Davenport, Iowa, went another invitation. In due time came a return missive from the proud City of the River:

Isn't it glorious to make one's friends so happy?

Harbor of New York, June 1, 1881.
On board Steamer Bothnia.

Call the roll.

Queen Dowager, Head of the Clan (no Salic Law in our family); Miss J. J. (Prima Donna); Miss A. F. (Stewardess); Mr. and Mrs. McC. (Dainty Davie); Mr. and Mrs. K. (Paisley Troubadours); Mr. B. F. V. (Vandy); Mr. H. P., Jr. (Our Pard); Mr. G. F. McC. (General Manager); ten in all, making, together with the scribe, the All-coaching Eleven.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling! The tears are shed, the kisses ta'en. The helpless hulk breathes the breath of life. The pulsations of its mighty heart are felt, the last rope that binds us to land cast off; and now see the hundreds of handkerchiefs waving from the pier fading and fading away. But note among the wavers one slight graceful figure; Miss C. of our party, present in spirit if bodily absent on duty, much to the regret of us all. The wavings from deck to shore tell our friends

On the Bothnia.

The Bothnia turned her face to the east, and out upon old ocean's gray and melancholy waste sailed the Gay Charioteers. As we steamed down the bay three steamers crowded with the most enterprising of Europe's people passed us, emigrants coming to find in the bounteous bosom of the Great Republic the blessings of equality, the just reward of honest labor. Ah, favored land! the best of the Old World seek your shores to swell to still grander proportions your assured greatness. That all come only for the material benefits you confer, I do not believe. Crowning these material considerations, I insist that the more intelligent of these people feel the spirit of true manhood stirring within them, and glory in the thought that they are to become part of a powerful people, of a government founded upon the born equality of man, free from military despotism and class distinctions. There is a trace of the serf in the man who lives contentedly in a land with ranks above him. One hundred and seventeen thousand came last month, and the cry is still they come! O ye self-constituted rulers of men in Europe, know you not that the knell of dynasties and of rank is sounding? Are you so deaf that you do not hear the thunders, so blind that you do not see the lightnings which now and then give warning of the storm that is to precede the reign of the people?

There is everything in the way one takes things. "Whatever is, is right," is a good maxim for travellers to adopt, but the Charioteers improved on that. The first resolution they passed was, "Whatever is, is lovely; all that does happen and all that doesn't shall be altogether lovely." We shall quarrel with nothing, admire everything and everybody. A surly beggar shall afford us sport, if any one can be surly under our smiles; and stale bread and poor fare shall only serve to remind us that we have banqueted at the Windsor. Even no dinner at all shall pass for a good joke. Rain shall be hailed as good for the growing corn; a cold day pass as invigorating, a warm one welcomed as suggestive of summer at home, and even a Scotch mist serve to remind us of the mysterious ways of Providence. In this mood the start was made. Could any one suggest a better for our purpose?

Now comes a splendid place to skip—the ocean voyage. Everybody writes that up upon the first trip, and every family knows all about it from the long descriptive letters of the absent one doing Europe.

When one has crossed the Atlantic twenty odd times there seems just about as much sense in boring one's readers with an account of the trip as if the journey were by rail from New York to Chicago. We had a fine, smooth run, and though some of us were a trifle distrait, most of us were supremely happy. A sea voyage compared with land travel is a good deal like matrimony compared with single blessedness, I take it: either decidedly better or decidedly worse. To him who finds himself comfortable at sea, the ocean is the grandest of treats. He never fails to feel himself a boy again while on the waves. There is an exultation about it. "He walks the monarch of the peopled deck," glories in the storm, rises with and revels in it. Heroic song comes to him. The ship becomes a live thing, and if the monster rears and plunges it is akin to bounding on his thoroughbred who knows its rider. Many men feel thus, and I am happily of them, but the ladies who are at their best at sea are few.

The travellers, however, bore the journey well, though one or two proved indifferent sailors. One morning I had to make several calls upon members below and administer my favorite remedy; but pale and dejected as the patients were, not one failed to smile a ghastly smile, and repeat after a fashion the cabalistic words—"Altogether lovely."

The Atlantic.

He who has never ridden out a hurricane on the Atlantic is to be pitied. It seems almost ridiculous to talk of storms when on such a monster as the Servia. Neptune now may "his dread trident shake" and only give us pleasure, for in these days we laugh at his pretensions. Even he is fast going the way of all kings, his wildest roar being about on a par with the last Bull of the Pope, to which we listen with wonder but without fear.

In no branch of human progress has greater advance been made within the past twenty years than in ocean navigation by steam; not so much in the matter of speed as in cost of transport. The Persia, once the best ship of the Cunard Line, required an expenditure of thirty-five dollars as against her successors' one dollar. The Servia will carry thirty-five tons across the ocean for what one ton cost in the Persia. A revolution indeed! and one which brings the products of American soil close to the British shores. Quite recently flour has been carried from Chicago to Liverpool for forty-eight cents (2s.) per barrel. The farmer of Illinois is as near the principal markets of Britain as the farmer in England who grows his crops one hundred miles from his market and transports by rail; and, in return for this, the pig-iron manufacturer of Britain is as near the New York market as is his competitor on the Hudson.

Some of the good people of Britain who are interested in land believe that the competition of America has reached its height. Deluded souls, it has only begun!

One cannot be a day at sea without meeting the American who regrets that the Stars and Stripes have been commercially driven from the ocean. This