masque, and all the joys of French life, and tumbles about on this cold and cruel sea. All for the glory of being the secretary of General Grant, who, by the way, was quietly walking up and down the quarterdeck in a greatcoat, smoking his after-breakfast cigar, caring nothing for the sea and the storm.

An English nobleman is reported to have said that a man who would say he liked dry champagne would say anything. I thought to-night, as I felt my way along the deck from the General's cabin, that a man who would say he liked the sea would say anything. The night was cold. The rain was falling and bubbling about in pools. The wind was ahead, and the good old ship every moment wriggled and trembled as she thrust her head in the sea. Officers in weird costumes of oilcloth and gutta-percha were moving about, looking at the sky and the rigging, and the barometer and the canvas. Hadden was walking the bridge with his trumpet, like an uneasy spirit, staring into the night. There was the night before us, around us, beneath us—not a star in the sky, only heavy, angry clouds. Every now and then the sea came with a tug and whirl, and sometimes forced its way over the bow. Far up on the yards were the lights to warn other ships of our coming. There, perched in the rigging, was a dripping Jack Tar, staring into the night. Now and then a call is heard—a call in some dialect unknown to me, which is answered from the bridge. But on the forecastle one of my fair, peach-faced young friends in the steerage, a midshipman, keeps his dripping watch, staring into the night. On the quarterdeck my old friend the quartermaster, with his gray head and grave face, holds watch and ward, staring into the night. Somehow I have great confidence in the quartermaster, and feel safe when I see him on deck. There is something so respectable and fatherly about this quartermaster that you instinctively depend upon him in a storm. In the wardroom some of the officers are writing, others are trying to read. As we come from the deck there is a run of comments and criticisms in that fresh Saxon sailor method of speech which breathes of the sea. The night is very dark, relieved only by the phosphorescent flashes of the waves and a

burst of lightning which illumines the horizon toward Sicily and Crete. The captain comes out and looks into the night, and visits the chart room and the binnacle, and goes up to the bridge to talk with Hadden and stare into the night. I suppose the oracle has given him some response, for he returns to the cabin. The General is cheerful over his zeal and success as a sailor, and is disposed to vaunt his seamanship when one of us proposes to go to bed to prevent further uneasiness. The lady of our ship has been unable to leave her cabin on account of the storm, although all reports concur in saying that she proves to be an admirable sailor. The captain overrules one of her suggestions that we should come to an anchor-by the statement that it would do no good; and the General vetoes another suggestion that we should return to Malta-by the argument that we are as near to Alexandria as to Malta, and nothing would be gained by returning. The good ship strains and twists and keeps on in her course.

The chief engineer, who is an amiable man and never complains, now finds fault with the water for coming into the cabin. You see it has been coming in for an hour, and when the boys have finished swabbing I suppose it will come in again. I repeat that a man who would say he liked the sea would say anything. I am looking at my cot, which swings over my head as I write. I wonder if I am really going to climb into it to-night without coming out on the other side, and in among the pitchers and charts in Lieutenant Strong's room. I wonder if the rain will come through the blankets as it did last night. I wonder if the cot in the midnight watches will begin a series of batteringram assaults on the dining table, as it did the night before, assaults which were only terminated by the engineering skill of Mr. Dannenhower. Well, we might as well be cheerful about it. I try and find a light side to it, although Mr. Caldwell makes the profound observation that nothing could be worse than a ship when it rains. Caldwell as an executive officer is in an exceedingly cheerful mood to-night, arising from the fact that he has a good deal to do. Well, I would much rather have him command the ship than myself, my disposition being

to vote for Mrs. Grant's proposition to bring the ship to anchor. But since I am not in command, and since the ship will go on like a fate, right on to the shores of Phoenicia, I try and kill an hour by writing this paragraph and giving you a sketch of one of our evenings at sea.

He

I suppose there must be a fascination in this life if we could. I still think, to repeat, that a man who would say he liked the sea would say anything. In this opinion I am sustained by my noble friend the Marquis. That gentleman informed us all this evening that the English were all fools (fools emphatically expressed) for keeping yachts, and that if he had a million dollars a year he would never keep a yacht. But my noble friend was in deep depression of spirits at the time. had been lying all the afternoon in a corner on the lower deck, near the engine, disturbed by the noises of the machinery and the smell of the oil. He had tried to dine, and no one knows better the philosophy of dinner, but he retreated with the soup. A man-even a man with the naturally broad and generous mind of the Marquis-would be apt to take a dismal view of yachting. If I were sure there was no rain in my cot I might find reasons for owning a yacht. But rain in one's cot, and an unruly sea outside, and water oozing along the cabin floors, and a general feeling of inexpressible discomfort, the feeling that you know where you are now, but you are not sure about the minute after next, these are incidents tending to dampen the enthusiasm of any man-of any man in this ship, unless it is Caldwell, who, as I remarked, has never been so happy and cheerful as since the storm came. I knew when he came down stairs five minutes ago, all wreathed in smiles, that the barometer was going down, and that his heart was leaping with the thought that he might be on the bridge all night battling with the winds. But there's where we differ, and why, among other things, the Providence who ordained our fate made it his duty to be the executive officer of the "Vandalia" and mine to write. If I must go to sea I want a calm sea. I never saw one too calm for my nerves, not even on the Delaware and Raritan Canal. I like sunshine, and when I was in Naples found rea

sons for envying the poor ragged beggars who had gorged themselves with macaroni and were sleeping in the sun. I like to sleep in a bed which does not swing like a pendulum and into which the rain does not fall. I like a hansom cab. I felt like saying to General Grant the other evening when he was talking about some of his generals, that if I could only command an army in a hansom cab I would do wonders. I do not like rain or cold, or tumbling seas. One of the reasons which

made me welcome this trip was the certainty that I would pass

from the fogs of London into the enrapturing sunshine of France and Italy. Well, I have not found the sunshine yet, as I said to myself in an ironical mood, when I found myself rowing ashore in tropical Malta wearing a heavy English ulster. I wonder if I will find it in Egypt, toward which we are driving, driving, driving through the cold, unrelenting rain.

I am afraid I shall do the Mediterranean an injustice if I leave the impression that it is always an ugly sea. When I wrote the last paragraph I had just come in from the rain. But this morning the rain has gone and our sea is as gentle as a millpond, and we begin to rejoice in sun and cloudless skies. The old ship brightens up like a spring morning, and the deck

swarms with sailors putting everything in order. everything in order. Give me a man-of-war for putting things in order. There is no end to the washing, the scrubbing, the cleaning of brass. In a short time the traces of the storm are removed and we have quarters. The marine guard comes to its post-every man as fresh as a new pin—and as Captain Fagan carefully inspects the line, our General notes that the line is well kept and the men in good discipline. The sailors at their guns, the engineers at their quarters, every man at his post, the inspection goes on, and reports are made. One or two poor fellows who jumped over and swam ashore in Malta, and were taken, are now "in the brig," and the lady of our ship has been using her influence to have their punishment lessened-it being the holiday season, and so on. I do not like to ask whether she has succeeded or not, for, as you will see, it is really none of my business. But I have great confidence in the persuasive powers of Mrs. Grant, and I only allude to this incident because it gives me an excuse for referring to her generous and thoughtful character, to that never-failing kindness and amiability which go so far to enhance the pleasure of our trip. As you stand on the quarterdeck and see the well-ordered movements of the ship; the men in uniform going from place to place; the calls, the commands; the great menacing guns crouching under the ports; as you watch the always changing novelty of a man-of-war's duties, and feel the soft, warm airs coming over the calmest of summer seas, you begin to feel that there is some attraction in a sailor's career. You see we are all on a sharp lookout this morning, for Strong has just been to the chart room, and announced that land may be seen at any time. Strong is the navigating officer, and I sometimes fear he has sold himself to the common enemy of mankind, or how else could he prophesy to the minute when we shall see certain rocks and lights? Why should he sit up all hours of the night figuring, figuring huge columns of figures, unless—well, I will not venture my suspicions. He has told us this morning that we may see land at any moment, and we all believe in Strong, and look steadily at the horizon, now fringed with a shining mist. How glorious is the sea in repose! Under