determined, as we said, to get an appetite for dinner. It was not much of a walk at best, and was momentarily growing shorter as the spray began to break across the deck for'ard. The hatchways were closed, and the men were battening them down, making it comfortable for the crowd below. I peeped through a chink in the tarpaulin to see how the Japanese family were getting on. They were not smiling now, being too busily engaged in the effort to keep their walls up. Sometimes a box would roll off on the port side, and whilst they were re-fixing it, a bundle placed aft would drop down upon them as the steamer buried its miserable little nose in the sea. I was conscious of the engineer watching us as we paced the deck, but whenever we approached the engine-room he disappeared. He was evidently as anxious now to avoid conversation as he formerly had been to open it.

At four bells we turned in for dinner. We had been very cheery on deck, perhaps a little ostentatiously at our ease, staggering about with the heaving ship. But when we got to the bottom of the ladder and were standing in the close and narrow saloon the gaiety of the company was eclipsed. The last thing I saw as I descended was the duck shaking its

head more violently than ever, with an expression of idiotic bewilderment that haunted me through the terrible night. We were not, however, going to give in without a struggle. Dinner was on the table, and we would at least sit down, making talk of ghastly cheerfulness and eyeing each other suspiciously. We ate our soup and eagerly discussed its relative merits with those of various other soups we had eaten under circumstances we were at curious pains to remember and recite. Two courses followed, one of mutton, the other of veal. I forgot which was the veal; but it did not matter. It might have been called turtle fin with equal accuracy of reference to its flavour. At this stage the lady of the party retired.

Another course arrived of some undistinguishable meat. I am not sure that it was not the veal back again, having passed out at one door and in at the other, after the manner of an army of supers at country theatres. The young gentleman from Glasgow, though unusually silent, did fairly well. He had paid for his dinner, and the commercial transaction would not be completed unless he ate it. Something else came on-perhaps cheese, peradventure an orange. The cook was determined to rise to the occasion and show the

friends of the Foreign Minister what could be done on board this ship. To this end he had manufactured three small tarts, of very pale complexion, which, by way of luring on the appetite, had been placed on the table with the soup. These tarts were always slipping off the table, being rescued from under by somebody and replaced on the dish. I have a fancy that they were not quite so pale when I first saw them. But with the cabin bobbing about in this style, the ceiling coming down to the floor, the floor going up to the ceiling, and occasionally the port or starboard side taking the place of the ceiling, even a tart made of tinned greengages might be excused if it gradually lost some of its fresher tints.

I meant to sit out the young gentleman from Glasgow; but when I saw him take up one of these tarts with evident intent of eating it, I left. It was not easy to get fixed on the plate-shelf, but it was done at last, and I even got to sleep. From time to time-it seemed at least every hour-I was awakened by the thuds of the sea as it thundered down on deck and with a rushing noise swept backwards and forwards till it finally cleared off. Alas for the hapless Japanese family with their frail tenement of boxes, and their poor shelter of tarpaulin! It was piteous to think

how the night must have sped with them and with the other poor wretches battened down in the hold.

There was no limit to the variety of the motion of the little tub adrift on the angered ocean. There is among sea-going passengers a difference of opinion as to whether pitching or rolling is the least bearable. We had both in succession, with a quite new and original motion, as if the vessel were trying to jump sideways over a yawning chasm, and, always failing, was pitched ruthlessly to the bottom of the abyss. Once the bows coming upon a roller were pitched so high that the vessel seemed literally standing on end.

There was a moment during which I distinctly felt it poised trembling in every plank, undecided whether, since it had come so far, it was worth while going back, and whether, on the whole, it would not be better to go over backwards as a rearing horse sometimes falls on its rider. I remember assisting at the deliberation without particularly caring how it ended. The force of habit prevailed, and the vessel righted herself, and by way of change began to roll.

Thus the night wore on, and thus in slightly modified degree the day was spent. I heard afterwards that the captain had vainly

tried to run for shelter into a little fishing port on the coast, but wind and sea proved too strong for him. He could not fetch the port, could only lie out with the engines at full pressure, driving the ship along at the rate of two miles an hour. The night continued light, whereby possibly catastrophe was averted. But what with the waves constantly washing over the steamer, and the spindrift blinding the look-out man, it was hard to see where we were going.

The

The young gentleman from Glasgow got up and went resolutely to his breakfast. I remained on the shelf, and spent quite a pleasant day, eating a pomello and reading Mr. Edmund Yates's "Land at Last." cupboard, though a little close with the door shut, had some corresponding advantages. For example, you might, if you liked, having opened the door, step out of bed on to the dining-room table, an arrangement which I do not remember to have seen perfected even in the best-appointed houses in England. Short of that you might lie in bed, and, making a long arm, help yourself from the breakfasttable. Thus I obtained a woodcock on toast. It is well there was toast as there was singularly little woodcock.

The young gentleman from Glasgow ate