AT ANCHOR IN KINGSTON HARBOUR.

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with her foresail washed half way up with the foam and spray, and with a treble reef in her mainsail, she bounded along over the raging deep. I remained on deck till we got to our anchorage at two in the morning. The roaring of the sea and the howling of the wind through the rigging, as she was put about to run in towards the land, were terrific. The night was wild in the extreme, but there was good moonlight. With the exception of a pilot-boat that was hanging about the weathershore, keeping herself out of harm's way, there was not a sail to be seen. Not a man of the crew had left the deck, save to snatch a hasty dinner, since we left Lamlash. They had had a rough day of it; and were, doubtless, as well pleased as the rest of us when we were at length folded within the long arms of the mole harbour of Kingston, as snug and quiet as if we had been anchored in a mill-pond.

Here we spent the Sabbath, throughout the whole of which the gale continued. About five A.M. on Monday the yacht began to rock like a cradle. Knowing that she lay nearly opposite the harbour mouth, it was easy to conjecture the cause of this phenomenon: the wind had shifted to the north, and was now sending the swell right in upon us. This was some consolation for having our rest disturbed at so early an hour. The weather-glasses, of which we had three-the common mercurial barometer, the aneroid, and the sympesometer-were all on the rise, a further indication of the "clear weather that cometh out of the north." By-and-by the clank of the lever and chain gave note of preparation for again putting to sea. On reaching the deck all my auguries were verified. The anchor was already hove short; and as soon as the men had breakfasted, the order was given to sail. It is always an interesting moment the getting under weigh. In this particular case the excitement was not a little increased by the circumstances of our position. A strong breeze was blowing into the harbour mouth, and a great swell was tumbling in along with it. A coasting vessel that had been lying beside us had just lifted her anchor, and

was making the best of her way out. Five or six times successively she edged up to the opening, and as often was baffled in the attempt to escape. It cost her a full half-hour's tacking to and fro before she got clear.

Our turn came next, and we were ill-placed for a move: one vessel lay across our bows within twenty yards, and another about three lengths of us astern. Backing the top-sails the moment the anchor was started, the St. Ursula was forced back stern-ways to get clear of the vessel ahead; and when all but touching the other vessel astern, the yards were braced round. She gathered way immediately, and was got by this manœuvre into a more open space. This done, her head was instantly laid for the harbour's mouth; and without needing to make a single tack, she shot slanting out through the narrow opening—all but in the wind's eye-and in five minutes we were at sea. It was cleverly done. The sky was now clear, and the sun shone brightly out, though the hills all round the noble bay, from Howth on the one side to Killiney on the other, were white with snow. By three in the afternoon we were passing the Tuskar light, having run down the Irish coast thus far at the rate of ten knots an hour. The wind was fair, the sky without a cloud, the sea had gone down, and everything appeared to betoken a quiet passage across the redoubtable Bay of Biscay, towards which we were now steering steadily on. We thought we had seen the last of old Ireland when its fading coast-line melted away in the distance as the daylight disappeared. But we were not to be done with it so soon. When the sun rose next morning, it found us rolling about in the open sea, upon the slow heaving swell of the Atlantic, with hardly a breath to fill the sails.

In a few hours the wind began to rise, and from the very opposite point of the compass to the wind of yesterday. By mid-day it had risen to a gale. To avoid burying her sharp bows in the heavy seas we lay to. The main boom was made fast amidships, and with nothing but the trysail and staysail

RUNNING INTO THE COVE.

15

shown to the wind, she swam like a duck, scarcely taking a drop of water on board. At five in the afternoon, however, as the storm was rapidly increasing, and there seemed no doubt that we were fairly in for the equinoctial gales, it was decided to make for Cork, and to take refuge for a day or two at the Cove.

To run down in a gale of wind on a lee shore at night is somewhat hazardous. We had moonlight, it is true, but the sky was covered with thick clouds, and driving blasts of rain made the distance hazy and dark. To keep Cork under our lee Mr. Cairney resolved to steer on the Kinsale light, which, being nearly 200 feet above the level of the sea, and very brilliant, is seen much farther off than the Cork light, which is greatly lower in position, and of a dull red. We were about forty-five miles south-east of Kinsale when we put about, and in three hours we sighted the light. Having got far enough in to catch the loom of the land, we ran down the coast before the wind, which was now blowing fiercely from the south-west. The entrance into the capacious and magnificent harbour of Cork forms the apex of a triangle, of which the open sea is the base, and the sides are the converging coast lines. Nothing could be grander than the scene which was here exhibited. Driven into this continually narrowing space the sea was all lashed into sheets of foam, over which the yacht, with only her stay and top sails set, rushed along at twelve or thirteen knots an hour.

At a little before ten o'clock we swept in through the gigantic gateway-the break in the rocky wall of the coast-which forms the entrance into the noble harbour. In a few minutes more we had rounded Spike Island, and dropped our anchor off Queenstown, in waters which the storm could not reach. We had been "reeling to and fro, and staggering like a drunken man," and now we had got into the "desired haven." In our evening worship we sung the portion of the 107th psalm in which that expressive imagery is employed. We had realized all the force and power of its application literally considered; we now tried to take home its spiritual meaning, and sought that when life's

troubled voyage should have come to a close, we might gain that heavenly harbour where all is safety and peace.

To a landsman, a voyage at sea is the opening up of an entirely new department of life. Everything is strange. The very sounds he hears, and the sights that meet his eye, are such as to suggest continually that he is in quite a different sort of world from the one in which he has been accustomed to live.

When he awakes in the night, the gurgling, gushing noise of the water close to his ear, reminds him, perhaps somewhat unpleasantly, that there is only a plank between him and the devouring deep. When wearied and worn out at times with the incessant creaking and rolling of the ship, he begins to grow impatient of the annoyance, and would fain escape into some quieter place where his rest would no longer be so cruelly disturbed, the unwelcome thought gradually dawns upon his mind that escape is simply impossible, and that the creaking and rolling must just go on till another and mightier will than his has decided that it shall cease. He is haunted, too, ever and anon, with a painful feeling of his own utter ignorance and uncertainty as to what may be going to happen. That sudden fall of some heavy tackle on the deck, or those hurrying feet running backwards and forwards immediately above his head-what can they mean? They startle him out of his sleep, and set him upon all sorts of conjectures. But what can he do? Even were he to get up and try to grope his way to the companion, the chances are, he would succeed in nothing but in losing his way and breaking his head or his shins against something or other in the dark. It is then he feels, as he never felt before, the cutting force of Dr. Johnson's definition of a ship at sea, as being a place in which one is imprisoned, with the additional disadvantage of the risk of being drowned.

This, to be sure, is only one side of the picture. It has other and more pleasing aspects, especially to those who are possessed of tolerably good nerves, and who, like myself, enjoy a happy immunity from that peculiar malady which constitutes to many

THE CHANGING OCEAN.

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the grand misery of the sea. Look at that great ocean across which the ship is pursuing her trackless course. What endless varieties it exhibits. At one time, lying motionless in the calm, it seems, in its perfect quiescence, as if it would never stir again. Anon rippling with the gentle breeze, like the sweet playful face of a child dimpling all over with smiles, it looks so innocent and harmless that timidity itself grows bold. A few hours moresometimes far less-and the child has become a giant, the smile has passed into a terrific frown, and, lashed into fury by the rising storm, the raging deep tosses the vexed ship like a feather on its heaving breast. And yet this changeful mood is one of old Ocean's chiefest charms. There is no condition it assumes that so soon becomes unbearable as a breathless calm. As day after day passes on and the ship lies lazily looking down on its own unmoving shadow, or rolling idly from side to side on the unbroken swell of the glassy sea, every eye begins to look wistfully out for the signs of the coming breeze, and every ear longs to hear again the loud piping winds. Experience soon tells on even the least courageous, and teaches them to smile at their former fears. What the Italian poet so beautifully describes, a voyage of a few weeks seldom fails to enable even the timidest to understand, if not thoroughly to realize :

Chi mai non vide fuggir le sponde
La prima volta che va per l'onde;
Crede ogni stella per lui funesta,
Teme ogni zeffiro come tempesta.
Un picciol moto tremar lo fa,

Ma reso esperto si poco teme

Che dorme al suono del mar che freme

O sulla prora cantando va.

But, for the reader's sake, I must get out of Queenstown, as the Cove of Cork is now called, as soon as possible. We entered it on the evening of Tuesday the 10th, and it was on the morning of Wednesday the 18th, that we bade it finally good bye. I say finally, for we had a leave-taking considerably sooner.