Towards evening on the 11th the weather looked so encouraging that orders were issued to sail early next day. When I went on deck that morning about seven o'clock, the sky was bright, the sea smooth, and any wind there was blew out of the north. "We have got a fair wind at last, Mr. Currie," I said, addressing the mate. "Yes, sir," he answered; "but we shall have it all south, and plenty of it ere long." "What makes you think so?" "Look at them fields above the town, sir;"-they were white with hoar frost-"depend on it, sir," continued the mate, "we are not far from a change of both wind and weather."

We made sail notwithstanding, and began to slip down the channel with the tide, aided by the lightest possible air of wind. We had got clear of most of the vessels in the anchorage when we found ourselves suddenly embarrassed by a brigantine lying right in our way. The breeze, however, such as it was, would have served to carry us to leeward, had it not lulled all at once, and left us to be drifted by the strong run of the ebb-tide coming round the spit of Spike Island, right down on the unlucky vessel. All was now excitement: Mr. Cairney shouted to the master of the brigantine to slack out his cable, which, if promptly done, would have allowed us room to pass. With his arms folded, the fellow stood looking at us over his bulwarks, and did nothing but discharge at us a volley of hideous oaths. The next moment we were caught by the heel on his cable; and swinging round in half a second, we had snapped in the collision his top-mast, jibboom, and spritsail-yard; while one of his spars had most provokingly poked a hole in the clew of our splendid new mainsail. By the help of a kedge anchor, and the brigantine at length paying out more cable, we shook her off and got clear; the detention was just long enough to settle the question of our sailing for that day at least. Before we got matters arranged with this troublesome customer, the mate's prophecy had been fulfilled to the letter. The wind was already blowing in strong gusts from the south; the sun was hid in a threatening bank of clouds, and the gale was rising fast. Had we been fairly at sea we might

INCIDENTS IN QUEENSTOWN HARBOUR.

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have held on. Still inside the harbour mouth, as we were, discretion was deemed the better part of valour, and we betook ourselves to our former position, alongside of H.M.S. Hogue, which towered up like a floating fortress beside us.

The gale continued with little intermission for several days. So violent was it even in the Cove that about noon, on Saturday the 14th, our gigantic neighbour broke from her moorings and nearly overwhelmed an unfortunate emigrant ship that had come in the night before with her masts sprung, and was lying two or three hundred yards astern. As the Hogue was drifting down upon her the scene was most exciting. Fortunately the anchors thrown out brought up the runaway just as she was getting foul of the emigrant ship. The man-of-warsmen clustered like bees along the yards; hatchets were busily plied: steam was got up with all speed, and at length having cut all clear, the huge block-ship weighed, crept slowly up against the wind, and came to anchor at the mouth of the Lee, under the shelter of the high land, where she caught less of the storm.

This protracted delay gave me an opportunity of preaching in the Scotch church on the succeeding Lord's-day. Many of the emigrants had come ashore to be present; and being countrymen of my own, I was glad to have an opportunity of addressing them, and of trying to say something suitable to their condition and prospects. The Scotch church, a tasteful Gothic building, with a very pretty spire, standing as it does on an elevation at the extremity of the town, is one of the most noticeable objects upon the shore of this beautiful bay.

Both the officers of the Hogue and the weather-wise people ashore strongly dissuaded us from leaving Queenstown till these gales should have spent their force. One day we made a trip to Cork; another we inspected the dockyards and hospitals, and enjoyed the hospitalities of Haulbowline; a third we rambled about Queenstown itself, but still time was hanging heavily upon our hands. The warm climate we had hoped to reach in a week was now, at the end of a fortnight, as far off as

ever. The worst of it was that the climate in question was likely to be warm overmuch by the time we should get to it, unless we made far greater speed in future than we had been doing hitherto. It was therefore with general joy we at length found ourselves, about ten A.M. of Wednesday the 18th, running gaily out to sea, under a bright sunny sky and with a perfectly favourable wind. The breeze freshened as the day wore on, and our progress was most satisfactory. About five in the afternoon we passed close to a floating wreck, always a touching and solemnizing sight. She seemed to be either a Kinsale hooker, or a French lugger. On the starboard bow, as it rose on the swell, we could make out "No. 18," and "Vi"-the first two letters of her name. She was evidently a fishing vessel, for her nets were hanging over the lee gunwale which was submerged in the sea. From her size she must have had a crew of five or six men. There was no vestige remaining of either mast or bowsprit, and the opinion of the seamen was that she must have been run down in the dark. The facts were entered in the log, but the story of the wreck, like that of a thousand others, will probably continue unknown till the day when the sea shall give up her dead.

On the following morning we imagined for a while that we were approaching another spectacle of the same painful kind. I was on deck at sunrise. The long swell of the Atlantic, rising in majestic ridges and sinking down in deep and broad valleys, was singularly grand. As the level sun shot his early rays along the face of the ocean, one side of each watery hollow gleamed in the strong light like a wall of silver, while the other, darkened by its own shadow, was of the deepest bottle green. These vast rollers came sweeping on in long unbroken lines, and only when the yacht was poised for a moment on the summit of the ridge, was it possible to see from the deck to any distance around. At such a moment the look-out had got sight of a vessel, the appearance of which created an immediate stir. The mate, having run up the rigging with the glass, confirmed the observation of the man who had first seen her, that her

THE BAY OF BISCAY.

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masts were hanging overboard. Mr. Cairney was immediately called, and leave asked and given to run towards her as she was about three miles to leeward. It was pleasant to see the eagerness of the men, animated by the hope of rescuing some poor fellow who might be still clinging to the supposed wreck. As we neared her the mystery was cleared up by the discovery that she was simply a French fishing vessel, with her masts hauled down that she might ride easier, and hanging upon her nets as she plied her hardy vocation in the open sea. We tacked immediately, of course, and stood on our own way.

The fine weather with which we left the Cove did not continue with us four and twenty hours. The wind went all round the compass, but always stayed longest in the adverse quarter. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday passed away, and we were still traversing the outer edge of the Bay of Biscay, and contending with the great Atlantic waves. At length, about six o'clock on Monday morning, we got our first sight of the Spanish coast. It was the high land near Cape Ortegal that first met our view. In a few hours we were abreast of Cape Finisterre, the western extremity of Europe, and running rapidly down the Spanish shore. As yet the atmosphere was cold and wintrylike as ever. The mountains of Spain looked quite as bleak as those of our own Scotland had done when we left them more than a fortnight before. By the afternoon we had got as far south as Vigo, when the wind again headed us and rose at the same time into a gale. To keep a good offing we tacked away out into the open sea, and then lay-to all night in a raging storm. This proved however to be the last expiring breath of the equinoctial gales. Towards morning its fury abated, and the wind now coming up into the west, it sent us along at a rapid rate upon our way. In the course of that same day we passed from winter into summer. The gray, bleak, repulsive look disappeared from the face of both sea and sky; the clouds rolled gradually away; the sun shone out with a most reviving warmth; the beautiful shores of Portugal stretched in their soft blue far away

along the line of our course, and Mr. Tennent's promise was at length fulfilled.

It was all fair-weather sailing with us now onwards to Gibraltar. About one P.M. on Wednesday we were opposite that magnificent headland, the Rock of Lisbon. At the same hour on the day following we passed Cape St. Vincent, where Sir John Jarvis won his great victory and founded the title of his family. On Friday we were becalmed for several hours in the Bay of Cadiz, where the heat was so great that the pitch began to ooze out from the seams of the deck. In the evening we passed Cape Trafalgar, the scene of the crowning victory and glorious death of the heroic Nelson. And on the morning of Saturday the 28th, about nine o'clock, we dropped our anchor beneath the Rock of Gibraltar.

We had been much retarded during the previous night by a dense fog, which for many hours made it impossible to see twenty yards from the ship. Off Cape Trafalgar, and eastwards along the Spanish shore, there are many formidable reefs and shoals, which embarrassed us not a little. The wind was light, and the indraught of the current at one time bore us down upon the ticklish ground, till the lead-line showed us only three and a half fathoms. Fortunately the breeze freshened when we most needed it, and we stood over towards the African coast. The detention caused by the fog did us this favour, however, that it kept us hanging on about the mouth of the Straits till the dawn, and thus gave us the advantage of daylight for the magnificent scenery which lines, on either hand, the entrance into the Medi

terranean.

The mountains on the African side have the undoubted pre-eminence in elevation and grandeur. The Bay of Gibraltar runs up six or seven miles into the land, and is about five miles broad. The noble range of the Tarifa mountains bounds its western shore, and the ancient moorish-looking town of Algesiras lies at their feet. On the summit of the lower range of hills that slope upwards from the head of the bay stands the town of St.