twelve feet three inches, with the propeller not quite half immersed in smooth water. The average landsman does not know how great this danger is. Owing to the smallness of the tanks provided for water ballast in tramps, every one of these ships does at times become unmanageable in rough weather, and every sailor on board of them knows that then his life may be in peril. A second Plimsoll will have to come forward to insist upon a minimum load - line. When in ballast the modern-built tramp skims like a saucer over the surface of the sea. Her whole side is exposed to the wind, and while driving full speed ahead she may drift eight points away from her course and be driven upon the rocks. If you try to put her head-on to the seas her propeller is entirely out of water three quarters of the time. The racing of the propeller may become so terrific that it may break from the shaft, or the shaft itself may break. Again, the speed is so much reduced that there is no steerage-way, and she is blown into the trough of the sea with the wind and sea on her beam. The rolling is then bad enough to unship the masts and funnel, and even loosen the boiler setting, while the lives of the men in the stokehold are endangered. Any heavy thing in the ship that is not fixed with the utmost security becomes an object of peril.

The pilot came on board, we cast off before noon, and, leav

ing the smooth water of the inner harbour, proceeded under shelter of the break water. On approaching the east end of it the pilot left us. The hatchways were then closed and tarpaulins secured over them by wedges. From the bridge. we watched the seas foaming over the breakwater, and had to face a sea out of all proportion to the wind that was blowing. The propeller was racing even now, and the glass was still going back.

Matters grew worse and worse every hour. The wind soon rose to a gale, and the short peaky seas with white crests were tumbling upon the forward well-deck. At four o'clock it began to be serious. Up till then the log indicated nineteen miles made in four hours, but in the next four hours she made only twelve miles more. At this time, 4 P.M., we could see by the wake of the ship that she was drifting a point and a half out of her course.

Our course for Bona was south-south-east, but the captain turned the ship's head to make her go easier if possible. At 5.30 P.M. we had tea in the cabin. Captain O'Hara and I both recognised that we were in for a wild night. I asked him, not half in chaff, where the lifebelts were stowed. He told me in the chart-room. While we were talking the rattle of the propeller shaft became so violent that he said he must go on the bridge and try to put the ship on a better course. He might have to put her in the trough of the sea.

I

followed him presently as far as the poop, but could not think of making for the bridge in the dark. Everything was black except when a faint gleam came from a wave breaking, as it seemed, nearly overhead. So I returned to the cabin. In an hour or two O'Hara came below for a few minutes. He had been trying different courses, and eased her a bit by going astern for ten minutes with the sea. The gale was increasing every minute. He feared the ship might become unmanageable in the trough of the sea before long. I took to watching the swinging lamp, and it seemed to roll quite sixty degrees each way. Also the roll was much quicker than I had seen it. The double roll took about three seconds, certainly not four seconds. That means under two seconds for swinging each way.

I went to bed, and when the captain next appeared I was asleep. I was very sleepy and stared at him, and wondered if he had come to search for something. He told me to get up and dress, as we might have to take to the boats. The ship had a hole in her bottom, and was making water fast in Nos. 1 and 2 holds. He had called all hands, and was doing all he could to keep the ship afloat till daylight.

The captain had no time to wait. There were hundreds of matters requiring his immediate attention. So soon as he left, and while I was hurriedly dressing in my warmest clothing, I became conscious

to

of extreme discomfort and such a parched, bad-tasting mouth as I had only once before felt when poisoned with ptomaine on board H.M.S. Jupiter off Majorca in the Mediterranean not far from here some few years ago. [On that occasion Captain Sinvited many of the flag-captains of the fleet that were engaged in manœuvres dinner, and nearly killed us all with paté de foie gras en aspic.] Afterwards I found that the steward, whose berth was aft, was in the same case. It turned out that the stove chimney would not draw in the gale, and we had been poisoned by the noxious gases. This was a nice beginning to a strenuous time! Dressing was difficult, as all the contents of the room were being flung about in a litter on the floor.

I had put my head on deck for a moment and seen that it was utterly impossible to launch a boat. So none of my possessions seemed to matter a pin. Tobacco was the first necessity: it supplies the place of food, drink, warmth, dry clothing, and sleep. I put a box of matches in each pocket in hopes that one of them might keep dry. Then I pocketed my loose cash and a Coutts' cheque-book.

I seemed now to have done all that was possible. But supposing we should be able to get into a boat, and if so something more might be taken, I opened a shirt - case, and dropped into it the oddest selection of articles you can imagine. There seemed to be

no chance of using these things again, and there was no sort of rule to guide me as to what to take and what to leave behind. Afterwards, in the boat, I discovered that the captain had found the same difficulty. All he saved was a pair of hairbrushes in a case, a present from his mother-in-law, and he could not tell why he had taken these. Evans, too, the chief engineer, in the boat, found in his pockets the only things that he had saved, and they were three saw-files. He had no recollection of when or why he had secured them.

Seeing a Gladstone bag, I put into it a change of clothes in case it might come also; but I was determined not to inconvenience the others if there was too little room in the boat.

I went on the poop, but nothing was to be seen except the blaze of a riding - light rigged up amidships and the white combers over us. Then, as I stood getting a puff of fresh air, the captain fired off rockets from near the bridge as signals of distress. The roof of my mouth and tongue were still frightfully parched and dry and uncomfortable as when I first awoke, and it was hateful to go back to the foul air of the cabin, but on doing so I was overjoyed to see the faithful steward and to hear him in his usual voice saying -"A cup o' tea, Mr Forbes. His first thought on learning there was trouble was to keep up a fire as long as possible in the galley; and for some hours after this a cup of tea was to be had, a most welcome

draught to us with that awful taste in the mouth.

And now the skipper came aft for a few minutes to tell me what had happened. It appears that a new fresh-water tank, weighing six tons filled, had been put, just before this voyage, at the top of the forward hold No. 1. The tank was on a solid fixed platform in front of the hold, and was put two feet away from the collisionbulkhead for inspection purposes. A band round the tank was fixed to the bulkhead, with six billets of wood jammed in, which were supposed to prevent the tank from moving. Naturally enough, the violent rolling in the evening tore away this tank from its platform, and it fell to the bottom of No. 1 hold, and then took charge, tearing up everything in its career at every roll, stanchions and wood work and ceiling, and the bulkhead separating Nos. 1 and 2 holds, and making a hole somewhere in the ship's bottom. forward holds were soon swamped with water, and the size or position of the hole could not be ascertained. The great fear was that it might be torn open to a greater extent, when the ship would quickly go down.

The

Later on, when the captain came again to the cabin to get out the men's books, ship's papers, and money, he could not find room for them in his pocket, so I found for him a handbag with lock and key that had been my travelling companion for twenty years. This proved most useful.

I do not know what time it was now, but it was after midnight. On going forward to the bridge deck I found the whole of the crew amidships. The ship had a heavy list to starboard which, combined with her roll, made it very difficult to walk on the wood or to prevent slipping on the iron deck. I was surprised to find every one of the crew was already furnished with a life- belt or cork jacket wrapped round his chest. They looked very funny. The men were rather cowed, and the mate was telling them that the water was gaining on the pumps only one and a-half feet per hour. They were not at work at the hand pumps, because these had become choked with the floating trash in the holds.

Soon afterwards the main engines had to be stopped and could not be used for pumping. There was not enough steam, as only the port boiler could with difficulty be stoked. The furnace of the starboard boiler on the lee side was flooded owing to the persistent list of twenty degrees to starboard, and was extinguished. Leaky watertight doors and sluices had admitted water from No. 2 hold. The firemen and engineers working to keep the port boiler going were often above their knees in water.

O'Hara, now that the men were of no use at the hand pumps, set them to work on the starboard lifeboat, to get her ready for launching if the sea should moderate sufficiently to allow of an attempt.

In both of the forward holds

I could see the water swishing across at every roll, carrying on its surface a mass of timber wreckage, smashed by the run-a-muck fresh-water tank and stanchions, but the tank was not to be seen. The rolling of the ship had been reduced by the partial filling of these holds, but the sea was raging under a gale of full strength from the east-south-east.

When the starboard lifeboat had its cover off and everything ready, there was no use doing the same with the port lifeboat. It being on the windward side, and the ship having such a list to starboard, it was quite hopeless to think of launching that boat. So the captain made the men prepare the small boat forward on the starboard side, and move the gear into it from the port lifeboat.

After this the men were left with nothing to do. The forward holds were filling rapidly. When we left Cette the draught forward had been four feet less than aft. Things had by this time become very different. Besides the list to starboard, there was now a steep slope down from stern to bow, and it seemed as if she might go down bow first at any moment. The pitchy darkness added to the effect, and put some terror for a time into the hearts of the crew. So it happened at this stage that the sailors, after some little talk among themselves, came to the captain to give him their opinion, which amounted to this: "The ship is going to sink, and it may do so any moment. So