14^ A CrusJc on the S.V. " j'cctis." 



After a capital dinner, and a short stroll on deck, we adjourned 

 to the smoke-room, in the oi)inion of the male passengers 

 the best appointed room in the ship. Here drinks and smokes 

 of all kinds could be obtained, and a couple of pleasant hours 

 were s[)ent before turning in. Reveille sounded at 6-30 next 

 morning, and we awoke to find that we were sailing or a sum- 

 mer sea, with little or no motion on the vessel. After a salt 

 water bath and a walk around the decks we were able to do 

 justice to a most excellent breakfast. The catering on the 

 I'cctis was, we found, one of the features of the cruise. The 

 forenoon we spent in examining the yacht, making the acquaint- 

 ance of our fellow passengers, and in compariuin our tield- 

 glasses. Most of the men carried high power Zeiss or Ross 

 glasses, but knowing how dil^cult it is to keep these steadily 

 on an object when in a moving boat, the writer had provided 

 himself with a pair of low-powered glasses, with large object- 

 ives. With these he found that he could easily pick up birds 

 on the wing, when with the high-powered glass it was very 

 difficult to do so. \"ery few birds were seen this day but I 

 w^as able to identify a few Gannets in immature plumage. After 

 lunch the vessel was stopped for a life-saving practice. A 

 dummy was thrown overboard, and a lifeboat was lowered to 

 effect a rescue. Everything was done in record time, and we 

 were all very much interested. I was very much surprised at 

 noting the extreme shallowness of the water, as when the screw 

 was restarted the sand was very much churned up, and we left 

 a sand-coloured wake behind us as far as the eye could see. We 

 had expected to find a lot of fishing boats on the Dogger Bank 

 but the only vessel we saw was a Norwegian barque, wdiich came 

 close enough to be photographed. We probably passed the 

 fishing fleet in the night. The next day we awoke to find a 

 fresh breeze blowing and on tumbling out of our berths found 

 that we had by no means as yet acquired our sea legs. The 

 saloon at breakfast time was not very full ; what it was like at 

 lunch time I do not know, as by that time I had lost all in- 

 terest in food-stuffs myself, and I could not be persuaded by a 

 kind-hearted steward to leave my chair on deck before bed- 

 time. After a fair night's rest 1 essayed the dining-room for 

 breakfast, but am bound to admit that it was not a success- 



