88 THE OCEAN 



and all black buoys on the right or starboard 

 and when entering a harbour he must do 

 just the reverse and must pass the red ones on 

 his right and the black ones on his left. So too 

 he knows that other parti-coloured buoys mean 

 various things; that a buoy with horizontal 

 stripes of red and black means danger and 

 must be given a wide berth, while a buoy 

 marked with perpendicular black and white 

 stripes means mid-channel and may be passed 

 on either side. In addition each buoy is num- 

 bered, the red buoys being given even num- 

 bers and the black ones odd numbers, so the 

 passing sailor may know at a glance just where 

 he is, for on the charts every buoy is plainly 

 indicated with its colour and number. Now 

 and then one sees a buoy very different from 

 the others ; either bearing some queer, easily- 

 identified object above it, such as a keg, cage, 

 or disk, or painted in sharply contrasting col- 

 ours in huge squares or other designs. Each 

 of these has its own meaning and is designated 

 on the charts and the officers of the passing 

 ships have only to compare the buoys and bea- 

 cons with their charts in order to know exactly 



