WORLD VOYAGE BEGINS I93 



out fuel and toppled her over it seemed that someone should be 

 told. But the C.-in-C.s reply, which simply said 'Good Luck', 

 produced quicker results than many a longer operational signal. 

 Almost at once Effie began to move northwards, and as signals 

 reporting this movement came in Challenger moved slowly for- 

 ward in her wake. Effie 's influence gradually cleared from Ber- 

 muda and Challenger steamed in on the very last of her fuel. 

 The beach felt good that night as the men stepped ashore for 

 a 'run'. 



Sounding and seismic work had gone on whenever the weather 

 allowed it during the ship's cruises from Bermuda, but once the 

 winds reach Force 4 on the Beaufort Scale so much 'water noise' 

 is caused by the sea slapping against the buoys that the signals 

 cannot be distinguished and seismic experiments are discontinued. 

 This is a frustrating business ; the buoys laid in calm weather 

 may have to be lifted in an hour or two as the wind increases. 

 There are other frustrations too, such as the day a shark swallowed 

 and made away with the scientists' favourite hydrophone as it 

 was being hauled onboard. Further dropping of charges must have 

 caused the shark considerable indigestion. 



o 



A visit of five days' duration to Kingston, Jamaica, was memor- 

 able for the heavy and incessant rain which fell throughout the 

 stay. As at so many other ports visited, the local people said that 

 it was the worst weather they had known for years. It is ever thus. 



The visit was also memorable for four inexpensive nights of 

 pleasure at the 'Glass Bucket', the swellest joint in town. Here 

 Kitty, a dusky beauty, was prepared to roll dice against the 

 patrons on a semi-circular green table behind which she sat with 

 inscrutable expression. The game consisted in the patron backing 

 a certain number to come up twenty times during ten throws of 

 five dice. Seeing that the numbers on the dice were scalloped out 

 of the surface the philosophers stated that it was likely that, as 

 the sides bearing the higher numbers must be lighter as a result, 

 then five and six would be good bets. And so they proved to be, 

 giving the Challenger's men a pound back for five shillings on 

 nearly every occasion on which they played. But on the last night 

 Kitty sat, inscrutable as ever, before a brand new set of dice on 

 which the numbers were painted and not scalloped. The manage- 



