30 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
are tumbling out of their bunks, and a great noise of con- — 
versation is coming from the wardroom, among which 
some such remarks as: “‘ Give the jam a wind, Marie”’ ; 
‘“‘ After you with the coffee”; ‘Push along the butter” 
are frequent. There are few cobwebs that have not been 
blown away by breakfast-time. 
Rennick is busy breakfasting preparatory to relieving 
Campbell on the bridge. Meanwhile, the hourly and four- 
hourly ship’s log is being made up—force of the wind, 
state of the sea, height of the barometer, and all the details 
which a log has to carry—including a reading of the dis- 
tance run as shown by the patent log line—(many is the 
time I have forgotten to take it just at the hour and have 
put down what | thought it ought to be, and not what it 
was). 
The morning watch is finished. 
Suddenly there 1s a yell from somewhere amidships— 
“‘SrEapy’’—a stranger might have thought there was 
something wrong, but it is a familiar sound, answered by 
a ‘‘ STEADY IT Is, $IR,’’ from the man at the wheel, and an 
anything but respectful, ‘‘One—two—three—Sreapy,” 
from everybody having breakfast. It is Pennell who has 
caused this uproar. And the origin 1s as follows : 
Pennell is the navigator, and the standard compass, 
owing to its remoteness from iron in this position, is placed 
on the top of theice-house. Thesteersman, however, steers 
by a binnacle compass placed aft in front of his wheel. But 
these two compasses for various reasons do not read alike 
at a given moment, while the standard is the truer of the 
two. 
At intervals, then, Pennell or the officer of the watch 
orders the steersman to “‘ Stand by for a steady,” and goes 
up to the standard compass, and watches the needle. Sup- 
pose the course laid down 1s S. 40 E. A liner would steer 
almost true to this course unless there was a big wind or 
sea. But not so the old Terra Nova. Even with a good 
steersman the needle swings a good many degrees either 
side of the S. 40 E. But as it steadies momentarily on the 
exact course Pennell shouts his “Steady,” the steersman 
