14 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZIN 



Photograph by Harold Stieg 



DIVING FOR COINS IN THE CLEAR TROPICAL WATERS AT BARBADOS 



At a later period in their wanderings, the voyagenrs on the Dream Shit 1 were to have 

 an opportunity of comparing this child's play with the activities of the pearl divers of the 

 South Pacific. 



and extract a groan of agony from Steve 

 as it crushed him against the cock-pit 

 wall ; the aft warp snapped, and the 

 Dream Ship commenced to rise, tearing 

 her covering hoard to ribbons against the 

 lock wall in the process. 



There was nothing to be done. Our 

 ascent was as inevitable as the sun's. 

 We rose, and continued to rise, more like 

 an elevator than a ship in a lock, until 

 the blank, greasy wall ended, and above 

 it appeared a row of grinning faces. 



"That's that," said the pilot ; and it 

 was. 



By some miracle the engine carried us 

 to the next lock, where the same per- 

 formance was gone through, with such 

 slight variations as the loss of a hat, 

 three fenders, and the remainder of the 

 port covering board. 



We passed out into Gatun Take, a 

 fairy place of verdure-clad islets and 

 mist-enshrouded reaches, where cranes 

 tlew low over the water, and strange, 

 wild cries came out of the bush. 



It was also the place where our engine 



refused its office peremptorily, irrevo- 

 cably. 



THE DREAM SHIP'S ENGINEER SPEAKS 

 FEELINGLY 



I am engineer of the Dream Ship, prob- 

 ably the worst on earth, but still the en- 

 gineer, and for an agonized hour I wres- 

 tled with lifeless scrap-iron. How the 

 profession of marine motor engineering 

 ever attracts adherents, it is beyond me 

 to imagine. I know one man it has sent 

 to the asylum, and many others who bear 

 the marks of having trifled with it — 

 finger nails that nothing short of cutting 

 to the quick and gouging with a shovel 

 will render clean ; hands, clothes, and, 

 for some unknown reason, face ingrained 

 with ineradicable grime, a permanently 

 furrowed brow, and a wistful expression 

 that goes to the heart of the onlooker. 



In order to avoid such a fate, I have 

 made it a practice to try hard for one 

 solid hour and, failing to gain a response 

 from the atrocity, leave the matter in 

 other, and perhaps more capable, hands. 



