THESE PRESENT DAYS 13 



and would humbly implore that divine protection which 

 we nowadays are inclined to take for granted. Thus, 

 before Martyne Frobysher, gent.," started to search 

 for a north-west passage to Cathay, he secured the 

 services of the Gravesend clergyman, who boarded the 

 **tall ship" Aid, and "prepared us as good Christians 

 toward God, and resolute men for all fortunes." Nor, 

 on their return, did they forget to render thanks for 

 the mercy which had preserved them : the first act of 

 the survivors of Magellan's famous voyage was to 

 attend, barefoot and in their shirts, a formal service 

 of thanksgiving for their safe deliverance from the 

 prolonged perils of the sea. 



These are pretty pictures, but they are out of 

 date in this twentieth century of the Christian era. 

 The modern marine surveyor (whose risks, thanks to 

 the stores of experience painfully accumulated by those 

 who have gone before him, are reduced to a minimum) 

 need not go to such extremes. He can show his 

 pious appreciation in other if less impressive ways, 

 and it is in some such spirit that the following story 

 of my four years with the Marine Survey of India is 

 introduced to the reader. 



