now WE CHANGE DAY INTO NIGHT. 
357 
cisco. We were therefore naturally disposed to he tender 
with them, so that we should have something to depend 
upon when our dilapidated old craft should “ turn turtle,” 
drift upon a lee shore, founder in a sea-way, or indulge 
in any similar species of recreation. 
It was soon determined, therefore, that some more sum- 
mary process would have to he resorted to ; for under the 
first arrangement we had to pull so farwith our loaded boats 
before reaching the ship, that, by the time, their coal could 
be hoisted on boai’d and they sent back, the tide would 
he falling, and they consequently likely to ground on the 
flat before getting half-way to the mine. It was there- 
fore thought best to get the ship herself under way every 
morning at da}dight and run into as little as three 
fathoms, hovering off the edge of the mud-flat as long as 
there was water enough for the boats to pass back and 
forth, and then to return to the anchorage under Shag 
Rock until the rising of the next tide should allow them 
to move over it again. 
This apparently-rational course had no sooner hecu 
determined upon than it became evident that we would 
have to consult the state of the tides in the selection ot 
our working-hours; and so, as it was mostly low-water 
during the days, and the reverse at night, we capsized 
our habits of life and began to sleep during the former 
and to cat and work during the latter. Fortunately, dark- 
ness was not of long duration, as the twilight lingered 
until near eleven o’clock and the early dawn began to 
show itself about three hours later. It was, nevertheless, 
very trying to both officers and men; and, when at the end 
of five days the coal-bunkers were proclaimed full and 
