16 
board of English ships of war. T?he forepart of the gun-deck is 
an extraordinary apartment,, the iron implements are varnished, 
and the others polished and arranged along the whitewashed sides, 
so as to form figures and inscriptions. When strangers visit the 
ship a sort of chandelier is lighted, which produces a very beau¬ 
tiful effect. When we left the ship, Lieutenant Wright had the 
politeness to take us in his barge to the inner harbour, where the 
ships are laid up in ordinary. As we left the Ganges, she saluted 
us with nineteen guns. 
Ships in commission are painted black and white; when they 
go into ordinary this paint is scraped off, and they are then painted 
brownish yellow; if not again to be employed in active service 
they are painted entirely black. We went on board of the Nel¬ 
son , of one hundred and twenty guns, in the harbour.. She is a 
new ship, but lay in ordinary, having been already affected with 
the destructive dry-rot . The injured planks had been removed, 
and at present she is entirely sound. The Nelson, Ganges, and 
all the recently built ships of the line have round sterns. All of 
them have the wood work necessary for their equipment, as for 
gun-carriages, &c.^on board. In order to preserve this and the deck 
from the influence of the weather, a large roof is built over them. 
From the Nelson we went on board the royal yacht, the Royal 
George , which I had already seen, but which I willingly exa¬ 
mined once more, on account of her elegant construction and 
great luxury. The magnificence of the royal apartments, and 
those for the suite, are very strongly contrasted with the birth- 
deck for the crew, which is both dark and confined. We re¬ 
marked here a patent iron camboose, which cooked all the food 
by means of steam. 
Having purchased the necessary provisions, especially Gam¬ 
ble’s preserved meats, which keep fresh for a year, I went on the 
4th of May, at 4 P. M. on board the steam ship, Sir Francis 
Drake, to go to Plymouth, distant one hundred and fifty miles. 
The engine is of seventy horse-power. The ship was not very 
comfortably arranged; the main cabin was so near the boiler that 
the heat was intolerable. Our passengers amounted to thirty per¬ 
sons, only eight of whom were cabin passengers. About five 
o’clock a gun was fired as a signal for sailing, and we stood out 
to sea. Spithead road with the shipping lay to the left, and our 
course was between the land and the Isle of Wight. Cowes with 
its beautiful gardens presented an agreeable sight, about a mile to 
the westward of which stands a castle called Egypt. It began to 
grow dark. We saw on the right hand the extremely bright lights 
of Hurst-castle , and on the left the light-house of the Needles, 
on the western extremity of the Isle of Wight, which I visited 
two years ago. The white rocks of the Needles were visible in 
