over the deck, the ports were closed, the hatches shut down.
The temperature in the saloon was 85°, and even the wind-
sails were removed, because rain and spray drove down them,
wetted the passages, and gave the stewards trouble. I protested
against this last enormity. I represented to the captain, who
had his own quarters on deck and did not suffer, that we
should all be found smothered some morning, as in a Black
Hole of Calcutta, and that I did not wish to die of the stench
of my fellow-creatures. 'Their esprit fort, I suppose you
mean,' said E-----. The spirt of wit moved the captain's heart
more than my expostulations. Our windsails were set up
again, and we had a current of air among us, though damp
and tepid as in an orchid house.

When a number of people are shut up together for three
or four weeks, a process is set up of natural selection. We
find out those who suit us, and we have time to become inti-
mate with them. I was chiefly attracted by a rough, elderly
Scotchman, who had been thirty years in New Zealand, had
made a fortune there, and was now on his way home, not to
remain, but to look about him in the old country and see
how things were going on. He was a shrewd, original old
gentleman, cynical more than enough, but good-humoured at
bottom, and very entertaining. He was rich, and took the
rich man's view of things, but if he had succeeded it had been
in fair fight. He had been thrown into the arena of colonial
life with thousands of others. They had failed, or they were
still undistinguished in the general herd. He had made his
way to the front. He was an illustration of the survival of
the strongest, was worth attending to, and was excellent com-
pany. In his youth, when he had nothing, he had been a
Radical. He had become a Tory in his age, because he had
property to lose, and did not wish to lie at the mercy of those
who thought as he had once thought himself. His political

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