us.

Yes, this is distinctly comfortable and quite interesting. It seems as
if every wave rose in a great hill suddenly just after we had passed the
spot! We must have come over it, but sitting like this we didn't feel
it, we are riding so smoothly.

If we look out ahead we shall see the same sort of thing happening; we
approach a black hillock of water, and just as we get to it it rolls
down and disappears under us. The ship is so large that though she
climbs those hills, we get the impression that the hills straighten
underneath her. You must have noticed something of the same kind in
riding a bicycle; if you are running down one hill and see another
rising in front, the other one looks terrifically steep, but as you get
on to it, it flattens out in an inexplicable way; it is the change in
our own position that accounts for the phenomenon.

It is very close to-night and there is an uneasy feeling in the air; the
captain did not appear at dinner. It is a good thing that they put off
that fancy-dress ball which was to have been held this evening, for
there could not have been much dancing. Your costume will come in useful
another time. I want to see you sometime as a little Egyptian with a
skull-cap and a garment like a flannel night-shirt! But we shall have
another chance.

"Hope we're not in for a cyclone," says one of the men, appearing out of
the smoking-room with a pipe in his mouth.

"Very unusual at this time of year in the North-East monsoon," replies
another as they disappear.

At that moment forked lightning plays across the sky in a great ragged
streak, and immediately there is another display as if answering it,
but we can hear no thunder.

What is the North-East monsoon? It sounds rather like some kind of
animal, but it is only the name given to a certain wind that blows
always at one season of the year.

Across broad spaces of the ocean there are always steady winds to be
counted on, such as the trade-winds, which are caused by the air at the
Equator getting hot and rising, and being replaced by the cold air from
the Poles which rushes in; besides this there are other winds which blow
half the year, called monsoons, these are due to very much the same
causes. The North-East monsoon comes in the northern winter; the air
from the North Pole coming down slowly is met by the earth as she turns,
and as she rushes into it she makes it a north-eastern wind; this,
coming over the land from the north, is