lements, I had never heard of in my time; but the
hands I grasped were like the hands of the generation which had trained
my youth and is now no more. I recognised the character of their
glances, the accent of their voices. Their moving tales of modern
instances were presented to me with that peculiar turn of mind flavoured
by the inherited humour and sagacity of the sea. I don't know what the
seaman of the future will be like. He may have to live all his days with
a telephone tied up to his head and bristle all over with scientific
antennae like a figure in a fantastic tale. But he will always be the
man revealed to us lately, immutable in his slight variations like the
closed path of this planet of ours on which he must find his exact
position once, at the very least, in every twenty-four hours.

The greatest desideratum of a sailor's life is to be "certain of his
position." It is a source of great worry at times, but I don't think
that it need be so at this time. Yet even the best position has its
dangers on account of the fickleness of the elements. But I think that,
left untrammelled to the individual effort of its creators and to the
collective spirit of its servants, the British Merchant Service will
manage to maintain its position on this restless and watery globe.

FLIGHT--1917

To begin at the end, I will say that the "landing" surprised me by a
slight and very characteristically "dead" sort of shock.

I may fairly call myself an amphibious creature. A good half of my
active existence has been passed in familiar contact with salt water, and
I was aware, theoretically, that water is not an elastic body: but it was
only then that I acquired the absolute conviction of the fact. I
remember distinctly the thought flashing through my head: "By Jove! it
isn't elastic!" Such is the illuminating force of a particular
experience.

This landing (on the water of the North Sea) was effected in a Short
biplane after one hour and twenty minutes in the air. I reckon every
minute like a miser counting his hoard, for, if what I've got is mine, I
am not likely now to increase the tale. That feeling is the effect of
age. It strikes me as I write that, when next time I leave the surface
of this globe, it won't be to soar bodily above it in the air. Quite the
contrary. And I am not thinking of a submarine either. . . .

But let us drop this dismal strain and go back logically to the
beginning. I must co