e continued, turning again to Letta; "the great ships
around us seem like little ones, by contrast, and the little ones like
boats,--don't they?"

"Yes, and the boats like toys," said Letta, "and the people in them like
dolls."

"True, little one, and yonder comes a toy steamer," said Sam, who had
been contemplating the paying-out gear in silent admiration, "with some
rather curious dolls on it."

"Oh!" exclaimed Letta, with great surprise, "look, Robin, look at the
horses--just as if we were on shore!"

Among the many surprising things on board of the big ship, few were more
striking for incongruity than the pair of grey carriage-horses, to which
Letta referred, taking their morning exercise composedly up and down one
side of the deck, with a groom at their heads.

The steamer referred to by Sam was one which contained a large party of
Hindu and Parsee ladies and children who had come off to see the ship.
These streamed into her in a bright procession, and were soon scattered
about, making the decks and saloons like Eastern flower-beds with their
many-coloured costumes--of red, pink, white, and yellow silks and
embroideries, and bracelets, brooches, nose-rings, anklets, and other
gold and silver ornaments.

The interest taken by the natives in the Great Eastern was naturally
great, and was unexpectedly illustrated in the following manner.
Captain Halpin, anticipating difficulties in the matter of coaling and
otherwise carrying on the work of the expedition, had resolved to
specify particular days for sight-seers, and to admit them by ticket, on
which a small fee was charged--the sum thus raised to be distributed
among the crew at the end of the voyage. In order to meet the
convenience of the "upper ten" of English at Bombay, the charge at first
was two rupees (about 4 shillings), and it was advertised that the ship
would afterwards be thrown open at lower rates, but to the surprise of
all, from an early hour on the two-rupee day the ship was beset by
Parsees, Hindus, and Mohammedans, so that eventually, on all sides--on
the decks, the bridge, the paddle-boxes, down in the saloon, outside the
cable-tanks, mixed up with the machinery, clustering round the huge red
buoys, and at the door of the testing-room--the snowy robes, and strange
head-dresses, bright costumes, brighter eyes, brown faces, and turbans
far outnumbered the stiff and sombre Europeans. These people evidently
regarded the Great Eastern as one of