y are made, tinned meats and
fruits that look suspiciously like condemned provisions or unsavoury
salvage; in fact the only really genuine article of diet was that
contained in the milk-pails. I may here remark that these alien steerage
passengers don't really care for wholesome food. Nothing could be better
than the excellent food prepared by the ship's steward, but these
emigrants prefer to bring with them provisions that beggar description.

All the time the Irish purveyors are emptying their baskets and filling
their pockets, and rowing back to the shore enriched and delighted;
their brothers and sisters are flowing up the gangway in a continual
stream, with weeping eyes and breaking hearts at the thought of leaving
their country perhaps for ever; and as soon as they are all on board,
together with the mails, which have come overland to Queenstown, we up
anchor, steam past Fastnet Rock, and soon the Old World is out of sight
behind us.

But all this is a thing of the past. Ladies are not now pulled up on to
the deck, nor is the promenade turned into a miniature Irish fair. When
last the boat stopped as usual in Queenstown bay I sadly missed the
familiar scene, and having nothing better to do I went on shore. As a
number of us strolled off the tender on which the mails were to return I
noticed two men in ordinary dress standing some distance off, looking on
at the scene. They were both fine specimens of humanity, each of them
about six feet high. "Detectives," I whispered to one of my friends. And
as we approached these gentlemen, I said to one of them, "Looking for
anyone this morning?"

"Not for you, Mr. Furniss."

Considering I had never been in Queenstown in my life, that I had never
been in the grip of these "sleuth-hounds" of the police, I must admit
that the British detective is not so stupid as we generally imagine, for
no doubt these men knew by telegraph the name of everybody on board and
amused themselves by placing us as I had amused myself by placing them.

The Captain generally has some voyager under his special care, and my
vis-a-vis, his protegee upon this trip, was a most charming and
delightful young lady on her way to rejoin her family in the Far West.
The skipper's seat is vacant at breakfast time, and should the weather
be rough, at the other meals also. If the elements are very boisterous,
the "fiddles" are screwed on to the tables, and on them a lively tune
is played by the jingling glasse