best; it is a strathspey tune; I learned it from him. The
trouble came when it blew up hard off the Scheldt; but even when coming
over the bar, the "romance" of the sea qualified its pains a little. I
can feel the cold in my hands to-day of the barrels of the Winchesters
at the side of the couch, and to which I clung in my hour of trial, and
remembered they had been used in the steamer's very last trip against
_Real Pirates_ in the China Seas! And certainly there was the "romance"
of the sea in the change from the gale and black night outside the bar,
to the quiet morning on the wide river with the cathedral spire, violet
against the sunrise, dropping its silvery music "from heaven like dew;"
"Madame Angot," was the tune I think, with a note missing here and
there.

We saw a number of sea birds to-day, and two at least were skuas, black
looking thieves among their white cousins. I saw one try to make a gull
disgorge, driving up at it from below, to the gull's loudly-expressed
disgust. It is a strange arrangement of nature, and I can't understand
why a few gulls don't combine to defend themselves. I am sure each of
them must hate to give up the little meal they have earned with so much
tiring flight. There were shore birds too; we shipped some as
passengers, they were going south like ourselves, but by instinct not by
the card. I suppose they were on the road all right, and just needed to
rest their wings a little; two large black birds were on the bridge last
night, possibly crows, and we have starlings to-day, and I saw some
finches of sorts. At least one of these fragile boarders was eaten by
the ship's cat--I found its delicate remains, a few tiny feathers and a
dainty wing and its poor head.

The land is very faint on the horizon and the breeze is just going
down, such as it was; it's a momentary interest at the end of a somewhat
dull, grey day to most passengers.

R. and his wife, since one A.M., have had rather a poor time; their
cabin is far forward, and so they feel any motion more than we do
amidships; what with a little sea-sickness and the anchor chain loose in
its pipe, banging against their bunks, they had a disturbed night. We
raked out the bo'sun from his afternoon nap, and he and a withered old
lascar jammed a hemp fender between the chain and woodwork, so their
slumbers ought to be more peaceful; now they are getting a temporary
change to a berth amidship, which is unoccupied as far as Marseilles; in