the stem, a following wind, a great bellying sail behind, and
all around wet air and splashing grey sea, the stem ploughing it up
silver and white and green, and away aft under the bend of the sail
there would be Jason and the steersman, possibly Medea, with the curl
out of her hair, and perhaps just a touch of the golden fleece, just a
fleck of pale yellow to enliven the minor tints! Round the bows there
would be men listening to the song, watching the stem pound into the
green hollows--now, I remember! I have seen this--I'd forgotten. But the
Orpheus was in faded blue dungarees, and played a fiddle, and leaned
against a rusty, red capstan--saw it from the jib-boom of the
Mjolna[2]--fishing bonita--looked back, and there they all were, the
same to-day as they were in olden days, I expect, men and boys, salt
and sun-bitten sea-farers, lolling on the cat-heads and anchors. A joy
of the World, that is--from your perch out on the jib-boom to watch a
ship with its cloud of white sails surging after you.

[2] Norse for Thors hammer.

[Illustration]

The Sirens too would paint in this weather; they look quite dry in
pictures, they would look better wet--I'd have them glittering wet and
joyous, and a fit carvel built boat and crew, and brown sloping sails,
three reefs down, making a fine passage clear on to them, just as the
steersman might wish with no bindings or wax in ears at all, but all at
the Sirens' service.

St. Vincent light is now in sight--the swell from the south-west, and
our course, as far as a passenger may guess, will soon be south by east;
so we ought to have a fair roll on soon, and I feel glad our sea-sick
friends are mostly asleep. To-morrow we hope to be in early at
Gibraltar, then they will have a rest--it will be all smooth sailing.
"They say so--and they hope so," as the "Old Horse" Chantie puts it. Is
there not a wind, however, called the Mistral, in the Gulf of Lyons,
and a Euroclydon further east, mentioned by St Paul?

We passed some rather interesting land scenery this afternoon, before we
came to the mouth of the Tagus; you could see houses, comfortably
nestled up the sides of the hills. At the foot of the red cliffs there
is a line of green water and white bursts of foam--made a pochade of a
bit of this coast--a castle perched on blue peaks, a rolling sky and
rugged mountains, and nearer, a rolling, leaden-coloured swell.

[Illustration]

From the well or waist where I paint, I noticed