venture so exceptional to personal experience. She
owed her safety mainly to the strength and rigidity of her iron hull.
A wooden vessel of like construction would probably have gone to
pieces; for the wooden double-enders had been run up in a hurry for a
war emergency, and were often weak. As the capable commander of one of
them said to me, they were "stuck together with spit." Battened down
close, with the seas coming in deluges over both bows and both
quarters at the same time, the _Monocacy_ went through it like a
tight-corked bottle, and came out, not all right, to be sure, but very
much alive; so much so, indeed, that she was carried on the Navy
Register for thirty years more. She never returned home, however, but
remained on the China station, for which she was best suited by her
particular qualities.

By the time the _Iroquois_, in turn, was ready to leave Hong
Kong--November 26th--the northeast monsoon had made in full force,
and dolorous were the prognostications to us by those who had had
experience of butting against it in a northward passage. It is less
severe than the "brave" west winds of our own North Atlantic; but to a
small vessel like the _Iroquois_, with the machinery of the day, the
monsoon, blowing at times a three-quarters gale, was not an adversary
to be disregarded, for all the sunshiny, bluff heartiness with which
it buffeted you, as a big boy at school breezily thrashes a smaller
for his own good. To-day we have to stop and think, to realize the
immense progress in size and power of steam-vessels since 1867. We
forget facts, and judge doings of the past by standards of the
present; an historical injustice in other realms than that of morals.

In our passage north, however, we escaped the predicted disagreeables
by keeping close to the coast; for currents, whether of atmosphere or
of water, for some reason slacken in force as they sweep along the
land. I do not know why, unless it be the result of friction retarding
their flow; the fact, however, remains. So, dodging the full brunt of
the wind, we sneaked along inshore, having rarely more than a
single-reef topsail breeze, and with little jar save the steady thud
of the machinery. A constant view of the land was another advantage
due to this mode of progression, and it was the more complete because
we commonly anchored at night. Thus, as we slowly dragged north, a
continuous panorama was unrolled before our eyes.

Another very entertaining f