e _Concordia_ was
heading down the river toward Gravesend, from whence, having first
shipped her passengers, she was to take her final departure for the
southern hemisphere.

The _Concordia_ was a steel barque of eight hundred and seventy-four
tons register, Clyde built, and modelled upon lines that combined a very
fair cargo-carrying capacity with high speed possibilities. She was a
very handsome vessel to look at, and Captain William Roberts, who had
commanded her since she left the stocks some two years prior to the date
at which we make his and her acquaintance, was inordinately proud of
her, sparing no pains either to himself or his ship's crew--and
especially, his boatswain--to keep her as trim and neat as a man-o'-war.
The decks were regularly holystoned every morning when the ship was at
sea--to the intense disgust of the crew--the brasswork was as regularly
polished, not with the usual rottenstone and oil, but with special metal
polish provided out of the skipper's private purse; and there was no
more certain way of "putting the Old Man's back up" than for a man to
allow himself to be seen knocking the ashes of his pipe out against any
portion of the ship's painted work. It was even asserted of Captain
Roberts that, so anxious was he to maintain the smart appearance of the
ship, he would, whenever she ran into a calm, have the quarterboat
lowered and manned, in order that he might pull round his vessel and
assure himself that her masts were all accurately stayed to precisely
the same angle of rake; and woe betide the unhappy boatswain if there
seemed to be the slightest occasion for fault-finding.

The _Concordia_ was a beamy ship in proportion to her length, and she
carried a full poop extending forward to within about twenty feet of her
mainmast, underneath which was a handsome saloon, or cuddy, fitted with
berth accommodation for twenty passengers; for although the steam liners
have, for all practical purposes, absorbed the passenger traffic, there
still remains a small residue of the travelling public who, either for
health or economy's sake, choose a well-found, well-built sailing
clipper when they desire to make a sea voyage.

Such was the vessel in which young Dick Maitland was to make his first,
and, as he hoped, his only, essay as a seaman before the mast, and after
the slight sketch which has been given of her and her skipper, it will
be readily seen that he could scarcely have hit upon a craft wh