more consideration than is usually given to the
subject. In my first lounging fit I took up the
prospectus and the book of regulations of the
company, which dates from 1830; and setting
myself to calculate, found that this one company
now owns a fleet of twenty-three steamers, of
forty-five thousand eight hundred and four tons,
and eleven thousand four hundred and seventy
horse-power. These vessels, I calculated, convey
on an average some thirty-five thousand
passengers yearly, and over twenty million of dollars
in specie, besides other valuable cargo. There
are prizes in such a service. The superintendents
make from one thousand five hundred to
two thousand pounds a year. The senior captain
draws one thousand two hundred in cash, and
has his living and lodging free. The other captains,
with like advantages in other respects, get
one thousand per annum. The junior officers
are proportionably well paid. There is a home
for them at Southampton, where they live at free
quarters. In the large steamers there are four
or five officers besides the captain, and their
duties are strictly defined. The chief officer
keeps the log, the second has charge of the treasure,
and accompanies the Admiralty's agent on
shore with the mails, the third and fourth stow
the cargo. A junior officer is never left in charge
of the ship at night. There is a goodly crew.
On board my ship, which I will call the Nameless,
were fifty-three seamen, fifty-four engineers,
and twenty-three servants. One might well feel
at ease in a vessel so provided.

I soon became acquainted with most of the
passengers. There were several naval officers of
rank, a handsome admiral with a fine bold nose,
a baronet with a romantic name, a captain of the
race of England's naval demi-gods, several West
Indian planters, and not a few pretty planters'
daughters, some, too, without chaperones; a
shabby Columbian general, a few lively Frenchmen,
and a score of Creole nondescripts. I
passed my time in playing chess and learning
Spanish. Unfortunately, there were no señoras
or señoritas of whom to be taught. There was,
however, a young aide-de-camp to the President
of Peru, who possessed so much patience and
amiability, that he would talk to me in pure
Castillano by the hour, though at first I did not
comprehend more than one word in a hundred.
Nevertheless, by the time we reached the Azores,
I had made some progress, and had even once
asked publicly at the dinner-table, in Spanish,
for the mustard. It was the 23rd of June, at
4 A.M., that we passed the islands, and sighted
two of the group. They lie directly in the course
out, but homeward, a very great circuit is made
to the west. The outward-bound captains like
to see the islands, for the currents in the Atlantic
are so strong and so various that no reckoning
can be perfectly true. There is an equinoctial
current from east to west, and there is the Gulf
Stream, which is a hot current, from west to
east; and there are local currents and abnormal
currents, and a great-circuit-current, compounded
of all these, which has a periphery of three thousand
eight hundred leagues, and a log of wood
dropped into the sea opposite Senegal would go,
as many other sticks do, "on circuit," and return
to its starting-place in two years and ten
months.

We passed, I say, the Azores on the 23rd of
June, and forthwith the weather waxed hot. We
had not yet caught the trade-winds, and, though
there were occasional squalls, on the whole it
was sultry, with a rather lurid sky at night. On
the 25th it was particularly close and oppressive.
I had been playing chess all the morning. It
was two P.M., and I was lazily talking to my
late antagonist, a good-looking Frenchman, who,
though he was, he informed me, thirty-five,
looked like a mere youth, owing to an entire;
absence of beard, whiskers, and moustache.
Groups of people, some reading, others playing
chess or draughts, sat or lounged around us. It
was a dead calm, and the polished mirror of the
sea gave back the sun's rays with interest.
"Monsieur voyage pour son plaisir ou pour les
affaires?" I inquired. "Pour mon plaisir?" repeated
the Frenchman, with some surprise, "du
tout, du tout, monsieur. Je suis médecin, monsieur,
et j'ai aussi une fabrique debottes à Lima."
"Quoi, monsieur," said I, raising myself a little
on my elbow, "médecin et marchand de bottes
à la fois—vous plaisantez!" The Frenchman
opened his lips to reply, but just at that moment
there was a tremendously loud crash, followed
by a strange whizzing noise, and almost immediately
afterwards by a succession of terrific
thuds, as if some Cyclops had suddenly commenced
hammering in the engine-room. At the
same time showers of splinters came flying from
the starboard paddle-box, and a dense cloud of
steam and smoke burst all along the deck, so as
almost to hide the funnel from sight. Great
confusion of course ensued. Chess-tables and
chairs were overset; screams of ladies, questions
of men shouted in various languages, rushes of
sailors amid the cloud of steam, oaths and scuffling,
added to the din. It was curious to see in
that moment of terrible uncertainty, when an
explosion, or some other catastrophe was expected
by all, how some of the foreigners who had been
sneering at religion all the way out, suddenly
betook themselves to prayer. For myself, I felt
exactly as I did some years ago in a railway
accident. In both cases I expected every moment
to be killed, and yet the most trivial circumstances
did not escape me, while my general
thought was, as I looked at the bright sun and
quiet sleep of Nature, that a violent death was
all the more shocking with everything around so
quiet and peaceable.

Half a minute, perhaps, had passed, but it
seemed a long time, and I was rushing forward to
see what, really had happened, when I felt myself
stopped by a powerful arm, and the huge figure
of Juan blocked the way. "Best stop here," he
said, with a grin; "I have got finely scalded myself,
without being of no use. Now the engines