utensils,* bundles of fire-irons, regiments of
coal-scuttles; floors of elegant chairs, tables,
and drawers; cabinet-work and upholstery
enough to suggest the notion that the P. and
O. S. N. C.'s navy are always about to marry;
artisans planing, glueing, and inlaying; six
women, in deep mourning, sewing bed and
table linen (" all widows of men who have
died in the service," whispers my cicerone),
or folding it into hot-air chambers; " for not
a stitch goes aboard, sir "— I quote the head
laundress— " without being aired, bone dry."

* Some notion of the play into which cooking apparatus
is brought in this Company's steamers, may be formed
by the following selection, from a return of the " Average,
Consumption of Purser's Stores on a voyage from Southampton
to Calcutta, viâ Egypt:"— Fresh beef, mutton, and
pork, 5,957 pounds weight, besides 2,192 pounds of salt
meat (exclusive of 1,159 pounds of ham and bacon); 668
pounds of preserved meats; 124 live sheep; 16 live pigs;
and 2,075 head of poultry; 3,480 pounds of biscuits; 53 barrels
of flour; 239 pounds of tea; 366 pounds of coffee; 1,621 pounds
of sugar; 22 pounds of pepper. To wash all this down
pleasantly, 3,472 bottles of wine, and 1,161 bottles of spirits,
are provided. Lovers of arithmetic may multiply each of
these sums by thirty (the number of voyages performed
per annum), and they will get at the gross quantity of
food cooked every year by the Company, for its passengers
and crews.

Once more in the dock, two objects present
themselves at the same moment, which
would occasion uneasiness to a less superstitious
person than a sailor. In the offing I
perceive the smoke of the Bentinck paying
itself out in coils of black gossamer: passing
across the wharf, in his habit as he lived
when I last saw him on the paddle-box,
walks the Captain! Has he flown from his
own quarter-deck, now at least a couple of
miles distant? or has he a twin brother, who
wears twin kid-gloves, a twin brown surtout,
and a twin eyeglass ? I have not time to
ask. I am suddenly entangled in a maze of
overland tin cases, overland trunks, and overland
hat-boxes. I am hustled about by
several overland officers, and bilious blacks
in white turbans. A distracted overland
female, dragging along two overland children,
nearly sweeps me into the funnel of a
small steamer, moored upon the sinking tide,
below the level of the wharf. Everything
portable is being poured into that little
steamer, in a thick strong stream. I try
to get out of the way, and am instantly
knocked on one side by one of three
enormous horse-boxes, which is being drawn
(overland) from the railway station to the
bewilderingly busy little steamer.

That is the Overland Mail.

I had long wished to see the Overland
Mail. I never had a notion what the Overland
Mail could be like;—whether it was
a coach, painted red, with a blazing royal
arms, attended by a gold-laced guard; or
a portable post-office, to be conveyed by
rail and ship from the Waterloo station to
India and China. But now, the entire
broadside of the horse-box being let down,
the Overland Mail bursts upon me like a
trick in a pantomime. The huge van is
suddenly transformed into a prodigious exaggeration
of the sign of the Chequers on Portsmouth
Hard, or the side wall of Harlequin's
private residence; for it is a series of squares
in blazing colours, filling up the horse-box
from floor to roof, It is received with all
befitting ceremony. Two gentlemen— attired
in cocked hats (made, I think, of black court-
plaster edged with faded lace) and surtout
coats, hitched up at the hips, like window
curtains, by the pommels of their swords—
attended by the Southampton post-master,
and a second ubiquitous officer of the Bentinck,
solemnly draw forth pencils and printed
forms, and order the gaudy squares to
be separated. I find them to consist of
wooden boxes, about two feet long by one
foot deep, each distinguished by a separate
colour;— that its destination may at once be
seen. Down a slide into the little steamer
tumbles a red box. A porter shouts " Hong
Kong! " Then comes a blue box— " Calcutta!"
Buff— "Madras!" No paint— "Aden!" White
—" Bombay! " Black (like coffins for dead
letters)— " Ceylon! " At each of the one hundred
and ninety announcements thus made,
the cocked hats nod gracefully; not so much
out of respect to Her Majesty's mail-boxes,
as to enable the gentlemen under them to
record each colour in its proper column on
the printed form. The mails are, in fact,
given into their charge. They are called
"Admiralty Agents."

Presently— it is "post meridian half-past
one "—amidst the tearing, bustle, and frantic
confusion, which is now come to a climax, I
am swept bodily on board the little steamer.
She is to take me out, it seems, to witness—
positively and for the last time— the final
departure of the Bentinck, which has been
anchored in the Southampton Water to await
the mails and late passengers; amongst whose
baggage I had got bewilderingly entangled.
Their last links with England are now
irrevocably snapped. The Captain cannot again,
under some pretence about " his papers," dash
back from his Bentinck to his fireside for one
more last word. Had the Admiralty Agent
left his cocked hat on shore, no power on earth
could have restored it to him this voyage.
As we dart through the harbour's narrow
mouth, blessings are wafted to us, from lines
of parted friends, on the outermost edges
of the sea-wall. There is hardly time for our
"Indians " to return these valedictions. Our
little steamer shoots along like an arrow; for
the Bentinck must start at two. Every point
of the ten thousand four hundred miles which
lie between Southampton and Hong Kong, is
as rigidly timed as if it were a station upon a
short line of railway. The accuracy and
punctuality with which each single mile is
performed out or home, operates upon the
punctual delivery of the mails in China or in
London. The Bentinck must, therefore, start
at two. How else will she be able to reach
Gibraltar by the twenty-fifth (it is now the
twentieth), Malta on the thirtieth, and Alexandria