In this vast floating caravanserai two
French and one English artist sail
permanently, for the passengers; besides four
assistants. While the steam kitchen was
throwing out perfumes of delicious fragrance
to a hungry man, the door of a cabin close by
accidentally opening, displayed another artist
engaged on the pastry,—into the manufacture
of which he was throwing his
whole soul. From these two laboratories
proceed the sources of the principal employment
of the voyage: that is to say,—
two breakfasts, luncheon, two dinners, tea,
supper, also divers little snacks and
portions for invalids and infants. A bill of fare
for the preceding voyage, which fell into
my hands, opened up a new course of
study for sea voyagers. It was clear then
that all tastes were consulted. Two soups
prepared for fish, saumon en mayonnaise; then
came solid joints, roast beef, mutton, and
mutton, boiled, with caper sauce, with other
solids to meet the sober appetite of John
Bull;—but there was also a vol-au-vent de
volaille, ducks stewed with little peas— I
translate here— and pigs' feet treated in a
manner which only French genius can
execute. After other strokes of talent of the
same subtle character, a sacrifice was made
to grosser English and German taste, in a
roast goose. It was August—he was a stubble
goose, slightly removed from a green goose.
Other roasts succeeded, lightened up by a
ragout of kidneys and sheep's hearts, and a
haricot which, from such a hand, would
inspire perfect confidence. Sweets followed in
delightful variety and profusion. To wash down
these luncheons, dinners, and suppers, besides
the odd hours to be killed by a cigar and cold
drink during a voyage of fourteen days, some
twenty tons of ice are provided, and a cellar
containing about two hundred dozen of wine,
well packed —sherry and claret occupying
the largest space, port the smallest; Champagne
comes next to sherry; Madeira, Hock,
Mozelle, and Sauterne, each fill some dozen
bins. Four casks of brandy, and about three
hundred dozen of ale and stout, have also to
be provided with compact storage.

The thirstiness of idleness on a South
American voyage must be measured in
gallons. In the above, the ship's crew's
consumption is not included. Besides the two
courses and dessert of the saloon there has
to also to be provided the following separate
dinners:—For the officers' mess; for the
engineers' mess; for the warrant-officers' mess;
for passengers' servants' and children's mess.
Among these, the engineers did not fare badly
on pea-soup and roast pork, stewed breast
of mutton, haricot, potatoes, rice, and plum-
pudding. For the children, chicken and rice,
and tapioca-pudding were provided. After
examining these bills of fare and seeing the
artist at work, I was not surprised to find that
the commander-in-chief of the kitchen had ten
pounds, and that the second in command had
six pounds a-month, with doubtless some
perquisites. The crew, who have a cook of
their own, feed daily on salt beef and suet-
puddings.

A word of command recalled me from gourmand
and gourmet meditations, to which only
a Brillat Savarin could have done justice. The
Mail tender was alongside, and a division of
the crew, chiefly the grinning blackmen, were
hauling across the connecting-plane a large
cargo of packages, in shape much like gigantic
roll-puddings. The canvass puddings contained
newspapers, the leather ones letters—
how many tons of each I did not learn, but
something considerable; and their directions
were quite an encyclopaedia of geographical
names. Then the word came, "All
for shore! "and friends embraced and took
leave; but "Good Lord!" as old Pepys would
say, "that was a very cool, common-place
business."

The romance of the sea has gone the way
of the romance of the road. Buccaneer conquerors
and picturesque pirates have become
as impossible as those curled darlings of the
melodrama who robbed in velvet coats, and
spent their last days in Newgate, consoled by
the lamenting visits of curious ladies of
quality, and the best wine the jailor's cellars
could afford. Even the romance of distance,
which had survived the swarm of frigates so
fatal to sea-robbing and secret island homes
in our youth, has passed away. A few
years ago, although travellers no longer made
their wills and embraced their despairing
wives with a tragic air on proceeding
from Exeter to London, a sea-voyage was
still a serious affair. A man who had
plucked mangoes from, or cracked cocoa-nuts
beneath, their native trees was a small lion.
To have visited South America was to have
the credit of an intimate acquaintance with
the qualities of diamonds; and a sojourn in
Cuba entitled the fortunate individual, if
young and not bad looking, to the deep attention
of all the young ladies, while he told
stories in which gigantic flowers and butterflies,
snakes, lizards, and ladrones, were
mixed up with dark eyes, cigarettes, siestas,
volantes, mantles, and mantillas, orange-
groves, and frightful assassinations.

Steam has changed all that. Distance (no
longer) lends enchantment to the view.
Passengers to Rio, Buenos Ayres, and Cuba,
shook hands with their home-staying friends
as they would have done had they been off
in the Bella Donna to Brighton for a week.
The only sentimental person in our return
boat was a simple country lass, the newly-
married wife of one of the engineers, who
had never seen the sea or parted with her
husband before that day. She wept profusely.

Even the old melodious ceremony dear to
sea songsters of heaving the anchor was not
performed on this occasion. As we moved
off, the Bella Donna backed astern, loosed
and slipped a rope that held her to a