carelessness the trim craft was rollicked along the Yorkshire coast until abreast of Flamborough Head, when it became necessary to take a departure and shape a course for Rotterdam.  She scampered along at the rate of six to seven knots an hour amid much anxiety among the crew, for a growing terror had possessed the captain and his mate as they neared the unknown dangers that were ahead of them.  The captain went below and had begun to unroll the chart which indicated the approaches to his destination, when he became horrorstruck, and rushing up the cabin stairs called out, “All hands on deck!  Hard, a port!” The mate excitedly asked, “What’s the matter?” “The matter?” said the infuriated and panic-stricken skipper, “Why the b——­y rats have eaten Holland!  There is nee Rotterdam for us, mister, this voyage.”  But in spite of a misfortune which seemed serious, the mate prevailed upon this distinguished person to allow him to have a share in the navigation, with the result that the vessel reached the haven to which she was bound without any mishap whatever.

It was not unusual for those old-time brigs, when bound to the North in ballast, to be blown off the land by strong westerly gales, and these occasions were dreaded by the coasting commander whose geographical knowledge was so limited that when he found himself drifting into the German Ocean beyond the sight of land, his resources became too heavily taxed, and perplexity prevailed.  It was on one of those occasions that a skipper, after many days of boisterous drifting, remarked to his mate, “I wish our wives knew where we are this terrible night!”

“Yes,” replied the shrewd officer, with comic candour; “and I wish to heaven we knew where we are ourselves!”

Such was the almost opaque ignorance, in spite of which a very large carrying trade was successfully kept going for generations.

The writing of the old-time skipper was so atrocious that it brought much bad language into the world.  One gentleman used to say that his captain’s letters used to go all over the country before they fell into his hands, and when they did, they were covered over with “try here” and “try there.”  Their manners, too, were aboriginal; and they spoke with an accent which was terrible.  They rarely expressed themselves in a way that would indicate excessive purity of character.  They thought it beneath the dignity of a man to be of any other profession than that of a sailor.  They disdained showing soft emotion, and if they shook hands it was done in an apologetic way.  The gospel of pity did not enter into their creed.  Learning, as they called it, was a bewilderment to them; and yet some of those eccentric, half-savage beings could be entrusted with valuable property, and the negotiation of business involving most intricate handling.  Sometimes in the settlement of knotty questions they used their own peculiar persuasiveness, and if that was not convincing, they indicated the possibility