iron basin with a handle is placed alongside it just over the
flooring, below which is seen, at p. 41, a wedge of lead-ballast, and in
front of this the water-well, where water collecting from leakage or
dashing spray is conveniently reached by the tube of vulcanised
india-rubber represented as just in front. This pump hose has a brass
union joint on the top, to which we can screw the nozzle of a pump with a
copper cylinder (shown at the bottom), or a piston worked by hand (but
without any lever), and when in use the cylinder rests obliquely, so that
the water will flow out over the combing, and on the deck, and so into
the sea.

{22} Several important suggestions for the implement of the lifeboat
liquid compass were obtained during my use of it in this voyage, and
these have been duly appreciated by the Lifeboat Institution.

{25} However good the glass, it is very difficult to make use of it for
faint or distant objects on the horizon, and on the whole I found it
easier to discern the first dim line of land far off by the unaided eye.
A slight mark, that would not be observed while only a short piece of it
is seen in the field of view, becomes decidedly manifest if a large scope
is seen at once. The binocular glass was very valuable, however, when
the words on a buoy, or the colour on the chequers of a beacon had to be
deciphered.

{26} See page 44 and Appendix.

{32} In yet another, the fourth visit to this stupid shallow harbour
(one of the most unpleasant to lie in anywhere), I fixed an oar out at
each side as a leg, and could scarcely get rest from the fear that one or
other of my beautiful oars would be snapped as they bent and groaned with
remonstrances against supporting several tons of weight in the capacity
of a wooden leg.

{36} I had lessened her ton and a half of iron ballast by leaving two
hundredweight on Dover quay; good advice agreeing with my own opinion
that the Rob Roy was needlessly stiff.

{42} The relative positions of all these articles had been maturely
considered and carefully arranged, and they were much approved by the
most experienced and critical of the many hundred visitors who inspected
the Rob Roy.

{44} In the sketch at page 41, the cook of the Rob Roy is represented as
he works when rain compels him to shelter himself in the cabin under a
tarpaulin, and the hatch inclined upwards. But usually--indeed, always
but on two occasions--he sat in the well while he tended t