ed examination was over that
I then grappled successfully.

But this is anticipating matters.

Hot July sweltered to its close ere my tutor was satisfied with the
progress I had made under his care and declared me fit for the fray.

This was on the very last day of the month, and on the following
Tuesday, the 3rd of August, I remember, for it was the very day before
the fateful Wednesday fixed for examination on board the _Excellent_, my
mother, in company with Dad and myself, bade adieu to the sultry
metropolis, of whose stagnant air and blistering pavements, and
red-baked bricks and mortar we were all three heartily tired, journeying
down to Portsmouth by some out-of-the-way route, all round the south
coast, past Brighton and Worthing and Shoreham, which I never afterwards
essayed.

Since then, though I have travelled, more often than I care to count
now, from London to the famous old seaport which is veritably the
nursery of our navy, and whence the immortal Nelson sailed, ninety odd
years ago, to thrash the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar
and establish England's supremacy afloat while ridding the world of the
tyranny of Napoleon Buonaparte, not a single incident connected with my
first trip thither has escaped my memory.

Yes, I recollect every detail of the journey, from the time of our
leaving Waterloo station to our arrival at the terminus at Landport,
just without the old fortifications that shut in Portsea and the
dockyard, with all its belongings, within a rampart of greenery. The
noble elms on the summit of the glacis, are now, alas! all cut down and
demolished, but they once afforded a shady walk for miles, making the
dirty moats and squalid houses in their rear, which are now also
numbered, more happily, amongst the things of the past, look positively
picturesque.

I could not forget anything that happened that day; for, then it was
that I saw that dear old sea again which I had loved from the time my
baby eyes first gazed on it, and which I had not now seen for months.

On reaching "ye ancient and loyale toune," as Portsmouth was quaintly
designated by Queen Bess of virginal memory on the occasion of her
visiting the place, our little party, I can well call to mind, put up at
the "Keppel's Head" on the Hard.

This was a hostelry which Dad had been accustomed to patronise when at
the naval college in the dockyard learning all about the new principle
of steam just then introduced i