to be none other than the "Lotus," a crack
yacht, as swift as the wind itself. In fifteen minutes there was a
locker full of good things, and a deck of jolly fellows, and when we
cast off our bow-line, and ran up our canvas, we were probably the
neatest thing on the tide. I know that I felt very much like a lay
figure in somebody's marine picture, and it was quite wonderful to
behold how suddenly we all became sea-worthy and how hard we tried to
prove it.

A heavy bank of cloud was piled up in the west, through which stole long
bars of sunshine, gilding the leaden waves. The "Lotus" bent lovingly to
the gale. Some of us went into the cabin, and tried to brace ourselves
in comfortable and secure corners--item--there are no comfortable or
secure seats at sea, and there will be none until there is a revolution
in ship-building. Our yachting afforded us an infinite variety of
experience in a very short time; we had a taste of the British Channel
as soon as we were clear of the end of the wharf. It was like rounding
Gibraltar to weather Alcatraz, and, as we skimmed over the smooth flood
in Raccoon Straits, I could think of nothing but the little end of the
Golden Horn. Why not? The very name of our yacht was suggestive of the
Orient. The sun was setting; the sky deeply flushed; the distance highly
idealized; homeward hastened a couple of Italian fishing boats, with
their lateen sails looking like triangular slices cut out of the full
moon; this sort of thing was very soothing. We all lighted our
cigarettes, and lapsed into dreamy silence, broken only by the plash of
ripples under our bow and the frequent sputter of matches quite
necessary to the complete consumption of our tobacco.

[Illustration: Meigg's Wharf in 1856]

About dusk our rakish cutter drifted into the shelter of the hills along
the north shore of the bay, and with a chorus of enthusiastic cheers we
dropped anchor in two fathoms of soft mud. We felt called upon to sing
such songs as marines are wont to sing upon the conclusion of a voyage,
and I believe our deck presented a tableau not less picturesque than
that in the last act of "Black-eyed Susan." Susan alone was wanting to
perfect our nautical happiness.

How charming to pass one's life at sea, particularly when it is a calm
twilight, and the anchor is fast to the bottom: the sheltering shores
seem to brood over you; pathetic voices float out of the remote and
deepening shadows; and stars twinkle so nat