t," and made it five hundred. I drew out the
L2,300 at once, intending to deposit L300 before leaving London, but in
the haste of our preparations I neglected it, and my balance at the bank
stood L35 for all the weeks I was on our piratical cruise to the Spanish
Main.

Storing most of our baggage in London, we took the train to Liverpool,
and, purchasing tickets for Rio, we went on board the good ship
Lusitania, but not the "good" ship, for her first trip, this being her
second, had won for her the name of being unlucky, and Liverpool
insurance men, no less than Liverpool sailors, do not bank on an unlucky
ship--their faith of ill luck following an unlucky ship has been
justified in thousands of instances, as it was in the case of the
Lusitania. But I am not going to relate the after history of the ship.

From the hour of our arrival in Liverpool we were outwardly strangers,
and during the voyage no one ever suspected that we were anything else.
We soon discovered we had a pleasant company of fellow voyagers, and as
we steamed out of the Mersey and headed southward we settled down to
have a good time. Boreas was friendly, and away we sped across the Bay
of Biscay, rapidly neared the mouth of the Garonne, on an estuary of
which is situated the old city of Bordeaux. Arriving there, the ship lay
at anchor for some hours, taking in and discharging freight, and
receiving emigrants for various parts of South America. When the steamer
was about to leave, it was a strange and rather comical sight to witness
the farewells and leave-takings from the crowds of friends who had come
to see them off. The customary performance appeared to me so peculiar
that I will describe it as well as I can after so many years: Two men
standing face to face, one clasps the other round the body, the other
passive, then leaning back lifts the party clear off the ground once,
twice or thrice, probably according to the degree of relationship or
amount of affection; then the operation is reversed, the embraced
becoming the embracer. In some cases the ceremonial is repeated the
second or third time, neither kissing nor crying being the fashion
there.

The next morning we were off the coast of Spain, watching the silvery
gleam from the ice-clad peaks of the Pyrenees--at least those of us who
were not engaged in the more disagreeable employment of discharging
their debt to Father Neptune. However, by the time the ship arrived at
the small port of Santan