entreat the mistress of the inn to
sell us half a bottle of milk for G----'s breakfast to-morrow--as he
will not drink the preserved milk--and so back again on board the tug.
The difficulty about milk and butter is the first trouble which besets
a family traveling in these parts. Everywhere milk is scarce and poor,
and the butter such as no charwoman would touch in England. In vain
does one behold from the sea thousands of acres of what looks like
undulating green pasturage, and inland the same waving green hillocks
stretch as far as the eye can reach: there is never a sheep or cow to
be seen, and one hears that there is no water, or that the grass
is sour, or that there is a great deal of sickness about among the
animals in that locality. Whatever the cause, the result is the
same--namely, that one has to go down on one's knees for a cupful of
milk, which is but poor, thin stuff at its best, and that Irish salt
butter out of a tub is a costly delicacy.

Having secured this precious quarter of a bottle of milk, for which
I was really as grateful as though it had been the Koh-i-noor, we
hastened back to the wharf and got on board the little tug again.
"Now for the bridge!" cry G---- and I, for has not Captain Florence
promised us a splendid but safe tossing across the bar? And faithfully
he and the bar and the boat keep their word, for we are in no danger,
it seems, and yet we appear to leap like a race-horse across the strip
of sand, receiving a staggering buffet first on one paddle-wheel and
then on the other from the angry guardian breakers, which seem sworn
foes of boats and passengers. Again and again are we knocked aside by
huge billows, as though the poor little tug were a walnut-shell; again
and again do we recover ourselves, and blunder bravely on, sometimes
with but one paddle in the water, sometimes burying our bowsprit in a
big green wave too high to climb, and dashing right through it as fast
as if we shut our eyes and went at everything. The spray flies high
over our heads, G---- and I are drenched over and over again, but
we shake the sparkling water off our coats, for all the world like
Newfoundland dogs, and are all right again in a moment, "Is that the
very last?" asks G---- reluctantly as we take our last breaker like
a five-barred gate, flying, and find ourselves safe and sound, but
quivering a good deal, in what seems comparatively smooth water. Is it
smooth, though? Look at the Florence and all the