other vessels. Still
at it, see-saw, backward and forward, roll, roll, roll! How thankful
we all are to have escaped a long day of sickening, monotonous motion!
But there is the getting on board to be accomplished, for the brave
little tug dare not come too near to her big sister steamboat or
she would roll over on her. So we signal for a boat, and quickly the
largest which the Florence possesses is launched and manned--no
easy task in such a sea, but accomplished in the smartest and most
seamanlike fashion. The sides of the tug are low, so it is not very
difficult to scramble and tumble into the boat, which is laden to the
water's edge by new passengers from East London and their luggage.
When, however, we have reached the rolling Florence it is no easy
matter to get out of the said boat and on board. There is a ladder let
down, indeed, from the Florence's side, but how are we to use it when
one moment half a dozen rungs are buried deep in the sea, and the next
instant ship and ladder and all have rolled right away from us? It has
to be done, however, and what a tower of strength and encouragement
does "Capting Florence" prove himself at this juncture! We are all to
sit perfectly still: no one is to move until his name is called, and
then he is to come unhesitatingly and do exactly what he is told.

"Pass up the baby!" is the first order which I hear given, and
that astonishing baby is "passed up" accordingly. I use the word
"astonishing" advisedly, for never was an infant so bundled about
uncomplainingly. He is just as often upside down as not; he is
generally handed from one quartermaster to the other by the gathers of
his little blue flannel frock; seas break over his cradle on deck,
but nothing disturbs him. He grins and sleeps and pulls at his bottle
through everything, and grows fatter and browner and more impudent
every day. On this occasion, when--after rivaling Leotard's most
daring feats on the trapeze in my scramble up the side of a vessel
which was lurching away from me--I at last reached the deck, I found
the ship's carpenter nursing the baby, who had seized the poor man's
beard firmly with one hand, and with the finger and thumb of the other
was attempting to pick out one of his merry blue eyes. "Avast
there!" cried the long-suffering sailor, and gladly relinquished the
mischievous bundle to me.

Up with the anchor, and off we go once more into the gathering
darkness of what turns out to be a wet and wi