had great subject for much mirth when they retired
to the smoking-room--I think it was almost profane.... But it is time
for one pipe on deck and a last look at the somewhat uncongenial sea,
then to a bed, three or four inches too narrow.

[Illustration]

These two ladies here depicted are the sole survivors of their sex this
morning at breakfast, for it blows hard outside; but it's an ill wind
that blows nobody good, so these two young things, fresh as roses, made
each other's acquaintance at the empty table. They have been an hour on
deck, and like the movement, and the breakfast; and possibly their
irrepressible joyous sense of superiority is flavoured with pity for
their sisters lying low and pale. You see, the fiddles are on the table,
and even with these you have to hang on to your cup occasionally. The
fiddle makes such a comfortable rest for my elbows, so I scribble this
on the back of the breakfast menu (no one wants it) without being seen.
I remember that neither the position nor the occupation were allowed in
the nursery, and I hear of people to-day in quite good society so dead
to art that they will not allow you to draw on the table cloth! I
sometimes think how many lovely ideas must have been lost by this! It
was the Correggio brothers, was it not? who used to draw during
meal-time; they were very enthusiastic, but they died--possibly of
indigestion!

We are getting into the Straits of Gibraltar--a nice blustery day, the
black tramps coming out of the Mediterranean bury their noses deep in
foam, and roll up and show all the beauty of steamers' lines! To
starboard we get a glimpse of the serrated African mountains above
Tangiers and the Atlas Mountains beyond. They are green in spring, but
now they are brown. I used to think the African Coast was flat and
sandy; I wonder if school boys do so still. It is a pleasant surprise at
first sight to find it so like our own mountainous country. Both the
African hills and the Spanish hills are veiled at times with passing
rain columns that sweep in from the Atlantic.

Here is a little finger-nail jotting of Gibraltar; you see the parts
where the masts are--that is the harbour. The Rock or Mountain, 1,200
feet high, is to the south and right; all its side is bristling with
guns; to the left of the ships a long spit of land joins the rock to
Spain proper. If the cumulous clouds to the north and east, in the
direction of Granada, would lift a little we would see the