y as the
corpse of a man, and the wild birds piped thinly at us as they steered
her across the surges. The pulse of the Pacific is no little thing even
in the quieter moods of the sea. It set our bows swinging and nosing and
ducking ere we were a day clear of Yokohama, and yet there was never
swell nor crested wave in sight. "We ride very high," said the Captain,
"and she's a dry boat. She has a knack of crawling over things somehow;
but we shan't need to put her to the test this journey."

* * * * *

The Captain was mistaken. For four days we have endured the sullen
displeasure of the North Pacific, winding up with a night of discomfort.
It began with a grey sea, flying clouds, and a head-wind that smote
fifty knots off the day's run. Then rose from the southeast a beam sea
warranted by no wind that was abroad upon the waters in our
neighbourhood, and we wallowed in the trough of it for sixteen mortal
hours. In the stillness of the harbour, when the newspaper man is
lunching in her saloon and the steam-launch is crawling round her sides,
a ship of pride is a "stately liner." Out in the open, one rugged
shoulder of a sea between you and the horizon, she becomes "the old
hooker," a "lively boat," and other things of small import, for this is
necessary to propitiate the Ocean. "There's a storm to the southeast of
us," explained the Captain. "That's what's kicking up this sea."

The _City of Peking_ did not belie her reputation. She crawled over the
seas in liveliest wise, never shipping a bucket till--she was forced to.
Then she took it green over the bows to the vast edification of, at
least, one passenger who had never seen the scuppers full before.

Later in the day the fun began. "Oh, she's a daisy at rolling," murmured
the chief steward, flung starfish-wise on a table among his glassware.
"She's rolling some," said a black apparition new risen from the
stoke-hold. "Is she going to roll any more?" demanded the ladies grouped
in what ought to have been the ladies' saloon, but, according to
American custom, was labelled "Social Hall."

Passed in the twilight the chief officer--a dripping, bearded face.
"Shall I mark out the bull-board?" said he, and lurched aft, followed by
the tongue of a wave. "She'll roll her guards under to-night," said a
man from Louisiana, where their river-steamers do not understand the
meaning of bulwarks. We dined to a dashing accompaniment of crockery,
the b