n mid-ocean two life-boats and we went close to them
but there was no one on board--only oars and water-casks. That's
all--just another mystery of the sea--no name, no clew. Another day we
sighted a steamer hull down, evidently water-logged, and we were going
to her assistance when a cruiser came along and told us to go about our
business and get out of harm's way as quickly as we could. This
cruiser was just a little whiff of "scented gum"; and Australian air to
us, for she was one of the best known of the Australian squadron.

There is a lonely island in the mid-Indian Ocean which is the only land
for thousands of miles, and it is an unwritten law of the sea that
every ship going that way should steam round it and watch carefully for
signal-fires or signs of human occupation, for it is the place that
shipwrecked sailors make for, and therefore there have been placed on
the island several casks of fresh water and a supply of flour, and
goats have been turned loose until they now overrun it. If a ship
should find any one marooned thereon they are bound to replace all the
water and flour that has been used. At one time there was a large
fresh-water lake in the extinct crater of a volcano, but the sea has
now broken through and made it salt. We steamed very close in, blew
the siren, and had there been a pygmy there he would not have been
overlooked as hundreds of trained eyes searched the rocks with glasses.
We also got some fine photographs of this romantic isle in its waste of
waters.

The officers' ward was on the upper deck and our nurse had a twin
sister in another ward and there was not a particle of difference
between them. If I was lying on the deck and should call out to our
nurse as she passed to get me something, she would generally say, "I'll
ask my sister," for, of course, it was the wrong one. There was
endless confusion, for when we had a little tiff with our nurse, her
sister would be sent to Coventry as well, and in a deck golf tournament
there was great dispute over who won the ladies' prize, for both
sisters claimed it. This matter could not be settled, as the umpire
was not sure if he had credited the scores to the right one. The prize
was a set of brushes and we told them it would have to do for both,
which was all right, as we were sure they wore each other's clothes
anyway. They told us they had made a vow when they married not to live
in the same town for the husbands' sake!

The rout