under a full pressure of steam, evidently admiring our skipper's
wonderful sea anchor.

As the noble ship glided away through the still tempestuous sea against
a strong headwind, a thing of beauty and of might--such a contrast to us
lying there, almost at the mercy of the seas--I could not help thinking
of the wondrous power of mind over matter displayed in our grand ocean
steamers, and what a responsibility rests upon their engineers!

How little do the thousands of passengers who yearly go to and fro
across the Atlantic know, or, indeed, care to know, that their comfort
and the rate at which they travel through the water--they who talk so
glibly of making the passage in such and such a time, be the sea smooth
or rough, and the wind fine or contrary--that all this depends on the
unceasing vigilance of the officers in charge of the vessel, in which
they voyage!

Do they even think, I wondered, that while they are sleeping, eating,
enjoying themselves and doing what they please on board, even grumbling
at some little petty defect or shortcoming which they think might be
prevented, the engineers below, in an atmosphere in which _they_ could
not breathe, are incessantly watching the movements of the machinery and
oiling each part at almost every instant of time, moving this slide and
that, adjusting a valve here and tightening a nut there, ever cooling
the bearings and raking at the furnaces and putting on fresh coal, this
being done every hour of the day and night through the passage from land
to land? Have any of them realised the fact that these same engineers
and their able assistants, the firemen and oilmen and trimmers, the
whole stoke-hold staff, so to speak, run a greater risk of their lives,
in the event of an accident happening, than any one else in the ship,
as, should a boiler or cylinder burst they may be scalded to death
before the noise of the explosion could reach those above? Or again,
should the vessel strike on a rock, the compartment below in which
perforce they are compelled to work deep down in the vessel's bowels
will fill, from the very weight of the engines, quicker than any other
part of the ship, most probably, when those confined below must
necessarily be liable to be drowned, like rats in a hole, without the
chances of escape possessed by the passengers and hands on board.

"No, I don't suppose any one even thinks of such things," said I to
myself as I left the bridge and went towards the