A SAILOR’S LOG.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 5, 2 August 1911, Page 50

A SAILOR’S LOG.

The Adventures of Captain M. T. Clayton—Sealife Sixty Years Ago.

Special to “ The Weekly Graphic,” by James Cowan.

Part ll.—ln a Blackball Liner —The Ship Kent and

the Melbourne Trade.

Tiii.X camo Ma’ithew Clayton’s service in one of the finest sailing line- that kept the seas—the Money Wig ram fleet. Those vore the days when canvas was in its glory, and when builder vied with builder in producing sailing-ships of great beauty and speed, and fitted up for cabin passengers in a style that was comparatively luxurious. lu October, 1856, Mr. Clayton signed on as chief officer of the ship Kent, a Blackwall liner, after an interview with old Mr. Money Wigrani, the chief partner in the firm of Wigrani and Sons. This firm besides the Kent a splendid fleet of passenger Miips of the highest classmost of them named after English counties, such a< the Norfolk, the Suffolk, the Essex, the Yorkshire; another of the fleet was the True Briton. This grand jfdd ship was bis floating home for seven years—for-the latter of that period lie was in command and as a typical specimen of the passenger craft which traded to the colonies half a century ago, she is worth a description in some detail.

The Kent was a wooden ship of close on a thousand tons, constructed of pine and teak: she was launched at the Blackwall yard. London, in 1853. She wa> 186 ft. long, with a beam amidships of 33ft. She had a full poop, extending .nearly to the mainmast, and a full forecastle. She was loftily rigged; her ’main-royal-masthead was 130 ft. above the deck. She was what was termed frigate built: to be quite accurate she w.is constructed like a corvette, or small frigate, with a strength of hull that .made her an extremely staunch vessel. though at the same time certain of the detail- of construction detracted •from her speed, lu technical phraseology she was a semi clipper, so that she was not in the <amc c’a-- in point of speed 'as the famous tea-clippers and Aus -tralian liner- such as th? Thermopylae, flic Lightning and the Blue Jacket, and their illustrious sisters of the sea. Nevertheless she even beat some of the .tea-clippers under certain conditions of weather, as will be seen later on. A

frigate-like look was given her by her large guard-boards. She had a square stern, with large stern-windows and the old-fashioned quarter-galleries. As to rig, she carried the old-style single, or whole, topsails, huge expanse of canvas, with four rows of reef-points. In all detail of rig she exactly resembled a frigate. All the rigging when Clayton joined her was of hemp; wire rigging only came in after he had made two or three voyages. Iler masts were of the best Norway pine; all her yards were banded with iron every three feet. An Al specimen of maritime workmanship was the Kent. She was justly considered one of the finest ships trading out of the port of London in her day. The Sailors of the Kent.

And .the crew of this good vessel matched the ship. There was no niggardly skimping of expenditure on crews in those palmy days of sail. The fo’c’s’l was filled with prime British seamen, “every finger a fish-hook,” as the old saying is; when topsails had to be reefed there were enough men to reef all three sails at once. On one voyage Captain Clayton had a crew numbering fifty-eight, .ineluding eight or nine midshipmen. A ship of the Kent’s size would carry only about a third of that number nowadays. Besides the boatswain, there were two boatswain’s mates, each like their chief carrying whistles or pipes slung on a ribbon or cord round their necks as their badges of office; and then there was the fiddler. The Kent never went to sea without a fiddler in her crew. His regular duties were to furnish the music for the crew when they were engaged on work at the halliards or braces or any other of the thousand tasks which are lightened by sea-melody. There were no chanteys on board the Kent; the usual merchant sailors' choruses were forbidden. Royal Navy style, and the fiddler, perched on the booms or the forecastle-head, supplied rhythmic music to take the chantey’s place. The boatswain was an important man. He was always styled “Mister” on these ships. The Kent’s bos’n in Captain

Clayton’s time was Mr Walker, a tall, broad, dark-complexioned man of some (forty years, a powerful fellow and a thorough sailor. The boatswain’s pipe was a familiar sound on board ship in those days. A great deal of work was done to the silver piping of the bos’n or his mates—Navy fashion again—instead of to wild songs from sea-roughened throats. The rule of the ship when lying in port in Melbourne was this: At 5.30 a.in., the bos’n’s mates would pipe “hands up.” At six the men turned to and washed decks down; and all ropes were neatly coiled up and awnings spread by about 7.30. The bos’n would go ahead of the ship in one of the boats and square up the yards. Everything was done by signal from his shrill and cheery pipe. There were different calls indicating which yards to haul and which way to haul them, port or starboard. When all the yards were squared to his satisfaction—and he was a very particular pettyofficer that bos’n—he would pipe the sharp call “Belay!" Now all was 0.K., all a-taunto for the keen eye of the monarch of the ship, the Captain. Captain Brine—appropriate name that for a sailor—-was the commander of the Kent when Mr Clayton joined her. Captain Brine! It has a salty flavour as any sea-novelist or sea-song writer could •wish for. As fitting a name as old Captain Stormalong of the sailor chanties, or as another grand old sea-name, Tom Bonding—a name owned by two seafarers of the writer’s acquaintance, old Tom Bowling, one-time Captain in the ShawSavill fleet of sailers (and now living in Christchurch), and young Tom Bowling, his fine manly son, now officer in the Tyser line. Captain Brine was a real fine old sailor and navigator,"and very proud of his ship. He was, for one thing, very particular about his masts and yards. The least leaning of a mast forward or aft meant work for the crew. Mr Clayton would be called for instantly, and instructed to get the mast stayed afresh, until it was as plumb up and down as eye and hands could make it.

London-Melbourne trade, carrying passengers and cargo, and often bringing baek to London valuable shipments of gold from the Victorian diggings. In 1855 there was no wharves in Hobson’s Bay, and the ship discharged her cargo into and loaded from lighters. About 1857, says Captain Clayton, Mr Alexander Watson —“Sandy” Watson, the wellknown Auckland builder of after years—• was engaged in the work of building the Sandridge Pier. The contractors began the work of sinking a vessel in the sand and driving piles right down through her bottom into the sand, to make a foundation. “Half the town of Melbourne was canvas,” says the Captain, “when 1 first landed there. That was in 1851. The tents and shanties were scattered about all over the flat, near where the Princess Bridge now is. There were no pavements; there were open ditches alongside the foot tracks, and everything was mud in wet weather, and flying dust -in dry. What houses there were were wooden shanties. The gold-diggings had just broken out, and the diggers’ ships were beginning to come. From Sydney steamers and sailing vessels came packed with excited passengers. Then the big ships from other parts of the world cams pouring in. There were convicts In Melbourne at the time; many of them from Norfolk Island, in chained gangs working on the roads. My next visit to Melbourne was lin 1853. The port was full of ships then, a whole forest of masts. Crews were deserting wholesale. Tn fact, pretty well every ship was laid up, for want of sailors to man them; every man before the mast had cleared out to look for gold. In 1855, I again saw Melbourne. By that time the town had been greatly improved and solid and handsome buildings were going up. From that year on to 1863 Melbourne was steadily growing into a great and beautiful city. I saw the Houses of Parliament go up, big churches built, the railway opened to Ballarat, and other vast improvements made.” Homeward Bound. After the ship had brought up at her anchorage off Melbourne town, t>he passengers would be boated ashore —slth usually carried over two hundred passengers—the mails and cargo would be landed, and then it was the chief officer’s task to get her ready for the return voyage round the Horn. The lower deck would.be cleaned up, and the ship painted white inside right fore and aft, cabins, tween-decks, lower deck and all. When she was loaded again the passengers would come off, and make themselves as comfortable as they'could for their long voyage. The fare's were from £6O to £ 120 for the cabins under the poop, according to’ size and location, and £l4 for the steerage (tween-decks). The greatest number the Kent carried in the cabin was forty-five; in the tween-decks she could take from 250 to 300 passengers- ... The cargo, stowed in the lower-hold, •consisted of wool, with copper ingots and copper ore in the bottom for stiffening. The water, in casks, was stowed in the fore and main hatches. For fresh meat the ship would take on board fifty or sixty live sheep, thirty pigs, and about a hundred dozen poultry. A cow was always carried, for fresh milk for the cabin. Now everything is on board, hatches fastened down, decks noisy as a farmyard with animals and poultry; and the passengers in a vast bustle and excitement. The anchor is weighed to the merry music of the fiddle, instead of the wailing but melodious old chantey “Goodbye, fare you well,” or that finest of oi l sea-sorgs “We’re bound for the Rio Grande.” The fiddler is on the forecastlehead, scraping away like a dozen Kubeliks at “The Girl’ I Left Behind Me,” “Home, Sweet Home,” and the like. Round -tramp the tars at the capstan bars, up comes the big mud-hook, the chief officer seeing to its proper catting and fishing: then a paddle-steamer tows the ship well out to sea. Now tl;e pipes go, “All hands make sail!” Up swarm the topmen. to see all clear aloft and loose the sails; then the •order is “Hoist topsails!” The fors-topsaiil-halliards are laid out along the deck on one side and the main topsail halliards on the other.

The Kent, though loftily sparred, carried nothing above royals; but she had a full set obstudding sails—stu'n’ls Merchant Jack calls them—to spread on either side of her huge wings, lower and topmast, and topgallant studding sails; and many a brisk tussle the rig ging out and in .of the stu’n’s’l booms and the setting of these auxiliary sails gave the sailormen of the fifties and sixties. By the “seventies" stu’n’s’ls were geing put of date, and now they have vanished altogether, except on a stray merchantman here and there, and masted Navy vessels.

As to arms, the Kent did not require the rather formidable armament of car-

ronades and small arms carried by ships in the China trade, for fear of pirates. She carried a couple of saluting guns on deck, and had a dozen or so of muskets and cutlasses in the cabin.

Melbourne Sixty Years Ago. All the years Captaiin Clayton was in the ship, she was engaged entirely in the

“Walk them up,” cries the captain front the break of the poop. All hands tai! on, passengers and all, and the fiddler, perched somewhere amidships, strikes up a lively tune. “Walk them up!” and up the big yards go along the wellgreased masts until Thley are headed and the huge sails lie spread to the breeze, the fiddler going like mad

all the time. An inspiring scene, that first hoisting of topsails for the long voyage round the Horn. With the big crew she carried, everything was done smartly aboard the Kent, in reefing topsails—all three were reefed simultaneously—Captain Clayton used to put the firrft reef in and hoist again all in ten minutes. There were topmen aloft —Royal Navy fashion again—to see after the running gear, trice the studdipg-sail booms up out of the way, and haul out the reef-tackles. The crews on each yard would vie with each other in getting the reef in and the yard hoisted; it was a race between them. The topmen looked after the studding-sails, and rigged the booms in and out; they scraped and greased the masts, and, in fact, did all the work above the deck. One boatswain’s mate had charge of the main-mast, the other the foremast. A good deal of work in ordering the lowering and hoisting of yards, belaying halliards and braces, etc.,

was done by the pipe. When, for instance, the officer of the watch gave the order “Pipe and trim sails,” the bo’sn’s mate would blow a high call on his pipe by- way of calling the hands to attention, and follow it up with the hoarse cry “All the watch trim sail!” When the yard’s were braced to the officer’s satisfaction, the pipe would shrill. “Well, all. belay!”

Coming out from London,. Captain

Clayton used to run the easting down in about 54 or 55 degrees south latitude; returning, he used to try and sight the Diego Ramirez rocky islets, off the Horn, to test his chronometers. He took lunar observations regularly to keep in touch with the chronometers, of which he

carried three—one eight-day instrument, and two two-days. “After sighting Diego Ramirez,” says the captain, “we’d shove round the Horn, and sight the Falkland Islands, weather permitting, to try and keep clear of the eastern ice, in which so many vessels have been embayed. Then we’d work up into S.E. Trades, and hoist our big wings again. The ship, though a semi-clipper, would very seldom go more than eleven knots. It was in light winds, though, that she used to make a passage; that’s where she’d pull up on other ships. During the nine round voyages I was in her I don’t think she lost her steerage way more than twice. On two occasions I

made the run from Melbourne to the Line in forty-nine days, and on one voyage I passed the Western Islands when sixty-three days out from Melbourne.

“There was a good living in the cabin, I tell you.*’ says the old captain, with a laugh of jovial reminiscence. “The firstclass jiassengers had to furnish their own cabins, with bedding, linen, soap, and other necessaries, but the ship gave them all they needed in the way of food,

and more. We carried plenty of wine, beer, and spirits, and there was champagne at the table twice a week -Thursdays and Sundays. At dinner time on each of these days, a big plum-duff was brought to the table on . a huge dish ablaze with brandy or some other spirit. It looked line, I tell you, and we were a merry company, even if it was a roaring gale outside.’’ A Treasure Ship. 'fhe Kent was a real treasure-ship every homeward voyage; she would often have made a rich prize for any enterprising pirate had any of those gentry been hanging around the Southern Sea. She carried gold every trip back to London. On one voyage Captain Clayton had nearly half-a-million in gold bars on board. It was stowed beneath his cabin, in the run, in a specially constructed gold-room. This sea-safe was locked, and the deck-hatch caulked down, until London town was safely reached; then the gold would be taken up to the bank in waggons, under armed escort. Besides these gold shipments, the passengers carried a good deal of gold themselves; many of them were lucky diggers returning to their old homes. Cncle Sam’s cruisers had their eyes on that treasure-lading of the Kents on one historic ocasion. just after the outbreak of the American Civil War. It was in

1861. when the Trent affair nearly brought Britain to war with her cousins across the Atlantic. The United States Government had a man-of-war cruising at the mouth of the English Channel, to intercept and seize the Kent or any other gold ship from Australia, in the event of war being declared. This Captain Clayton learned from his owner when he got to London. Old Mr Money Wigram asked him if he had seen anything of an American cruiser. The captain. who had heard nothing of the Trent cmbroglio. said. “No, sir.” “A very good job for you,” said Mr Wigram; “there was one on the look-out for you;’’ and then he told of the daily risk of war, and ’the patrolling Stars-and-Bara warship. Captain Clayton has preserved his old diaries kept on the Kent. These logs make interesting reading from a nautical view point. Many of the entries, terse as they are, bring up fascinating sea-pictures of the olden time. As for instance, “This day set port and starboard studding-sails,” — that was when rolling down the “Roaring Forties”; “set all possible sail.” And this: “Lat. 37.37 North, long. 36.39 West, wind S.E., signalled the Gipsy Bride, from Calcutta to Portsmouth, with 500 troops on board. 103 days out.” Sundry entries, of date July. 1859. tell of a biting winter in the stormy Southern Ocean, homeward bound round the Horn. Twenty

five days out front Melbourne, it wu blowing a fresh b.W. gale, with heavy squalls, snow and hail, the ship running before the wind under close-reefed topsails; “big sea, but ship going along Very dry; she sailed 13 knots aud more in the squalls." Next day, though the weather was still squally, stun’s’ls were set, and the day after that “all possible sail.” That was the way the tough old skippers “cracked on,” even in winter off the Horn. But they had good ships and plenty of men to make or reduce sail.

In a Hurricane Off the Horn, On his last homeward voyage but one in the Kent, Captain Clayton was caught in a hurricane when three days’ sail from the Horn. The glass fell 'to 28.10. The ship was unusually deep that trip, and it was found that she leaked in heavy weather. The falling glass gave warning of a bad blow, and the commander took every precaution that could suggest itself to his experience for ensuring the safety of the ship and her big company—there were 250 passengers on board. He had some of the upper yards sent down, and he threw overboard a quantity of cargo to lighten her before the hurricane struck her. “I knew,” says Captain Clayton, “if it caught us deep we would oe gone. During the height of the hurricane, we poured sperm-oil on the sea; it smoothed the water to windward of us, as we were hove-to, and it helped to save the ship. We were leaking, and all the night the hurricane blew, the crew and many of the passengers were at the pumps. One sea which struck us partly cleared the decks. At daylight the wind moderated, and we set sail again and squared away and got round the Horn.” The cargo which Captain Clayton Jettisoned —an act of judgment that saved the ship—was worth about (£4,000. The general average struck on the cargo when the ship arrived came to only about a penny in the pound. There was about £350,000 worth of gold on board. How the Kent Beat Four Tea Clippers—An Exciting Race. ■ Early one calm morning in 1862, when the Kent was one degree north of the Equator, homeward ‘bound from Melbourne, young Captain Clayton found himself in company with four China tea-clippers. Those were the days when enormous interest centred in the annual races homeward from China with the first of the season’s teas, and only the fastest sailors were employed in the trade. The ships and barques which raced the teas to England were beautiful vessels, manned by big crews, and handled in real yachting style. They carried immense spreads of saiil, and

'’cracked on” tremendously under stud Cling sails, an I ail sorts of extra wind

savers, from ■Jamie Greens” to ringtails and water-sails to sky-siits. The four tea-carriers lay there almost motionless, heading all ways, a tncle to a mile and a-ha'lf from the Kent, and piled to the trucks with sail. Captain Clayton

•poke them. Two of them, the barque Kobin Hood and ship Falcon, were bound to London, the other two, the Collen Kogers and Queensborouyh, were for Liverpool. There was a big bonus on the cargo of whichever got into port first. The Commander of the Kobin Hood, a handsome black-painted barque, requested Captaiin Clayton to keep in company with him, as his vessel had something the matter with her rudder-head. The Kent's captain promised to do so if he could. About an hour later—or 10 o’clock—the light N.E. trades sprang up, and all five vessels trammed their sails for a race. The Robin Hood and the Kent kept company with each other for about two days; the others left them behind. Then the wind- increased in strength, and the Robin Hood ran away from the more heavily-built Blackwall liner. When the Kent lay over, braced sharp up on a wind, her big guardboards were trailing in the water; whereas the tea-clippers all had smooth sides. The Kent saw no more of the clippers all that race up to English soundings. It was an exciting time on board, nevertheless, for Captain Clayton was determined to keep his ship up as -close to the clippers as possible, though he had very little hope of beating any. of them. He got very little sleep for the rest of the passage. He was constantly on the -watch, taking the utmost advantage of all the winds that blew and keeping his ship crowded with canvas. “At last,” says the Kent’s old commander, “we got up to the mouth of the English Channel. Not seeing anything of the tea-clippers, I made for the Eddystone Light, and hove-to to report. I had printed forms on board, in which there was a space to enter any ships I spoke. I had one of these forms already filled up with particulars of the four ships. As I hove-to I signalled for a pilot, ami the pilot who usually took my ship into Plymouth came alongside. I gave him my report, and a present of rum and tobacco, and made him promise to take my report on shore immediately. Off he went, and I at once made sail again, and went up the Channel with a fair wind, studding-sails set. By next morning I was oft’ the Dungeness light. It was a cloudy morning. All of a sudden the clouds cleared a bit, and, looking astern, I saw two big square-riggers ■coming up after me, crowded with sail. 1 was the first to see them.

“‘Here come the two tea-clippers!’ I exclaimed to my chief officer, who was standing near me on the poop. ‘Signal for a steamer.’

‘’We were then about five miles off the Ness. Up went the flags for a steamer, and one soon appeared, making for us. The tea-ships were now four or five miiles behind us. I -had every possible stitch

of sail set, with three stu’n’sails on each side, the wind right aft, The decks were crowded with excited passengers, and there were any number of bets on. The crew cheered with excitement when they saw the steamer coming. “Very soon the steamer was alongside. I told the chief officer to run the stu’n’sails in. The crew had them in in about

five minutes. It was exxiting, the sori of work to thrill a real aailorman. Directly we got the stu’n’sails in, the steamer took hold of us. Looking astern, I saw the two clippers taking in their wings, too, and signalling. ° ‘Hoist a signal for another steamer,* I said to the chief officer.

‘The signal was hoisted by the midshipman on duty at the signal-halliards, and in a few minutes another steamer was alongside us. I ordered the iwarp run out to her, and up-Channel we went with a steamer on each bow.

“ ‘Take tin all sail,’ was my next order. The crew were aloft in a jiffy, and in came all our canvas. After we got through the Downs we unbent every sail, sent the stu’n’sail booms and royalyards down, and made the ship snug for dock. The end of it was that we steamed up into East India Docks just half-an-hour ahead of the Robin Hood; the Falcon was the other clipper, behind the Robin Hood again. The passengers and crew all cheered as we got tin, and won the race. It was a very close go, especially so because we had not seen the other ships for about twenty-seven days until we met in the Channel. “The Kent’s feat was the talk of the city. My report, sent ashore by the pilot, was the first news of the tea-clip-pers that reached the London Exchange, where there was big interest in the race, and there was much surprise at the fact of us boating the clippers. My owner, old Mr Money Wiigram, introduced me to Duncan Dunbar, the great shipowner. Mr Dunbar looked me up and down. I daresay he thought ‘What a boy to go and beat the China clippers!’”

How the Kent Beat the Marco Polo and Bine Jacket.

Half a century ago some of the fastest clippers afloat sailed out to Melbourne and London-ward again. They were the greyhounds of the sea, those -fast and graceful ships, carrying wonderful areas of canvas, flying clouds upon the ocean—the Lightning, the Marco Polo, the Blue Jacket, the Red Jacket, the Empress of the -Seas, and, swiftest of all, that grand sailer the Thermopylae. New Zealand made acquaintance with some of these ships at that time. The Lightning, a clipper built in America, and owned by Britishers, carried many • hundreds of diggers across the Tasman Sea to Port Chalmers at the time of the Gabriel’s Gully gold rush. She -was a flyer; on one of her voyages she is said to have covered 436 miles in twenty-four hours, which represents a speed of eighteen knots an hour. The Red Jacket was the ship on which, in 1860, Sir John E. Gorst (then Mr Gorst) came out from Liver pool to Melbourne and Auckland. On that voyage, as he relates in his book “New Zealand Revisited,” she covered nearly a thousand miles in three days. Of 'r-ourse the steady going old Kent could not hope to compete on level terms with these racers, some of which were designed by the most famous of American naval architects, nevertheless, she more than held her own across the seas on several occasions, due in a large

measure to the seamaaly bandlung and skilful navigation of her commander. voyage she beat those brilliant ships the Marco Polo, and Blue Jacket, from England to Melbourne, The story is worth preserving. It was in 1859, pn Captain Clayton's first voyage as commander of the Kent. It was winter time when we left London, and after dropping the pilot off Hastings, lie had a tempestuous time beating down the English Channel. For eight or ten days he tacked down Channel, against a head gale; sometimes ho was close in to the French coast, sometimes across on the English. When at last he got down opposite Plymouth, the glasses fell, and it came on threatening from the westward. He decided to put into Plymouth (the ship usually did so, on the outward voyage, but the Captain had not been instructed on this occasion) to save wear and tear of ship and prevent being driven back up Channel by the strong westerlies. Captain Clayton knew also -that the Marco Polo and Blue Jacket were leaving Liverpool for Melbourne, and, as he was always on for a race, he determined to try and get to his destination ahead of his clipper rivals if possible, and he wanted to get the latest news of them. He anchored off Plymouth town, and ascertained, by telegraphing, that the two ships were at anchor at Holyhead, waiting for favourable weather. He lay at Plymouth for four or five days; then the wind hauled to the north, and learning that the Marco Polo and Blue Jacket had sailed from Holyhead, he got up his anchor and put to sea. He heard nothing more of ■his rivals until he reached Melbourne. When near the island of Trinidad, on the verge of the S.E. trades, the Kent entered the northern circle of a cyclone. Captain Clayton altered his course and kept to the northward of the storm centre. It blew furiously the ship sailing at a speed of twelve knots at times. The canny Captain made use of this cyclonic storm to work his way southwards. It lasted him till he got down off the Cape, where he got into the usual westerly winds, and ran his easting down in good time. When he reached Melbourne, after a run of eighty-three days, he found that neither ship had arrived. When at last they did come in, the Kent’s Captain compared his log wiith theirs, and found that they had run down into the southern semi-circle of the cyclone, and had a foul wind. So the very gale of which the Kent made a fair wind was the cause of the delay of her speedier sisters, bound for the same destination. It was all a matter of good sea-judgment, and an intelligent study of the law of storms. On another voyage Captain Clayton beat the famous Blackball liner Empress of the Seas, from London to Melbourne. A Remarkable Feat—Rowing a Full-rigged Ship. The merchant captain of that era was a resourceful man, equal to any emergency, and full of devices for coping with the thousand difficulties of the sea. Cap tain Clayton on one occasion actually rowed his big ship along for a couple of days, in an attempt to get into a breeze. It was off the Azores. He had made a fast run of sixty-three days to that position from Melbourne, and now lay in an exasperating calm. There was a slow undulating swell from the westward; the ship just had, steerage way and no more. This was too much for the skipper’s patience. He told his chief officer that he intended to try and pull the Kent along until he got wind, and instructed him to rig stages outside on both sides of the ship, about two feet above the water, and get out every oar on board. The carpenter and crew soon had stages firmly secured on each side, with stu’n’sail booms rigged along for gunwales. There were about thirty oars belonging to the ship’s boats,. These made fifteen a-side, and they were quickly at work. All the passengers who could pull went down to help the crew, and they pulled away right cheerfully. The ship's fiddler was stationed at one gangway, and one of the second-class passengers who hid a fiddle on the other, and there they fiddle 1 away to the toiling oarsmen. It was a strange jovial picture that,'that amused the crowd of passengers watching their friends lending; the tattooed tars a willing hand on the platforms that projected from the ship's sides just above the blue water, and tile fiddlers playing away for all they were worth at popular tunes ami dance music, and anything that mads an inspiriting nwlody. It must, have looked something hike one of those pictures we see of the old Roman galleys, with their downs of oars

going. But there wasn’t much of the galley slave about the Kent’s crew. The oars were relieved at frequent intervals, for there were plenty ot hands, and grog was served out regularly. So, with the help of music and judicious splicing of the maiu-braee, Captain Clayton kept his people at the oars for two days. The jolly-boat was towed astern in case any of the oarsmen fell overboard.

“By the evening of the second day,” says Captain Clayton, “we had pulled into a light breeze. I set all possible sail, and pulled the rowing stages up, and away we went, as the wind gradually increased in strength. An-yw3y, that rowing notion of mine kept the ship's company amused, even if we didn’t move the old Kent very far.” Captain Clayton was in command of the Kent from January Ist, 1859, until August 28, 1803. When i.f Melbourne in the latter year—the voyage after he had beaten the four China tea-clippers—-he made "arrangements to resign his command when he next reached London, and bring out a new paddlesteamer, the City of Brisbane, for the A.U.S.N. Co. He resigned, accordingly, from the service of Money Wigram, and made his first voyage in steam. He brought the City of Brisbane out under sail and steam, in eighty-seven days. The directors of the company gave him a bonus of £ 100 for bringing the steamer in in good order; they asked him to remain in the service. However, he had resolved to settle in New Zealand, and in 1864 he came across to Auckland. When he arrived, the New Zealand Insurance Company appointed him their Marine Surveyor for Auckland, and he has remained in their service ever since. For twenty years, also, he was the examiner of masters and mates, with the late Captain Tilly, R.N.; Captain Clayton took the seamanship section. In 1875 he was appointed Lloyd’s- surveyor for the port of Auckland: and for many years he was acting agent in Auckland for the Money Wigram ships.

A long and active life, this fine old captain’s. He is in his eightieth year now. but still in harness —either busy at his ships, or painting away at some moving sea-piece. He is ready for the final call aloft: meanwhile he does cheerily the work that his hand finds to do, and does it well.