units of that vast fighting force was recalled and paraded; personalities that would have brought blushes to the cheeks of a Smithfield porter, couched in the obscure jargon of Cattewater and Landport taverns, assailed the very courts of heaven; every point scored was greeted with shouts of delight, and an immense good-humour fastened on one and all.

The distant report of a gun sounded, and a far-off roar of voices announced that the first race had started; straightway the tumult subsided on board the tug and her neighbours, and an expectant hush awaited the approach of the line of boats, moving towards them like a row of furious waterbeetles.

The race drew nearer, and ship after ship of the line took up the deep-toned roar. The names of the ships, invoked by their respective ship's companies as might the ancients have called upon their Gods, blended in one great volume of sound. The more passionately interested supporters of the crews followed the strung-out competitors in steamboats, and added their invocations to the rest.

second and third boats had ended the race.

A hoist of flags at the masthead of the Flagship proclaimed the ships' names of the first three crews, dipped, and was succeeded by the number of the next race. Again the gun in the bows of the Umpires' steamboat sped the next race upon its way, and once more the tumult of men's voices rose and swelled to a gale of sound that swept along the line and died to the tumultuous cheering of a single ship.

A couple of hours passed thus, and there remained one race before dinner-the Officers' Gigs. The events of the forenoon had considerably enhanced the reputation of the Captain of the Forecastle as a prophet. Furthermore, the result of the Boys' Race had enriched the Ship's Painter to the extent of a sovereign. It needed but the victory of the Officers' Gigs to place the ship well in sight of the the Silver Cook, which was the Squadron Trophy for the largest number of points obtained by any individual ship.

one and then another dropped a little. The bow of one of

sionate participator in the animated scene. The long, graceful-looking boats, each with its crew of six, their anxious faced Coxswains crouched in the sterns, and tin flags bearing the numbers of their ships in the bows, were being shepherded into position. A tense silence was closing down on the spectators. It deepened as the line straightened out and the motionless boats awaited the signal with their oars poised in readiness for the first stroke.

"Up a little, Number Seven!" shouted the starter wearily through his megaphone. Two hours of this sort of thing robs even the Officers' Gigs of much outstanding interest to the starter.

"Goo-o-o!" whispered one of the watching men. "E don't 'arf know 'is job, the Coxswain of that boat." The boat in in question, with single slow stroke, moved up obediently.

"Stand by!" sang the metallic voice again. ThenBANG! They were off.

As if released by the concussion, a wild pandemonium burst from the waiting spectators' throats. The light boats sprang forward like things alive, and in their churning wakes came the crowded steamboats.

For perhaps two minutes the racing boats travelled as if drawn by invisible threads of equal length. Then first

oar, and before the carsman could get the spare one into the crutch the boat slipped to the tail of the race. The spare oar shipped, however, she maintained her position, and her crew continued pulling against hopeless odds with pretty gallantry.

Half-way down the mile course there were only four boats in it. The Flagship's boat led by perhaps a yard, with a rival on either side of her pulling stroke for stroke. Away to the right, and well clear, the Young Doctor urged his crew on with sidelong glances out of the corner of his eye at the other boats.

"You've got 'em!" he said. "You've got 'em cold. Steady does it! Quicken a fraction, Number One. Stick it, Bowstick it, lad!"

The Flagship's boat had increased her lead to half a length ahead of her two consorts: the Young Doctor's crew held her neck and neck. Then the Young Doctor cleared his dry throat, and spoke with the tongues of men and fallen angels. He coaxed and encouraged, he adjured and abused them stroke by stroke towards their goal. The crew, with set white faces, and staring eyes fixed on each other's backs, responded like heroes, but Double-O Gerrard was obviously tiring, and the First Lieutenant's breath was coming in sobs. They were pulling themselves out.

The roar of voices on either

side of the course surged in their ears like the sound of a waterfall. Astern of them was the picket-boat, a graceful feather of spray falling away on either side of the stem - piece. A concourse of wardroom and gunroom officers had crowded into her bows, and the Commander, purple with emotion, bellowed incoherencies through a megaphone.

Then, with one keen glance at the Flagship's crew, and one at the rapidly approaching finishing line, the Young Doctor chose the psychological moment. "Stand by!" he croaked. "Now, all together -SPURT!"

His crew responded with the last ounce of energy in their exhausted frames. They were blind, deaf and dumb, straining, gasping, forcing "heart "heart and nerve and sinew" to drive the leaden boat through those last few yards. Suddenly, far above their heads, rang out the crack of a rifle, and, the next instant, another. The crew collapsed as if shot.

For a momont none were capable of speech. Then the First Lieutenant raised his head from his hands.

"Which is it?" he asked. “Us or them ?”

The Young Doctor was staring up at the masthead of the Flagship. A tangle of flags appeared above the bridge-screen.

"I can't read 'em," he said. "Which is it? Translate, some one, for pity's sake."

The crew of the Flagship's boat, lying abreast of them

One race is, after all, very much like another. Yet the afternoon wore on without any appreciable abatement in the popular enthusiasm. And it was not without its memorable features. The Bandsmen's Race crowned one of the participators in undying fame. This popular hero broke an oar half-way through the race, and rising to his feet, promptly sprang overboard.

action

His spectacular plunged the remainder of the crew in hopeless confusion, and he himself was rescued with difficulty in 8 halfdrowned state of collapse by the Umpire's boat. Yet for some occult reason no feat of gallantry in action would have won him such universal commendation on the Lower Deck. "Nobby Clark-'im as jumped overboard in the Bandsmen's Race" was thereafter his designation among his fellows. The last race the comers-did not justify universal expectation. The "treblebanked " launch was indeed coxed by the Chief Boatswain's Mate. A "Funny-party" in

All

the stern, composed of a clown, a nigger, and a stout seaman in female attire, added their exhortations to the "Chief Buffer's" impassioned utterances. But the Flagship's galley, pulling eight oars, with the coxswain perched hazardously out over the stern, won the three-mile tussle, and won it well.

As the Quartermaster of the Morning Watch had foretold, a breeze sprang up towards the close of the day. It blew from the southward, and carried down the lines a medley of hilarious sounds. A drifter hove in sight, shaping course for the Fleet Flagship. She was crowded to suffocation with singing, cheering sailormen, and secured to her stumpy bowsprit was a Silver Cock. As she approached the stern of the Flagship, however, the uproar subsided, and the denselythronged drifter was white with upturned, expectant faces.

A solitary figure was walk

ing up and down the quarterdeck of the battleship. He paused a moment, then suddenly stepped right aft to the rail, and smiling gravely, clapped his hands, applauding the trophy in the bows of the drifter. The last rays of the setting sun caught the broad gold bands that ringed his sleeve almost from cuff elbow.

A wild tumult of frantic cheering burst out almost like an explosion from every throat still capable of emitting sound. There was gratitude and passionate loyalty in the demonstration, and it continued long after the figure on the quarterdeck had turned away and the drifter had resumed her noisy, triumphant tour of the Fleet.

"That's what I likes about 'IM," whispered a bearded seaman hoarsely, as they swung off on their new course. "'E's that 'Uman!" He jerked his head astern in the direction of the mighty battleship.

TAHINOS is no ordinary lake. Its eccentricities are many. For some reason I have never fathomed, all the maps show it twice its real length. Instead of being one long connected sheet of water as far as Seres, it ends at that unique village, Ahinos, and it cannot have extended farther within at all recent times. Even the remnant which remains is divided into an upper and lower lake, connected merely by the river. So it is shaped like a dumbbell. Its colour, except at sunset, is muddy and forbidding. The fishermen, save at certain recognised landing-places, have to wade far out to reach their ungainly flat-bottomed boats. It seems to have given up the struggle for existence and to be gently and contentedly dying. Yet, round its shores swim, float, dive, and fly a marvellous company. Long swan squadrons are for ever paddling along its shore. It swarms with many kinds of geese and duck. Its marshes are alive with snipe, herons, pelicans, and divers, and a host of strange exotic birds I could not identify, who love its lonely peace. Blue jays, oriols, all the eagles and hawks hover over its bordering forests. It so teems with fish, mostly pike, carp, and a strange specimen we called "suckers," that the fishermen who strive to drain it never fail to fill their nets (they always fail to throw back even the most micro

scopic pike). There are wild boar in its swamps and roaming at night through the fields around it; often I have seen jackals shrink into the shrub when on my way down to stalk with a service rifle, quite unsuccessfully, the wily goose! Its sandy beach, that grows incredibly hot at midday, harbours all the least desirable members of the insect kingdom. One field I often passed was covered with the enamelled and discarded skins of snakes. I do not believe a greater naturalists' paradise exists in Europe. I only approached the fringe of its mysteries, yet I never failed, when I went down to it, to see some enthralling piece of wild life, so unstudied, so revealing, so humbling, that it almost brought tears to my eyes. Such is Tahinos, that dying mere. May it ever remain unhurt by man, and the home of all quiet beasts! I could almost bless its mosquitoes if they would ensure that.

Settled in this quiet seclusion, hardly ever seeing a strange face, carrying out our diverse duties during the day, plotting the destruction of the geese in the evening, and hearing little news of the outside world, we had almost forgotten that behind those clear-cut hills before us was waiting our enemy, against whom we should have eventually to go up, or who would eventually