An entertainment, on a vastly different scale, was given to our officers, by the imperial family at Tokio. For a whole day they were the guests of Prince Arisugawa in his capacity of heir-apparent to the royal dignities. Perhaps "heir-apparent" is not strictly the correct term to apply to the royal "mid," the emperor having the power to bestow the crown on whomsoever he lists at his demise. The prince is but the adopted son of the emperor, who has issue of his own; he may set aside, and it is generally understood that he will do so, his own children in favour of his adopted child; by no means an uncommon custom amongst the nobility of Japan.

Recent arrivals from the southward having reported stormy passage, more than the usual precautions were taken to prepare the ship for whatever might chance to fall athwart our hawse. A deck cargo of coals was taken in, storm sails bent, extra gripes put on the boats, and anchors lashed; but, as generally turns out in such cases, neither of these preparations were more than ordinary necessary, for save a roll or two in Formosa's tumbling channel, the splitting of a stunsail boom, and the snapping of a rope now and then, the passage was a fairly smooth one. We put in at Matson, en route, when we found the "Lapwing" awaiting our arrival with mails and the men we left behind in Malta hospital on the outward voyage. Theirs has been a chequered existence since that time; now one ship, now another, until up to this time they can reckon up eight such shifts.

December 4th.—Whilst coaling at Amoy an accident happened, which has resulted in the death of another of our poor fellows, George Allen, an ordinary seaman. Whilst he and a companion were on a visit to a Chinese gunboat in the harbour, and both, it is to be feared, under the influence of liquor, Allen slipped as he was mounting the side, fell overboard, and was not seen afterward. Strangely enough, the man who was with him had not the slightest idea of the occurrence, and it was not until the captain of the Chinaman came on board the following morning and reported the circumstance, that we became aware that we had lost a shipmate. Before sailing we were joined by the "Egeria," and as it was the admiral's intention to visit Swatow we called in at Hope bay to allow him to turn over to the "Egeria" for that purpose. We arrived in Hong Kong on December 15th.

And now, dear reader, I have accomplished the round of our station, and have got through, I trust, to your satisfaction, the most difficult part of this narrative, viz.: the descriptive. Henceforward, to avoid tiring and useless repetition I shall refer you to the appendix for ports visited, only taking up for narrative purposes, such events in our subsequent history as I shall deem of major importance. If I do not adopt some such plan as this my book will far exceed its intended limits.

December 25th.—If we may believe the old saw, there are some things which have the misfortune to suffer by comparison. Accepting this as fact, the Christmas of last year must hide its diminished head before its present anniversary. We were determined on making our lower deck as home-like as possible, to deceive ourselves—pleasant fiction!—into the belief that there were not 120 degrees of longitude between us and our friends. The admiral behaved like a brick, by contributing largely to the good cheer. The mess-deck just showed how tastefully sailors can do things in the way of "get ups" when left to their own devices and resources. As Christmas, 1880, was by far the jolliest Christmas day we have spent during our sojourn in China, I will not anticipate by describing the present, but will reserve for a subsequent page the pleasure of telling you all about it.

CHAPTER XIII.

"And there on reef we come to grief,
Which has often occurred to we."