How I was upset.

A GOOD many years ago-30 many that I'd rather not have to specify them-I combined within myself two very adverse qualities; a great liking for hunting, and very small means to gratify it. I was a light, a reasonably light weight, with a safe seat, a good hand, and a quick eye; but, alas! there are other requirements more requisite still. My purse was even lighter than all; and so I was forced, if I would ride, to pick up some damaged article with smashed knees or capped hocks, some inveterate bolter, or some mischievous beast, obstinately bent on throwing his rider, and just as obstinately given to eating him when down. I would hunt, and there was nothing for it but this. I suppose, indeed, I am vain enough to assert that I made as much of my material as my neighbours could. I spared my nag on the heavy ground, rushed him boldly at his fences, hustled him sturdily along over the uneven places, and made play whenever I could get a bit of smooth turf that suited me. Never was ingenuity more sorely taxed, never was patience more thoroughly tested. When a poor North American Indian is working away at the adornment of his mocassins, he is not shocked by seeing at his side some wonderful piece of mechanism doing the same species of embroidery in a far more finished manner; he has not to contrast the sharpened fishtooth he works with against the polished steel implements of his civilized competitor. Now this was my case. I was not only fated to ride a screw, but to behold on every side of me all manner of well-mounted fellows-a whole field of first-rate horse-flesh in top condition.

This was bad; but there was worse behind it. Whenever, by some of those mischances which must befall the ill-mounted, I got a smashing fall; whenever my hind legs wouldn't come up, or my fore-legs go far enough forward; whenever my poor weak-loined hack couldn't muster the speed to send her sweeping across the brook, and that we both landed in the middle; I was always sure to hear-they were indeed my first greetings as I emerged, half dressed in duckweed, from the pool-" How could it be otherwise? Lever will ride such screws!" "Why won't he give a proper price for a horse?" "Why won't he get something able to carry him: something like that horse of yours, or that black mare Sir Harry is riding? It's the stupidest thing in the world to be under-horsed; and bad economy besides." The fall and the ducking were far easier to endure than these comments. They were not sarcasms on my skill, or sneers at my horsemanship, but they were far worse; they were harsh judgments upon myself, and in such wise that I couldn't reply to them; and so I had to put up with them, and continue to do "the stupidest thing in life, and the worst economy" to the end.

VOL. II. NO. 12.

83.

Years, long years, have rolled over since that; and, instead of a horse, I have got a boat; but exactly with the same fatality: all the old criticisms have been revived, and, nomine mutato, I am once more reminded of my stupidity and poor economy. "I say, old fellow," calls out my estimable friend, owner of the Calypso, R.Y.S., two hundred and forty tons, new measurement, a clipper schooner, doing thirteen off her log, and steady as a frigate. "I say," cries he, as he steps by me, under easy canvas, "where are you going in that cockle-shell? You've no business to be out here in a thing like that! She has got no bearings, no beam. She's not deep enough in the water. You've far too much sail on her. She ought to have a false keel, a small jib, two reefs in her mainsail, and yourself a cork jacket. Take my word for it, she's unsafe-quite unsafe: the craft for you here would be one of our small Thames yachts, twenty or five-and-twenty tons, cutter-rigged, and with a good draught of water. You'd pick up one at the end of the season for a song. I could have got you one t'other day, all sound and ready for sea, only two years built, for a hundred and fifty. As to that bean-pod of yours, I'd not go out in her for half a million. Believe me!" here his voice grows deep or oracular— "believe me, 'That sort of boat is the stupidest thing in life, and so very poor economy !'"

A cold shudder came over me as I heard these words, even though the day was a broiling one of summer and with a sky blue as the sea itself. It seemed to ring in my cars the great moral lesson, that I was always moving in a vicious circle-and to be, though young or old, ever destined to do the stupidest things, and the worst economy. It is quite true, with a little effort of courage I might have told my former monitors, or my present one, that I couldn't help it; that if the Fates had willed it otherwise, I'd have had the best stable in Leicestershire, and the fastest clipper at Cowes; but that, as I was not able for either one or the other, I yielded to circumstances; and as, some twenty years ago, I'd rather have taken the field on a spavined pony, with the certainty of a fall at every second ditch, so would I now rather have a plank and a handkerchief for a sail, than resign myself to give up boating.

To be sure, I am exposed to no ordinary temptation. I live on the shore of the Mediterranean; my house, shrouded in limes and olives on three sides, opens by the fourth over the very sea itself; the blue water is surging slowly against the rock, as I write, and the gay bunting at my masthead can almost flap against my window. Around me, on every side, is such a scene as Naples itself cannot compete with. Yonder, across the bay, rise the olive-covered hills dotted with white villages, and broken beneath into many a little cove, rock-girt and yellow-stranded. There, in that crescent nook, lies Lerici, the bright sun gleaming on its windows, and throwing a glorious light on the old ruined castle at the harbour mouth. Behind all, snow-capped, jagged, and Alp-like, rise the Carrara mountains, the steep sides glistening with the bright marble which never a human hammer or crowbar may reach. Behind that cliff, where the

olives are bending over the sea, lies the little bay of St. Aronza. There is a lonely-looking old villa there, into whose arched basement the blue waves wash in stormy weather, and this was poor Shelley's; and yonder, far away, beyond the bold bluff of Ponte Corvo, where the tall mountains are faintly seen-yonder is Via Reggio, on whose shore he was lost.

To the westward—my own side of the gulf the picture is grander and more stern, the mountains descend more abruptly to the sea, and the bluffs are more precipitate. In the bays, too, there is a far greater depth of water, and the proudest three-decker can anchor in them close to the very shores. From the lofty summit of the Castellana, crowned with a fort which might seem intended to throw shells at the Pleiades, descend many a deep cleft and gorge, with tumbling torrents hurrying down to the sea, and through these, even in the stilly summer time, come occasionally sudden gusts of wind, very disconcerting to those with a certain leaning for stupid savings and small economies.

As our gulf is a bay within a larger bay, it is in almost all respects like an inland lake, and even with a strong wind there is very rarely anything like a sea-in fact, when from the wind it might be prudent to take reefs in your sail, the calm water will reflect your boat, and the bright hues of your Union Jack be shown you under your lee. For some years back I have sailed it in almost all weathers; I know it in the sultry halfbreath of the Sirocco, in the treacherous gustiness of the Libeccio, and in the more dangerous force of that strong wind that swoops down from the snowy Apennines, and gathering strength as it comes, sweeps across the entire bay, squall after squall. This is the Tramontana, of which

more anon.

There is one feature of boating in these waters which is pre-eminently delightful. There are no tides-scarcely any currents. Now there is an immense advantage in the being able to trip your anchor, hoist your jib, and get under way, without even a thought for the full flood or the half-ebb. You never have recourse to the Almanack to learn how you can run out, and when you can run in. You have only to think, is there a breeze to fill your sails; and there never blew that wind in the Gulf of Spezia that would not waft you in sight of some lovely landscape. Creep close-hauled under the land, or go free out seaward, starboard or larboard -it is ever beautiful, ever varied; and, as you emerge from the extreme western point, and come within sight of the island of Palmaria and the more distant Tina, there lies the great Gulf of Genoa, blue, heaving and swelling; the mountain shores curving in one glorious arch from Porto Venere to Bracco.

Porto Venere, too-that lonely village, rising, like Venice, from the waters, and crowned above by its ruined abbey, over whose marble pinnacles the snowy sea-foam is tossed in storm-what a wild and desolate spot! Good choice was it-in that strange story Lui et Elle-for George Sand to fix upon this remote spot, to live secluded and unknown. To be

sure, it was only by the licence of her craft she could affect to say that her skill in lace-making could have supported her. Poor ——, if you had not a stout fisherman for a husband, you would have fared badly, with all your crochet-work.

But I am forgetting my Tramontana all this while, not to say that I have no business out here in this far away part of the gulf.

It was about three weeks ago. We had just passed through a very stormy equinox. The newspapers were filled with disasters at sea, and even along our own usually safe shores numerous casualties had occurred. And now there came some days of perfect summer. The gulf was like a mirror, not a ripple disturbed the picture of the mountains it gave back; and the wide-sided latiners in vain spread their canvas: they could not even creep from their moorings and step out to sea. It was very delightful-glorious in all its varied effects on the landscape; but, to one passionately fond of boating, it was just as provoking as a frost in the hunting season. I am ashamed to say how ungrateful I felt for weather that everyone around me was extolling:-"Did you ever see the gulf look more beautiful?" "Who ever beheld such lights on the Carrara mountains?" "Those heights yonder are like opal and gold." "That's the very sea Homer calls marbled. See how it is streaked and veined with many colours!" "What abundance of grapes! How delicious the figs! For years there has been no such abundance of chesnuts!" These and such like passed as a sort of greeting on every side, while I brooded moodily over the calm, and muttered, "If there was only a little wind.”

"Well, are you satisfied now?" said my daughter, as she opened a window over a sea-terrace, on the morning of the 10th. "What do you say to that? Will that Tramontana recompense you for the last week's calm? There it comes swooping down from the hills above Tragussa, and the only latiner out has taken in her jib, and is coming in close-reefed." I had just time to reach the window and catch a last look at the white sail as the swift craft swept into the bay of the Grazia and was hidden from view, and now across the entire gulf not a boat was out. In all the little bays and inlets along the shore, the various craft were engaged bestowing themselves trimly against the coming weather. They struck their loftier spars, and got down their heavy yards on deck, and gave out some fathoms more of cable, and a few of the very cautious made fast hawsers on shore, that they might ride head to wind more steadily.

It blew fresh, and something more; and though I am free to confess I should have liked it just as well without that "pitch extra," yet what was to be done? One cannot in this life have things in all respects to their likings; and there was no sea," that is, no roughness to speak of; and though there were squalls along the land farther out, the wind was what my boatman called " sincero," honest; and lastly, as I was what Paddy calls "blue-moulded" after a week's calm, I determined to go out.

It was the sort of day to try a boat's qualities, and for some time back I had been anxious to test mine. I had bought her about four

months before, after much thought and reflection. She was very pretty to look at, but the current opinion was, not much of a sea boat, being far too lengthy for her breadth of beam, and much too crowded with sail. On her two masts she carried two very large lateen sails, and a great foresail for'ard; and to these, with very little respect for naval architecture, I had added a mizen, which went in my family by the name of my "tail."

If I displayed some obstinacy and self-will in this latter appendage, I showed myself the abject slave of public opinion in other respects; and at the recommendation of one friend, I supplied sand ballast; and through the advice of another, laid in water barrels; and in deference to the general voice of society, I had her drawn up on shore, and added six inches of a false keel. From the time of the Man and his Ass, there never was such an instance of unquestioning submission; but one over-critical observer added the last feather to the camel's back, by saying, "And now burn her"—when I broke with my counsellors, and ordered her to be launched.

I have said I was long anxious to test her sea-going qualities. I had a sort of lurking impression that she would come out well from the ordeal, and fling a haughty defiance in the face of all her calumniators. I wanted to be able to say, "Well, you saw how she behaved on that day! It was not a gale of wind, but it was a sharp Tramontana, very gusty and treacherous. There was not another boat out; and as I have no reef points in my sail, you saw how I carried all my canvas. Is she a sea boat, now? Is she dry? Has she not a rare weather helm?" Such and such like were the proud interrogatories that I had rehearsed very often to myself, picturing the humiliated condition of my abashed auditors. Now my daughter had been one of the depreciators: she had sat on the seat of the scornful, and said much in disparagement of my poor boat, prophesying much evil about her. It was only fitting, therefore, when the occasion served, that she should witness the triumph of those qualities she had condemned, and so I at once proposed she should accompany me. She demurred-she opined it was not exactly the day for a small boat at all. The old story. Why hadn't I the Sultana or the Peach? I trembled lest I should hear about the miserable economy I was practising. No, she only argued that it blew too fresh for mere pleasure. I am obliged to acknowledge at this time, that my reputation as a safe mariner had been sadly damaged in my domestic circle by two previous upsets within the last five years-one of my daughters being with me on one occasion, and one on the other; and so I was delicately reminded how late it was in the season, and how cold the water usually was in October: sneering remarks, that no affectation of politeness could conceal. Seeing me at last determined to go, she agreed to join me; and having ordered my boatmen to get everything in order, we were very soon ready. Though the depth of water at the rock beneath my house permitted the boat to come alongside, there was now such a gobble of the sea, that it was no easy matter to get