this he certainly was, but he gave the Cutty Sark no chance of putting her best foot foremost. In December of 1873 she loaded her first cargo for Sydney, and again in the winter of 1874-5, she and Thermopylae both made splendid passages to Australia. The names of these two have always been linked together, and their fortunes too, in a singular manner.

"It is curious to see the way in which the tracks of certain ships constantly cross each other, whilst others, which one would naturally expect to be in constant rivalry, go their separate courses, possibly never to meet again. A ship is like a human being in this respect, or like a regiment."

Curiously enough, both ships loaded their largest tea cargoes in the same year, 1876; and in 1885 both loaded wool together at Sydney for the February wool sales. In the race home Cutty Sark beat Thermopylae by a clear week, and made the fastest passage out of over thirty first-class ships.

Of course, like every other ship and every human being, she had her share of troubles, and very bad ones, but she had wonderful luck, and “could never put her luck past her," in the expressive phrase of her first captain. It was a power on her side, that power which can neither be defined nor defended, but is always recognised, and the Cutty Sark became celebrated as much for her escapes from apparently certain disaster as for her vic

tories and strokes of good-fortune.

One of her narrowest escapes was in the great winter gale of November 1877, a gale of hurricane strength, which wrought havoc amongst the crowded shipping in the Downs, where the Cutty Sark was moored fast, Captain Tipcraft and the pilot having decided, in view of the promised storm from the Atlantic, to take shelter there instead of running up Channel. There were no less than sixty ships besides several large steamers taking shelter in the Downs, and when the hurricane reached its height in the pitch darkness of a November night, pandemonium reigned there amongst the crowded shipping. Cables parted, and ships began to go adrift, the little Cutty Sark amongst them. Blue lights, flares, and rockets showed in every direction, and out of the blackness to sea the dull boom of gunfire at regular intervals, heard through the howl and scream of the raging gale, told of some ship in dire distress. When morning dawned, even the tragedy of that awful night was less striking than the heroism with which men rose to meet it and give help.

"As the wind took off, the Deal boatmen with spare anchors and chains launched their galleys off Deal beach through the boiling surf in their well-known fashion, and braving the heavy sea which rolled through the Downs saved many a ship. All through the

Sark carried that very night a man who had helped to build her, who had been in her since her launch, and who loved her as a sweetheart. He signed in her voyage after voyage, and though a privileged person with the owner, was an oracle in the half-deck. This was the trusty "Chips," a man of great presence of mind. Many lawsuits resulted from this famous gale, fought between the owners of the ships which had been in the numerous collisions. Luckily for old "White Hat," though one damaged ship did sue the Cutty Sark, there was not enough evidence to identify her. Now, it happened that the trusty "Chips" had found

a piece of the name-board of a vessel lying on the Cutty Sark's deck close to where her bulwarks were stove, but with an eye to his owner's advantage, he thoughtfully slid this piece of evidence overboard without saying a word about it at the time. This action probably saved old Jock some hundreds of pounds, for the vessel to which it referred had been dismasted and badly damaged through a collision during the hurricane."

With singular luck the Cutty Sark after two collisions was found to be quite unhurt beyond her bulwarks, head-boards, and a stove plank or two; and by the end of the month she was once more ready for sea. Away she went, raced the Thermopylae again, and beat her; then, "after making the

best passage of the year to Sydney, she proceeded to make the best passage up the Pacific."

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This was all very well from a sporting point of view, but the year happened to be one of general depression and gloom in commercial circles. Poor Captain Tipcraft, worried by anxiety, died of heart disease at Shanghai, and ceeded by his chief mate, Wallace, than whom no better choice could have been made for captain. He was ambitious and fearless, a grand seaman, full of jovial high spirits and kindliness, rather easy-going as far as discipline went, but specially adored by his apprentices for his friendliness, and for the trouble he took to teach them their profession-a very unusual quality in a skipper of that date. He was determined to break the record across the Atlantic if he were given the chance, and in February of 1880 the chance was given him.

"He left Sandy Hook in a cyclone, which speedily stripped the Cutty Sark of her foresail, two lower topsails, and an upper topsail. At the height of the storm the ship was hove to for eighteen hours, during which time new sails were bent with incredible difficulty." As usual, she beat all her rivals in the run across the Atlantic, and made the passage to London in nineteen days out from New York.

But we now come to the

second period in the life of the Cutty Sark.

Jock Willis, like other owners, was convinced "that the tea trade was finally shut to the clippers, and that henceforth his famous ship must go a-seeking and be content with less lucrative freights. He came to the reluctant conclusion that her racing days were over, little suspecting that she would find all the racing he could wish for in the wool trade, and was destined to make an even greater name for herself in the roaring forties than she had done in the China Seas. Old Jock was deceived by the opinion freely expressed in shipping circles that the graceful yacht-like tea clippers were not powerful enough and a trifle too small for the big seas and westerly gales of the Southern Ocean.'

Although this opinion was mistaken, as a matter of fact only three of all the tea ships became regular wool clippers -the two great rivals, Cutty Sark and Thermopylae, and the unlucky Blackadder. Meantime to the deep disgust of all who had ever sailed in her, Jock Willis gave orders for the Cutty Sark to be cut down on her arrival home in March 1880. It was done: 9 feet 6 inches were cut off her lower masts, 7 feet off her lower yards, and the rest in proportion. Lamentation over this indignity was short-lived. Although the reduction in sail-area took at least a knot off her speed in

light winds, it was found that she actually benefited by it when running her easting down in the roaring forties, because she was now able to carry topgallant sails running before a fresh gale-a matter of the highest importance, since with the big following seas which come chasing up from astern in these latitudes, the lower sails drop into the mast becalmed as the vessel dives into the hollow; and nothing helps the ship so much as to be able to hang on to her topgallant sails until the very last moment.

But before the Cutty Sark settled down as a crack wool clipper she underwent an awful experience, which, as Mr Lubbock says, "no sea novelist would have dared to put on paper." It is in fact a great deal more impressive in the language of truth and soberness which he uses to tell it in the terrible chapter called "A Hell-Ship Voyage," one of those tragedies of the sea which are by no means overpast or out-of-date, but liable to happen at any time when cruelty holds sway, and the passion of resentment at injustice breaks out.

The American Navy Department, as it happened, was in a great hurry to supply their fleet in Japanese waters with Welsh coal, so they offered big freights in order to attract clipper ships which would race out with it to Japan. Old White Hat sent his orders to Captain Wallace, who took