From Sail to Steam : Natal Recollections, 1878-1905. By Admiral
C. C. Penrose Fitzgerald. (E. Arnold. 128. 6d. net.)—In this volume the Admiral continues and completes the autobiography which he began in Memories of the Sea. Ho started this later period of service by com- manding the ' Rapid,' " a sort of glorified gunboat" altered in rig from a corvette to a barque, with a 7i-ton muzzle-loader and two dubious breech-loaders which the sailors called " two muzzled guns, what shoots inboard." because the breech-block so often flew out and killed some one. This all seems as remote as the Ark, but it refers to the year 1878. The author had a pleasant time in the Mediterranean, and was Flag- Captain of the squadron escorting the present King and his brother in the Bacchante' round the world in 1880-82. He writes with more vigour of his share in the agitation for the Naval Defence Act of 1889 and of his opposition to the Osborne-Dartmouth scheme for the entry of naval cadets—opposition which, ho says, marred his own professional gamer..
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