as fire drill is regularly and strictly carried out in
all the P. and 0. ships." This is not correct. For the last twenty years I have travelled all over the world in many ships (in- cluding the P. and 0.) and never have I seen boat drill carried out. A whistle is occasionally blown and, while passengers look on amusedly, crew, stokers, and stewards parade on deck. But real boat drill—the boats lowered, manned, provisioned, and equipped for a voyage, and the passengers embarked—I have never Seen; and I appeal to your readers, have they ever seen it P Of course, if a "liner" is hurrying to make up time, the delay for such practically efficient drill might waste one hour, but frequently when a "liner" slows down in order not to arrive at a port before dawn such drill would be no loss of time. The capsized boat of the Oceana' appears to have been lowered laden with crew and passengers. It has frequently been my fate to land in a surf boat on the west coast of Africa, and. on the Gold Coast and in Lagos Roads the wave move- ment is too violent to ever allow the gangway to be lowered. But I have never seen a boat lowered laden with crew and passengers. The ordinary rule of seamanship was to lower a boat with two sailors therein, who cast off the falls at either end when the boat was water-borne ; a line round a thwart hand held on deck kept the boat beside the ship, then the crew were embarked in the boats, and then the passengers, the ladies in the "mummy chair," lowered from the derricks, and the men either in the same way or by the monkey-ladder. In some twenty or thirty voyages and at many ports in each voyage have I seen this process carried out without a casualty at the ship's side. Of course, when approaching the beach, a surf boat might swamp or capsize, but not swamp at sea, as appears to have happened to the ' Oceana ' boat. There were only forty passengers on the 'Oceans,' with less than a dozen ladies, and surely ten minutes should have sufficed to embark every soul in safety without haste, even if the ship only worked on the lee side but fore and aft. I enclose my card and. sign myself your obedient servant,
THE OLD COASTER.
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