When, in our judgment, we were opposite the East Goodwin Lightship, we heard the bell of the Sandettie Lightship very faintly and only through the starboard receiver. The sounds became more distinct and clear and were without an echo. The distance was between nine and ten nautical miles. The fog-horn on the lightship was first heard at 12:59 o'clock, about three miles distant. We passed the lightship at a distance of about two miles, judging by the sound of the fog-horn, and at 1:48 o'clock heard the last sound. We also heard the bell on Noord Hinder Lightship, about ten nautical miles distant, faintly, and only through the starboard receiver. As we should pass Noord Hinder Light at a distance of about seven nautical miles, the sounds were faint, although now and then louder, increasing and decreasing in volume. It was impossible to judge by the sound whether or not we were opposite the lightship. The fog-horn on this lightship was not heard. At 11:25 the bells of Haak Lightship were heard about fifteen miles distant. The sound came faintly at first, through the starboard receiver. Later the sounds were plainly heard through the starboard receiver, but were not perceptible through the port receiver. her foremast were two crow's-nests, one three-quarters of the way up, which could hold two watchers, and the other, a smaller one, near the top. Both were fitted with telephones. The lower was reached by an iron scaling ladder which ran up the center of the steel mast, while the upper crow's-nest was far more difficult of approach. It could be reached only by climbing out from the lower one on to the rigging, and by ascending a small iron ladder fastened flat against the mast. It was an acrobatic feat to get there. Yet a sailor lad mounted to this sky-high position with certain ease to entertain me and my camera safe on the deck below. The jovial officers had been discussing what a splendid view of the ship could be got from the masthead. So an adventure invited me, and, after some argument as to danger, I was allowed to make the ascent to get a picture from the fore-truck. I did it, and a certain ancient epigram alone saved me from disaster-"Hold on till you can't hold on any longer, and then still hold on." I shall not do it again. And yet the men of the ship have to get there and watch for hours from this high vantage point, especially in storm and tempest. And it is all done to make "the safer seas," and I suppose the passenger in the sumptuous staterooms below seldom thinks or even knows of the loyal watchers in this giddy-set crow's-nest. BY EDWARD VERRALL LUCAS WITH DRAWINGS BY ALDEN PEIRSON OST travelers from London enter Paris in the evening, and I think they are wise. I wish it were possible again and again to enter Paris in the evening for the first time; but since it is not, let me hasten to say that the pleasure of re-entering Paris in the evening is one that custom has almost no power to stale. Every time that one emerges from the Gare du Nord or the Gare St. Lazare one is taken afresh by the variegated and vivid activity of it all-the myriad purposeful self-contained bustling people, all moving on their unknown errands, exactly as they were moving when one was here last, no matter how long ago. For Paris never changes-that is one of her most precious secrets. The London which one had left seven or eight hours before was populous enough and busy enough, Heaven knows, but London's pulse is slow and fairly regular, and even at her gayest, even when greeting royalty, she seems to be advising caution and a careful demeanor. But Paris Paris smiles and Paris sings. There is an incredible vivacity in her atmosphere. Sings! This reminds me that on the first occasion that I entered Paris-in the evening, of course-my cabman sang. He sang all the way from the Gare du Nord to the Rue Caumartin. This seemed to me delightful and odd, although at first I felt in danger of attracting more attention than one likes; but as we proceeded down the Rue Lafayette-which nothing but song and the fact that it is the highroad into Paris from England can render tolerable-I discovered that no one minded us. A singing cabman in London would bring out the Riot Act and the military; but here he was in the picture; no one threw at the jolly fellow any of the chilling deprecatory glances which are the birthright of every lighthearted eccentric in my own land. And so we proceeded to the hotel, often escaping collision by the breadth of a single hair, the driver singing all the way. What he sang I knew not; but I doubt if it was of battles long ago; rather, I should fancy, of very present love and mischief. But how fitting a first entry into Paris! An hour or so later-it was just twenty years ago, but I remember it so clearlyI observed written up in chalk in large emotional letters on a public wall the words "Vive les femmes !" and they seemed to me also so odd-it seemed to me so funny that the sentiment should be recorded at all, since women were obviously going to live whatever happened that I laughed aloud. But it was not less characteristic of Paris than the joyous baritone notes that had proceeded from beneath the white tall hat of my cocher. It was as natural for one Parisian to desire the continuance of his joy as a lover, even to expressing it in chalk in the street, as to another to beguile the tedium of cab-driving with lyrical snatches. I was among the Latin people; and, as I quickly began to discover, I was myself, 66 WHAT AN EPITAPH TO STRIVE FOR for the first time, a foreigner. That is a discovery which one quickly makes in Paris. But I have not done yet with the joy of entering and re-entering Paris in the evening-after the long, smooth journey across the marshes of Picardy or through the orchards of Normandy and the valley of the Seine-whichever way one travels. But whether one travels by Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe, or Havre, whether one alights at the Gare du Nord or St. Lazare, once outside the station one is in Paris instantly; there is no debatable land between either of these termini and the city, as there is, for example, between the Gare de Lyon and the city. Paris washes up to the very platforms. A few steps and here are the foreign tables outside, and the foreign w , so brisk and clean, flitting among them; here are the cabs and wagons meeting and passing on the wrong or foreign side, and beyond that knowing apparently no law at all; here are the deep-voiced news-venders shouting those magic words "La Patrie! La Patrie !" which, should a musician ever write a Paris symphony, would recur and recur continually beneath its surface harmonies. And everywhere the foreign people in their ordered haste and their countless numbers. THE NEXT MORNING The pleasure of entering and re-entering Paris in the evening is only equaled by the pleasure of stepping forth into the street the next morning in the sparkling Parisian air and smelling again the pungent Parisian scent and gathering in the foreign look of the place. I know of no such exhilaration as one draws in with these first Parisian inhalations on a fine morning in May or June-and in Paris in May and June it is always fine, just as in Paris in January and February it is always cold or wet. His would be a very sluggish or disenchanted spirit who was not thus exhilarated; for here at his feet is the holiday city of Europe, and the clean sun over all. And then comes the question, "What Shall we go at once to "Mona But could there be a better mornthe children in the Champs Élysées ? That beautiful head in the His de to do?" Lisa"? ing for "THE CHILDREN IN THE CHAMPS ÉLYSÉES " |