Towards late afternoon he successfully completed the job; it was now quite obvious that it would be madness to try to go on. The only thing to do was to unload the car and carry the kit to the place where we had first struck the sand, only a couple of hundred yards off. We could then turn the car and endeavour to get it back to the firm desert. The General and I accordingly resumed our rôle of coolies, and staggered through the sand with bundles of bedding, provisions, and spare parts. When we had completed this, we once more put our shoulders to the car, and started to work it back over the ground that we had so laboriously gained. Fortunately, the slope of the ground was now with us, and we made considerably better progress with the lightened car, reaching terra firma about sunset. Once there we loaded up quickly, and a few hours' drive through the darkness brought us back to our starting-point without further adventure, beyond Allen's tendency to go to sleep at the wheel, which had to be carefully watched ! On our next attempt we got through successfully by another route, but I had had an unforgettable demonstration of Dyer's bulldog

tenacity once he had undertaken a course of action.

No

One last picture of Dyer, which I always like to recall when I hear hard things said about him. We had marched all night and far into the scorching morning; at last the column halted, and we sat down to await the arrival of the baggage. The General, by this time worn and ill, and on the point of being placed on the sick list, had thrown himself down in the scanty shade of a stunted bush. After a time, desiring a drink of water, he called out to his Indian bearer to bring his water-bottle. reply came, however, so he looked round and saw that his bearer had gone off to sleep, with the usual facility of the Indian for taking a nap at any odd moment. The bearer was young and strong, and I quite expected that the General would arouse him with a shout. Instead of this, Dyer wearily and painfully got to his feet, walked over and quietly took the water-bottle from beside the sleeping boy, and returned carefully without waking him. A small incident, no doubt, but throwing a light on the character of the man whose actions are summed up, in the public mind, as "Dyerism."

E. P. Y.

VOL. CCXXII.-NO. MCCCXLVI.

2 F 2

THE river which is the scene of these tales is one of the most dangerous in all Asia. Seen at high water, it is a noblelooking river, a mile and a half wide at its mouth, flowing in a stream which is unbroken from bank to bank. At low water, however, it presents a different aspect the hidden dangers, which high tide had treacherously concealed, become visible. Mud-banks stand ten to twelve feet out of the water, and the navigable channels have contracted to, in some cases, less than a quarter of a mile. Through these channels the brown muddy current sweeps at a force which reaches eight knots an hour, while swirling eddies will sometimes throw a large vessel athwart the river even against the pressure of her rudder. During spring tides the water will rise and fall as much as twenty-one feet, and a vessel which goes ashore at the top of high water, unless she can be promptly got off, has little chance of surviving through the hours of the following ebb tide. With one part of her suspended on a mud-bank and the water rapidly receding and scouring the mud from under the other part, it is almost a certainty that she will break

her back and become a total wreck.

To add to the natural dangers, during the south-west monsoon blinding rain squalls will suddenly blot out the banks of the river, concealing leading marks, beacons, buoys, and lights; while during the early months of spring dense fogs often prevail in the mornings. To cope with all these dangers a highly-trained and efficient pilot service is maintained.

The pilotage extends over a distance of forty miles, and may roughly be divided into two sections-the river itself, and the estuary, which includes the outer bar. From the port, which is twenty-two miles up the river, and which has a bar immediately below it which deeply loaded vessels can cross only at high water, the river winds through a series of narrow channels, with here and there a broad reach. The channel just inside the mouth is the narrowest of all; it runs between the right bank, which there is steep to, and a vast shoal which lies off it. Below the point at the mouth of the river, on which there is a signal station, a spit extends for about three miles, and parallel to this spit there is a deep broad reach called the

Spit channel, which, however, has a nasty cross current. The outer end of this is marked by a light-vessel, and there a rightangled turn leads down to the outer bar, whose depths are constantly varying, as the silt from the river is either deposited or scoured away by the strong tides. The Spit channel affords a welcome anchorage when such is necessary, shallow water on the bar, and narrow channels in the river, making it difficult to anchor elsewhere. The pilot vessel usually lies at anchor six miles off the low palm-fringed coast, and about eighteen miles from the mouth of the river.

To the pilot vessel there came at four o'clock one morning in early March the mail steamer from another important port on the coast. She was well loaded with a valuable cargo, and had about a thousand a thousand native deck passengers on board. It was getting on for high water, the flood tide was almost finished, and it was still dark. As she slowed down a boat from the pilot vessel pushed off to her, one of the pilots was soon on board, and the steamer was then headed full speed on her course.

orders to let her go all out as soon as you got on board.”

The captain of the mail steamer was a frequent trader to the port, and was well known to the pilot. He was deeply religious, and with rare moral courage carried his religion into the daily life of the vessels he commanded. Sailors are very apt to seize on any outstanding characteristic in order to find a nickname, and while respected all over the coast, he was universally known as Holy Joe. His religion has nothing to do with this incident, except that, in the opinion of those who knew him best, it inspired him with courage of a different nature, for he was a daring seaman, his daring amounting almost to audacity at times, and he would take risks that others, who had not his moral equipment, would shun. The pilot, for another reason, was rather inclined to be reckless, a very bad fault in a pilot, and one that few of them possess. Their whole training and responsibilities tend to eliminate this trait, and rather are they wont to inspire confidence by their careful trustworthiness. Recklessness, where found, is, as in this case, usually due to one cause-youth, and this cause is, especially in the East, soon removed. Enough has been told of the characters of both the captain and the pilot to show that, competent officers although both of them were, they were hardly an ideal combination to be rushing full speed in a high-powered steamer

also. The pilots of those other vessels were more experienced than he, and they certainly would not have anchored there if they could have got in; they

"Fog! I don't see any sign of fog. It seems as clear as a bell; look at the stars overhead."

Resisting the temptation to repeat the time-honoured joke, and realising that humour under the circumstances would be misplaced, the pilot thoughtfully rubbed his hand along the iron rail which ran round the bridge. It was already moist, as if with sweat, a fairly sure indication of coming mist. By this time they had picked up, and were steering for, the lightvessel which makes the entrance to the Spit channel. Four steamers had gone in earlier on the tide, the last one only half an hour before, but there was no sign of any of their lights now. As they approached the light-vessel, the pilot looked in vain for the next set of leading lights. These, when in line, led through the narrow channel on the right bank, just inside the entrance. It was evident that a bank of fog was lying right across the mouth of the river. Shortly afterwards he heard a bell being rung violently, followed by two or three others. At least some of the vessels which had preceded them were at anchor in the Spit channel.

That was the time when the pilot should have come to

in an approach that was full of dangerous cross-currents. Still the pilot was loth to miss the tide, and perhaps a bit too sure of himself. He did take the precaution of ordering the engines to slow, but thought that he would stand in just a little farther and try to pick up the lights. The voice of the tempter at at his his elbow strengthened him in this idea.

"It will be breaking day in

few minutes, and we may manage to pick up something, suggested the captain, always eager to get on.

They had slowly passed three vessels at anchor, locating them only by the sound of their bells, and the pilot had just made up his mind that it wasn't good enough, and was about to give orders to anchor also, when there was a sudden exclamation from the captain

"There are the lights, pilot, five on the port bow."

"Good," said the pilot, with a brief glance at the lights. "Full speed ahead."

As he gave the order he also told the man at the wheel to starboard the helm, so as to bring the lights on the other bow, for they had seemed to him somewhat open, and he wanted to run them into line so that they would lead him fairly up the channel. He and the captain then moved over

to the port side of the bridge, and were peering through the mist in the half light to try and pick up the palm-trees on the bank at the mouth of the river, when a startled shout from the chief officer drew their attention to the other side.

66

These are not the leading lights, pilot; they are fishing boats; we are nearly on top of them."

"Stop the engines, stand by the anchor," said the pilot, and then gave a gasp of dismay, for, as he watched the fishing boats surging past, he saw, not on the port side at all but broad on the starboard bow, the palm-trees looming through the fog and quite close. Instead of entering the river they were heading straight across the mouth of it for the spit outside. There was only one thing to do, go full speed astern, and the pilot gave the order for it. He almost immediately followed it with another. "Ring her up.'

This last order may require a little explanation. The engineer officer in charge of the engine-room usually keeps a little reserve power in hand, and the double ring on the telegraph from the bridge to the engine-room signifies an emergency when every ounce of power is required.

The moments that followed were bitter ones for the pilot. From the way that the nearer objects on the beach appeared to be slipping aft past the farther ones, much as they seem to do when one is in a railway train, he could see

that, although the engines were going astern, the vessel had still a lot of headway due to his mad rush full speed ahead when he thought he had seen the leading lights. He doubted if she could be brought up in time, and he knew that if she took the mud there, nothing could save her, for it was now after high water, and in a short time the ebb tide would be coming down like a sluice. In imagination he could already see the decks buckling under them, the terrified stampede of the deck passengers, the difficulty of rescue; for even if the vessels at anchor near them tried to send their boats, these could do almost nothing in the scour of the strong current, and the same thing applied to the vessel's own boats. The fore-deck just immediately below him was packed with coolies, their families, baggage, and cooking pots. Many of the coolies were already awake, and, with their heads muffled up to keep out the chill morning air, were pointing excitedly at the shore. They were totally unaware of their danger: they were merely stirred by the first glimpse of the country of their adoption.

Inwardly he cursed himself for his folly in standing on so far, and to add to his bitterness of mind a loud peal on the bell of the nearest, though invisible, vessel at anchor came across to him through the fog. He envied the pilot of her, he had no greater responsibility at the time than to see that