experience.

Of our fellow-passengers there were only five whose presence affected us
in any way. A young Austrian, Herr Otto Frantz, with his wife, going out
as first secretary of legation to Tokio; Major Twining, R.E., and his wife;
and Miss Lungley, a cosmopolitan lady, who makes Kashmir her headquarters
and Rome her _annexe_.

We became acquainted with each other sooner than might have been expected,
by reason of an exploit of the stewardess--a gibbering idiot. The night
was cold, so several of the ladies, following an evil custom, sent forth
from their cabins those vile inventions called hot bottles. Only two came
back..., and then the fun began. The stewardess, who speaks no known
tongue, played "hunt the slipper" for the missing bottles through all the
cabins, whence she was shot out by the enraged inhabitants until she was
reduced to absolute imbecility, and the harassed stewards to gesticular
despair.

The missing articles were, I believe, finally discovered and routed out of
an unoccupied bed, where they had been laid and forgotten by the
addle-pated lady, and peace reigned.

We sailed from Trieste early on the morning of the 28th of February, and
steamed leisurely on our way. The Austrian Lloyd's "unaccelerated"
steamers are not too active in their movements, being wont to travel at
purely "economical speed," and so we were given an excellent view of some
of the Ionian Islands, steaming through the Ithaca channel, with the
snow-tipped peak of Cephalonia close on our starboard hand.

Then, leaving the far white hills of the Albanian coast to fade into the