In my time the proportion of non-Britishers in the crews of the ships flying the red ensign was rather under one-third, which, as a matter of fact, was less than the proportion allowed under the very strict French navigation laws for the crews of the ships of that nation.  For the strictest laws aiming at the preservation of national seamen had to recognise the difficulties of manning merchant ships all over the world.  The one-third of the French law seemed to be the irreducible minimum.  But the British proportion was even less.  Thus it may be said that up to the date I have mentioned the crews of British merchant ships engaged in deep water voyages to Australia, to the East Indies and round the Horn were essentially British.  The small proportion of foreigners which I remember were mostly Scandinavians, and my general impression remains that those men were good stuff.  They appeared always able and ready to do their duty by the flag under which they served.  The majority were Norwegians, whose courage and straightness of character are matters beyond doubt.  I remember also a couple of Finns, both carpenters, of course, and very good craftsmen; a Swede, the most scientific sailmaker I ever met; another Swede, a steward, who really might have been called a British seaman since he had sailed out of London for over thirty years, a rather superior person; one Italian, an everlastingly smiling but a pugnacious character; one Frenchman, a most excellent sailor, tireless and indomitable under very difficult circumstances; one Hollander, whose placid manner of looking at the ship going to pieces under our feet I shall never forget, and one young, colourless, muscularly very strong German, of no particular character.  Of non-European crews, lascars and Kalashes, I have had very little experience, and that was only in one steamship and for something less than a year.  It was on the same occasion that I had my only sight of Chinese firemen.  Sight is the exact word.  One didn’t speak to them.  One saw them going along the decks, to and fro, characteristic figures with rolled-up pigtails, very dirty when coming off duty and very clean-faced when going on duty.  They never looked at anybody, and one never had occasion to address them directly.  Their appearances in the light of day were very regular, and yet somewhat ghostlike in their detachment and silence.

But of the white crews of British ships and almost exclusively British in blood and descent, the immediate predecessors of the men whose worth the nation has discovered for itself to-day, I have had a thorough experience.  At first amongst them, then with them, I have shared all the conditions of their very special life.  For it was very special.  In my early days, starting out on a voyage was like being launched into Eternity.  I say advisedly Eternity instead of Space, because of the boundless silence which swallowed up one for eighty days—­for one hundred days—­for even yet more days