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and refused a Dukedom. Congratulations came to him from all sides and all parties. He survived the Congress three years, but his work was done. What could the rest be but an anti-climax? He died on 19th April 1881, full of years, and in the proud oonsciousness that he had achieved much that he had set out to achieve.

No man of his age had a more fortunate career. He lived not one, but many lives. He fulfilled his destiny as a statesman and as a man of letters. Whatever he had touched had prospered under his hand. He had enjoyed the trust and affection of his Sovereign as no other statesman in England has ever enjoyed them. He had conquered English Society in his youth, and had retained his conquest, until in his age he became, as it were, the arbiter of the great world. His reputation stood as high on the Continent of Europe as it stood at home, and he had risen to the dominant place in Great Britain without ever truckling to the folly, the ignorance, and the passion of the mob. Throughout his life he won with equal ease the friendship of men and women. The letters which he wrote to Lady Bradford and Lady Chesterfield are an eloquent testimony to the esteem and affection in which these ladies held him. Such relationships, indeed, are rare in the history of mankind, and happy is he to whom they are given. His wife, the constant friend and companion of his life, watched with eager sympathy his rise to power and influence,

and died in the fulness of her age. Why, then, does Mr Buckle call his life "at once a romance and a tragedy"? Truly it was 8 romance, because Disraeli, being of a romantic temper, turned into romance whatever he did and thought. As he says himself, his heart remained always young; and he never lost his zest for the colour and splendour of life, which are the real elements of romance. But tragedy? In vain we seek for it, as in vain we seek for the mystery in which Disraeli is said to have been enwrapped. Mr Monypenny said that "unless the mystery remained where he had finished his labours, he would have failed in his task of portraiture." Neither he nor Mr Buckle has failed in his task, and whatever mystery ever existed-if indeed any mystery existed-is dispelled. A simpler career, more plainly sketched and more successfully followed to the end, I do not know. Disraeli was candid to himself and to his friends, and the mass of material, piously gathered by his biographers and skilfully displayed, leaves neither his motives nor his actions in doubt. But the world, if it may not have a mystery, will cling to a paradox, and will still pretend to believe that the one man of his time, who had both the faculty and the will to reveal the secrets of his soul, is enwrapped in an impenetrable veil, which know. ledge and clairvoyance are alike incapable of tearing asunder.

CHARLES WHIBLEY.

THE SALVING OF THE ULIDIA.

BY DESMOND YOUNG.

So far so good-and, with the ship securely moored to the wooden "pristan" or jetty, we were inclined to sit about in the sunshine and congratulate ourselves. But to reach the first objective is never the most difficult part of the business. The holding of what has been gained is the real test, and the roar of the big motorpump reminded us that, although she was now off the rocks and sheltered from the weather, the Ulidia was still kept afloat only by the pumps, and that under her keel was some thirty feet of water in which, at all costs, she must not be allowed to sink.

With the ship afloat, however, the divers could get underneath her to locate the damage, and it would be easy enough to discover the principal fractures, and with straw mattresses, blankets, sawdust, and oakum temporarily to close them to a certain extent, and thus reduce the leaks to manageable proportions until wooden patches could be made and fitted.

We gave the necessary orders, but the divers had other views. It was past noon-and a Sunday; and at noon Sunday they knocked off for the day. They were endangering the ship at the eleventh hour, when she was practically

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in safety; but it was useless to point this out to them, or to promise them that they could stand easy for as long as they liked once the essential work was done. Nor did they care that the unfortunate Reay must go on running the pump, although he had been thirty-six hours or so without a moment's rest, and that the pump was overheated and likely to fail at any moment. Stop work they would, and did, and having washed and put on their best clothes, went ashore to strell about in the sunshine.

Grey and I tried to relieve Reay, but the true mechanical gift is given only to those from the Tyne or Clyde, and when anything went seriously wrong, as it did every quarter of an hour or so, Reay had to be shaken up from his bed in the 'tween-decks, where, in a puddle of lubricating oil and paraffin and water, he slept peacefully with his head on a length of iron discharge-pipe, while Grey and I shouted to each other to make ourselves heard above the noise of the pump.

The divers, meanwhile, had quickly tired of the rustic delights of Rasnavalok-the small settlement of wooden huts at the end of the "pristan"-and had walked into Soroka, where they succeeded in buying a couple of jars

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To men who will drink the spirit out of ship's compasses, the product of "Tommy's Cookers" melted down, or "A" petrol, and to whom methylated spirit is something in the nature of a vintage wine, service rum drunk neat out of oups is not as fatal as to the ordinary human being, but even Finns are not altogether immune from its after effects. It was not surprising, therefore, that work was not started either punotually or enthusiastically the following morning, or that it was reported that one of the ladies aboard, whose looks should have protected her, had been compelled to resist the advances of the leading diver with a knife. This had resulted in a general dispute, and all the divers were so battered that their helmets had to be put on with

care.

However, to do them justice, when they did get down they worked well, and by Monday night a wooden patch 12 feet by 18 feet was fitted over the principal fracture, which was discovered to be under the after part of No. 1 hold. This was secured by two ohains led right round it and the ship, and made fast to heavy baulks of timber, the ends of which rested on the hatch - coamings and the bulwarks, and the leak was reduced, so that it was only necessary to pump out No. 2 hold every few hours. At nine o'clock the 12-inch motorVOL, CCVIII.-NO. MCCLVIII.

pump was stopped for the first time and Reay turned in.

The pump had run, with the exception of stops of a couple of minutes at a time, continuously for fifty-four hours-a performance which its makers, Messrs Allen, afterwards described as "marvellous," pumping 700800 tons of water every hour; and practically throughout this time Reay had stood alongside it, without food or sleep, and by sheer determination kept it going. The noise and fumes of the 60 H.P. motor running with an open exhaust in a confined space were almost indescribable, while about once every hour Reay was wet through with alternately boiling-hot and ioy-cold water as he disconnected the wateroiroulating pipes to clear them of the cement which was continually choking them.

All this time he knew that if the pump stopped the ship would sink in deep water.

It was "a good show," and that the Ulidia remained afloat was entirely due to Reay.

Our intention had been to do sufficient temporary repairs to the ship at Soroka to enable her to be towed to England, and to fill her up with a cargo of timber from Belaieff's or Stewart's mill before leaving.

With a full cargo of timber it would be almost impossible for her to sink, while the freight would amount to some £15,000. Moreover, the timber had already been bought and paid for by the British Government, and it seemed a pity to leave it.

Two things happened to

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alter our plans. The first, a telegram from Dawes, in a prearranged code, to say that the evacuation of North Russia would take place between September 15 and 25, we kept to ourselves. The second, unfortunately, was public property. This was a message received by one of the crew to the effect that the last steamer with refugees from Archangel to the Baltic ports would leave on September 20.

We had promised the men that they should have a free passage home to England in the Ulidia, and should be sent from there to the Baltic as soon as possible, but they preferred the greater comfort and security of the mail steamer; and, after the lapse of a year, it is possible to appreciate their point of view, though at the time our indignation was intense.

However, there was nothing for it. They would not stay on at Soroka, with what they felt was the risk of being left behind in North Russia at the mercy of the Bolsheviks.

We compromised, therefore, by agreeing to take the ship, as soon as we could get tugs, over to Archangel, where they would continue to work until they were due to sail for home. This left the problem of colleoting a crew to bring the Ulidia to England unsettled, but we had enough troubles at the moment without looking even ten days ahead.

Grey was strongly in favour of Archangel, because it would be possible to put the ship in dry-dook there-if only for a

few days-and there was, of course, no question that she was really in no condition to be towed two thousand miles without dry-dooking. Personally, I was afraid of the local Russian interests managing to prevent our sailing on some such pretext as unseaworthiness, until after the evacuation, which would mean leaving the ship behind; and, apart from that, I did not want to lose our eargo of timber, but in view of the men's attitude there was really no alternative.

We had obtained permission from the Ministry of Shipping in England to charter two large Admiralty tugs, and on September 8 the Roll-Call and Resolve arrived at Soroka,

They both drew about 16 to 18 feet of water, and it was a delicate business getting them in near enough to take hold of the ship. Indeed, one of them actually spent the night of the 8th-9th on the mud, although her captain never knew it.

On the morning of the 9th the ropes were let go, and the Aleida Johanna towed the Ulidia away from the pier, over the shallow bar, into deep water, where she anchored.

The ship was & curious sight; on board her were not only all the men, but also the wives whom some of them had brought with them from Arohangel, together with those whom the majority of the remainder had acquired during their stay at Soroka. To these were added a number of children, dogs, cats, and even sheep and goats, which strayed about the decks.

Made fast astern was the Permoshnik, in charge of the imperturbable "Rat-Whiskers."

The start was delayed by our inability to heave up the anchor, which had apparently fouled something on the bottom. The windlass was as old as the ship, and two years' neglect had not improved it. We wasted an hour or so in trying various expedients, and then, as the glass was going down, knocked out the pin, and sacrificed the anchor and a couple of shackles of chain.

One of the big tugs had hold of the ship ahead, the Aleida Johanna was fast astern, and the other tug took station off the port quarter. As the last of the chain splashed over the side, we signalled to the leading tug to go ahead. This she did, and exclaiming thankfully "Now we're off," Grey and I lit cigarettes and took our last look at Soroka.

we

When we looked up again a few moments later both remarked simultaneously, "When is he going to turn?" for we were by now half-way across the bay, heading straight for the patch of rooks on which the Ulidia had been ashore for two years, and there was no sign of the tug altering course. We watched him inoredulously for a couple of minutes more, and then ran frantically up on to the forecastle head, whistling and shouting. It seemed seemed ages before any one aboard the tug saw us, and when they did we had to repeat our semaphore signal, "Hard over, or

you will have us ashore," two or three times before they read and understood it.

At last, when the beacon which marked the edge of the shoal was only a hundred yards or so away on our starboard hand, they seemed to realise what was happening, and we saw the tow - rope straighten out and swing and the water boil white under the tug's stern as he went "full ahead" on his starboard engine and astern on the other.

For what seemed an age the ship carried on towards the rocks, and then her bows swung round and she was clear and heading for the open sea. Grey and I subsidedand went below for a drink.

The rest of the day and that night passed without incident. The weather was fine and the sea calm, and the ship forged slowly through the water at six knots or so.

The glass, however, was still going down, and by the next evening the sky looked threatening and there was a moderate swell running.

run

So far the ship had been making very little water, and although one of the steampumps in the engine-room was running continuously, it was only necessary to the motor-pump in No. 2 hold for a few minutes every three or four hours. As the swell increased and the ship moved about to it, she began to open out and take in more water; but this was more or less what we had expected, and we turned in about ten o'clock very con

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