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who are told off for the "lookout." Taken altogether, a much more efficient state of discipline prevails-on the Lascar-manned steamer than can ever be hoped for on similar vessels manned by the ordinary type of European crews, such as are daily shipped in ports of the United Kingdom, particularly those of the Bristol Channel, to harry our ships all over the seven seas. Several circumstances account for this being so. We have remarked before that the proper number for a ship's crew is arrived at by considering the heaviest work they will be called on to perform. Some of the Indian ports have regulations that require crews being maintained on board in certain numbers, and where natives are employed instead of Europeans fifty per cent. more are required to fulfil the regulations. This may or may not be a fair ratio of physical fitness between the two races, but the fact remains that when a steamer is manned by Lascars much larger numbers are allowed by the shipowner, approximately nearer to one hundred per cent.—rather than fifty—more than would be allowed to the same vessel with Europeans. This, because the men are cheap and efficient? Here, then, is a very sufficient reason to anticipate better discipline, for numbers tell when the ordinary work of running a steamer and her proper maintenance are in full swing. Such vessels will compare favourably with any afloat, as other things are generally equal, and a proper number of officers and petty officers are carried, so that things may be done decently and seamanlike. Three watches for officers is an indispensable condition at sea for having a vessel efficiently looked after. A Lascar-manned steamer, very properly, 1s never without an officer in charge on the bridge. Not in vessels of this description do the officers have to neglect their proper duties and dance round after two or three hands at washing decks or clearing up holds immediately after leaving port to be ready for cargo at the next, leaving the vessel to the tender mercy of the man at the wheel (who may also be the only one to keep a lookout), and a menace to every other vessel that comes along! The work gets done, and decently done, without the officers having to off coats and bustle about like a bo'sn's mate, trying, and many a time expected, to do as much as two or three men, while a few hulking sea labourers just jog along as they please, playing "ca'canny."
Another reason, and the strongest, is the racial difference so well understood of the Indian, when1n touch with the Sahib logue; the breach is too wide to be easily stepped over, consequently there is all the difference between those who are paid for the purpose of being hewers of wood or drawers of water and
