The big square-rigged ship, contrary to popular or ignorant view, was (or could certainly be) a most effective machine for the conversion of the sea winds into power in and by her sails, and could make useful long voyages carrying heavy bulk cargoes at minimum cost and minimum loss, while at the same time offering that rarity of these days—a good measure of contentment and satisfaction for her officers and crew. She was not—and I should think never was—a lumbering old ‘windbag’, more or less drifting about the seas from one port towards another, hopeful of arriving somewhere some day. When for example, we sailed in the four-masted barque Parma from an outport in Spencer Gulf, South Australia, bound non-stop towards Falmouth, Plymouth, or Queenstown for Orders (as the old charter parties read), with five thousand tons or more of grain in sacks stowed thoroughly well down below, we did not set out hopefully on a drifting-match vaguely in the direction of North Europe, some 15, 000 miles away.