decks, ship's police and mounting guard at various places on the boat. The men at each mess table had to take turns, two on duty together, as mess orderlies, their duties being to serve the meals and clean up the tables and utensils after each meal. In addition to the above duties all men had to parade each morning at 11am for officers' rounds and were given half an hour's Swedish Drill occasionally to prevent them from growing stale. To keep the men interested, after being at sea about a week some sports were organised and provided plenty of amusement, most of the items being of a humorous character. They included Tug of War, obstacle race, cock-fighting (men trussed up of course, not birds), potato race, apple-bobbing, bolster bar, swinging the monkey, wheelbarrow race, stocking & rattles and deck quoits. The sports were got up more with the idea of finding something with which to interest the men, rather than for the prizes, although in the end it turned out that the prize money totalled about seventeen pounds. For the men who cared for reading there was a very good library of interesting books of travel and adventure and many standard novels, which were very much appreciated, because surprisingly few men had started out with any reading matter. After having been at sea a little more than a week we sighted the North West Coast of Africa on Monday morning, July 24th, and by noon had dropped anchor in the harbour of Dakar, a very prosperous looking town in French Senegal. Facing the sea are some magnificent buildings, evidently Government offices, and in the distance could be seen the chimney stacks of several factories, which are no doubt employed in manipulating the raw products of the colony. We only stayed about four hours at Dakar, which time the officers spendc ashore; our letters to home were put off here and we took aboard mails for places down south; we also had visits from several of the French officials of the port. While at Dakar we derived a large amount of amusement from the natives, who swarmed around the vessel in all kinds of odd-looking craft. The first lot that came offered to dive for coins, asking us to throw shillings. One or two shillings were thrown into the water for them, but not until we had tried them with pennies, which they allowed to sink, saying "No! One s'illing, one s'illing - penny no good!" At this price of course business was not very brisk, but eventually more boats came up, then competition became quite keen, pennies now being as eagerly dived for as were shillings only a few minutes earlier. The natives were extremely clever at the diving, the coins being recovered before they had got many feet below the surface of the water. They also did a good trade with us by selling cigarettes, sweets, picture postcards and other sundries, which we hauled up on deck by means of old hats. On July 28th, at 8 pm, we "crossed the line". Heralded by a bugle call, king Neptune and his suite came aboard and made the following proclamation. "I, Neptune, King of the Seas, learning that His Majesty's Australian Troopship Suffolk is passing through" "my most spotless domain, TO ALL IT MAY CONCERN, be it known that I, Neptune, the King, have "boarded this ship tonight, learning that you have got on board many people who have not been cleansed "according to my most unalterable laws. I decree, first, that I personally inspect the vessel tonight, and "second, all those that I mark as unclean be taken tomorrow from different parts of the ship and shall be duly "washed and made fit to enter my most cleanly territory. There is no appeal against my decree, for I am "Neptune, King of the Seas, and have with me my professional cleansers, who shall do what seemeth good in "their eyes. 2