SYDNEY FLYING SQUADRON

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square miles lying inside the Port Jackson Heads? The enthusiasts have backed their hobby well, with great thoroughness. Not content with local talent, they sought the assistance of the best designers, G. L. Watson and Fife, of English fame, and even Nat. G. Herreshoff has not been forgotten. The great water sport of Sydney is, however, sailing the open boats with live ballast, plenty of canvas, plenty of ballast, and "never mind the sharks." Experientia docet. With one class of boat, and continual practice under similar conditions, it is surprising to see how the boats are handled, how nippily the live ballast finds its place when gybing, how rapidly the canvas is taken in or set —a very important function, for the winds in the bay are treacherous and uncertain, the most favourable being hard northeasters. Crossing the mouth of the harbour sometimes gives the adventurers a very nasty shake up, and the baling is rapid, with great earnestness. get to the water to bale is a feat in itself in a boat 24 ft. long, with 22 men as crew for ballast—44 legs in the bottom of the boat. Here discipline comes in, the crew sit double banked, and all lower extremities are stowed close up to the gunwale on each side.

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This description of the favourite boat in Sydney applies to a boat brought over to the mother country in 1898 to challenge for a race against the same length of boat; although the word challenge is scarcely applicable, the owner coming from pure love of sport, carrying out everything connected with the five races sailed in the same fine manly spirit of fairness. The races were sailed in September, 1898, in the Medway, certainly not under favourable conditions. In the first place, the visitors, Mr. M. Fay and crew “Irex,” were not accustomed to a tideway; secondly, the English boat, Mr. Wyllie's “Maid of Kent,” was a decked boat of shallow type, designed by Linton Hope. There were no gentle zephyrs to woo the full expanse of canvas, 1,000 square ft., with which "Irex" is generally garbed in the home waters of her beautiful Bay of Sydney, consequently the “* Maid of Kent won, but only with one result-that this contest became a new tie of interest between Australia, with Sydney as head quarters, and the mother country.

JAEGTS AND FISHING CRAFT.

THE vast seaboard of Norway naturally produces a class of men inured to the hardships of the coast work of the country, where the whole line is ironbound; even the fjords which run inland for a great distance afford poor anchorage. Such is the depth of the water close up to the precipitous coast. that iron rings may still be seen in some parts where the boats were literally tied up to the rocks. Travelling by boat is much easier than conveying weighty loads over the mountains from one village to the other, and Norway has in this case the very great advantage of the warmth of the Gulf Stream running up the whole length of the coast, with the comforting effect that in the winter time no ice is seen at sea, although plenty can be found in view, and on shore mighty glaciers too, as the traveller looks up to Justerdal and other snow ranges.

The Norwegian jaegt, the national type of vessel on the coast, is quite a relic of bygone days, with her one big square sail; her build with high stern, the same as two hundred years ago; her high black stem, now without the figure or head of former days at the summit; her lines faithful to those handed down from the Viking period. A perfect specimen of a boat of that period was discovered some years ago, and is now treasured at Christiana. This type of vessel is employed to bring the immense supply of fish from the Lofoden Islands--where the cod fishery of Norway is concentrated—and down the coast to Bergen, whence it is shipped off to the Mediterranean. The vessels that bear away the fish generally return with cargoes of wine, and this direct importation supplies a want, to the agreeable surprise of many a traveller. The tradition was, and may be still, that these vessels came down to Bergen laden with dried fish, and on their return had a cargo of elm planks for coffins, calling on their way up to distribute these memento mori.

The jaegt is not unfrequently in request for a Norwegian bridal party, as shown in the illustration. Then are the fiddles and the tankards much in