Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/191

 means scarce. The Japs make excellent cooks, and so do the Portuguese. Hungry sailors go in for hearty fare. Beef and beans, pork and peas, clam chowder, roast joints, and plenty of fresh vegetables are their principal dishes, but they by no means despise the ice cream and the cabin delicacies which fall to their lot on cruises when there is a heavy sea, and landsmen feel more like throwing up their commissions than taking in ballast.

"The internal economy of a yacht," says Sir Edward Sullivan, "constitutes one of its greatest charms. Your cook with only a little stove for which a shore cook would scarcely find any use will send you up an excellent dinner cooked to perfection for any number of guests. And the steward! who can describe the work of a yacht's steward? I doubt whether Briareus with his hundred hands could do more than a steward does with two. At seven in the morning he is ashore for the milk, and the breakfast, and the letters, and the flowers; he valets half-a-dozen people, prepares half-a-dozen baths, brushes heaven knows how many clothes, gets the breakfast, makes the beds, cleans the plate, tidies the cabin, provides luncheon, five o'clock tea, dinner, is always cheerful, obliging, painstaking, and more than repaid if occasionally he gets a petit mot of compliment or congratulation. When he ever sleeps or eats I never can tell; and far from grumbling at his work he often resents