[Sidenote: Time is passed navigating, standing watch, sleeping.]

Things are the same as before with us. Time passes quickly, with
navigating, standing watch and sleeping when you get a chance. One day
or two passes all too quickly. I wish there were more to do in the shape
of relaxation when we do get ashore. The people here are cordial enough,
according to their lights, but those that we meet are practically all
Army and Navy people, who have no abode here themselves and are almost
as much strangers as we are; and there is no resident population of
that caste that would ordinarily open its doors to foreign naval
officers.

[Sidenote: Little for diversion in Ireland.]

Ireland is a poor country comparatively. A town of 50,000 here shows
less in the way of facilities for diversion than the average town of
10,000 in the States.

[Sidenote: Mental privations hurt more than physical ones.]

Don't worry about my privations--"which mostly there ain't none." Such
as they are, they are necessary and unavoidable; and, above all, we are
fitted for them. You can't well sympathize with a man who is doing the
thing he has longed for and trained for all his life. Besides, physical
privations are nothing; it is the mental ones that hurt. A soldier in
the trenches, with little to eat and nothing but a hole to sleep in, can
feel happy all the same--particularly if life has something in prospect
for him if he lives. But a man out of work at home, sleeping in the park
and panhandling for food, is much more to be pitied, though his