After a pleasant summer spent in cruising on the Hampshire and Dorset coasts, and the land-locked Solent, the little yawl Widgeon folded her wings, and found a winter refuge, hauled up high and dry, at Poole. Meanwhile, the Widgeon's owner, one of the impatient tribe of yachtsmen, was full of schemes for the ensuing season, which, one after another, as schemes are wont to do, melted into thin air. So matters stood at the beginning of the Cambridge May term of 1874, when a random suggestion thrown out one morning at the breakfast table, ¿xed the direction of her wanderings. The idea was, to start at the beginning of the long, sail up Channel to Ostend, and thence, making the best of my way to the Elbe, to visit Hamburg...