British Ship Adoption Society

nobis" and "agnus Dei" the general tone of the chorus—mainly boys, with an interspersing of masters—changed in correspondence with the variations in mood. Moreover it did full justice to the grand fugue on "In gloria Dei Paris" and to the "Credo". If any one section of the chorus is to be picked out for special praise, then it must be the basses.

The Nelson Mass draws soloists and choir purposefully together, and although the soloists, especially the trebles, were not quite as powerful as they might have been, they were not unworthy of the performance. Outstanding for his tone was P. C. N. Brown, the tenor soloist. The alto Hodgson harmonised well with Mawer, and Thirlwell in the bass enunciated his words very clearly. The original soprano solo part, which is of great length and complexity, was divided among three pairs of soloists and modified where necessary to suit their idiom. Indeed, the decision not to bring in outside sopranos—mooted at one point—was proved to be fully justified. J. R. Bailey, Collier, C. P. Farmer, Hardie, Howat, Little and Mawer all put their weight into the singing.

Mr. Waine trained the chorus and orchestra and conducted a performance which was felt to be well worth while. It is a matter for satisfaction that St. Peter's can carry off a production of this scale, and we look forward with confidence and enthusiasm to many more such musical events in the future. G.H.

THE BRITISH SHIP ADOPTION SOCIETY

The "Clan Ferguson's" Voyage 8 was to South and East African ports, and the dates are given below. Originally the voyage was to be to India via the African ports, and the ship's Indian crew was time-expired. However, orders were received to exchange crews with another Clan ship at Durban and to load homeward instead. As will be seen from the extract that follows, there was plenty of cargo offering: — "We arrived at Lobito Bay on 13th December at 2-30 p.m. Here we loaded 586 tons of rayon pulp and the following afternoon we sailed at 5 o'clock for Avonmouth. Now we were full ship having 10,678 tons of cargo on board. When allowing for the amount of cargo, oil and water that we could carry, we had to remember that we would be entering the winter zone as we passed the Straits of Gibraltar and could not be deeper than our Winter Marks (on the Plimsoll marks) which are seven inches higher than the Summer lines. This meant that between Lobito and the winter zone we had to use up 392 tons of oil and water. This we were able to do as the passage takes nine days. "After leaving Lobito we had fine weather until we were nearing Cape Verde, when the wind started to blow hard from the north. It was not long before a rough sea came up plus the inevitable swell. Within a few hours we were shipping water and acting more like a partly submerged submarine. This lasted until we were passing Teneriffe. The day after that was flat calm and very warm. It was then we received the SOS message from the "Lakonia", but we were too far away to be able to render any assistance. "On Christmas Day we were abreast of the Straits of Gibraltar. The wind, which had been ahead, was gradually veering to the south and we were starting •to roll again. At least we managed to have our Christmas 19