* * * * *
I returned to England, and, once more, to the hollow windows and strewn
streets of black, burned-out and desolate London: for its bank-vaults,
etc., contained the necessary complement of the gold brought from Paris,
and then lying in the _Speranza_ at Dover; nor had I sufficient
familiarity with French industries and methods to find, even with the
aid of _Bottins_, one half of the 4,000 odd objects which I had now
catalogued. My ship was the _Speranza_, which brought me from Havre, for
at Calais, to which I first went, I could find nothing suitable for all
purposes, the _Speranza_ being an American yacht, very palatially
fitted, three-masted, air-driven, with a carrying capacity of 2,000
tons, Tobin-bronzed, in good condition, containing sixteen interacting
tanks, with a five-block pulley-arrangement amid-ships that enables me
to lift very considerable weights without the aid of the hoisting
air-engine, high in the water, sharp, handsome, containing a few tons
only of sand-ballast, and needing when I found her only three days' work
at the water-line and engines to make her decent and fit.
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