The Alastor.

During the whole of the time the barque Alastor was trading to New Zealand she was in command of the one master, Captain Glazebrook, who was naturally well known at the various ports. The barque was under charter to the Shaw, Savill Co. when she made her first visit, which was in 1877, and she remained in the trade right up to 1890, by about which time steam was beginning to oust sail. During that time she made ten voyages out and back, all but two of them being over the 100 days, and on two occasions she was over 120 days. She seems on the whole to have been very fortunate in escaping hurricane weather, and as a matter of fact the reports of her arrival in port often mention "remarkable for the fineness of the weather," "tantalising weather," and so on; and probably that was why she never made any remarkable times on the run. One voyage was so uneventful that (at least the newspaper account says so) "a good-natured sailor volunteered for a couple of sticks of tobacco to fall overboard in order to vary the monotony." The longest trip the barque made was one of 125 days to Wellington. Her record of passages is as follows:—