PACIFIC COAST STEAMERS. 31 



a vertical sun, but the air and the water are cooler 

 than in any other part of the equatorial zone ; and all 

 that is needed for their physical comfort, and that of 

 their passengers, is free ventilation and shade from the 

 sun. These desiderata are fully secured. The main- 

 deck is open to the air, and the steerage passengers, 

 who are encamped amidships and on the fore-deck, 

 are satisfied at night with the amount of privacy 

 secured by hanging some piece of stuff to represent a 

 curtain round each family group. On the upper deck 

 are ranged the state rooms of the first-class pas- 

 sengers, each with a door and window opening sea- 

 ward. Above this, again, a spar-deck carried flush 

 from stem to stern affords ample opportunity for 

 exercise, and is itself sheltered from the sun by an 

 awning during the hot hours. In such conditions, 

 where merely to breathe is to enjoy, the only danger 

 is that of subsiding into mere lotus-eating. From 

 this I was fortunately preserved by the rather trouble- 

 some task of drying in satisfactory condition the 

 plants which I had hastily gathered in Jamaica and 

 in crossing the isthmus. 



I had supposed that the distinctly green colour of 

 the water in Panama Bay, so different from the blue 

 tint of the open Atlantic, might be due to some local 

 peculiarity ; but on the following day, April 7, while 

 about a hundred miles from land, I observed that the 

 same colour was preserved, and I subsequently ex- 

 tended the observation along the coast to about 5° 

 south, where we encountered the antarctic current. 

 Farther south 1 should describe the hue of the water 

 as a somewhat turbid dark blue, reminding one of the 



