14 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER II. 



AT SEA. INCIDENTS. SEA SOCIABILITY. A YARN. SEA LIFE. CHARACTERS. 



ENGLISH RADICALS. SKEPTICS. EDUCATION. FRENCH INFIDELITY. 



PHRENOLOGY. THEOLOGY. 



At Sea, May 23. 



TT7~E are reckoned to-day to be about one hundred and fifty 

 miles to the westward of Cape Clear ; ship close-hauled, 

 heading north, with a very dim prospect of the termination 

 of our voyage. It has been thus far rather dull and unevent 

 ful. We three have never been obliged to own ourselves 

 actually sea-sick, but at any time during the first week we 

 could hardly have declared that we felt perfectly well, and 

 our appetites seemed influenced at every meal as if by a 

 gloomy apprehension of what an hour might bring forth. 

 Most of the other passengers have been very miserable in 

 deed. I notice they recover more rapidly in the steerage 

 than in the cabin. This I suppose to be owing to their situa 

 tion in the middle of the ship, where there is the least motion, 

 to their simple diet, and probably to their having less temp 

 tation to eat freely, and greater necessity to &quot; make an effort,&quot; 

 and move about in fresh air. 



We have met one school of small whales. There might 

 have been fifty of them, tumbling ponderously over the 

 waves, in sight at once. Occasionally one would rise lazily 

 up so near, that, as he caught sight of us, we could seem to 

 see an expression of surprise and alarm in his stolid, black 



