42 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



and the vessels that went inside of us were all wrong, and 

 he thinks must have got into trouble. We are now nearly 

 up to Waterford, and off a harbour where, many years ago, a 

 frigate was lost, with fifteen hundred men. It is foggy yet, 

 and we can only see the loom of the land. 



Monday, May tilth. 



The Channel yesterday was thick with vessels, and I was 

 much interested in watching them. A collier brig, beating 

 down Channel, passed close under our stern. We were going 

 along so steadily before it that I had not before thought of 

 the violence of the wind. It was amazing to see how she was 

 tossed about. Plunging from the height of the sea, her white 

 figure-head would divide the water and entirely disappear, 

 and for a moment it would seem as if some monster below 

 had seized her bowsprit and was taking her down head fore 

 most ; then her stern would drop, a great white sheet of 

 spray dash up, wetting her foresail almost to the foretop ; 

 then she would swing up again, and on the crest of the billow 

 seem to stop and shake herself, as a dog does on corning out 

 of the surf; then, as the wind acted on her, she would fall 

 suddenly over to leeward, and a long curtain of white foam 

 from the scuppers would be dropped over her glistening black 

 sides. It was very beautiful, and from our quiet though rapid 

 progress, showed the superior comfort of a large ship very 

 strikingly. We have not rolled or pitched enough during all 

 the passage to make it necessary to lash the furniture in our 

 room. Afterwards we saw a Welsh schooner, then a French 

 lugger with three masts, then a cutter with one, all quite 

 different in rig and cut of sail from any thing we ever see on 

 our coast. 



About four o clock we sighted Tuscar light, and could see 

 beyond it, through the fog, a dark, broken streak, on which 



