LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



" At New York, we took on board as chaplain the 

 Rev. Mr. Stewart, the author of A Journal of a Voyage to 

 the South Seas, and formerly a missionary to the Sandwich 

 Islands.* He stands high in the estimation of the Navy 

 Department, and it is to the no small gratification of such 

 officers as I have heard speak of him that he has been 

 selected to accompany us. The captain informed me that 

 the chaplain would preside over the school and that I 

 would be an assistant. I am very well pleased with the 

 arrangement, as it will give it more importance and dig- 

 nity, and will take some of the responsibility from me. 

 The ship's library will be put under my charge. . . ." 



The following letter, addressed to his brother John, 

 then a boy of sixteen and afterwards a practising physi- 

 cian in New York, is one of the mementoes of the voy- 

 age. As a picture of a famous naval rendezvous, Port 

 Mahon, more than sixty years ago, it has an interest 

 quite apart from its personal allusions. 



TO HIS BROTHER JOHN 



" PORT MAHON, Dec. 18, 1833. 



" You will probably, before the reception of this letter, 

 have heard of my arrival at this port. I suppose you re- 

 member where on the face of the globe it is; that it is a 

 famous harbor in the island of Minorca; yes, famous 

 from the time of the ancient Carthaginians, who entered 

 it and, as is supposed, gave it its name after one of their 

 generals or commanders. It is, I suppose, one of the 

 best harbors in this sea. It runs up a distance of three 

 miles from the south into the island, with a width of but 

 a half-mile; is deep enough for the largest vessels, and 

 its banks are so steep that they can lie alongside of the 

 shore throughout a great part of it. Nature has fur- 

 nished its sides with a wall of stone, while its bottom is 

 a soft mud very well adapted to receive an anchor. The 

 Lazaretto, that is, the quarantine ground, is a small island 



* This was the Rev. Charles S. Stewart, whose Private Journal of a 

 Voyage to the Pacific Ocean and Residence at the Sandwich Islands, 1822- 

 1825, was published in 1828. 



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