ON BOARD THE "AURORA" 165 



caused the weather to be at times bright; at other times 

 cool and cloudy. On Saturday, the third, we passed the 

 American steamer, "Constitution," within speaking dis- 

 tance. She was sailing Westward, coming from San Fran- 

 cisco and bound for the Sandwich Islands. During the 

 night following there happened a little accident on board 

 our ship which could easily have caused serious trouble. 

 A sudden squall of wind accompanied by heavy rain, 

 which surprised us about midnight, broke the rudder- 

 tackle. Fortunately the squall, which had not come very 

 forcibly upon us, grew slowly weaker, or we otherwise 

 might have lost several sails and masts, owing to the cir- 

 cumstances which made it impossible to handle the rud- 

 der until the damage could be repaired. You may be sure 

 that we spent a very anxious hour of uncertainty. Sun- 

 day, the fourth, brought us another calm, which lasted 

 from one o'clock in the afternoon until noon of the 

 Wednesday following, when a light breeze arose from the 

 Northwest. During all this time the air was warm; we 

 drifted along, while everything around us remained in 

 death-like silence, which was only interrupted by an oc- 

 casional breath of air from the South or Southeast, hardly 

 causing any motion of our ship. The sixth of January, at 

 about nine p. m., we observed a complete eclipse of the 

 moon, which was made very clear by the cloudless sky. 

 The night was so mild that I patroled the deck in shirt- 

 sleeves. Pretty good for January, is it not? As before 

 mentioned, we enjoyed a delightful Northwest breeze 

 during the afternoon of the seventh and had already made 

 up our minds that we were soon to greet the Northwest- 

 ern trade wind, but fancy our dismay, as it turned North- 

 northwest; and when evening came we found ourselves 

 under a strong North breeze. The air grew rough and 

 decidedly unpleasant and a real cold fog limited our view 

 considerably so that we were almost unable to look ahead 

 more than shipslength. To our great delight we expe- 

 rienced another, more favorable change the following 

 evening, even though it was but another calm. We have 

 since then more or less warm weather with light South 



