12 A^ AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



with my portfolio on my knees imagine the motion of the 

 vessel, the flickering, inconstant half-light that comes through a 

 narrow piece of inch-thick glass, which the people on deck are 

 constantly crossing ; exclamations from them, dash of waves and 

 creaking of timber, and various noises both distracting and stupe- 

 fying, and if you can't understand the difficulty of thinking con- 

 nectedly, you may begin to that of writing. 



John's eyes have been bad, and we have read aloud with him 

 a good deal ; but it is hard work even to read on board ship. 

 We have listened to a good deal of music, and to a bad deal, and 

 had a few staggering hops with the ladies on the quarter deck. 

 "We contrived a set of chess-men, cutting them out of card-board, 

 fitting them with cork pedestals, and a pin-point to attach them 

 to the board so they would not slip off or blow away. Charley 

 has had some capital games, and I believe found his match with 

 Dr. M., one of the cabin passengers returning home from the 

 East Indies by way of California, who proposes to introduce him 

 at the London chess club. 



I told you in my letter by the pilot-boat, how we had been 

 humbugged about the second cabin. While this has reduced the 

 cost of our passage to a very small sum, we have had almost 

 every comfort that we should have asked. Our room is con- 

 siderably more spacious, having been intended for a family 

 apartment, and has the advantage of much less motion than those 

 of the first cabin. For a ship's accommodations it has, too, a 

 quite luxurious degree of ventilation and light. There is a large 

 port in it that we can open at pleasure, having only been obliged 

 to close it during two nights of the gale. Our stores have held 

 out well, and the cook has served us excellently. 



We have hardly tasted our cured meat, and with this and our 

 hard bread we are now helping out some of our more unfortunate 



