THE VOYAGE OF THE HASSLER = 123 
days. What do we do? For my part read, read, read: 
four volumes of Froude are already disposed of and 
much of my light literature devoured also. I read 
German every day with Dr. Steindachner, who is 
most kind in helping me, and then I read aloud a good 
deal to Mrs. Johnson. I have been reading Jane Eyre 
to her. I felt more than ever in reading it with care 
that in spite of its faults, and it has great ones, it has 
wonderful originality and beauty, the true ring of 
genius, — and it has a high moral aim, too. Then we 
watch the Portuguese men-of-war on days when they 
are plenty, and see occasional troops of flying fish and 
many phosphorescent creatures floating by at night. 
Still on the whole the sea is a niggard of its treasures 
— when one thinks how full it is of things, the sight 
of which, were it only a single one, would make a day 
rich, and after all how little one sees, it makes you 
quite discontented. I crave a whale or a dolphin; I 
would not despise even a shoal of porpoises, and day 
after day passes and the sea gives us nothing but 
itself — ad nauseam, in the truest sense of the words 
sometimes. 
TO MRS. THOMAS G. CARY 
Harbor of Rio de Janeiro, January 23 
HERE we are once more in this wonderful country, 
which seems to me even more beautiful than when I 
first saw it. We rose early this morning and were on 
deck before sunrise, for the sail along the mountain- 
ous coast and the entrance into the harbor is not to 
