136 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
sea. However, you must not imagine we have had any 
alarming ones except to the uninitiated. I only tell 
you about them to show that our experience is a 
varied one, and there is always a funny side to these 
rough times when not only things but people are 
whacked about without any respect for personal dig- 
nity. The sea went down towards evening yesterday, 
and after the sleepless night before all turned in early. 
I think the “‘sleep of the just” must be a restless 
slumber in comparison to mine last night; from nine 
o’clock to six this morning I never stirred and when I 
waked it was a beautiful warm morning and the ship 
as quiet as our own house in Quincy Street. 
We have just been dredging off the Gulf of St. 
George in about fifty fathoms of water, and beautiful 
things have come up; a starfish more than a foot 
in diameter, its ten arms subdivided a hundredfold 
into countless delicate fibrous-like branches, winding 
and coiling in an endless variety of curves; another 
huge starfish, like an immense sunflower, with thirty- 
seven arms, measuring some fifteen inches from the 
tip of one arm to the tip of the opposite arm; then 
beautiful sea-urchins, a skate egg with the living 
young, etc., etc. As we go south the ship is sur- 
rounded with birds, albatross, ducks, gulls and other 
birds, the names of which we do not know. They are 
so tame that we pass them quite close without dis- 
turbing them. 
March 15 
YESTERDAY was again very fine, but with a pretty 
strong wind and sea, and as the beach was difficult to 
