1894
Feb. 20
(No 2)
At sea on Str. "Madiana"

11P.M. The afternoon has been delightful but wholly 
uneventful. No birds, no flying fish, no whales or porpoises,
no Portugese men o'war even. Simply the great circle of
calm, deep blue sea and the pale blue doom overhead.
The swells have gradually subsided until now the
steamer moves swiftly on her way without the slightest
perceptible roll or pitching. The full moon hangs suspended
nearly overhead but although its beams silver the
crests of the waves thrown off by the steamer's bows
the effect is simply that of moonlight on our
northern sea and very unlike that noted last
evening.
  Through the afternoon cumulous clouds have hung
about the horizon and this evening lightning has
flashed through some of them. Several which have
passed directly over us have deemed to me to be
very low down and of a peculiar fleecy quality
looking more like clouds of steam than anything else.
The Captain says that they are trade wind clouds
and this reminds me to note that we reached
the trade wind belt this morning when the wind,
which has blown steadily from the south-west ever
since we left New York, first died away and then
sprang up from the south-east and has since blown
steadily - a soft, damp wind.
  Some of the passengers, fished for Sargossa weed
with a cluster of hooks and brought up mosses alive
with the most exquisite Polyps of several very different
types. There was a swell Annilid also.
  The only vessel seen to-day was a hermaphrodite
being steering south & six or eight miles away.