48 
SCENES IN THE! PACIFIC. 
contrasts strongly with the frozen blasts of another ; the soft 
bright clouds from the south, with the harsh dark shadows 
from the north, and the rippling sea when the former fans 
it, with the ragged waves which roll under the latter. 
Ten days out; latitude thirty-eight; wind fresh from the 
northwest; Mr. Chamberlain quite ill, but able to be on 
deck with his thermometer ; the Charlestown boys too sick 
to make music; the Philadelphia blade’s hair uncombed ; 
Mr. Cobb very much exhilarated with the bold movement 
of the ship; the half-breed Hawaiian lass as lovely as cir¬ 
cumstances permitted ; the crew growing fat on salt beef; 
the ship, making her ten knots, headed towards Cape Men¬ 
docino, and everything else in some sort of condition ; thus 
stood the affairs of our floating home. 
Ten days more passed on, and little change in these things 
occurred, for better or worse ; save that, when we arrived 
within a hundred miles of the coast, the northerly winds be¬ 
came less violent, and their temperature higher. Our old bark 
was as brave a Don among the waters as one would wish to 
see. He was of American origin, a fine model of an ocean 
cavalier, and did battle with the floods as fearlessly as any 
ship that ever doubled the Cape. Our time on board, there¬ 
fore, went off rather agreeably; for the speed of a landsman’s 
passage at sea is the absorbing element of its pleasures. 
The officers and crew had employment enough to occupy 
them, and were usually in that agreeable mood of body and 
mind which produces a good appetite, hearty joking and 
sound sleeping. When the winds were stiff, they busied 
themselves in keeping sails, ropes, spars and masts at their 
appropriate duties; and when a warm sun and steady 
breeze came, the sailors overhauled the wormy biscuits, re¬ 
paired old sails, picked oakum, put the spun-yarn wheel 
in motion, while the Italian carpenter drove jack-plain, 
and the English mate gave us a specimen of rope-splicing 
and bending sails according to the rules at Greenwich. 
I noticed onboard the Don Quixote,and elsewhere during 
