nd here we lie becalmed on a glassy
sea--we do not move an inch-we throw banana and orange peel overboard
and it lies still on the water by the vessel's side. Sometimes the ocean
is as dead level as the Mississippi river, and glitters glassily as if
polished--but usually, of course, no matter how calm the weather is,
we roll and surge over the grand ground-swell. We amuse ourselves tying
pieces of tin to the ship's log and sinking them to see how far we can
distinguish them under water--86 feet was the deepest we could see a
small piece of tin, but a white plate would show about as far down as
the steeple of Dr. Bullard's church would reach, I guess. The sea is
very dark and blue here.

Ever since we got becalmed--five days--I have been copying the diary of
one of the young Fergusons (the two boys who starved and suffered, with
thirteen others, in an open boat at sea for forty-three days, lately,
after their ship, the "Hornet," was burned on the equator.) Both these
boys, and Captain Mitchell, are passengers with us. I am copying the
diary to publish in Harper's Magazine, if I have time to fix it up
properly when I get to San Francisco.

I suppose, from present appearances,--light winds and calms,--that we
shall be two or three weeks at sea, yet--and I hope so--I am in no hurry
to go to work.

Sunday Morning, Aug. 6.

This is rather slow. We still drift, drift, drift along--at intervals a
spanking breeze and then--drift again--hardly move for half a day. But
I enjoy it. We have such snowy moonlight, and such gorgeous sunsets. And
the ship is so easy--even in a gale she rolls very little, compared to
other vessels--and in this calm we could dance on deck, if we chose.
You can walk a crack, so steady is she. Very different from the Ajax.
My trunk used to get loose in the stateroom and rip and tear around the
place as if it had life in it, and I always had to take my clothes off
in bed because I could not stand up and do it.

There is a ship in sight--the first object we have seen since we left
Honolulu. We are still 1300 or 1400 miles from land and so anything
like this that varies the vast solitude of the ocean makes all hands
light-hearted and cheerful. We think the ship is the "Comet," which left
Honolulu several hours before we did. She is about twelve miles away,
and so we cannot see her hull, but the sailors think it is the Comet
because of some peculiarity about h