had passed Dover and
Brighton, and the Isle of Wight was rising dim ahead of us. The low
English coast on our right was bordered by long reaches of dazzling
chalky sand, which glittered along the calm blue water.

Gliding into the Bay of Portsmouth, we dropped anchor opposite the
romantic town of Ryde, built on the sloping shore of the green Isle of
Wight. Eight or nine vessels of the Experimental Squadron were anchored
near us, and over the houses of Portsmouth, I saw the masts of the
Victory--the flag-ship in the battle of Trafalgar, on board of which
Nelson was killed. The wind was not strong enough to permit the passage
of the Needles, so at midnight we succeeded in wearing back again into
the channel, around the Isle of Wight. A head wind forced us to tack
away towards the shore of France. We were twice in sight of the rocky
coast of Brittany, near Cherbourg, but the misty promontory of Land's
End was our last glimpse of the old world.

On one of our first days at sea, I caught a curlew, which came flying on
weary wings towards us, and alighted on one of the boats. Two of his
brethren, too much exhausted or too timid to do likewise, dropped flat
on the waves and resigned themselves to their fate without a struggle. I
slipped up and caught his long, lank legs, while he was resting with
flagging wings and half-shut eyes. We fed him, though it was difficult
to get anything down his reed-shaped bill; but he took kindly to our
force-work, and when we let him loose on the deck, walked about with an
air quite tame and familiar. He died, however, two days afterwards. A
French pigeon, which was caught in the rigging, lived and throve during
the whole of the passage.

A few days afterwards, a heavy storm came on, and we were all sleepless
and sea-sick, as long as it lasted. Thanks, however, to a beautiful law
of memory, the recollection of that dismal period soon lost its
unpleasantness, while the grand forms of beauty the vexed ocean
presented, will remain forever, as distinct and abiding images. I kept
on deck as long as I could stand, watching the giant waves over which
our vessel took her course. They rolled up towards us, thirty or forty
feet in height--dark gray masses, changing to a beautiful vitriol tint,
wherever the light struck through their countless and changing crests.
It was a glorious thing to see our good ship mount slowly up the side of
one of these watery lulls, till her prow was lifted high in air, the