o salt smoked meats or fish, or
drink no strong tea, but cat oatmeal and what will easily digest,
to keep your bowels open. . . . I will, with God's help, be with
my dear Marie on Tuesday. I have the Harriet Beecher Stowe
and Crane family to bring North this trip, about the last of the
crowd. I wish they were landed in New York, as I don't like any of
them, but will fight through in a quiet way." This epistle occupies six
closely-written and carefully-numbered pages of note-paper, and the lip
sign-manual is emblazoned in the usual corner. It ought to be remarked
that the captain is an admirable penman, moderately seaworthy as to
syntax, but in need of overhauling in an orthographical aspect.

While we are busy with the correspondence, it may be _apropos_ to quote
the last amorous letter he penned to his Marie before a cyclonic storm
from the nor'east struck the Hymeneal ship, and carried away her masts
and rigging, leaving a pair of plunging, leaky bulk-heads on the weary
waste of the censorious world's waters. The envelope of this letter is
indorsed in a female hand--evidently the forlorn hand of Marie: "Last
letter received from my husband." It purports to have been written "On
board the steamship Herman Livingston, Savannah, Jan. 5, 1878." It
begins, in a modified form, thus: "My darling wife," and takes a
flatulent turn almost immediately, "we had a fair wind all the way; a
few passengers, and only one lady, which was Lydia. She was very
pleasant and no trouble, as she was not sea-sick, and sat in the
pilot-house most of the time. I am feeling very well now. . . . It is not
necessary to say that I have not drank any strong drinks; that, of
course, is finished. I am all right now, you know. . . . I hope, my darling
good wife, that you are feeling much better than when I left you, and
that your sore throat is quite well by this time. . . . I hope you will
take good care of yourself and not get cold. I shall take good care of
myself. Little Maria sent me a pretty mug for my New Year's. I will not
use my new napkin ring, as it is too nice to be lost or broken here. May
God ever bless and protect you, and ever make you well and happy, is my
ever prayer of your loving husband, OLLY."

Let not the reader imagine that Olly's love was all of the
lip-and-epistolary cheap style. Even as faith without works is dead,
being alone, so professions of affection without exemplification would
be simply worth "Jocko," and that