immense sensation.

Our favorite resort is by the old red smoke pipe of the steamer, which
rises warm and luminous as a sort of tower of defence. The wind must
blow an uncommon variety of ways at once when you cannot find a
sheltered side, as well as a place to warm your feet. In fact, the old
smoke pipe is the domestic hearth of the ship; there, with the double
convenience of warmth and fresh air, you can sit by the railing, and,
looking down, command the prospect of the cook's offices, the cow house,
pantries, &c.

Our cook has specially interested me--a tall, slender, melancholy man,
with a watery-blue eye, a patient, dejected visage, like an individual
weary of the storms and commotions of life, and thoroughly impressed
with the vanity of human wishes. I sit there hour after hour watching
him, and it is evident that he performs all his duties in this frame of
sad composure. Now I see him resignedly stuffing a turkey, anon
compounding a sauce, or mournfully making little ripples in the crust of
a tart; but all is done under an evident sense that it is of no use
trying.

Many complaints have been made of our coffee since we have been on
board, which, to say the truth, has been as unsettled as most of the
social questions of our day, and, perhaps, for that reason quite as
generally unpalatable; but since I have seen our cook, I am quite
persuaded that the coffee, like other works of great artists, has
borrowed the hues of its maker's mind. I think I hear him soliloquize
over it--"To what purpose is coffee?--of what avail tea?--thick or
clear?--all is passing away--a little egg, or fish skin, more or less,
what are they?" and so we get melancholy coffee and tea, owing to our