tempered by the breeze, which gradually increased throughout the day,
until, having set all our fore-and-aft canvas, as well as our square
sails, we glided steadily along, in delightful contrast to the uneasy
motion of the morning, and of the past few days. Under the
awning--with the most heavenly blue sky above, and the still darker
clear blue sea beneath, stretching away in gentle ripples as far as
the eye could reach--it was simply perfect.

Our little party get on extremely well together, though a week ago
they were strangers to each other. We are all so busy that we do not
see much of one another except at meals, and then we have plenty to
talk about. Captain Lecky imparts to us some of his valuable
information about scientific navigation and the law of storms, and he
and Tom and Captain Brown work hard at these subjects. Mr. Freer
follows in the same path; Mr. Bingham draws and reads; Dr. Potter
helps me to teach the children, who, I am happy to say, are as well as
possible. I read and write a great deal, and learn Spanish, so that
the days are all too short for what we have to do. The servants are
settling down well into their places, and the commissariat department
does great credit to the cooks and stewards. The maids get on
satisfactorily, but are a little nervous on rough nights. We hope not
to have many more just at present, for we are now approaching calmer
latitudes.

In the course of the day, whilst Tom and I were sitting in the stern,
the man at the wheel suddenly exclaimed, 'There's land on the port
bow.' We knew, from the distance we had run, that this could not be
the case, and after looking at it through the glasses, Tom pronounced
the supposed land to be a thick wall of fog, advancing towards us
_against_ the wind. Captain Brown and Captain Lecky came from below,