Wednesday, Aug. 20th. We had the watch on deck from four till eight,
this morning. When we came on deck at four o'clock, we found things
much changed for the better. The sea and wind had gone down, and the
stars were out bright. I experienced a corresponding change in my
feelings; yet continued extremely weak from my sickness. I stood in
the waist on the weather side, watching the gradual breaking of the
day, and the first streaks of the early light. Much has been said of
the sun-rise at sea; but it will not compare with the sun-rise on shore.
It wants the accompaniments of the songs of birds, the awakening hum
of men, and the glancing of the first beams upon trees, hills, spires,
and house-tops, to give it life and spirit. But though the actual
rise of the sun at sea is not so beautiful, yet nothing will compare
with the early breaking of day upon the wide ocean.

There is something in the first grey streaks stretching along the
eastern horizon and throwing an indistinct light upon the face of
the deep, which combines with the boundlessness and unknown depth
of the sea around you, and gives one a feeling of loneliness,
of dread, and of melancholy foreboding, which nothing else in
nature can give. This gradually passes away as the light grows
brighter, and when the sun comes up, the ordinary monotonous sea
day begins.

From such reflections as these, I was aroused by the order from
the officer, "Forward there! rig the head-pump!" I found that no
time was allowed for day-dreaming, but that we must "turn-to" at the
first light. Having called up the "idlers," namely carpenter, cook,
steward, etc., and rigged the pump, we commenced washing down the decks.
This operation, which is performed every morning at sea, takes nearly
two hours; and I had hardly strength enough to get through it. After