beginning and the end. The first letter we had from the Governor
said, "I suppose by this time you are just about losing sight of the
Irish coast, and beginning to meet the long swell of the Atlantic,
and wishing your voyage was to last forty days instead of ten." Such
a wish was far from my thoughts, and the dickens a bit of the Irish
coast we ever lost sight of, for we never saw it, passing it in the
dark and in thick weather, and, at the time we ought to have been
losing sight of it, we were tumbling about at the instigation of a
nor'-wester of moderate proportions; and we never felt the delights
of a long swell at all, the wind, blowing fairly hard the whole
time, shifted regularly every day from nor'-west in the morning to
west and sou'-west at night, and kept us jumping about like a pea on
a hot plate the whole time, which, with soaking decks and cold
weather, made it imperative to go below occasionally to get warmed,
dried, fed, and--sea-sick sometimes, when the weather and the st--ks
were worst. It was a good week before it occurred to me that I might
be able to get a light for my pipe under the lee of the hurricane
deck, especially if I borrowed a fusee for the purpose. However, I
was sorry when the run was over after all, and I had to commence
knocking about from pillar to post on shore. I am sure I must have
walked from twelve to fifteen miles to-day in job hunting alone,
having made six business applications at long distances apart. It
has been upon one occasion exactly the same as with the Indian
business. If you remember, they said, "had he been a civil engineer
we could have sent him out at once;" and I called on a chap here, a
C.E., called Bantry, who asked me if I knew anything about
surveying; I said I did, rejoicing inwardly at the vagueness of the
question, but he soon stopped generalizing, and asked had I ever
done any practical surveying--in fact, could I take charge of a
survey-staff, to go out west or elsewhere. I said I felt certain I