[Illustration: Juvenile Scrubbers.]
_Saturday, November 4th_.--As fine as ever. This is certainly sailing
luxuriously, if not swiftly. We have now settled down into our regular
sea-ways, and have plenty to do on board; so the delay does not much
signify. Still, our time is limited, and we all hope to fall in with
the trades shortly to carry us to Tahiti or some of the South Sea
islands. We caught half-a-dozen of the little petrels, for stuffing,
by floating lines of black cotton astern, in which they became
entangled.
To-night's sunset was more superb than ever. Each moment produced a
new and ever increasingly grand effect. I mean to try and take an
instantaneous photograph of one. It would not, of course, reproduce
all the marvellous shades of colouring, but it would perhaps give some
idea of the forms of the masses of cloud, which are finer than any I
ever saw before. This ocean seems to give one, in a strange way, a
sense of solemn vastness, which was not produced to the same extent by
the Atlantic. Whether this results from our knowledge of its size, or
whether it is only fancy, I cannot say, but it is an impression which
we all share.
_Sunday, November 5th_.--Fine, and considerably hotter, though not
unpleasantly so. We had the Litany at eleven, and evening prayers and
a sermon at four o'clock.
Pages:
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268