WEDNESDAY, November 13.
Four hundred and fifty miles from land! To-day we have had the only taste of Neptune's power he has favored us with: it began to blow at midnight, and today we have a grand sea. I have just come from the deck after witnessing the Pacific in its fury, and no one would believe that one ocean could differ as much from another as this does from the Atlantic. The waves here move in immense masses. It is an acre of water in motion, as one solid lump, instead of a few feet square dashed into foam. One says instinctively,
"What care these roarers for the name of king?"
I have noticed that even in the smallest waves cast aside by the ship formations are different from those of other seas. It is midnight, and we are only 125 miles from Japan. Not a passenger except myself on deck, but I cannot sleep. Vandy would be with me, I know, poor fellow, were he able to crawl, but the storm has settled him for the present. How strange that none feel sufficient interest to stay awake and watch with me! They would be amply repaid. The phosphorescent sea shows forth its wonders now - not alone in the myriads of small stars of light, which please you in the Atlantic, but at every turn of the foam dashed from the bow and sides of the ship masses of glittering phosphorescence as large as my travelling cap. What creatures these must be which can emit light in such clusters! I leave the deck with the cheery "All's well!" ringing in my ears as the ship dances before the wind which brings to a close our long flight across the Pacific. How we have longed for this last night, and yet how often in after life are we to sigh for a return to the glorious nights we have lived at sea! Where we have
"Mingled with the universe to feel
What we can ne'er express,
Nor cannot all conceal."
Good-night, my band of dear, dear friends, now in the midst of your daily toil - for it is yet day with you - racking your brains that the holiday wanderer may revel as he is now doing. In the earnest hope that the day may not be far distant when to you may come similar enjoyment when he is the toiler, he goes at last to bed.
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