Part 2. - On Sunday, we crept along in almost a calm, having a glimpse of the dim outline of the Isle of Man in the morning, and being still in sight of Holyhead in the evening. ...

On Sunday, we crept along in almost a calm, having a glimpse of the dim outline of the Isle of Man in the morning, and being still in sight of Holyhead in the evening. To me, it was a day of luxury; for, jaded as I had been with business and novelty, there was no circumstance of the voyage that I valued so highly as the impossibility of receiving letters or news for three weeks or a month. The gliding on thus in a calm; with time to think and be still, was all that I wanted: but the Americans, who had home on the horizon before them, and longed to be at rest there, looked grave on this inauspicious beginning of their transit. On Monday, however, they felt, from another cause, a good deal worse. The wind had freshened; but I believe nobody cared which way, or how fast, it blew us. The only meal at which I was not present was that Monday's dinner. I can testify to the breakfast and tea being quiet and sad enough, with a sprinkling of languid passengers at table, and a knowledge of how wretched all the rest were in their rooms.

On Tuesday began my experience of the pleasures of the sea. The wind had freshened to a strong breeze, which had so rocked us in our berths that I rose miserably ill. I was strongly persuaded of the necessity of exertion in sea–sickness, of having fresh air, and of getting out of the way of the sights and sounds of the cabin; and I therefore persevered in dressing and going up to the deck. There was the captain, with only one passenger to talk with, and heartily glad at the prospect of another being convalescent. He seated me on the rail, where I kept my eyes away from the helpless invalids who were strewed about the deck: and in half an hour I was quite well. We were careering along in most exhilarating style. The wind was so strong as to put the wearing a bonnet out of the question. I had happily been furnished with a sort of cap which no lady should go to sea without; – a black silk cap, well wadded. With the head thus defended, and a large warm cloak, a lady may abide almost any weather, and avoid the désagrémens and unwholesomeness of the cabin. My eye was, never weary of watching the dashing and boiling of the dark green waves, from the grey horizon to the ship's side; and I know of no motion so gladsome as that of riding the high billows in a brisk breeze. The captain pointed out to me the first of the monsters of the deep that I ever saw; – a large black–fish, tumbling about joyously by itself in the stormy sea, now throwing its thick body forward in ungainly gambols, and now rearing its forked tail perpendicularly, as it prepared to dive.

My flowers did not disappoint my expectations. They were still quite fresh on the Wednesday, when, as we were out of sight of land, I carried them up to the deck, and gave each passenger one, – that being precisely my supply. I never saw flowers give so much pleasure before, except in cases of long confinement from illness. Truly they were very like a message from home.

In two or three days more, all but two ladies and one gentleman had settled themselves into the routine of sea life. It was very desirable that they should do so, as on the 15th we were still little more than 300 miles from Liverpool . It would have been dismal to add idleness and unsettledness to the discouragement caused by such a beginning of our voyage. Our mode of life was very simple and quiet: to me, very delightful. I enjoyed it so much that I delayed beginning my letters home till we had been a week at sea, lest I should write some extravagance which I should afterwards have to qualify or retract. None of my subsequent experience, however, has altered my feeling that a voyage is the most pleasant pastime I have ever known.

The passengers showed themselves upon deck some time between seven and nine in the morning. Each one either made his way to the binnacle, to see for himself what course we were upon, or learned the important intelligence from some obliging individual who held the fact at the general service. We all asked the captain at first: but soon discontinued the practice, when we found that favourable answers were likely to be rare, and how it must vex him to tell us every morning that we were scarcely getting on at all.

After a brisk morning's walk upon deck, no one was sorry to hear the breakfast bell. Breakfast was the most cheerful meal of the day. If ever there was any news to tell, it was then. The early risers could sometimes speak to the sluggards of a big fish, of a passing sail, of a frolic among the sailors. I was asked once by a passenger, in a tone whose laziness cannot be conveyed on paper, “What, did ye see the whale this mornin'?”

“No. It came at four o'clock, when I was asleep: but the captain promises to have me called next time, whatever the hour may be.”

“What, d'ye want to see a whale?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Well, but I dare say you have seen a pictur' o' one.”

It was not apparent to him that this was not an equally good thing.

After breakfast, the gentlemen who kept journals produced their writing cases in the cabin. The ladies sat in sunny or shaded places on deck, netting, making table–mats, or reading; or mounted the rail to talk or look abroad. I had a task to do; which is a thing that should be avoided on board ship. I had a long article to write; and nothing else would I do, on fine mornings, till it was finished. It is disagreeable writing in the cabin, with people flitting all about one. It is unwholesome writing in one's state–room, in the month of August. The deck is the only place. The first care after breakfast, of my clerical friend, the New Englander, was to find me a corner where the wind would not blow my paper about, where the sun would not dazzle me, and where I might be quiet: and then he took his seat behind the round–house, with a row of children from the steerage before him, to do their lessons. I wondered at first how he would teach them without books, slates, or any other visible implements of instruction: but when I saw him get a potato, and cut it into two and four parts, to show the children what halves and quarters were, I was assured he would prosper with them. And so he did. They went to school to excellent purpose; and I dare say they will send back grateful thoughts, all through their lives, upon the kind gentleman who attended to them on the voyage.

For some time I was daily baffled in my purpose of writing by the observation of persons who seemed not only entirely ignorant of the process of composition, but very anxious to learn it. Not only did the children from the steerage spy from behind chests and casks, and peep over my shoulder, but the inquirer about the whale was wont to place himself directly in front of me, with his arms akimbo, and his eyes fixed on the point of my pen. Somebody gave him a hint at last, and I was left in peace. By two o'clock, when the deck began to fill again after luncheon, my head and eyes had had enough of writing, and I joyfully mounted the rail. If I wanted to watch the sea undisturbed, I held a Shakespeare in my hand. If I carried no book, somebody came to talk. What fleets of Portuguese men–of–war did we see at those hours! I hardly know whether these little mariners of the deep are most beautiful when gliding, rich in their violet hues, along the calm sunny surface of the summer sea, or when they are tossed about, like toys, by rough dark waves. One day, when I was exclaiming on their beauty, a young lady, industriously working at her table–mats, observed that it was very odd that she had crossed this ocean three times, and had never seen a Portuguese man–of–war. I concluded that she had never looked for them, and asked the favour of her to stand by my side for one half hour. She did so, and saw three. I strongly suspect that those who complain of the monotony of the ocean, do not use their eyes as they do on land. It seems to be the custom at sea to sit on deck, looking abroad only when the sun is setting, or the moon rising, or when there is a sail to be speculated upon. Some of the most beautiful sights I caught were when no one else was looking down quite into the deep – the only way to see most of the creatures that live there. One day I was startled, while thus gazing, with an exquisite radiance, like an expanse of brilliant rainbow, far down in the sunny deep under our bows. My exclamation brought one witness to behold, as I did, the distinct form of a dolphin come out of the light. It was a family of dolphins, – the only ones that were seen on the voyage. Many a flying fish darted from the crest of one wave into another. Many a minuet did Mother Carey's chickens trip, with their slender web–feet, on the momentary calm left between two billows. Many a shining visitor came up from the lowest deep, to exchange glances and be gone. I soon found it was in vain to call people to look. These sights are too transient to be caught otherwise than by watching. When a shoal of porpoises came to race with the ship, every one on board was up on the rail to see; and an exhilarating sight it is, when the ship is going before the wind in a rough sea, and the porpoises dart visibly through the midst of a billow, and pitch and rise, and cross each other's path, swiftly and orderly, without ever relaxing their speed, till they are tired of play. It is impossible to help having a favourite among the shoal, and watching him with an interest and admiration which, upon consideration, are really ridiculous.