Part 3. - The most generally interesting sight, perhaps, was a sail; and we were never a day without seeing one or more. Sometimes three or four seemed to be peeping at us from the horizon. ...

The most generally interesting sight, perhaps, was a sail; and we were never a day without seeing one or more. Sometimes three or four seemed to be peeping at us from the horizon. Sometimes our ship and another were nearing each other almost all day. Once or twice, I was startled with a sudden apparition of one close at hand, with all her sails set, black in a streak of moonlight, when I went up to bid the sea goodnight. One morning early, I found the deck in a bustle, from a ship having made signals of distress. “A ship in distress!” every body began shouting. “A ship in distress!” cried I to the ladies in the cabin, one of whom came up muffled in a cloak, and another with her nightcap under her bonnet, rather than miss the romance of the scene. The hearts of the novices were all ready to bleed; the faces of the gentlemen began to wear, in anticipation, an expression of manly compassion, as we hung out our colours, shortened sail (one of the first times we had been going right on our course), and wore round, while all the people of both ships gathered on the decks, and the captains brandished their trumpets. She was French, and her distress was that she had lost her longitude! Our good captain, very angry at the loss of time from such a cause, said they ought to have lost their heads with it, shouted out the longitude, and turned into our course again. The ladies went back to finish their toilette in an ordinary mood of sensibility, and the French went on their way, we may conclude, rejoicing.

A distant sail was one day decided to be a merchant ship from the south of France , – to everybody's apparent satisfaction but mine. I had a strong persuasion that she was not French, but felt how presumptuous it would be to say so. I watched her, however; and at the end of three hours, directed the captain's attention again to her. He snatched his glass, and the next moment electrified us all by the vehemence of his directions to the helmsman, and others of the crew. It was a rival packet–ship, the Montreal , which had left Portsmouth four days before we sailed. We were in for a race, which lasted three days, after which we lost sight of our rival, till she reached New York after us. Our captain left the dinner table three times this first day of the race, and was excessively anxious throughout. It was very exciting to us all. We concluded, after fair trial, that she beat in a light wind, and we in a strong one. Some weeks after our landing, I fell in with two passengers from the Montreal , who described the counterpart of the scene we had witnessed as having taken place on board their ship. There had been the same start of surprise on the part of their captain, who had also left the dinner table three times; the same excitement among the passengers; and the same conclusion as to the respective sailing merits of the two vessels.

From four to six we were dining. Some of us felt it rather annoying to be so long at table: but it is a custom established on board these packets, for the sake, I believe, of those who happen to find the day too long. Such persons need compassion; and their happier companions can afford to sacrifice something to their ease: so no one objects openly to devoting two of the best hours of the day to dinner and dessert. The rush up to the deck, however, when they are over, shows what the taste of the majority is. One afternoon the ladies were called down again, and found in their cabin a surprise at least as agreeable as my flowers. A dessert of pines and grapes had been sent in by a gentleman who found that a friend had put a basket of choice fruits on board for his use, but who preferred favouring the ladies with them. He was sent for to preside at the table he had thus spread, and was not a little rallied by his brother passengers on his privileges. These things seem trifles on paper, but they yield no trifling amusement on a voyage. Our afternoons were delightful. For the greater number of the forty–two days that we were at sea, the sun set visibly, with more or less lustre, and all eyes were watching his decline. There was an unusual quietness on board just about sunset. All the cabin passengers were collected on one side, except any two or three who might be in the rigging. The steerage passengers were to be seen looking out at the same sight, and probably engaged as we were in pointing out some particular bar of reddened cloud, or snowy mountain of vapours, or the crimson or golden light spattered on the swelling sides of the billows, as they heaved sunwards. Then came the last moment of expectation, – even to the rising on tip–toe, as if that would enable us to see a spark more of the sun; and then the revival of talk, and the bustle of pairing off to walk. This was the hour for walking the deck; and, till near tea–time, almost the whole company might be seen parading like a school. I never grew very fond of walking on a heaving floor, on which you have to turn at the end of every thirty paces or so: but it is a duty to walk on board ship; and it is best to do it at this hour, and in full and cheerful company.

After tea, the cabin was busy with whist and chess parties, readers, and laughers and talkers. On damp and moonless evenings, I joined a whist party; but my delight was the deck at this time, when I had it all to myself, or when I could at least sit alone in the stern, I know no greater luxury than singing alone in the stern on fine nights, when there is no one within hearing but the helmsman, and sights of beauty meet the eye wherever it turns. Behind, the light from the binnacle alone gleams upon the deck; dim, shifting lights and shadows mark out the full sails against the sky, and stars look down between. The young moon drops silently into the sea afar. In our wake is a long train of pale fire, perpetually renewed as we hiss through the dark waves. On such a quiet night, how startling is a voice from the deck, or a shout of laughter from the cabin! More than once, when I heard the voices of children and the barking of a dog from the steerage, I wholly forgot for the moment that I was at sea, and looking up, was struck breathless at the sight of the dim, grey, limitless expanse. Never, however, did I see the march of the night so beautiful over hill, dale, wood, or plain as over the boundless sea, roofed with its complete arch. The inexpressible silence, the undimmed lustre, the steady visible motion of the sky, make the night what it can nowhere be on land, unless in the midst of the Great Desert , or on a high mountain–top. – It is not the clear still nights alone that are beautiful. Nothing can be more chilling to the imagination than the idea of fog: yet I have seen exquisite sights in a night–fog; – not in a pervading, durable mist; but in such a fog as is common at sea; thick and driving, with spaces through which the moon may shine down, making clusters of silvery islands on every side. This was an entirely new appearance to me; and the white Archipelago was a spectacle of great beauty. Then again, the action of the ship in a strong night–breeze is fine; cutting her steady way through the seething waters, and dashing them from her sides so uniformly and strongly, that for half a mile on either hand, the sea is as a white marble floor, gemmed with stars; – just like a child's idea of “the pavement of the heavenly courts.” Such are the hours when all that one has ever known or thought that is beautiful comes back softly and mysteriously; snatches of old songs, all one's first loves in poetry and in the phantasmagoria of nature. No sleep is sweeter than that into which one sinks in such a mood, when one's spirit drops anchor amidst the turbulence of the outward world, and the very power of the elements seems to shed stillness into the soul.

There must be many a set off against such hours, however, or the whole world would be rushing to sea. There would be parties to the Azores as there now are to Rome , and people would be doubling the Capes as they now cross the Simplon. There are disagreeable hours and days at sea; – whole days, when the ship rolls so as to stop employment in the cabin; and the rain pours down so as to prevent any weary passenger from putting out his head upon deck; when the captain is to be seen outside in his sea–coat, with the water streaming from nose, chin, hat, and every projection of his costume; when every one's limbs are aching with keeping himself from tumbling over his neighbour; when the tea and coffee are cold, and all that is liquid is spilt, and everything solid thrown out of its place. The best thing to be done on such days is to sit in the round–house, each one well wedged in between two, the balustrade in front, and the wall behind; all as loquacious as possible, talking all manner of sense or nonsense that may occur; those who can joke, joking; those who can sing, singing; those who know any new games teaching them. This is better than the only other thing that can be done, – lying in one's heaving berth; better, not only because it is more sociable, but because there is a fairer chance of appetite and sleep after the exercise of laughing (be the laughter about anything or nothing) than after a day of uncomfortable listlessness.