sk
of sun-stroke, I wait until the sun has gone down, and then slip on
deck with my rug and pillow, and enjoy a siesta under the stars. But
sometimes I am disturbed by a squall, and have to take refuge below
again.

As the heat increases, so do the smells on board. In passing from the
deck to our cabin, I pass through seven distinct perfumes:--1st, the
smell from the galley smoke; 2nd, the perfume of decaying vegetables
stored on the upper deck; 3rd, fowls; 4th, dried fish; 5th, oil and
steam from the engine-room; 6th, meat undergoing the process of
cooking; 7th, the galley by which I pass; until I finally enter No. 8,
our own sweet cabin, with the butter, the rats, and the German Jews.

We are again in the midst of the flying fish; but they interest me
nothing like so vividly as they did when I first saw them in the
Atlantic. Some of them take very long flights, as much as thirty or
forty yards. Whole shoals of them fly away from the bows of the ship
as she presses through the water.

On the 19th of January we crossed the Line, in longitude about 160 deg..
We continue on a straight course, making an average of about 240 miles
a day. It already begins to get cooler, as we are past the sun's
greatest heat. It is a very idle, listless life; and I lie about on
the hen-coops all day, reading, or sitting down now and then to write
up this log, which has been written throughout amidst discomfort and
under considerable difficulties.

One of my fellow-passengers is enraged at the manner in which
newspapers are treated while in transit. If what he says be true, I
can easily understand how it is that so many newspapers miscarry--how
so many numbers of 'Punch' and the 'Illustrated News' never reach
their destination. My informant says that when an officer wants a
newspaper, the mail-bag is opened, and he takes what he likes. He
might just as well be permitted to have letters containing money. Many
a poor colonial who cannot write a letter, buys and despatches a
newspaper to his friends at home, to let them know he is alive; and
this is the careless and unfaithful way in which the missive is
treated by those to whom its carriage is entrusted. I heard many
complaints while in Victoria, of newspapers containing matter of
interest never reaching their address; from which I infer that the
same practice more or less prevails on the Atlantic route. It is
really too bad.

As we steam north, the weather grows fine, and we begin to h