nd of
course this must have been the rate of speed of the vortex--distant from
us probably 150 to 200 miles. At 7 P.M. the mercury began to rise
slowly, and at 8 was at 27.60, the weather looking less angry, and the
squalls not so frequent or violent. Verily, our good ship, as she is
darted ahead on the top of one of those huge, long Indian Ocean waves
that pursue her, seems like a mere cock-boat.

It is remarkable that this is the anniversary of the cyclone we took off
the banks of Newfoundland.

_October 18th_--Observing has been particularly vexatious during the
past week. What with the heavy seas constantly rising between the
observer and the horizon, preventing him from producing a contact at the
very instant, it may be, that he is ready for it, the passage of a
flying cloud under the sun when his horizon is all right, and the heavy
rolling of the ship requiring him to pay the utmost care to the
preservation of his balance, and sometimes even to "lose his
sight"--from the necessity of withdrawing one hand suddenly from his
instrument to grasp the rail or the rigging to prevent himself from
falling--what with all these things, the patience of even as patient a
man as myself is sorely tried. Perhaps this stormy tumbling about at sea
is the reason why seamen are so calm and quiet on shore. We come to hate
all sorts of commotion, whether physical or moral.

At last the region of endless gales was passed, and escaping entirely
the southern belt of calms, the Alabama dashed along in the S.E. trade.
On the 26th October, as she was nearing the Line, news reached her from
an English barque, that the United States sloop Wyoming was on guard in
the Sunda Straits, accompanied by a three-masted schooner. This sloop
being about the Alabama's own size, hopes of a fight were again rife
among both officers and men; and great was their impatience when the
trade at length parted from them, and light, variable winds again began
to baffle the eager ship.

Drawing slowly nearer to the Straits, news still came from passing ships
of the enemy's presence there, reports going at length so far as to
state, that she had been specially dispatched thither by the United
States consul at Batavia, in search of the Alabama herself.

At last, on the 6th November, came another prize, the first since
leaving the Cape of Good Hope, nearly six weeks before. She proved to be
the barque Amanda, from Manilla to Queenstown for orders, the following
be