do not
see much of one another except at meals, and then we have plenty to
talk about. Captain Lecky imparts to us some of his valuable
information about scientific navigation and the law of storms, and he
and Tom and Captain Brown work hard at these subjects. Mr. Freer
follows in the same path; Mr. Bingham draws and reads; Dr. Potter
helps me to teach the children, who, I am happy to say, are as well as
possible. I read and write a great deal, and learn Spanish, so that
the days are all too short for what we have to do. The servants are
settling down well into their places, and the commissariat department
does great credit to the cooks and stewards. The maids get on
satisfactorily, but are a little nervous on rough nights. We hope not
to have many more just at present, for we are now approaching calmer
latitudes.

In the course of the day, whilst Tom and I were sitting in the stern,
the man at the wheel suddenly exclaimed, 'There's land on the port
bow.' We knew, from the distance we had run, that this could not be
the case, and after looking at it through the glasses, Tom pronounced
the supposed land to be a thick wall of fog, advancing towards us
_against_ the wind. Captain Brown and Captain Lecky came from below,
and hastened to get in the studding-sails, in anticipation of the
coming squall. In a few minutes we had lost our fair breeze and
brilliant sunshine, all our sails were taken flat aback, and we found
ourselves enveloped in a dense fog, which made it impossible for us to
see the length of the vessel. It was an extraordinary phenomenon.
Captain Lecky, who, in the course of his many voyages, has passed
within a few miles of this exact spot more than a hundred and fifty
times, had never seen anything in the least like it. As night came on
the fog increased, and the boats were prepared ready for lowering. Two
men went to the wheel, and two to the bows to look out, while an
officer was stationed on the bridge with steam-whistle and bell ready
for an emergency; so that, in case we ran into anything, or anything
ran into us, we should at least have the satisfaction of knowing that,
so far as we were concerned, it had all been done strictly according
to Act of Parliament.

_Saturday, July 15th_.--Between midnight and 4 a.m. the fog
disappeared, as suddenly as it had come on. We must have passed
through a wide belt of it. At 5.30 a.m., when Tom called me to see a
steamer go by, it was quite clear. The vessel was