e was round her, the men jumped on
board the yacht again, whilst sailors, stewards, and passengers
proceeded to hoist and drag the boat in, with all their might and
main. Alas! she was only a wreck. Her sides were stove in, her planks
were started, there was a hole in her bottom, and the moon shone
through her many cracks.

_Saturday, January 27th_.--About two o'clock this morning the yacht
plunged so heavily into a deep sea, that the jibboom, a beautiful
spar, broke short off, and the foretop-gallant mast and topgallant
yard were carried away almost at the same moment, with a terrible
noise. It took about eight hours to clear the wreck, all hands working
all night; and a very forlorn appearance the deck presented in the
morning, lumbered up with broken spars, ropes, &c. The jibboom fell
right across the forefoot of the yacht, and now looks as if it had
been cut at for weeks with some blunt tool.

The weather cleared a little to-day, but there was still a heavy sea
and nearly a head wind. The crew were busily engaged in repairing
damages. Unfortunately, two of them are ill, and so is the carpenter,
a specially important person at this juncture. No men could have
behaved better than they all did after the accident. It was frightful
to see them aloft in such weather, swinging on the ends of the broken
spars, as the yacht rolled and pitched about. When it comes to a pinch
they are all good men and true: not that they are perfection, any more
than other men are.

_Sunday, January 28th_.--It is finer, but bitterly cold. Several of my
tropical birds are already dead. The little pig from Harpe Island, and
the Hawaiian geese, look very wretched, in spite of all my
precautions.

We had the Litany at eleven, and prayer and a sermon at four; after
which Tom addressed the men, paying them some well-deserved
compliments on their behaviour on Friday night.

The decks were very slippery, and as we kept rolling about a good deal
there were some nasty falls among the passengers. We had a splendid
though stormy sunset, which did not belie its promise, for the wind
shortly afterwards became stiffer and stronger, until at last we had
two reefs down, and were tumbling about in all directions, as we
rushed through the water. The dining-tables tilted till they could go
no further, and then paused to go back again; but not quickly enough,
for the glasses began to walk uphill and go over the edge in the most
extraordinary manner. On deck