actual damage it certainly served as a very
bad omen. It took away the favourable breezes, which, before its advent
on the scene, had sped the _Josephine_ so gaily on her way home to
England; and the weather for some days afterwards was not nearly so
pleasant, tedious calms and contrary winds preventing our making the
rapid passage Captain Miles anticipated from our good running at the
beginning of the voyage.

We were now in the region between the regular trade-winds and what are
termed "the anti-trades or passage winds," above the tropic of Cancer.
This is a particular portion of the ocean between the parallels known to
sailors as the "Horse Latitudes," where there is generally a lull met
with in the currents of air that elsewhere reign rampant over the sea;
and, once arrived within the precincts of this blissful zone, the ship
tossed about there for a week at a stretch, hardly making a mile towards
her wished-for goal--only rocking restlessly on the bosom of the deep.

There is nothing so irksome as calm weather at sea, to those at all
events whose duty lies upon the waters and who do not go on shipboard
for mere pleasure.

So long as the wind blows, whether favourably or not, there is something
to do. If it be fair, there is the cheering prospect of counting the
number of knots run when the log is hove, and knowing that one is
getting each hour so much nearer one's destination; while, if King
Aeolus be unpropitious, there is all the excitement of fighting against
his efforts to delay the vessel, and the proud satisfaction of making
way in spite of adverse breezes.

But, in a calm, nothing can be done excepting to wait patiently, or
impatiently, for the wind to blow again; and, consequently, all is
dreary stagnation and dead monotony--the captain ever pacing the poop in
not the best of tempers, with the men idling about the decks, or else
occupied in the unexciting task of unreeving rope yarn, to keep their
hands from mischief, and, perhaps, polishing up the ring-bolts as a last
resource!

Under such circumstances, it is not at all to be wondered that the crew
of a vessel usually get discontented; and, should her officers be in the
least inclined to be tyrannical, an ill feeling is produced which
sometimes leads to an outbreak.

Hardly a single mutiny ever occurred on a ship at sea save in calm
weather; at other times the hands have too much to do even to grumble,
in the way that sailors love to do ashore, c