obbing with
a dull heavy swell, had now lost all its life and action:--day after day
we looked in vain for a breeze from sunrise to sunset; day after day our
watchful longing was all in vain; there, day after day, for over a week,
we rolled and lay!

Captain Miles used to come up regularly on the poop at noon to take the
sun, from a sense of duty; but it was almost a useless task, as we
hardly varied a mile in our position from the commencement of the calm,
the vessel remaining close in with the fiftieth parallel of longitude
and in latitude thirty-two North.

Mr Marline liked to chaff the captain about this, telling him that his
sextant wanted polishing up a bit and that the glasses were wrong.
However, that all went for nothing with his chief, who well knew where
the fault lay, fully understanding that the instrument was not to blame;
but, as regularly as he brought out the sextant he used to laugh at Mr
Marline's stereotyped joke.

As related in Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner":--

"Day after day, day after day
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean!"

Had it not been for the two darkeys, Jake and Cuffee, I don't know what
we should have done for fun.

These comical fellows were a constant source of amusement to us; for,
although they did not come to fisticuffs again, they were always
quarrelling and making friends afterwards in the oddest way possible.
Their disputes usually arose from some little trifle concerning their
order of precedence, each being highly jealous of his dignity, and
resenting in a moment any fancied slight or want of proper respect on
the part of the other.

When Jake came on board in the summary way in which he "took his
passage" at the beginning of our voyage, of course he had no wardrobe,
or anything to wear save what he stood up in when he emerged dripping
from the sea after the capsize of the boat in which he had come off to
the ship. Captain Miles, however, had given him some cast-off slops,
and the hands forward had also rigged him out from their chests, so that
in a short time he made a very presentable appearance. This was
especially the case on Sunday's, when his dress was most conspicuous,
Master Jake being something of a dandy like most negroes, and anxious to
take the shine out of his fellows.

Somehow or other Cuffee the cook got jealous of this feature in his
brother darkey's character.

On week-days he did not mind sub