from
grace. Viewed from without, undeniably a ship under sail possesses
attraction; but it is from within that you feel the "very pulse of the
machine." No canvas looks so lofty, speaks so eloquently, as that seen
from its own deck, and this chiefly has invested the sailing-vessel
with its poetry. This the steamer, with its vulgar appeal to physical
comfort, cannot give. Does any one know any verse of real poetry, any
strong, thrilling idea, suitably voiced, concerning a steamer? I
do--one--by Clough, depicting the wrench from home, the stern
inspiration following the wail of him who goeth away to return no
more:

"Come back! come back!
Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back;
The long smoke wavers on the homeward track.
Back fly with winds things which the winds obey,
_The strong ship follows its appointed way_."

Oddly enough, two of the most striking sea scenes that I remember,
very different in character, associate themselves with my favorite
mid-watch. The first was the night on which we struck the northeast
trade-winds, outward bound. We had been becalmed for nearly, if not
quite, two weeks in the "horse latitudes;" which take their name,
tradition asserts, from the days when the West India sugar islands
depended for live-stock, and much besides, on the British continental
colonies. If too long becalmed, and water gave out, the unhappy
creatures had to be thrown overboard to save human lives. On the other
side of the northeast trades, between them and the southeast, towards
the equator, lies another zone of calms, the doldrums, from which also
the _Congress_ this time suffered. We were sixty seven or eight days
from the Capes of the Delaware to Bahia, a distance, direct, of little
more than four thousand miles. Of course, there was some beating
against head wind, but we could not have averaged a hundred miles to
the twenty-four hours. During much of this passage the allowance of
fresh water was reduced to two quarts per man, except sick, for all
purposes of consumption--drinking and cooking. Under such conditions,
washing had to be done with salt water.

We had worried our weary way through the horse latitudes, embracing
every flaw of wind, often accompanied by rain, to get a mile ahead
here, half a dozen miles there; and, as these spurts come from every
quarter, this involves a lot of bracing--changing the position of the
yards; continuous work, very different from t