nd, and the ladies were to be found on deck until
a late hour watching the reflections of the moon and the stars upon the
water and enjoying the balmy salt breezes that came pure and fresh from
the caves of old Ocean. The second afternoon out of San Francisco the
passengers were suddenly startled by the clanging of a bell and the mad
rush on deck of a lot of half-clad seamen, who seemed to come from all
sorts of unexpected places, and who, springing to the top of the cabins
and boiler rooms began quickly to unreel long lines of hose and attach
them to the ship hydrants, while a score or more of sailors stood by the
life buoys and the long lines of water buckets that lined the deck. That
the ship was on fire was the thought that naturally came to the minds of
many of us, and it is not to be wondered at that pale cheeks were here
and there to be seen, for I can conceive of nothing in my mind that
could be more horrible than a fire at sea. The alarm proved a false one,
however, it being simply the daily fire practice of the ship's crew, in
which we afterwards took considerable interest.

In spite of the fact that we were steaming along the beaten paths of
navigation it was not until our fifth day that we encountered another
ship, and then it was about eleven o'clock at night, and after the
majority of the passengers had "sought the seclusion that a cabin
grants," to again quote from Pinafore. Suddenly, as we plowed the
waters, the scene was brilliantly illuminated by a powerful calcium
light on top of the wheel-house, and by its glare we saw not far distant
a steamer that we afterward ascertained to be the one bound from
Honolulu to San Francisco. She had left San Francisco for the islands
before the Presidential election had taken place, and as the Hawaiian
Islands were not connected by cable with the United States, its
passengers were ignorant of the result. It had been arranged, however,
that a single rocket was to be sent up from the Alameda in case of
Harrison's election, and two in case of, his defeat. As Harrison had
been elected only a single rocket from our steamer cleft the blue,
leaving behind it a trail of fiery sparks, and this was answered by a
shower of rockets from the "Australia," that being the name of the
sister ship that we had met, after which her lights grew dimmer and
dimmer until they were finally lost to sight below the horizon.

With music, cards and games of chance of every kind and variety the d