26th.—This was a day of calm, and of repose for the wearied; also a day for the repair of the damage done by the gale. And deep I believe was the gratitude felt by all on board for the protection afforded us during the storm.
27th.—Our course regained, the “Essex” sailed quietly on.
28th.—At sunrise I was summoned in haste to the poop, to see a remarkable effect in the sky. Just above the spot where the sun was struggling to appear from behind a bank of reddish grey clouds, there was thrown across the bright blue sky a long white cloud, exactly in shape and twist like an Archimedes screw; I added it, with the sunset of the night before the gale, to my collection of “Sketches at Sea.” Should I ever live to be old—or rather, older, how pleasantly these sketches will recall the memory of the past!
CHAPTER LXXI.
SKETCHES AT SEA—MOUNTAINS OF AFRICA—THE FAREWELL.
“An adieu should in utterance die,
Or if written but faintly appear;
Only heard in the burst of a sigh,
Or seen in the drop of a tear.”