The emigrant ship setting sail. Smooth sea.
The wind is fair, and the water is smooth. The emigrants are out upon the decks. We can see their heads above the bulwarks.
The buoy.
The object in the foreground, floating in the water, is a buoy. It is placed there to mark a rock or a shoal. It is secured by an anchor.
Thus, when the weather is fair, the emigrants pass their time very pleasantly. They amuse themselves on the decks by day, and at night they go down into the cabins, which are below the deck of the ship, and there they sleep.
The ship in a storm. Great danger. Heavy seas.
But sometimes there comes a storm. The wind increases till it becomes a gale. Clouds are seen scudding swiftly across the sky. Immense billows, rolling heavily, dash against the ship, or chase each other furiously across the wide expanse of the water, breaking every where into foam and spray. The winds howl fearfully in the rigging, and sometimes a sail is burst from its fastenings by the violence of it, and flaps its tattered fragments in the air with the sound of thunder.
Discomfort and distress of the passengers.