For some few days the violent motion of the ship, occasioned by the heavy sea, has rendered writing and drawing irksome; for, as Lord Dorset's song has it,
"Our paper, pens, and ink, and we,
Roll up and down our ships, at sea."
Nevertheless we are not idle. As the cabin has always a good fire in it, it is the general rendezvous for invalids; and the midshipmen come in and out as they please, as it is the school-room. In one corner Glennie has his apparatus for skinning and dissecting the birds we take; and we have constantly occasion to admire the beautiful contrivances of nature in providing for her creatures. These huge sea-birds, that we find so far from any land, have on each side large air-vessels adapted for floating them in the air, or on the water; they are placed below the wings, and the liver, gizzard, and entrails rest on them. In each gizzard of those we have yet opened, there have been two small pebbles, of unequal size; and the gizzard is very rough within. We have found more vegetable than animal food in their stomachs.
20th April, 1822.—To-day we made the coast of Chile. I had continued to write my Journal regularly; but though nearly two years are past since I wrote it, I cannot bring myself to copy it: from the 3d of April it became a register of acute suffering; and, on my part, of alternate hopes and fears through days and nights of darkness and storms, which aggravated the wretchedness of those wretched hours. On the night of the ninth of April, I regularly undressed and went to bed for the first time since I left Rio de Janeiro. All was then over, and I slept long and rested; but I awoke to the consciousness of being alone, and a widow, with half the globe between me and my kindred.
Many things very painful occurred. But I had comfort too. I found sympathy and brotherly help from some; and I was not insensible to the affectionate behaviour of my boys, as the midshipmen were called. And I had the comfort to feel that no stranger hand had closed his eyes, or smoothed his pillow.
Mr. London and Mr. Kift, the surgeon and assistant surgeon, never left the bed-side; and, when my strength failed, my cousin Mr. Glennie, and Mr. Blatchly, two passed midshipmen, did all that friends could do.
Mr. Dance, the second lieutenant,—though, from the illness of the first lieutenant, the whole business of the ship devolved on him,—found time to be near his friend's death-bed; and, whether at noon or midnight, was never absent where kindness could be shown.
But what could any human kindness do for me? My comfort must come from him who in his own time will "wipe off all tears from our faces."