Found the country in a state of civil war, and most kinds of business at a dead stand—men's hearts failing them for fear.
I then finished the following letter which I had commenced on the sea:
SHIP "HENRY KELSEY," PACIFIC OCEAN,
Lat. 24 N., lon. 115 W.,
Sept. 15, 1851.
Dear Family—Here we are on the deep, bound for Chili, S. A.—self, Phebe and R. Allen. We sailed from San Francisco on the 5th inst. Have had fine weather, excepting three days, in which we were becalmed; and have sailed more than eleven hundred miles. We are now running before the wind seven miles an hour. We have all been sea sick, and have not yet recovered in full. We are the only passengers, and have the cabin to ourselves, except at meals. We study Spanish every day. It is a beautiful language, and wonderfully adapted to the simplicity of the Lamanites. I hope to master it during the passage and a few months' residence among the Chileans.
We pay sixty dollars for passage in the cabin, and found. We expect to be two months in going.
Well, dear ones, six months have passed, and their events been recorded in the records of eternity since we parted; all this time I have had not one lisp from you. Oh, how lonesome! Just imagine the monotony. Sky and sea! Sea and sky! Night and day! Day and night! Infinitude of space! Boundless waste! Emblem of eternal silence! Eternal banishment! Eternal loneliness, where the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride are not heard. Where the holy music of children's voices, in joyous merriment, falls not on the ear; where no changing or varied landscape relieves the eye; where no vegetation, or leafy bower, or sweet blooming flower cheers the senses, where no birds tune their soft notes of praise announce the dawn, or sound the requiem of the closing day.
Even the fierce and ravenous beast of the desert (which, in his native solitude, announces with doleful and prolonged howls the midnight hour, or wakes the weary traveller at early dawn, and gives the signal for another day of thirst, and toil, and suffering) is lacking here.
On this boundless waste of waters there is seldom anything to break the monotony of eternal silence, or, rather, of the roar of the waves as they break in increasing foam upon each other, or against the vessel's side.
Thanks for that promise, "There shall be no more sea." Thanks for the hope that all the elements of nature will one day be adapted to the enjoyment or occupation of intellectual life, or social and sympathetic existence.
Just imagine sundown, twilight, the shades of evening, the curtains of the solitary night gathering in silent gloom and lone melancholy around a father who loves his home and its inmates; his fireside and the family altar! Behold him standing leaning over the vessel's side as it glides over the waters of the lone and boundless Pacific, gazing for hours in succession into the bosom of its dark abyss, or watching its white foam and sparkling spray! What ate his thoughts? Can you divine them? Behold, he prays! For what does he pray? For every wife, for every child, for every near and dear friend he has on earth, he prays most earnestly! most fervently! He calls each by name over and over again, before the altar of remembrance. And when this is done for all on earth, he remembers those in Heaven; calls their names; communes with them in spirit; wonders how they are doing; whether they think of him. He calls to mind their acts and sufferings in life, their death and the grave where sleeps their precious dust.