Our coursers, topsails, top-gallant, and studding-sails are set to a free, fresh wind from the southwest, and we are making ten knots the hour. Our ship has been too much by the stern, but the removal of four of her spar-deck guns from her after to her forward ports, has brought her more by the head, and she sails better. Her constructor conjectured that if deep, she would sail better by being at least fifteen inches by the head. His conjecture turns out to be correct. She is now moving through the waters as if she had an exulting pride in her occupation. I do not wonder sailors regard a fast ship as a thing of life, and speak of her with an affection applicable only to the higher attributes of humanity. She is indeed the highest triumph of human skill—the noblest representative of art.
Sunday, Nov. 2. The Sabbath. The force of the wind and the roll of the ship might have excused divine service with those disposed to find an apology for such omission. But we have commenced the cruise with the determination to have service every Sabbath when it is at all practicable. Regularity in this duty promotes regularity in every other. The discipline of a man-of-war lies in the fact that nothing is omitted that ought to be done. Besides what more appropriate for men, tost on the howling waste of the ocean, than a recognised dependence on that Being who binds the elements at his will; who can say to the rushing storm and chainless wave, hitherto shall ye come and no further, and here shall your proud strength be stayed.
Last evening a bird flew on board. He had been driven far out to sea in a gale, and now timidly sought our spars as a place of rest. No one was allowed to molest him for the night; in the morning, turning his eyes in that direction where the land lay, though some three hundred miles off, he bade us adieu and disappeared in the distant horizon. A safe passage to him and a speedy return to those left behind. He too has his home, and those there who make that home dear; and though but a bird of the wild wood, he shares the benevolent regard of One whose care extends to the falling sparrow, and who hears the young raven when it cries. If the bird whose wing is thrown on the wind to-day, and is furled in death to-morrow, may share the guardianship of the great Parent of all, much more man with his boundless sympathies and immortal hopes.
Monday, Nov. 3. The wind last night hauled several points to the east, and forced us north of our true course. We have been waiting for it to haul back, but it seems to have settled down as if determined to make itself at home in its new quarter. Well, let it stay there, if it will, and I will ponder these lines which I find inclosed in my last letter from home.
THE SAILOR’S WIFE.
Thou o’er the world and I at home,
But one may linger, the other may roam,
Yet our hearts will flee o’er the sounding sea,
Mine to thy bosom, and thine to me.
Thy lot is the toil of a roving life,