PILGRIM

SOLEMNITY.

45

it was in a rather quiet way. We very, very seldom played the piano; we played the flute and the clarinet together, and made good music, too, what there was of it, but we always played the same old tune; it was a very pretty tune-how well I remember it-I wonder when I shall ever get rid of it. We never played either the melodeon or the organ, except at devotions-but I am too fast: young Albert did know part of a tune-something about "O Something-Or-Other How Sweet it is to Know that he's his What's-his-Name," (I do not remember the exact title of it, but it was very plaintive, and full of sentiment;) Albert played that pretty much all the time, until we contracted with him to restrain himself. But nobody ever sang by moonlight on the upper deck, and the congregational singing at church and prayers was not of a superior order of architecture. I put up with it as long as I could, and then joined in and tried to improve it, but this encouraged young George to join in too, and that made a failure of it; because George's voice was just "turning," and when he was singing a dismal sort of base, it was apt to fly off the handle and startle every body with a most discordant cackle on the upper notes. George didn't know the tunes, either, which was also a drawback to his performances. I said:

"Come, now, George, don't improvise. It looks too egotistical. It will provoke remark. Just stick to Coronation,' like the others. It is a good tune-you can't improve it any, just off-hand, in this way."

"Why I'm not trying to improve it-and I am singing like the others just as it is in the notes."

And he honestly thought he was, too; and so he had no one to blame but himself when his voice caught on the centre occasionally, and gave him the lockjaw.

There were those among the unregenerated who attributed the unceasing head-winds to our distressing choir-music. There were those who said openly that it was taking chances enough to have such ghastly music going on, even when it was at its best; and that to exaggerate the crime by letting George help, was simply flying in the face of Providence. These said that

the choir would keep up their lacerating attempts at meld until they would bring down a storm some day that would si the ship.

There were even grumblers at the prayers. The execut officer said the Pilgrims had no charity:

"There they are, down there every night at eight bel praying for fair winds-when they know as well as I do tl this is the only ship going east this time of the year, but ther a thousand coming west-what's a fair wind for us is a he wind to them-the Almighty's blowing a fair wind for a tho sand vessels, and this tribe wants him to turn it clear arou so as to accommodate one,-and she a steamship at that! ain't good sense, it ain't good reason, it ain't good Christianit it ain't common human charity. Avast with such nonsense

49

TAR

CHAPTER V.

AKING it "by and large," as the sailors say, we had a pleasant ten days' run from New York to the Azores islands not a fast run, for the distance is only twenty-four hundred miles-but a right pleasant one, in the main. True, we had head-winds all the time, and several stormy experiences which sent fifty per cent. of the passengers to bed, sick, and made the ship look dismal and deserted-stormy experiences that all will remember who weathered them on the tumbling deck, and caught the vast sheets of spray that every now and then sprang high in air from the weather bow and swept the ship like a thunder-shower; but for the most part we had balmy summer weather, and nights that were even finer than the days. We had the phenomenon of a full moon located just in the same spot in the heavens at the same hour every night. The reason of this singular conduct on the part of the moon did not occur to us at first, but it did afterward when we reflected that we were gaining about twenty minutes every day, because we were going east so fast -we gained just about enough every day to keep along with the moon. It was becoming an old moon to the friends we had left behind us, but to us Joshuas it stood still in the same place, and remained always the same.

Young Mr. Blucher, who is from the Far West, and is on his first voyage, was a good deal worried by the constantly changing "ship-time." He was proud of his new watch at first, and used to drag it out promptly when eight bells struck at noon, but he came to look after a while as if he were losing

46

BLUCHER IN TROUBLE.

confidence in it. Seven days out from New York he came deck, and said with great decision:

"This thing's a swindle!"

"What's a swindle?"

'Why, this watch. I bought her out in Illinois--gave $1 for her and I thought she was good. And, by George, she good on shore, but somehow she don't keep up her lick he on the water-gets seasick, may be. She skips; she runs alo regular enough till half-past eleven, and then, all of a sudde she lets down. I've set that old regulator up faster and faste till I've shoved it clear around, but it don't do any good; s just distances every watch in the ship, and clatters along in way that's astonishing till it is noon, but them eight bells a ways gets in about ten minutes ahead of her any way. I don know what to do with her now. She's doing all she canshe's going her best gait, but it won't save her. Now, don you know, there ain't a watch in the ship that's making bette time than she is: but what does it signify? When you hea them eight bells you'll find her just about ten minutes short of her score, sure."

The ship was gaining a full hour every three days, and this fellow was trying to make his watch go fast enough to keep up to her. But, as he had said, he had pushed the regulator up as far as it would go, and the watch was "on its best gait," and so nothing was left him but to fold his hands and see the ship beat the race. We sent him to the captain, and he explained to him the mystery of "ship-time," and set his troubled mind at rest. This young man asked a great many questions. about seasickness before we left, and wanted to know what its characteristics were, and how he was to tell when he had it. He found out.

We saw the usual sharks, blackfish, porpoises, &c., of course, and by and by large schools of Portuguese men-of-war were added to the regular list of sea wonders. Some of them were white and some of a brilliant carmine color. The nautilus is nothing but a transparent web of jelly, that spreads itself to catch the wind, and has fleshy-looking strings a foot or two

long dangling from it to keep it steady in the water. It is an accomplished sailor, and has good sailor judgment. It reefs its sail when a storm threatens or the wind blows pretty hard, and furls it entirely and goes down when a gale blows. Ordinarily it keeps its sail wet and in good sailing order by turning over and dipping it in the water for a moment. Seamen say the nautilus is only found in these waters between the 35th and 45th parallels of latitude.

At three o'clock on the morning of the 21st of June, we were awakened and notified that the Azores islands were in sight. I said I did not take any interest in islands at three o'clock in the morning. But another persecutor came, and then another and another, and finally believing that the general enthusiasm would permit no one to slumber in peace, I got up and went sleepily on deck. It was five and a half o'clock now, and a raw, blustering morning. The passengers were huddled about the smoke-stacks and fortified behind ventilators, and all were wrapped in wintry costumes, and looking sleepy and unhappy in the pitiless gale and the drenching spray.