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pumps are out of order, and the carpenter knows very little of his trade.
'12 April: One of the females on board delivered of a still-born child. She is doing very weil. A
tolerably commodious apartment, called the hospital, is fitted up for sick people. Turned one of
the boys out of the school for sulky behaviour.
'13 April: A glorious day. In Latitude 25° 42'S. In my cabin all the morning reading an article of
Chambers on the History of the Bible. There is much useful information in it... After eight
o'clock prayers, I went into the hospital, and read to and prayed with the woman who was
confined yesterday.
'Sunday, 14 April: A very lovely day, the bridal of the sea and sky. Had service on deck. Read
the prayers and preached a sermon. Duration of all 50 minutes. A good many present and a
great many absent. Had a long conversation with two old men, chiefly on spiritual matters.
Could elicit nothing from them worth recounting. Suspect that very many of the religious
anecdotes with which the public are a times regaled are not much better than legends of saints.
'15 April: A dull unsunny day, with a strong breeze and much motion. In Latitude 30° 21" S.,
and in Longitude 22° 20" W. A great squabble between two of the more respectable emigrants.
They called each other disgraceful and opprobrious names. Many birds are following the ship,
making endless gyrations, and every now and then swooping for the offal which the ship leaves
in her track. There are albatrosses, mollymawks, cape hens, cape pigeons, and stormy petrels.
The albatross is a gigantic bird, sometimes white, sometimes grey, measuring twelve feet from
the tip of one wing to the other. It has a yellow beak of immense power. It feeds on the coarsest
carrion. Why Coleridge made it the hero of his Ancient Mariner I can't think. It is a foul bird of
prey: and the sailors catch it and eat it without the slightest repugnance. It never "perches on
mast or shroud, nor any day for food or play, comes to the mariners' hollo." The Ancient
Mariner, as far as the albatross is concerned, is a very powerful poetical exaggeration.
'Sunday, 21 April: Had prayers down below, as the Captain said that the constant trimming of
the sails would interrupt the service. Read the first lesson, and said the litany: then I asked two
Dissenters who were present to sing "Lo! he comes with clouds descending," which they did
very nicely. Then I preached.
65
The people present were few, but very attentive. Afterwards I held my school,
and Miss
held hers. The evening prayers 1 prefaced with the epistle and
gospel and the 63rd chapter of Isaiah.'
By now, the passengers had been at sea for eight weeks, and the general inactivity, lack of
privacy, and severance from the world, had begun to bite.
'22 April: The emigrants are getting tired of the voyage - the more so, as it threatens to be very
long. Their private stores are nearly consumed, so that now they complain of the ship's provision
the more. Some careful ones, however, have laid in stores which still hold out. They have
brought hams, bacon, cheese, herrings, flour, yeast, preserves, and these they might sell if they
choose, at an exorbitant price. But they prefer consuming them themselves. These little stores
help to make the voyage endurable to a steerage passenger. One of them has the additional
luxury of a suspension candle lamp, and a packet of Price's candles; whilst another has a naptha
lamp for boiling water, etc. But few have been so provident as this.
'23 April: In Latitude 36° 26" S, and Longitude 5° 17" W. A close damp day with much fog,
and the glass indicative of a gale. It is now discovered that the emigrants' oil is short, so that
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