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 from the world. I took my place in this corner, sitting on a skylight, and my feet resting on an enormous pulley; the wind being dead ahead passed over without touching me. This was a good place for reflection. From here I had a view of the whole immensity of the ship; I could see the long slanting ropes of the rigging at the stern. On the first level a top-man, hanging in the mizzen-shrouds, held himself up with one hand, whilst with the other he worked with a remarkable dexterity. On the deck below him paced the officer on watch, peering through the mists. On the bridge, at the stern, I caught a glimpse of an officer, his back rounded, and his head muffled in a hood, struggling against the gusts of wind. I could distinguish nothing of the sea, except a bluish horizontal line discernible behind the paddles. Urged on by her powerful engines, the narrow stem of the steam-ship cut the waves, with a hissing sound, like that when the sides of a boiler are heated by a roaring fire. But the colossal ship, with the wind a-head, and borne on three waves, hardly felt the movement of the sea, which would have shaken any other steamer with its pitchings.

At half-past twelve the notice stated that we were in 44° 53′ North lat., and 47° 6′ W. long., and had made two hundred and twenty-seven miles in twenty-four hours only. The young couple must have scolded the wheels