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AT SEA, July 30, 1866.
DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I write, now, because I must go hard at work
as
soon as I get to San Francisco, and then I shall have no time for other
things--though truth to say I have nothing now to write which will be
calculated to interest you much. We left the Sandwich Islands eight or
ten days--or twelve days ago--I don't know which, I have been so hard at
work until today (at least part of each day,) that the time has slipped
away almost unnoticed. The first few days we came at a whooping gait
being in the latitude of the "North-east trades," but we soon ran out
of them. We used them as long as they lasted-hundred of miles--and came
dead straight north until exactly abreast of San Francisco precisely
straight west of the city in a bee-line--but a long bee-line, as we were
about two thousand miles at sea-consequently, we are not a hundred yards
nearer San Francisco than you are. And here we lie becalmed on a glassy
sea--we do not move an inch-we throw banana and orange peel overboard
and it lies still on the water by the vessel's side. Sometimes the ocean
is as dead level as the Mississippi river, and glitters glassily as if
polished--but usually, of course, no matter how calm the weather is,
we roll and surge over the grand ground-swell. We amuse ourselves tying
pieces of tin to the ship's log and sinking them to see how far we can
distinguish them under water--86 feet was the deepest we could see a
small piece of tin, but a white plate would show about as far down as
the steeple of Dr. Bullard's church would reach, I guess. The sea is
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