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JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO INDIA.

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confidence in our officers and crew, they would be alarming as well as awful and sublime. But, in our case, seen as they are from a strong and well-found ship, in fine clear weather and with good sea room, they constitute a magnificent spectacle, which may be contemplated with unmixed pleasure. I have hardly been able to leave the deck, so much have I enjoyed it, and my wife, who happily now feels very little inconvenience from the motion, has expressed the same feelings. The deep blue of the sea, the snowwhite tops of the waves, their enormous sweep, the alternate sinking and rising of the ship which seems like a plaything in a giant's hands, and the vast multitude of sea-birds skimming round us, constitute a picture of the most exhilarating as well as the most impressive character; and I trust a better and holier feeling has not been absent from our minds, of thankfulness to Him who has thus far protected us, who blesses us daily with so many comforts beyond what might be expected in our present situation, and who has given us a passage, throughout the whole extent of the Atlantic, so unusually rapid and favourable. The birds which surround us are albatrosses, and snow peterels. The Cape pigeons have disappeared, being probably driven to shore by the gale. The other birds come from the southward, and are considered as indications of a tremendous storm in that quarter, from which our unusually northern course has exempted us. Lat. 34° 54'. E. long. 15° 30'. This day ends the ninth week of our abode on board the Grenville.

August 19.-During the night we made considerable southing, and passed the Cape. In the evening we had a distant but tolerably distinct view of the cape Aguillas or Lagullos, the most southerly promontory of Africa. Our wind is now lighter, but the swell still great; such a swell (and indeed much more, all things considered, than we now feel) is to be expected on the banks of Lagullos, a range of submarine mountains, of extent not yet ascertained, which project from the foot of Southern Africa, like a vast buttress to support it against the invasions of the Antarctic Ocean. The depth of water is considerable in every part of the bank, and consequently fish are scarce at any distance from shore. In the creeks and bays of the visible coast they are said to swarm. And thus we are in the Indian Ocean!

August 20-23.-We have been these four days beating to and fro on the bank of Lagullos, with a contrary wind or no wind at all, alternately, suffering a good deal from the motion of the vessel. On the 22d we were on the supposed position of the Telemaque shoal, when a boy at the masthead cried out breakers." They turned out, however, to

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be only the reflection of the sun on the waves. So that the existence or situation of this danger is still as dubious as

ever.

August 24.-A southern breeze sprung up this morning, and we have begun our progress eastward anew, though at present inclining much towards the south, where Captain Manning hopes to find the wind more settled. We had prayers and a sermon, but the weather was, as on last Sunday, too unsettled to permit the men to sit down, or the awning to be extended. The breeze has, however, put all the party into much better spirits, and considering the degree in which we have been previously favoured, a four or five day's delay here is a trifling drawback.

August 30.-Alas! our flattering breeze left us in a few hours, and from Monday till Thursday we had very little wind, and that adverse; yet we did not remain absolutely stationary, having got into a powerful, and, hitherto, little unknown current, from the S. W. which forwarded us on our voyage almost as much as a light wind would have done. On Wednesday evening and Thursday morning more parti cularly, though the weather was such a perfect calm that the ship was absolutely her own mistress, and would not answer the helm, yet we found to our surprise that during the twenty-four hours we had advanced two degrees of longitude. On Thursday a light breeze blew, which, with the friendly help of the current, helped us on three degrees more. And on Friday and Saturday we had a stiff gale, which fairly placed us at twelve o'clock the latter day in lat. 36° 52' E. long. 42° 59'. This was, of course, not effected, without considerable tossing.

The day was rainy, and the sea broke over the quarterdeck fiercely. My wife, however, braved it, and walked a good deal, and all the men on board were in high spirits. Captain Manning said, "If there was virtue in canvass, he would make the run of the following day better than this;" which was 246 miles by the log, and I believe the best we have had during the present voyage. The current which so long befriended us is now replaced by another of an opposite tendency, and which appears to have come from the great channel of Mozambique, of which, in the day's run, we have been crossing the mouth. Our course is east, a little inclining to the, north. The climate is very like that of England in spring. The passengers, however, and the young men more particularly, are not healthy, and several absentees are remarked from every dinner. Mr. Shaw says that he has seldom found a ship a favourable situation either for preserving or recovering health. The want of exercise

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and of mental employment sufficiently account for this circumstance. My own general good health, I am convinced, I owe in no small degree to my persevering walks on the quarter-deck, and my Hindoostanee studies. In these I certainly am not idle, though, alas! I cannot say much of my own proficiency. On Sunday 31st, we had again prayers and a sermon, though the weather was too much unsettled to admit of the men sitting down, and consequently the former were curtailed a little of their just proportion. Afterwards

I went with Captain Manning and Mr. Elliot, the surgeon, to visit the sick seamen, of whom there were three or four more seriously indisposed than usual. One poor man who was recovering from the effects of a fall a few days before, which had threatened to affect his brain, was very intelligent, and grateful to God for his deliverance. The others were not so favourably disposed. I persuaded them, however, to meet me in the afternoon, and join in a few prayers. Friday, September 5.-Here follows a version of a part of this day's lesson from the Gulistân. It was the inscription, says Sadi, over the arched alcove of Feridoon's Hall.

"Brother! know the world deceiveth!
Trust on Him who safety giveth!
Fix not on the world thy trust,
She feeds us-but she turns to dust,
And the bare earth or kingly throne
Alike may serve to die upon!"

The next is not so good, but is almost equally literal: both seem to confirm my suspicions as to the real character of Asiatic poetry.

"The man who leaveth life behind,

May well and boldly speak his mind.
Where flight is none from battle field,
We blithely snatch the sword and shield;
Where hope is past, and hate is strong,
The wretch's tongue is sharp and long;
Myself have seen, in wild despair,
The feeble cat the mastiff tear.'

It is strange to see how flowery these passages become in Gladwin's translation; yet I can safely say that my rude lines are most like the original.

On Tuesday the 9th, at twelve, we were in lat. 26° 55', long. 76° 44', with a fine,wind from the south-east, which every body on board was willing to hope was the "trade wind." In consequence we look forward to our probable arrival at Saugor anchorage before the 1st of October; and some

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of our party are almost tempted to murmur at the singular rapidity with which our passage has been favoured, as bringing us into India at an unwholesome season. For my own part, I have no apprehensions either for myself or those most dear to me. We are all, at this moment, in excellent health. Our habits of living have been, for some time back, such as are most likely to enable us to bear a change of climate with out injury; and even during the worst and most sickly time of the year in Calcutta, by all which I can learn, little more is necessary to preserve health than to be strictly temperate, and to remain quiet during the heat of the day, and while it rains. And, indeed, while we are enjoying and have enjoy ed such daily and remarkable protection from God during the whole of our voyage, it would be cowardice in the extreme to distrust his further mercies, or to shrink back from those dangers which, some time or other, a resident in India must expect to encounter, and which a new-comer is, perhaps, as able to bear as any other person. I therefore feel at present nothing but pleasure in the anticipation of our speedy arrival in that scene where I am hereafter to labour; or if I feel any anxiety, it is only as to the manner in which I may be able to acquit myself of duties so important, and in a situation so new. Deus adjuvet per Jesum Christum!

Friday, September 12.-Few things now occur to insert, except my progress in Hindoostanee. The following lines. are also from the Gulistân, rather more loosely translated than some of those which have preceded them. I have, however, sufficiently preserved their character.

"Who the silent man can prize,

If a fool he be or wise?

Yet, though lonely seem the wood,
Therein may lurk the beast of blood.
Often bashful looks conceal

Tongue of fire and heart of steel.

And deem not thou, in forest gray,

Every dappled skin thy prey;

Lest thou rouse, with luckless spear,

The tiger for the fallow-deer!"

A tropic bird was seen to-day, very large, and white as snow, but without the two long tail-feathers which are his principal ornament. The immense distance from land at which these birds are seen is really surprising. The Isle of Bourbon is the nearest point, and that must be a distance of two thousand miles. For many days back the beautiful Cape pigeons have ceased to attend us.

On Sunday, September 14, we had again divine service. and I afterwards (as has been my occasional custom for some

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time back) prayed with the sick below. Their number still continues inconsiderable, and there is no case of absolute danger, though one poor lad has had a very tedious intermitting fever. Symptoms of our advanced progress are visible in the preparations making in the cutter, which Captain Manning is sheathing with zinc, and fitting up with masts and sails for the navigation of the Ganges. His good nature and obliging disposition have spared us another preparation which at these times is usual. I mean, painting the ship previous to her appearing in harbour; an operation which must have made the whole population of the vessel miserable for some days. I am heartily glad to escape this.

September 18.-This evening we had a most beautiful sunset-the most remarkable recollected by any of the officers or passengers, and I think the most magnificent spectacle I ever saw. Besides the usual beautiful tints of crimson, flame-colour, &c., which the clouds displayed, and which were strangely contrasted with the deep blue of the sea, and the lighter, but equally beautiful blue of the sky, there were in the immediate neighbourhood of the sinking sun, and for some time after his disc had disappeared, large tracts of a pale translucent green, such as I had never seen before except in a prism, and surpassing every effect of paint, or glass, or gem. Every body on board was touched and awed by the glory of the scene, and many observed, that such a spectacle alone was worth the whole voyage from England. One circumstance in the scene struck me as different from all which I had been led to expect in a tropical sunset. I mean, that its progress from light to darkness was much more gradual than most travellers and philosophers have stated. The dip of the sun did not seem more rapid, nor did the duration of the tints on the horizon appear materially less, than on similar occasions in England. Neither did i notice any striking difference in the continuance of the twilight. I pointed out the fact to Major Sackville, who answered, that he had long been convinced that the supposed rapidity of sunrise and sunset in India had been exaggerated, that he had always found a good hour between dawn and sunrise, and little less between sunset and total darkness. As, indeed, we are at present within three degrees of the line, we must, a fortiori, have witnessed this precipitancy of the sun, if it really existed any where, in a still greater degree than it can be witnessed in any part of Hindostan.

September 19.-I wakened before dawn this morning, and had therefore an opportunity of verifying, to a certain extent, Major Sackville's observations on a tropical sunrise." I had no watch, but to my perceptions his account was accurate.

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