DECEMBER 12.
Since we entered the tropic the rains have been incessant and
most violent; but the wind was brisk and favourable, and w,
rapidly. Now we have lost the trade-wind, and move
that it might almost be called standing still. On the
other hand, the weather is now perfectly delicious; the ship
makes, but little way, but she moves steadily; the sun is brilliant,
the sky cloudless, the sea calm, and so smooth, that it looks
like one extended sheet of blue glass; an awning is stretched
over the deck ; although there is not wind enough to fill the
there is sufficient to keep the air cool, and thus, even during
the day, the weather is very pleasant: but the nights are
quite heavenly, and so bright, that at ten o'clock yesterday evening
little Jem. Parsons (the cabin-boy), and his friend the black
terrier, came on deck, and sat themselves down on a gun-carriage,
to read by the light of the moon. I looked at the boy's book
(the terrier, I suppose, read over the other's shoulder), and found
that it was 'The Sorrows of Werter.' I asked who had lent
him such a book, and whether it amused him? He said that it
had been made a present to him, and so he had read it almost
through,, for he had got to Werter's dying; though to be sure
he did not understand it all, nor like very much what he under
stood ; for he thought the man a great fool for killing himself
for love. I told him I thought every man a great fool who
killed himself for love or for anything else : but had lie no b9oks
but 'The Sorrows of Werter?' -Oh, dear, yes, he said, he had
a great many more; he had got I The Adventures of a Louse,'
which was a very curious book, indeed ; and he bad got besides,
'The Recess,' and 'Valentine and Orson,' and 'Roslin Castle,'
and a book of Prayers, just like the Bible; but he could Dot but
that he liked I The Adventures of a Louse' the best of any
of them.
