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Sfarkling and Bright

Floating away like a fountain spray
O'er the snow-white bloom of a maiden,
The smoke-wreaths rise to the scarlet skies
With blissful fragrance laden.
Then smoke away till golden ray
Lights o'er the dawn of the morrow
For a cheerful cigar like a shield will bar
The heart from care and sorrow.

Aug. 3. The calm continues—magnificent weather. Men
all turned boys. Play boyish games on the poop and
quarter-deck. Lay small object on fife-rail of mainmast—
shut one eye, walk 3 steps and strike at it with forefinger.
Lay small object on deck, walk 7 steps blindfold and try
to find it. Kneel, elbows against knees, hands extended
along deck—place object against ends of fingers then
clasp hands behind back and try to pick it up with
teeth, and rise up from knees.

Sunday, Aug. 5, 1866. Everybody cheerful—at day-
light saw the Comet on our lee—it is pleasant in this
tremendous solitude to have company.

Aug. 13. San Francisco. Home again. No not home
again—in prison again and all the wide sense of freedom
gone. The city seems so cramped and so dreary with toil
and care and business anxiety. God help me, I wish I
were at sea again.

D'n it—when you go to sea, take some cans of con-
densed milk with you.

I never was cheerfully and cordially received but at
3 or 4 places on the Islands. I think they must have heard
of me before—and yet in nearly every case I was treated
with such kind and considerate politeness that I seldom

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