NOTEBOOK

This is neither cholera nor yellow fever, I suspect—
these men have been eating green tropical fruit and wash-
ing it down with villainous aguardiente.

A ship is precisely a little village where gossips abound
and where every man's business is his neighbor's.

The prospect of going into quarantine for 30 days is
worrying the passengers like everything.

7 P.M. Neither of the sick men quite dead yet—the
ship has stopped her wheels.

Passengers growl less this trip than any I ever saw,
but they will growl some on all trips, no matter how
favorable everything is.

Custom-house list must be made up by purser, who
makes it up according to his own notion, thus:
"Miss Smith, 45, milliner, Ireland (and she young and

wealthy)
Mark Twain, barkeeper,—Terra del Fucgo."

One of the sick men is bad. This calls for Rev. Tackier
again (10 P.M.).

It was cholera of a malignant type.

The man was buried overboard at a little past 10 P.M.

Jan. 2. Midnight, another patient at the point of death.
They are filling him up with brandy.

2 bells—the man is dead. 4 bells—he is cast over-
board—expedition is the word in these crowded steerages.

Jan. 3. Our tropic drink:

J4 lb. of sugar, \y* IKs. of ice, I doz. limes, I lemon,
i orange, half a bottle of brandy. Put in a j4-gallon ice
pitcher and fill up with water.

Jan. 3, 9:30 P.M. Astonished to hear 3 bells—been
sitting here reading so long I never thought of its mean-
ing anything else than half past one—went to get ship