This day promised to turn out a very melancholy one in many respects.  We had hardly lost sight of the slaver before one of our own crew had nearly committed suicide.  The steward, a young mulatto, had contracted the bad habit of indulging too much in liquor.  The captain had often threatened to punish him severely, but all to no purpose; and this morning he was so intoxicated that the sailors were obliged to lay him in a corner of the forecastle, where he might sleep himself sober.  Suddenly, however, he leapt up, clambered on to the forepart of the ship, and threw himself into the sea.  Luckily, it was almost a calm, the water was quite still, and we had hopes of saving him.  He soon reappeared at the side of the vessel, and ropes were thrown him from every side.  The love of life was awakened in his breast, and caused him to grasp involuntarily at the ropes, but he had not strength enough to hold on.  He again sank, and it was only after great exertion that the brave sailors succeeded in rescuing him from a watery grave.  Hardly had he recovered his senses ere he endeavoured to throw himself in again, exclaiming that he had no wish to live.  The man was raving mad, and the captain was obliged to have him bound hand and foot, and chained to the mast.  On the following day he was deprived of his office, and degraded to the rank of subordinate to a new steward.

5th January.  Mostly calms.  Our cook caught, today, a fish three feet long, and remarkable for the manner in which it changed colour.  When it came out of the water it was a bright yellow, to which colour it owes its name of Dorado.  At the expiration of one or two minutes the brilliant yellow changed into a light sky-blue, and after its death its belly again turned to a beautiful light yellow, but the back was a brownish green.  It is reckoned a great delicacy, but, for my own part, I found its flesh rather dry.

On the 9th of January we were off the Rio Grande.  In the evening everything seemed to promise a violent storm; the captain consulted his barometer every second almost, and issued his orders according to its indications.  Black clouds now began to drive towards us, and the wind increased to such a pitch that the captain had all the hatchways carefully fastened down, and the crew ready to reef the sails at a moment’s notice.  At a little past 8, the hurricane broke forth.  Flash after flash of lightning darted across the horizon from every side, and lighted the sailors in their work; the agitated waves being illuminated with the most dazzling brilliancy.  The majestic rolling of the thunder drowned the captain’s voice, and the white foaming billows broke with such terrific force over the deck, that it appeared as if they would carry everything with them into the depths of the ocean.  Unless there had been ropes stretched on each side of the ship for the sailors to catch hold of, the latter would most certainly have been washed away.  Such a storm as this affords much