I wonder if any one has ever written down on paper his seasick reveries.  There are “Evening Reveries,” “Reveries of a Bachelor,” and “Seaside Reveries” in abundance; but no one, so far as I know, has ever even attempted to do his seasick reveries literary justice.  It is a strange oversight, and I would respectfully suggest to any aspiring writer who has the reverie faculty, that there is here an unworked field of boundless extent.  One trip across the North Pacific in a small brig will furnish an inexhaustible supply of material.

Our life thus far has been too monotonous to afford a single noticeable incident.  The weather has been cold, damp, and foggy, with light head winds and a heavy swell; we have been confined closely to our seven-by-nine after-cabin; and its close, stifling atmosphere, redolent of bilge-water, lamp oil, and tobacco smoke, has had a most depressing influence upon our spirits.  I am glad to see, however, that all our party are up today, and that there is a faint interest manifested in the prospect of dinner; but even the inspiriting strains of the Faust march, which the captain is playing upon a wheezy old accordion, fail to put any expression of animation into the woebegone faces around the cabin table.  Mahood pretends that he is all right, and plays checkers with the captain with an air of assumed tranquillity which approaches heroism, but he is observed at irregular intervals to go suddenly and unexpectedly on deck, and to return every time with a more ghastly and rueful countenance.  When asked the object of these periodical visits to the quarter-deck, he replies, with a transparent affectation of cheerfulness, that he only goes up “to look at the compass and see how she’s heading.”  I am surprised to find that looking at the compass is attended with such painful and melancholy emotions as those expressed in Mahood’s face when he comes back; but he performs the self-imposed duty with unshrinking faithfulness, and relieves us of a great deal of anxiety about the safety of the ship.  The captain seems a little negligent, and sometimes does not observe the compass once a day; but Mahood watches it with unsleeping vigilance.

  BRIG “OLGA,” 800 MILES N.W.  OF SAN FRANCISCO.
  Sunday, July 16, 1865.

The monotony of our lives was relieved night before last, and our seasickness aggravated, by a severe gale of wind from the north-west, which compelled us to lie to for twenty hours under one close-reefed maintopsail.  The storm began late in the afternoon, and by nine o’clock the wind was at its height and the sea rapidly rising.  The waves pounded like Titanic sledgehammers against the vessel’s quivering timbers; the gale roared a deep diapason through the cordage; and the regular thud, thud, thud of the pumps, and the long melancholy whistling of the wind through the blocks, filled our minds with dismal forebodings, and banished all inclination for sleep.