“Where yonder dancing billows dip,
    Far off to Ocean’s misty verge,
  Ploughs Morning, like a full-sailed ship,
    The Orient’s cloudy surge. 
  With spray of scarlet fire, before
    The ruffled gold that round her dies,
  She sails above the sleeping shore,
    Across the waking skies.”

During the night we had passed Cape Henry, and now, at dawn, found ourselves on the ocean,—­the land only a blue line in the distance.  A few more hours, and that had vanished.  No sails were visible, and the Passaic, which we had noticed the evening before, was now out of sight.  The morning and afternoon passed quietly; we spent most of our time on deck, on account of the confined air below, and, being on a level with the sea, with the spray dashing over us occasionally, amused ourselves with noting its shifting hues and forms, from the deep green of the first long roll to the foam-crest and prismatic tints of the falling wave.

As the afternoon advanced, the freshening wind, the thickening clouds, and the increasing roll of the sea gave those most accustomed to ordinary ship-life some new experiences.  The little vessel plunged through the rising waves, instead of riding them, and, as they increased in violence, lay, as it were, under their crests, which washed over her continually, so that, even when we considered ourselves safe, the appearance was that of a vessel sinking.

“I’d rather go to sea in a diving-bell!” said one, as the waves dashed over the pilot-house, and the little craft seemed buried in water.

“Give me an oyster-scow!” cried another,—­“anything!—­only let it be wood, and something that will float over, instead of under the water!”

Still she plunged on, and about six thirty P.M. we made Cape Hatteras; in half an hour we had rounded the point, and many on board expressed regret that the Monitor should not have been before the Passaic in doing so.  Our spy-glasses were in constant use; we saw several vessels in the distance, and about seven P.M. discovered the Passaic four or five miles astern to the north of us, in tow of the steamer State of Georgia.

A general hurrah went up,—­“Hurrah for the first iron-clad that ever rounded Cape Hatteras!  Hurrah for the little boat that is first in everything!” The distance between ourselves and the Passaic widened, and we gradually lost sight of her.

At half-past seven a heavy shower fell, lasting about twenty minutes.  At this time the gale increased; black, heavy clouds covered the sky, through which the moon glimmered fitfully, allowing us to see in the distance a long line of white, plunging foam, rushing towards us,—­sure indication, to a sailor’s eye, of a stormy time.

A gloom overhung everything; the banks of cloud seemed to settle around us; the moan of the ocean grew louder and more fearful.  Still our little boat pushed doggedly on:  victorious through all, we thought that here, too, she would conquer, though the beating waves sent shudders through her whole frame.  Bearing still the marks of one of the fiercest battles of the war, we had grown to think her invulnerable to any assault of man or element, and as she breasted these huge waves, plunging through one only to meet another more mighty, we thought,—­“She is stanch! she will weather it!”