Friday, September 5th, when we saw a sail on our weather (starboard) beam.  She proved to be a brig under English colors, and, passing under our stern, reported herself as forty-nine days from Buenos Ayres, bound to Liverpool.  Before she had passed us, ``Sail ho!’’ was cried again, and we made another sail, broad on our weather bow, and steering athwart our hawse.  She passed out of hail, but we made her out to be an hermaphrodite brig, with Brazilian colors in her main rigging.  By her course, she must have been bound from Brazil to the south of Europe, probably Portugal.

Sunday, September 7th.  Fell in with the northeast trade-winds.  This morning we caught our first dolphin, which I was very eager to see.  I was disappointed in the colors of this fish when dying.  They were certainly very beautiful, but not equal to what has been said of them.  They are too indistinct.  To do the fish justice, there is nothing more beautiful than the dolphin when swimming a few feet below the surface, on a bright day.  It is the most elegantly formed, and also the quickest, fish in salt water; and the rays of the sun striking upon it, in its rapid and changing motions, reflected from the water, make it look like a stray beam from a rainbow.

This day was spent like all pleasant Sundays at sea.  The decks are washed down, the rigging coiled up, and everything put in order; and, throughout the day, only one watch is kept on deck at a time.  The men are all dressed in their best white duck trousers, and red or checked shirts, and have nothing to do but to make the necessary changes in the sails.  They employ themselves in reading, talking, smoking, and mending their clothes.  If the weather is pleasant, they bring their work and their books upon deck, and sit down upon the forecastle and windlass.  This is the only day on which these privileges are allowed them.  When Monday comes, they put on their tarry trousers again, and prepare for six days of labor.

To enhance the value of Sunday to the crew, they are allowed on that day a pudding, or, as it is called, a ``duff.’’ This is nothing more than flour boiled with water, and eaten with molasses.  It is very heavy, dark, and clammy, yet it is looked upon as a luxury, and really forms an agreeable variety with salt beef and pork.  Many a rascally captain has made up with his crew, for hard usage, by allowing them duff twice a week on the passage home.

On board some vessels Sunday is made a day of instruction and of religious exercises; but we had a crew of swearers, from the captain to the smallest boy; and a day of rest, and of something like quiet, social enjoyment, was all that we could expect.

We continued running large before the northeast trade-winds for several days, until Monday—­