Then came all manner of calculations and conjectures as to the continuance of the wind, the weather under the line, the southeast trades, &c., and rough guesses as to the time the ship would be up with the Horn; and some, more venturous, gave her so many days to Boston Light, and offered to bet that she would not exceed it.

``You’d better wait till you get round Cape Horn,’’ says an old croaker.

``Yes,’’ says another, ``you may see Boston, but you’ve got to `smell hell’ before that good day.’’

Rumors also of what had been said in the cabin, as usual, found their way forward.  The steward had heard the captain say something about the Straits of Magellan, and the man at the wheel fancied he had heard him tell the ``passenger’’ that, if he found the wind ahead and the weather very bad off the Cape, he should stick her off for New Holland, and come home round the Cape of Good Hope.

This passenger—­ the first and only one we had had, except to go from port to port, on the coast—­ was no one else than a gentleman whom I had known in my smoother days, and the last person I should have expected to see on the coast of California,—­ Professor Nuttall, of Cambridge.  I had left him quietly seated in the chair of Botany and Ornithology in Harvard University, and the next I saw of him, he was strolling about San Diego beach, in a sailor’s pea-jacket, with a wide straw hat, and barefooted, with his trousers rolled up to his knees, picking up stones and shells.  He had travelled overland to the Northwest Coast, and come down in a small vessel to Monterey.  There he learned that there was a ship at the leeward about to sail for Boston, and, taking passage in the Pilgrim, which was then at Monterey, he came slowly along, visiting the intermediate ports, and examining the trees, plants, earths, birds, &c., and joined us at San Diego shortly before we sailed.  The second mate of the Pilgrim told me that they had an old gentleman on board who knew me, and came from the college that I had been in.  He could not recollect his name, but said he was a ``sort of an oldish man,’’ with white hair, and spent all his time in the bush, and along the beach, picking up flowers and shells and such truck, and had a dozen boxes and barrels full of them.  I thought over everybody who would be likely to be there, but could fix upon no one; when, the next day, just as we were about to shove off from the beach, he came down to the boat in the rig I have described, with his shoes in his hand, and his pockets full of specimens.  I knew him at once, though I should hardly have been more surprised to have seen the Old South steeple shoot up from the hide-house.  He probably had no more difficulty in recognizing me.  As we left home about the same time, we had nothing to tell each other; and, owing to our different situations on board, I saw but little of him on the passage home.  Sometimes, when I was at the wheel of a calm night, and the steering required little