On the 24th of May, 1864, we sailed from Hongkong, and when we got out into the China Sea we had no monsoon, but met with a continuance of calms and squalls.  The ship was unable to stand up under her canvas, having no ballast, and being, as it were, stuffed with cotton.  Well, at last we reached Anjer, eighty-four days from Hongkong.  The ship was one mass of barnacles as large as “egg-cups.”  I sent overland to Batavia to buy some garden spades, to be fitted on to long poles, so as to try to chop off some of the shells, which we did, and after five days’ delay we sailed again.  From Sunda Straits we had a good run till near the Cape.  Here we had calms again, and the grass and barnacles grew very fast.  Indeed, the ship’s bottom was like a half-tide rock, and when the water washed up the sides, as she rolled, the noise made by the barnacles was like the surf on a sea-beach.  We were followed for several days by a shoal of dolphins, which we caught in great numbers night and morning.  Finally we got round the Cape, and to St. Helena, where we stayed four days, and employed men to assist us in chopping off grass and barnacles as far as we could reach.  Then we proceeded on our way once more.

We had a wearisome time in the “doldrums” about the equator, only enlivened by catching dolphins and watching crabs, which would leave the grass for a swim and then return to the ship.  After getting clear of the calm belt, we had a very good run to Bermuda, where we encountered a heavy gale, with tremendous heavy seas.

When the weather moderated we found to our dismay that the rudder was adrift, the pintles having been broken by the heavy seas.  I was now compelled to put before the wind and run for St. Thomas, in the West Indies, and when near the entrance of the port a passenger, Captain George Adams, “went off his head,” and thus gave no little addition to my anxieties.  Finally we arrived safely in port.  Here more troubles began.  I was advised to do many things, some of which would have been much to the benefit of some of my advisers.  One thing was to land and store the cargo.[*] This I positively refused to do.  But after all I found that there was only one European blacksmith in the place, and he had but a small shop.  This man contracted to do the repairs, and after I had got the rudder to his shop he coolly asked me if I had a good carpenter or other handy man to help him, as the job was too heavy for his negro assistant to weld.  I proposed to him another plan.  So at last the work was done satisfactorily, and we went on our way with partly a new negro crew, some of the old crew having left.  We made very good progress and were nearly off New York when we got into a violent snowstorm, which greatly amused the negro sailors, who had never seen “white rain” before, but unfortunately for three of them, they got frostbitten and lost their legs.  We got into New York at last on the 25th of January, 1865, eight months from Hongkong!