Your letter of the 21st May was received per Ann McKim about 3 weeks since. I have written home, twice previously to this date: first from “Angier point,” and last, from this anchorage (23rd Ultimo) sent by American barque Mary Chilton as perhaps you may know. Private letters by the “overland mail” are seldom taken, and then only as a particular favor, to some established house. We hear nothing yet from your East India Squadron. Jim (alias “Mr. Goodwin”) was told the other day that the Brandywine was to leave Mr. Cushing and the prince (our most illustrious emperor’s son & heir, as the celestials understand) at the Cape of Good Hope & call for him at Bombay, to which place he was to proceed overland. A very fair specimen of forecastle news, that. I was glad to find by the papers, you were so kind as to send me, that sometime previously all was quiet in China, for we had heard nothing definitely from there later than the news by the Delhis (arrived just before we left).

I was dreaming the other night, in this wise: Charley Cook, John Buck & you & I were got together & were having a sort of a kind of a oyster supper, you know, at Marmy Dean’s. One of those pretty girls was passing me a pot—a cup of coffee, I mean—which I clumsily enough capsized into the oysters. She gently placed her taper fingers on my shoulder & growled out, “Fred!”

“What is it?”

“Why, turn out and be hanged to you. It’s four bells & your watch. Relieve the deck, will ye!”

It is not necessary to say the fairy form disappeared & in its room appeared that infamous cross grained down east elephant, from “Sackarap,” “Mush Dan.”

“One hundred days to Cape Town”—rather too much of a good thing. Charley must have thought so, if he found anything good about it indeed. Second time too. We were seventy four days to longitude of the Cape & latitude 41° South or thereabouts. John Buck too must have had a pretty [160] hard time. One good qualification of our vessel—she needed one—was her tightness. In all the bad weather off the Cape, we kept her free enough by half an hour’s pumping every other day, & often we would not touch the pump for weeks at a time. Now, here on our quarter is the Ann McKim, the beauty. First thing every morning, yank, yank, she has to be pumped out. We have not rigged the pumps since we moored. The Zenobia is the ship our skipper returned home in with Jake (Braisted) after losing the old America in a typhoon at Hong Kong.

You must have had a glorious vacation: six dozen from [. . .] and pounders at that. Excellent! I feared the freshet would have marred your sport. Horace, Xenophon, Euclid—rayther dry I imagine after that. I think I shall be calculated to appreciate rural comforts, if no other, when I return. With the exception of landing a few moments at the foot of a barren hill at “Contoon” opposite Hong Kong, I have not yet embraced old mother earth since I parted from the rather disguised specimen on the Pike Street wharf. You may imagine, if you can, what a deprivation it is to me. I shall surely do something “disprit” before long—such as paddling ashore in my anchor [watch] some night to wallow in the luxuriant paddy swamp along shore—here.

You had just been reading Wing & Wing. We had two or three copies on board, but I had no time to read them. This you may think strange, if not preposterous, but the fact is when I had any spare time after writing my notes & paying a little attention to cleanliness, &c, there were my clothes to dry, bedding to air & all sorts of little things, which you would consider necessary. Besides, I have not yet seen the time on board this vessel when I could not turn in—Avast! I think I have seen that time—but when having a chance I could not go to the “land of Nod”—the only land I could make anyhow—in about the same time you could go to grass, or I roll overboard. You can hardly have an idea how sleepy I used to be. Why, when first I got started, one morning, the deck tub was in use for some purpose & I was stationed to catch the water as it Bowed from the head pump hose in a steady stream. Actually, again & again I got fairly to sleep while the bucket was filling & woke in proper time to pass it & stick under another. What do you think of that for a yarn? The best of it is, it’s true. So bothered I was, too, to keep my outlook: it would have amused [you] I believe to see the expedients I resorted to. However, I succeeded pretty well after all—for I have not been rope’s ended yet, as two of the boys were for being caught asleep.

I was writing as above, when the mate called me, & after asking if I could swim, told me to get into the pinnace with the other boys. We tried to run up to “Boston Jack’s,” our “compradore’s” at Whampoa, but found the tide had turned & we could not beat up a narrow passage. The shore here was lined on either side with low wooden houses. Some had large porches & verandahs in front and tiled roofs. In one or two barnlike affairs were chop [161] boats, &c, building. Some were shops with gaudy little signs swinging before them. Sanpans, a kind of boats most common here, in which habitate a comparatively small portion of the vast floating population of this great empire, with their bamboo gig tops rising one above another, were fastened in great numbers to stakes. The men were generally lying asleep——

And as for the rest of the above yarn, is it not recorded in the pencil chronicles (“crayon sketches”) of Fred. Olmsted? Yea, “in toto.” I had no business to begin writing so. But at that time we were not (speaking as a well man) kept busy all the time. And it was the first time I went ashore, and I saw a “Joss house” or two and a mud fort &c., &c., &c., so I felt quite interested and suppose you’d be, as very likely you would. Nevertheless, I can fill up a sheet more profitably and in place of that I’ll give you three yarns of going ashore & visiting Canton to boot in a few weeks or months. For the Stephen Lurman looks like a clipper & we may not get the new green teas for a month yet, though I hope we shall in a week. In which case we shall be along after this, as quick as the trade winds, & variables, will drive us, judging from the new “thundering big” jibs & stud’n sails that “Sails” is stitching at—reefs in ’em & bothering bonnets too; reefed topmast stud’n s’l. Mr. Richard D[ana]!—talk about your Alert; why it was every day business with us off the Cape.

Well, how do you like the sea? The sea. On the whole, I believe that if I had been in some ships, with some officers, & some crews, & those not very uncommon and enjoyed the health I might have expected, I should have been agreeably disappointed. But—my dear brother, I was not well when I came on board, I suffered most severely from seasickness, in the first place, and since the first of April, say, I don’t think I have enjoyed twenty four hours of as good health and strength as for years previously. Though I had no regular severe illness, and was not off duty before our arrival, but very little, yet I don’t think I ever felt the strength and spirit, that I had a year since. In the severe weather I had a pretty bad fall on the spars, with a heavy coil of manila to settle it & so on to the scuppers—which exposure & wet rheumatized—but I never lost a watch by it, though you may be sure that for some days I could not “By round” aloft so handy as usual. This was a bore, but my general health in the worst weather “vas better than at any other time. Why so? Well I suppose—I’m pretty sure—it was because we had at that time “watch and watch.” If anyone you know wishes to try his fortune on the deep, recommend his first enquiry when looking for a ship to be in regard to the time he is likely to have to rest and take care of himself.

I had no idea this was such a sickly place as I find it. For the last month more than half of our crew had been severely sick. And now the [162] Captain has to live in Canton at the factories, and Mr. King is trying to hurry us off on his account. As for myself—judging from appearances, I must have been pretty sick, for my face is as sharp as a Malay proa (of which I shall yarn) and my arms &c. have a good deal of the living skeleton about them. However, they do say it’s nothing to last May when I [was] sea sick. Sails, who is a very intelligent fellow—I tell Jim sometimes when he laughs at my paying so much attention to this, that & t’other, that he (Sails) is the only man (F. L. Olmsted, boy; wages _____, Hartford, Conn.) of observation on board. (How the deuce should I know anything about the cabin!)—Well, said Sail maker (his Ma called him John and land sharks, Mr. Chrystal) has often told me since that he never saw me about decks, in those days, but he was reminded of Cruikshank’s idea of Smike. And truly, they say my clothes (which in after time required expansion) did fit me very much after that remarkable costume of a purser’s shirt on a hand spike, which those versed in Nautical literature so often read of.

Well, I was going to tell you that after all, up to the time I lost the use of my arm, “pro tempore,” I never desponded of becoming a first rate sailor. I never was really—even when sea sick—homesick, or wished myself clear of the ship. Even in the time of greatest danger, when the Captain expected the barque to go down in five minutes & that old topsail that we’d just got reefed down close, was a crack, cracking away, & I was looking to see the “bloody old sticks” snap out of her, I was laughing to see the old grumblers crowd up to windward, hoping that at last they would allow I’d seen “something like a blow,” & thinking what a nice cruise some of their chests, &c. that wan’t secured must be enjoying in the fo’c’stle. And when at last we were ordered aloft, I was a better sailor than I ever have been before or since, for I was the first out on the windward yard arm, & the way I hauled in the rags & passed the gasket, made even “old Jess” say that I “had good pluck & did my duty man fashion.” But in truth I’d no idea at the time that we were in real danger of going down.

Now I think of it, this letter is just as private as—no place aboard a ship is, particular when you bunk in watch & watch, & have a berth mate with his head full of “Jerusalem crickets” (as I did & shall!). You must not even show it to Charley—no objection to your reading passages, if you must—but supposing I put in some that’ll stop its going further.

A word (l!) about my ship mates. I’ll speak of two of my mess mates to begin with. When at first the Captain (the infernal deceitful old liar-though in spite of everything I won’t make up my mind that he is not conscientious-a regular hypocrite, but what a conscience!) made such good speeches, such promises & the singing at service was such fun; the men for’d, that the boys (he has a son) “must not associate with,” at sea (on shore in N.Y.) (though they can be turned in among them & find places to sleep on their chests or on the deck (floor) for three or four months in a foreign sickly [163] port). When the men were concluding to knock off swearing &c & thinking they should come back better men than they left, &c, these boys (moral young men, the Captain called them) were laughing at them, and swore almost as hard as the same men did a month and a half afterwards, when (as it always afterwards was) all hands were kept at work Saturday p.m. and they were obliged to wash their clothes, &c in their watch below (in service time) on Sunday. And when they went ashore at “Anjier” (it’s spelt every way), they bought a bottle of gin, & the first thing when they get to town—“off to Hog lane to get something to drink after pulling a dozen miles or more.” Guess the rest. My watch mate is the most ill natured fellow & when started (easy enough to get steam up too) the most perfect Billingsgate blackguard that ever I heard. But he has some good qualities.

What’s our prospect going home? In the first place there is not the restraint of the passengers who outward bound were imminently calculated as such. It is already beginning to show. The mate damns us, up & down, has his brandy on board, &c, blackguards them as sons of (you know) & you can judge. As for the Captain, I don’t like to say much, for “on dit” he is not only pretty sick at the factories, but he has a very consumptive cough. He is a man of terrible passions, but has a remarkable self command. He used to blast us (the crew) and call us all ugly names you can think of, but hardly ever used profanity, which he ordered to be punished in the boys. The other day in administering

Confound your crossed letters. I have been trying it there with some miserable blue ink, but as it’s rather unprofitable business, writing what can’t be read. I think I can afford paper (I know Father’s wondering I don’t use the packet post all the time. Fact is, I’ve got none left fit to write on) sufficient to make myself intelligible.

I have been trying to inform you that partly on account of the absence of the restraint of our late passengers, we are not likely to meet with so much consideration from our officers on the homeward bound passage as formerly, which they are already beginning to show in not being very “mealy mouthed” in their expressions. The mate, for instance, G——d——n’g a man just recovered from the most severe and dangerous case of fever in the fleet, for weakness, as a “regular soger,” “marine,” &c., and applying such complimentary titles as “damn’d son of a ——,” “you are a fool & the man that made ye,” & the like (he swears like a pirate).

Our new second mate, by the way, turns out to be a real horse at work; and a first rate seaman, they think. There’ll be no sogering, or slack work in our watch, while he’s with us. (He is a Dane I think.) He’d be “right glad he hadn’t Come aboard,” though, he says, as does our new man Nicholas—who comes from a country ship where his time is just out as apprentice. The poor fellow would give all his old shoes, if he had not shipped aboard the “dom’d yonkee work hus.” He’s “the divil for repale,” though, & thinks Dan’l O’ the only big man to spake of, in the world.

I scarce ever heard the Captain use a profane expression. (The other day he was about to administer an emetic to a sick boy, who told him Dr. Green disapproved of it, &c., &c. “Dr. Green may go to hell! for ought I care—it would make a saint swear.”) He has a most remarkable command of temper having evidently most violent passions by nature, which he restrains most admirably sometimes. I’ve seen him jump half across the poop at the man at the wheel (Oh, She’s a wild jade) with, “Blast ye! I’ll knock ye over the wheel, ye don’t keep the ship steadier, you’re the biggest soger,” &c. “Blast ye” is common enough. So is “old granny,” “old woman,” “Want your petticoats,” “infernal soger,” “Oh, you marine!” &c, “Stupid ass” & the like.

Perhaps I had better not say anything more about Captain—for he is pretty sick, though not confined to his bed. (He never is, over twelve hours.) And “Gallynews” talks of consumption & an awkward cough; & sailors all say that the sea kills or cures that, “sure.” Well, he’s a most incomprehensible man, truly. He certainly did sometimes appear a most devout man, and I have attended the service with great pleasure & I hope some benefit, very regularly. Since we have been in port, the daily service has been given up, as we were worked so late, there was no time for it.

After all, but for one consideration, even supposing I do not recover my health, the voyage will be very profitable to me. I’ve seen and learned a great deal here considering my comparatively small means of observation. I’ve heard much more than I’ve seen, to be sure. And although I’ve been but once to Canton and was then hurried away almost before I’d time to look about me, I suppose I know altogether as much about it as any of ’em.

Besides the different classes of “China men,” I’ve seen plenty of such fry as the John Bulls, Saronies, Paddies, Johnny Crapeaus, Prussians, Dutchmen, Danes, and other Fanquis from that way, and Hindoos, Lascars, Malays, Japanese, Sumatrians, Manilla-men, Kanakas, Seapoys, Sea horses, Sea—

But I must stop there, for I’ve seen very few of the inhabitants of the sea. We were remarkably unfortunate in that respect. The only thing we took was a porpoise or two coming up the China Sea. I only saw one shark, two or three dolphin— (no mistake in them—by Neptune! They are magnificent), lots of whales though, and of skipjack and albacore, &c, &c, all guesswork. Nothing I’ve been so disappointed in, as my inability to procure specimens of [165] Natural History. Off the Cape, acres and acres of various birds, of every variety (some dozen or two) I have slight notes. Plenty of birds alive in town, but is it not strange that amid all their ingenious performances they don’t preserve them when dead?

Just now, it’s pretty cold & we wear drawers, stockings, &c. (season is backward, too, I believe), but it was terrible hot to be sure when we first got in. At Hong Kong in furling sails, several of us were blistered by touching the naked skin to the yards, and in coming through the Straits, Chips had a tin box entirely unsoldered.

Canton is a queer place, & these Fuckees are a “rum set” anyhow. ’Twould look rather odd down our way, I guess, to see Dr. Beresford go to work on an old man in the middle of Main Street—take his eye out, so that it hangs half down his cheek, scrape & clean it with his instruments, swab out the socket & slip it back again as good as new. That’s the celestial way of doing business. And by the way the old cove he’s operating on takes it very coolly; without a cringe or sigh as if ’twas an every day performance to him as well as the leech. But the prettiest sight (say in front of the Phoenix Bank) is a couple of incendiaries sitting in stocks with their tongues cut out undergoing the pleasant operation of starving to death. Rich, that, decidedly _______!

And then my dear Soph. as to what I’ve learned, seen, &c, let me see. Oh, I’ve seen lots of human nature to be sure. It’s perfectly ridiculous how mistaken I was in my estimation of the character of my shipmates. Not one but what I’ve changed my opinion of, except Sails. I got him down about right on first acquaintance.

There’s“old Davis.” How or when he came on board I don’t know. He certainly lay in his bunk all the first afternoon. The first I saw of him was during my first anchor watch. James was gone I think to strike the bell, & hearing a noise forward, I met a man as I went to see the cause. The only answer to everything I said was “Where’s the scuttlebutt?” or to that effect. I did not know, more than you do, now. And as the poor drunkard was in danger of breaking his neck, constantly tumbling among the lumber as he was, I called Jim who got him to his bunk after finding the water he so much wanted. He was not there long, though, but continued all night reeling among the casks, hen coops, hawsers, stores, &c. in search of the “scuttlebutt.”

Next day, he was well enough, for he had got his brandy from his chest. He was the only one that did not attend service that night, and he never has, since. He was constantly “growling,” from his first return to sanity. He had been shipped while on a spree, didn’t know where he was bound, and [166] wouldn’t go a long voyage, particularly to Canton, for fifty dollars a month, in the best craft that ever sailed out of heaven.

While I was seasick I was disgusted with him in every way. He never stopped growling & prophesying how all this stuff would turn out. No one could be calculated to make us all miserable better than “Old Davis,” I would often think. Then he looked like “Old Davy:” with half his nose “knocked to buggery’s island” against some curb stone, pale, dirty, a nasty outre, nondescript dress; regular banged up, round top, old “rum heaver.” The mate came to the forecastle door third morning aboard-fourth day I mean. “Well! how long do you intend to soger here?” &c “_______I believe you are_______drunken soger.” (There’s been some pen trying on this side.)

A month out or so, I saw my detestation, Sunday morning. He was sitting in the shade of the foresail attentively reading a very old, worn-out Bible, smoking from a new clean pipe. The dress he always wears is entirely of stout canvas. He cuts and sews them himself. A white jumper of peculiar cut & sew, & trousers ditto; straw hat in warm, white wool in cold, and a stiff painted ditto in rainy weather.

To make the matter short, he turns out one of the best of seamen. All his predictions are verified. After the second mate left, the mate gave him entire charge of the rigging. I once heard the captain & mate speaking of him & it seemed as if they were vying with each other to find sufficient terms of praise for him: “the best seaman I ever knew,” “first-rate sailor,” “worth all the rest of the able seamen we’ve got,” &c, &c. A day or two after, he dropped the hatch on deck—then ’twas— “dom yer sule! [If] I ever see the lik of thot agin, gov ye a kack in the ayes,” ’Til knock ye threw the side!” “D’ye think the deck’s made of airon & be dom’t till ye!”

Give my heartiest expression of friendship to “Charley,” Mr. Peet, Harding and the rest of ’em; “all enquiring friends.” Also to the Washingtons, Frank, Dud & Bill. I am sorry I can’t write to them.

I must stop now at any rate, though I had some more to say. I hope that in—the course of time, say—you’ll “come down to York” & find me, Sailor’s Home, U.S. Hotel, Howard’s, Mr. Morton’s, any rate.

I shall give more time to seamanship (knots, &c) & navigation if possible going home. I’ll keep a sort of a mere log like & occasionally write out a scene, or description at length rather than journal. Oh Jack, if you & I were passengers, eh! The old sea is glorious (sublime) after all, but the fo’c’stle is—No—it’s too grave to be ridiculous. Dear brother Jack. God bless you. I’m crying like a baby.