to ‘Home, sweet home,’ and at all events it is something to know my own stars again. What will you bet that we shall have a fair wind by Tuesday? I think we shall, merely because it must come at last. If not, I must eat Chance on Wednesday, for fear other people should want him the next week.
You have lost that bet about the wind; you owe me a shilling, and you ought to make it two, in consideration of our wretched state. This is the fourth day of a dead calm, the sea actually as smooth as this paper, and not a breath of air—and the heat! Few people have ever seen such a dead calm at sea: the master, who has, was detained by one three weeks in the same place; we are now only 160 miles from the line. I shall stick this letter in a bottle soon, and you will know where to look for us when it comes to hand.
Day after day—day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
It is just what we are—and then the sea—
Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the moon is cast.
