My wife asked the skipper last evening if he had ever lost a ship. He said no, but that he had had one or two narrow calls. “One of the worst cases of smash-up I ever saw,” he continued, “happened to me when I had the ‘Judas Dawes’ about six years ago. We were well down in the southeast Trades in the Pacific, bound from ’Frisco to New York; the weather had been squally, and on this particular day, in about 14° south, I had specially told the mate not to loose the jib-topsail, but when I went below after dinner for a nap the beggar did it. When I went on deck again at four there was a squall makin’ ahead, and I ordered some hands to stand by the sky-sail-halliards, for I didn’t know the jib-topsail had been loosed. Well, sir, the squall hit us (it was a corker) and snapped off the jib-boom; and, as I ran forrad, crack went the foretop-mast, then the maint’-gallant-mast, and at last over went the mizzen-t’-gallant-mast. In all my goin’ to sea I never saw the like of it; ’twas as bad nearly as the ‘May Flint,’ only we had smooth water. Forrad we were a wreck, with nothing at all above the foreyard, while alongside was a fearful mass o’ gear slammin’ against the ship, and you know those Trades in the Pacific blow fresh. Well, we cleared up the wreck after hard work, sent up a few of the old yards that weren’t too far gone to fish, made sail, and crossed Sandy Hook Bar, ninety-eight days from ’Frisco, under a jury-rig.” Captain Scruggs has as great a reputation for fast passages as any living American ship-master in the California trade, but we’ll have to have better luck if we are to reach port in less than one hundred and thirty days from New York. We are entering that region most celebrated in the world for its sunsets; it would be interesting to know whether there is anything in this, or whether it is imagination on the part of captains. At any rate, we witnessed one this evening finer than any which we have ever seen before; the sun sinking into the core of a huge, crimson cavern in the centre of an inky cloud, from behind which shot up scores of slender, golden arrows toward the zenith, presenting a scene of such lurid magnificence as to fill the heart with reverence and wonder. And by that same token, the sun is getting low in the northern sky, his altitude at meridian being only a little above 30°, or about the same as at New York towards the end of December. The day being chill and raw, with a noon temperature of 52°, a fire was lighted in the cabin stove for the first time; and as the thermometer below has stood for a long while at 55° and a dismal drizzle prevailed all day, the heat and glow of the fire were grateful beyond expression. Latitude, 37° 42′ south; longitude, 47° 40′ west. +June 29+