As we draw nearer and nearer to Cape Horn the men are daily growing very anxious to know the ship’s position, and as I am, of course, the only individual on board who will gratify their curiosity, they often ask me several times a day. Frequently, on the main-deck, a man will ask what the position is in a very low tone, after a careful scrutiny round about to see that none of the after-guard is hard by. Sometimes, as I pass by the wheel-house, I am assailed in a raven’s whisper with, “Say, mister, what’s the latitood?” and their pleasure at being told is quite child-like. A passenger on a sailing ship, by the way, is seldom, if ever, called by his name; he is simply “mister.” Of course, in a general way, sailors often get an idea of the approach of land from the discoloration of the water, the increase in the number of vessels sighted, and the presence of land-birds; but the average sailor probably couldn’t tell within much less than a thousand miles of where he is on a voyage like this. Even a second mate is generally very much in the dark on this subject, for he is never a navigator on American ships, as he ought to be, and keeps no reckoning. We have often seen Mr. Rarx go up to the mate and hint in various ways that he would like to know the ship’s position at noon. The mate sometimes tells him; but Mr. Rarx is too good a seaman to stand well with such a man as the mate, who does not know very much more of that art than some of the sailors. Besides, it _might_ get to the men through one of the bosuns, which would be truly horrible and unspeakable; therefore, unless there is a passenger aboard, sailors live in almost blank ignorance of their whereabouts throughout a four or five months’ voyage. The bosun of the port-watch, big MacFoy, has been limping badly for several days, his left foot being so severely mashed and swollen that he cannot bear even a loose rubber boot on it. This is the result of a sea which fell upon him one night at the weather forebraces. It slung him across the deck and jammed his foot against a fife-rail stanchion, but luckily broke no bones. I have promised to give him a glass of grog to-morrow, the Fourth of July, but exceeding caution will have to be exercised lest I be apprehended by the powers.