It came on to blow so hard yesterday afternoon that tackles were put on the tiller, and a little before four o’clock the ship was hove to, so that when we went on deck at eight bells, after writing up yesterday’s journal, the ship was riding the seas smoothly and dryly. Perhaps it wasn’t absolutely necessary to heave the ship to, though she was far more comfortable that way, the difference being quite remarkable. The first object which attracted us as we went on deck was a three-masted ship head-reaching past us on the starboard tack under lower topsails and foretop-mast stay-sail, distant about half a mile. When yachts pass each other on opposite tacks they lie so close to the wind that they cross at right angles to each other, thus: But when two square-riggers pass each other, close-hauled, they are so far off the wind, especially in a high sea, that they run past each other parallel. This shows how the stranger and ourselves passed by: It did not require much of an eye to discern that this was the Frenchman, the “La Pallice,” which we spoke about ten days ago bound round the Horn from Hamburg; and I must say that she commanded admiration as she slowly ran by us in the gathering dusk, a beautiful specimen of the iron ship-builder’s art. As previously mentioned, the relieving tackles were put on the tiller at about four o’clock, after the wheel had thrown the helmsman completely over itself and through the lee wheel-house door, for he clung heroically to the spokes. [Illustration]