Alas, the poor sailors! They have been continuously wet now for more than ten days. It is true that from 8 +A.M.+ till eight in the evening there is a fire burning in a small stove in the forecastle; but the atmosphere is so extremely humid that the heat doesn’t seem to affect the forecastle or the men’s clothes. Indeed, it is a grewsome sight to look into that apartment as I did the other night at seven o’clock. The port watch were below lying in their bunks with faces toward the stove, which was all but concealed by dripping, steaming garments swinging madly in the heavy rolls, water was splashing high up on the grimy walls from the floor, while a dense, rank vapor pervaded the place, through which the stove glowed dully, like a headlight in a fog. Many of the men are now afflicted with the most grievous perhaps of all the ills with which sailors are cursed in cold, bad weather,--the dreaded sea-boils. These harassing sores are due to the friction of oil-skins and other clothes upon the wrists and neck, continually drenched with salt-water, though the bad condition of sailors’ blood generally is doubtless responsible for the dreadful state of the wrists of the sufferers. It is singular that mere friction combined with cold sea-water should produce such results. Sea-boils or salt-water-boils, as they are sometimes called, are exquisitely painful and very sensitive to any rubbing, and they must be bandaged and poulticed until it is time for the lancing, upon which a sort of core, like a short, thick piece of sinew, is laid bare, which must be seized and plucked out. Two of these boils as large as plums will lay a man up; and any attempt to work him hard generally results in a high fever and his bunk for several days. Imagine what the suffering of sailors must be off Cape Horn when these boils are added to fatigue, cold, loss of sleep from frequent calls of all hands, and to the lethargy that comes from exposure. I repeat again, why do men ship before the mast? There are other things to do, and even breaking stones on a highway is to my mind infinitely preferable. Notwithstanding everything said to the contrary, the life of a Cape Horn foremast hand is the life of a beast. It is hard, wearing, and bitter beyond words; and when are added the kicks and the blows from belaying-pins and knuckle-dusters that the men are usually served with on American ships by way of dessert, it is difficult to believe that human beings can survive such privations and sufferings. Poor fellows! They stumble about the decks with drawn, haggard faces and two or three with staring eyes. We watched one this forenoon (it was Louis Eckers) trying to put a watch-tackle strop on the lee lower maintop-sail-brace; the job amounted to nothing more than standing on the bitts and twisting a bit of rope around the brace; but so weak and stiffened was he that another man had to be called in his stead. Some of the younger fellows are still in pretty good condition,