The men have slightly improved, though they are still a badly used-up lot of sailors. To what an apparently infinite number and variety of ailments and mishaps they are liable! There is the tough and hardy second mate, even he has lost the entire use of one hand by a trivial accident. He had a small wart or something of that sort on the back of his right hand a few days ago, and on one occasion, while slacking off the weather lower maintop-sail-brace, one of the ropes knocked off this tiny excrescence. Mr. Rarx paid no heed to it; but in twenty-four hours his hand had swollen dreadfully, puffing up like a huge biscuit, and where the wart had been there formed a large sore that had to be lanced. Cold salt-water and friction must be looked to as accountable for this, for Rarx is as lean and healthy-looking as a prize-fighter. Louis Jacquin, the Frenchman, too, another specimen of rugged health, had a finger caught in a main-brace block and jammed, drawing blood; and in two days an ugly purple rising appeared at the base of the nail, as large and shining as a hot-house grape--so hard, withal, that a lance penetrated it with difficulty. The best men in the ship are sent to the helm now, for an awkward, false turn of the wheel in such a sea would broach the ship to in a moment, and then, good-by pumps, rail, and everything else on the main-deck. Latitude, 55° 53′ south; longitude, 85° 20′ west. +July 29+ _Salve lux benigna!_ Yesterday morning daybreak came perceptibly earlier than it used to, and by seven o’clock it was sufficiently light to distinguish faces at a short distance; while this morning, so much northing had we made, that at seven it was broad daylight; and we will soon be able to eat our quarter-to-eight breakfast without the palsied yellow glare of the lamp. It is true that the sky is still of a Saturnian lead color, but the dark, heavy _feel_ of the atmosphere has disappeared. To-morrow we will cut the fiftieth parallel if this easterly breeze holds. It has let go to a certain extent, yet it blew us over two hundred and fifty miles in the twenty-four hours, and in three days we have done six hundred and fifty miles to the northwest-ward, which is extraordinarily good work for this locality; our position is simply splendid.