Our breeze from west-northwest has not been very strong for the past twenty-four hours, and in addition we made two degrees of easting, which is sad. This was the first morning for a month on which we were able to eat our breakfast without lamplight, and in another week we hope to dispense with it at supper also. The weather is by no means clear yet, though, and we are now crossing the famous Roaring Forties, that belt of fierce winds lying between the parallels of forty and fifty on both sides of the equator, and clear skies cannot be expected until we are north of 40° south at least. I expect to suffocate with suppressed hilarity before long if Mr. Goggins continues to grow more absurd. Last night I went on deck about ten o’clock and found the mate silently pacing athwartships near the wheel-house. It was raining, and his costume itself was enough to generate mirth in an owl. He was wrapped as in a sable shroud, in some one’s long black oil-skin coat, which was so much too large for him as to touch the deck, and the sleeves hung down half-way to his knees like the arms of a walrus, while his head was covered with a very old, limp sou’wester, also black, which fitted him like a skull-cap; it possessed not even an indication of a brim, so that the drizzling rain trickled down along the musty creases of his face, glistening in the wake of the binnacle-lamp. His forsaken appearance was further enhanced by a couple of yards of ancient gray rattlin-stuff that girded up the folds of his coat and prevented his tramping on it. Without a word he ranged up alongside, and dropping his voice to a rasping whisper, as is his wont whenever he is about to reveal a startling theory, he said, mysteriously and very suddenly,-- “The human race is on the decline, sir.” I didn’t reply, and he continued, “Where are the strappin’ big fellows, five-foot ten, five-foot eleven, and five-foot twelve, you used to see? Where are they, I say? _Gone. Gone._ And wot do ye find now? The present generation is growin’ up small and feeble, sir. They’re weak and no good. And luk at the winds; they’re changin’ too. They hain’t wot they used to be in the Atlantic; nor in the Pacific; nor off Cape Horn. The Trades is changed. Everythink’s changed. I may be a hold fool, sir, but I knows a thing or two. There’s more in my ’ead than comes out with a fine-tooth comb.” All this with the most intense earnestness and so much stifled emotion as to render him partially unintelligible, while he snapped and jerked his long sleeves about in the most uncomfortable manner.