We learned last evening of a horrid accident that occurred on this ship six weeks before we sailed on the present voyage. The mate spun the yarn in these words: “We had just warped into the docks in Brooklyn to discharge, when a gang o’ stevedores came over the side to rig the gear for unloadin’. ‘Where’s the cargo pendant?’ says the boss stevedore. ‘There it is,’ says I, ‘and there’s a gantline, too,’ I says, pointin’ to a coil o’ brand-noo manila. Well, they began for to rig the falls, while I went into the cabin for dinner. I seen one o’ the fellers on the mainyard as I went in, but I didn’t think no more about it for maybe ten minutes, when I heard a sickenin’ crash, and out I jumped. Did you ever hear a man fall from aloft? Hit’s awful, sir. When I got out on deck there was a lot o’ stevedores standin’ around lookin’ at somethin’ on the main-’atch. I didn’t want to look at what I knew it was, but I had to; so I shoved my way through, and there lay the big, heavy man I’d seen on the mainyard. I didn’t see anythin’ wrong with him first off till I went round on t’other side, and there was his head cracked open just as if you’d dropped a mushmellon on the ground, and the hinsides was spattered all over the ’atch cover. Plenty o’ these here stevedores git hurt, and often it’s the fault o’ rotten gear, and then there’s a case ag’in’ the ship. But I’m too hold a bird to git took in like that, and I always gives ’em brand-noo rope.” It is strange that more sailors are not killed by falling from aloft, for they not only appear to be, but really are, very careless, and two or three of our men have more than once just saved themselves from tremendous falls. Not long ago that handsome four-masted ship “Puritan” lost two men from the upper foretop-sail-yard, only two hundred miles from Sandy Hook, bound out to Hiogo; and it is a serious matter to start an eighteen-thousand-mile voyage short two hands, when ships are allowed to go to sea in these days with twenty seamen instead of thirty. Latitude 22° 19′ south; longitude, 89° 15′ west. +August 11+ Still no change in anything but the thermometer, the instrument at mid-day showing 70° for the first time in many weeks. How superb, how glorious this weather surely is! There is not too much sun to render sitting anywhere on deck at all unpleasant, yet we have enough to give us all the necessary observations; the soft, rich southeast Trades come flowing smoothly over the quarter, while the ocean, the limitless South Pacific, lies motionless to the horizon, save for the brittle, little cat’s-paws that spangle the royal blue of this great but placid ocean. Oh, the enjoyment of these balmy days! Oh, the unutterable charm of the sea when for days together the ship moves serenely over its quiet surface with nothing to interrupt the profound peace to be obtained only in the solitude of the oceans!