When at the pumps last evening I learned that the men had been deeply impressed with my having assisted the donkey the other night. Murphy especially seemed to extract much amusement from the fact, and when I told him that some exercise was necessary to health, he said that he never allowed that subject to bother him, adding, “There’s one thing I’m just grand at,--lyin’ in me bunk.” His appearance substantiates this statement, for he is as round and rugged as he was three months ago; I truly believe that he is the only man forward who doesn’t bear the marks of either Cape Horn or a belaying-pin. On the other hand, Louis the Gaul is the saddest and most dejected-looking man I ever saw. He has at all times that melancholy, dispirited look that one sees in the eyes of a captive ourang-outang. We talked together last night, and he informed me that this was his first American ship, and, please God, it would be his last. In very broken English, and in the deferential tones of a foreigner, he asked, “Sair, do your laws allow men to be treated as ze men are treated aboard zees sheep?” “No,” I answered; “but so far there does not seem to have been any attempt made by the United States authorities to enforce the laws they have made.” Jacquin didn’t know enough English to go more deeply into the subject, and the talk drifted to the French navy, in which he has served sixteen years altogether; and when I told him that I knew the “Jean Bart” very well, his delight was child-like. Then he imparted a bit of rather astonishing news by saying that a man who has served for twenty years in the French navy (and it need not be all in one stretch) is pensioned by the government at three francs and a half per day. Besides possessing the second most powerful navy, France has some rattling fine square-riggers, such as the “La France,” the largest sailing vessel in the world bar the “Potosi,” the “Dunquerque,” and the “Quevilly,” the greatest tank sailing ship afloat, carrying one million gallons of oil in bulk between Philadelphia and Rouen. Our pigeons have left us, and well they might, considering the latitude. What a distance they followed us! From 30° south in one ocean to 16° south in the other, and from the forty-fifth to the one hundredth meridian. Quite a stretch of salt-water that. Mother Carey’s chickens have come as a sort of compensation, hovering over our wake and darting down between the waves like swallows whizzing through the air after insects. Latitude, 14° 5′ south; longitude, 99° west. +August 15+