Just as we had finished writing up our journals yesterday afternoon there came a loud patter of rain overhead and a heavy puff from the eastward that laid the ship well over. Still, we didn’t pay much attention to it for some time; but, finding that we moved steadily along without righting, I went on deck to find the ocean covered with white-caps to the horizon, which was thick with dense, gray, very windy-looking clouds. We were flying through the water at ten knots, and heading up north by west true, which was very fine; but, even as we looked, there came a slight but portentous heave from ahead that foretold a northerly swell. And so it proved, for by 8 +P.M.+ our progress had dwindled to six knots, as we went pitching and diving into an ugly head-sea. It is astonishing how even a moderately heavy swell from ahead will check the speed of a ship, even with a strong wind blowing. A steamer will cleave right through a tall swell without any perceptible difference in her speed, a fact proved to us once when, in crossing the Atlantic in the “Etruria,” we encountered a head-sea that buried the entire bows at every plunge; yet the speed was lowered by only a quarter of a knot. Even a sailing yacht will overcome a head-swell in a very creditable manner; but when a massive, clumsy square-rigger runs into one, farewell to even a moderate run. She stops at every sea for an appreciable time, till the impetus of so ponderous a mass asserts itself and she tumbles into the next valley. So it was with us all through the night, though we made good a fine course north-northwest. A fact little known generally is that in former years there existed in our ships what was known as a hospital tax. It was finally abandoned, not more than fifteen years ago, and consisted in each man’s paying forty cents a month as long as he was on board a given vessel toward a common fund, the total sum being handed to the proper persons on the ship’s arrival for the maintenance of the marine hospital at the port to which she was bound, provided that such a port was of sufficient importance to warrant an institution of this sort. I think this was a pretty good idea, and cannot think why it was abolished. On a ship like this one, for instance, the amount at the end of a four-months’ voyage would be nearly forty dollars. Yet no one on board would feel the loss of the dollar and a half that he had contributed. Latitude, 32° 7′ north; longitude, 135° 6′ west. +September 9+