By ten this +A.M.+, however, the wind had so moderated that the top-gallant-sails were set, but we began then to break off to the southward of east, and at one o’clock we wore ship and are now on the starboard tack, heading up northwest by north. The point to be avoided at all hazards is not to fall off to the southward any more; never mind going back into the Pacific a little if you can make some northing. Our destination is distant only a hundred and fifty miles, and the captain has until Saturday to save his record of one hundred and thirty days. Latitude, 36° 28′ north; longitude, 125° 30′ west. +September 17+ Instead of being now within sight of the coast, lo! we are becalmed within twenty miles of where we were at noon yesterday. It is difficult to imagine anything more exasperating than to lie idly upon the surface of a glassy ocean, only a little more than a hundred miles from the port for which you have been striving for four months. I wouldn’t care if the voyage were to be several weeks longer, but it is trying for all hands to thus lie becalmed so near the haven. Off the Hooghly, we were similarly tortured with light winds for several days. When we went on deck this morning the weather was such that we might well have conceived ourselves down between the Trades, for we apparently floated in oil, and the big squares of canvas depended in writhing folds from the lofty yards. Not even the smallest clouds spattered the blue heavens, but a thin haze covered the sea and rose above the horizon some fifteen degrees or so, a semi-transparent curtain of a deep orange, beautiful to behold, but of ill omen, as it was highly improbable that anything worthy the name of breeze would come from anywhere with such conditions.