Naturally, our first thought was of the vessel in which we were to sail, and we looked forward with much interest to a voyage in an American ship, having all our lives heard that our ships were run in a splendid manner, that the discipline on board was perfect, etc.; and it would also be interesting to compare this vessel with those of another nation, as our first voyage was made in the British ship “Mandalore.” Now, it happened that all of our largest deep-watermen were away from New York, and we were at a loss what to do, for, as a general rule, the larger the vessel the more comfortable she is in bad weather. There are many who will, no doubt, take exception to this, as being by no means true; yet it would be absurd to argue that the “Germanic,” for instance, is as easy in heavy weather as the “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse,” or a twelve-hundred-ton sailing ship as the “Potosi.” At length, one morning appeared the announcement in the marine news that the ship “Hosea Higgins,” Abner Scruggs, master, had arrived from San Francisco. She was not as large as the “Roanoke” by a thousand tons or more; but she was well known to us by name, and we went over to Brooklyn one day, where she was discharging a cargo of wine, canned salmon, and whale-oil, and introduced ourselves to the captain. Although gruff in the extreme at first, he subsequently thawed out sufficiently to warrant the belief that he was really quite an amiable individual, and we parted with his assurance that if the owners were willing he would take us around to San Francisco, and even went to the length of offering us his own room, which was very large and well ventilated. The owners raised no objections to our going, so we paid the passage-money of six hundred dollars and took possession of the captain’s room. I might remark parenthetically that this seemed to be a pretty good round sum to pay as passage-money, in view of the fact that we paid only three hundred dollars to Calcutta on the first voyage; however, in the latter case the money went to the captain, while in the present instance it went to the owners; besides, this passage would probably be somewhat longer. The captain received no recompense whatever, unless we should choose to make him a present. The ship was advertised to sail on May 1, but there was the usual delay incident to the departure of a sailing ship taking out a general cargo, and it was nearly a fortnight after that date before we finally departed.