The blighting sarcasm with which he said this put the second mate’s temper on edge again, and I expect that he’ll store this up against the skipper for possible future use, for he is unquestionably a fine sailor-man. It is rather remarkable that we have caught no fish lately, as the sea in the vicinity of the Abrolhos Islands is the greatest fishing-ground on the whole Brazilian seaboard. For twenty-four hours now we have been on soundings with an average depth of forty fathoms; and while the water is of a dirty green color, it is wonderfully phosphorescent, though not quite equalling the water on the equator; still, when the patent log was hauled in last evening at eight o’clock (it hung up and down at that hour), the line was a rope of fire, dripping with silver sparks, and long after it had been coiled away over a pin it continued to emit brilliant flashes of phosphoric light. Our new main-topgallant-yard is coming along nicely. It is being trimmed down from one of the double top-gallant-yards which the ship used to carry; this is a rather remarkable fact, that if a vessel carries double top-gallant-sails the yards will be larger in every way than if they were single. It would be hard to conceive a more gnome-like appearance than that presented by the carpenter to-day as he was hewing at the spar with an adze, seen from a distance of about one hundred feet; nearer, the illusion vanished. But his tall, peaked felt hat, immensely broad face, open dungaree-jumper which refused to meet over his globular person, and short, fat legs, lent him, when he rested on his adze with wide-spread feet, a wonderfully elfin aspect. In a squall this morning I noticed that the mate wore for the first time a tremendously thick garment of red cloth, which he called a llama coat, being made of the wool or hair of that quadruped. It looked something like a flannel shirt, but was not split up the sides, and seemed to be as thick as a felt slipper. Mr. Goggins says that he has never yet seen the rain which can penetrate it. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is the fact that he has worn it for fifteen years and intends to wear it fifteen more. How sailors hate oil-skins! Their aversion to them is universal, and seems to be unreasonable. The captain, for instance, has several ancient, heavy suits which he calls his Cape Horn clothes. Whenever his presence is required for any length of time in a heavy rain, he dons one of these suits and goes on deck in a soft felt hat and a pair of slippers, only to return in fifteen or twenty minutes with dripping garments, his slippers sobbing at every step; in two minutes, though, he is arrayed in another suit, with the same foot-gear, and marches on deck again to repeat this operation as long as his dry clothes hold out. All this for dislike of oil-skins and boots. Latitude, 19° 56′ south; longitude, 38° 15′ west. +June 19+