Mr. Rarx told me the other day that he spent two years on the West African coast, between Sierra Leone and Lagos, aboard of an English supply steamer; and that while there he saw what, in his estimation, was the loftiest-rigged vessel that ever floated. “You can talk about your talkabouts,” said he, “but that English man-o’-war had four yards above her main-royal. I’m tellin’ you a fact,” he added. Well, we are dawdling away day after day up here in about 35° south instead of clipping down past the Plate the other side of 40°. The captain says that after we have passed that parallel until we reach 50° south we will probably have a number of fine days, clear and exhilarating, with magnificent sunsets. We have had some good views of the Magellan Clouds lately, as the sky at night in the south has been quite clear. They are strange-looking things, with somewhat the appearance of the nebula in Andromeda. Latitude, 34° 39′ south; longitude, 46° 26′ west. +June 27+ Very strong west to west-southwest winds, and the vessel laboring in a broken sea in corkscrew dives under single-reefed fore- and maintop-sail. It was fine up to midnight, when it clouded over and commenced to blow, so that we had to shorten sail; and at eight this morning, the ship diving deeply, the upper mizzentop-sail was stowed altogether. The “Dowes” made a valiant attempt to hold on to us; but I think that we can carry on better in heavy winds, for when day broke she had vanished astern. Last evening at the pumps Olsen and I talked together for the first time. He is a very decent fellow and the quietest man in the ship. “I never did see anythin’ like the shoutin’ here,” he observed, the first thing. “Oh, blow that,” quoth Murphy; “it goes in one ear and out the other.” “That’s all right,” answered Olsen, “but I ain’t used to it; and every time the old man hollers me heart’s in me mouth. If I ever sign in an American ship again it’ll be the ‘S. P. Hitchcock.’ When me and Coleman come round from Honolulu in her little while ago, we did more work in one watch there than we do here all day, and there wasn’t any yellin’ at all. You never saw Cap’n Gates on the main-deck neither; he knew his business. On the whole, I like British vessels about the best of any, except the way they carry on is fearful, and bein’ iron ships they can stand it. I sailed in the British ship ‘Dominion’ once from Barry to San Francisco, and I never did see such sail-carryin’. As for the main-deck, you couldn’t put your foot on it in bad weather without fear of goin’ overboard. One night in the Pacific, about 45° south, in a southerly gale, there came a crack, and away went all three t’-gallant-masts overboard, all from carryin’ on.”