Such was not our lot in the _Congress_, for we were bound south, across the trades. This, with some bad luck, brought us close-hauled, that we might pass the equator nothing to the westward of thirty degrees of west longitude; otherwise we might fall to leeward of Cape St. Roque. This ominous phrase meant that we might be so far to the westward that the southeast trades, when reached, would not let the ship pass clear of this easternmost point of Brazil on one stretch; that we would strike the coast north of it and have to beat round, which actually happened. Consequently we never had a fair wind, to set a studding-sail, till we were within three or four days of Bahia. This encouraging incident, the first of the kind since the ship went into commission, also befell in one of my mid-watches, and an awful mess our unuse made of it. All the gear seemed to be bent with a half-dozen round turns; the stun'sail-yards went aloft wrong end uppermost, dangling in the most extraordinary and wholly unmanageable attitudes; everything had to be done over and over again, till at last the case looked desperate. Finally the lieutenant of the watch came forward in wrath. He was a Kentuckian, very competent, ordinarily very good-tempered; but there was red in his hair. When he got sufficiently near he tucked the speaking-trumpet under his arm, where it looked uncommonly like a fat cotton umbrella, himself suggesting a farmer inspecting an intended purchase, and in this posture delivered to us a stump speech on our shortcomings. This, I fear, I will have to leave to the reader's imagination. It would require innumerable dashes, and even so the emphasis would be lost. My relief had cause to be pleased that those stun'sails were set by four o'clock, when he came on deck. Ours the labor, his the reward. * * * * *