Let no one dream that the sea, particularly on board an emigrant ship, is the place for reading or study. It is either too cold, when there is the slightest breeze, or too hot when it is calm: it is too noisy at all times. Happy is he who, under such circumstances, has a resource against _ennui_ in his own reflections. Having a clergyman on board, we had divine service regularly on the Sundays. When it was rough, the assemblage took place between decks in the steerage; but when fine we were convened upon deck. Sailors have a dread, not exactly of clergymen in the abstract, but of clergymen on board. A blackbird on the rigging as the ship is about to start, or a clergyman on board, is equally, in their estimation, a token of ill luck; and some of the crew pitied us for anticipating anything else, under the circumstances. If there is one thing more disagreeable than a storm at sea, it is a calm. It is all very well for a steamer, which can then make her way nobly over the waters; but, the annoyance and tedium on board a sailing vessel are indescribable. In all our calms we were surrounded by sea-gulls and other marine birds. Some of them ventured so close as to be shot; others we endeavoured to catch by means of baited hooks tied to a stick, which was attached to a long cord; but they were too wary for us, for, after closely examining it, they fought shy of the temptation. On nearing the banks of Newfoundland we were constantly immersed in fogs. One morning, whilst thus situated, the temperature of the sea suddenly lowered, which the captain interpreted into an indication of icebergs not being far off, and a sharp look out was ordered to be kept. It was scarcely noon ere we were in imminent peril of running at full speed against one. We owed our escape to a passenger, who was on the lookout, and who called the attention of one of the sailors to something ahead of us. “Starboard—starboard hard!”—cried he at once to the man at the wheel. The helm was scarcely turned ere we glided rapidly by the frozen mass, which gleamed like a huge emerald in the faint and struggling sunlight. We passed so close to it that I could have leaped upon it with ease. We might as well have run against a whinstone rock as encountered this floating peril, at the rate at which we were then gliding through the water.