_Wednesday, 25th._--Prospect a little brighter, a swell setting in from the eastward; the ship evidently working over, as we now have sixteen feet water within half our length ahead: day mild and clear, with a south-easterly breeze: all the passengers busy noting our snail-like progress: the poor Coromandel, which is fixed as a rock, affords us an excellent _land_-mark; we have slipped by her inch by inch. At three o'clock P.M. the ship's bow is all alive, the heel alone hangs on the ridge: a French brig is just taking the bar, and rapidly nears us. At four P.M., just as the Frenchman came abreast of us, and her crew raised a cheer, the Shakspeare launched forward, as though just sent from the stocks; and, as all hands of us were on deck, with the poop and forecastle both well manned, we gave forth an involuntary hurrah, in which the crew of the Coromandel, who were all forward watching the result, heartily joined: the cheer of the dashing little Frenchman was in this way fairly drowned. Our captain seems a smart hand; he had his sails trimmed, and the Shakspeare heading seaward, in less than no time: nor was it long before we reached the boundary line of the great river. At some six or seven miles from the bar a well-defined line is observable, stretching away north and south, with a regular curve outward. On all sides within this arch the water is thick and muddy, and immediately without this is the clear deep blue of the gulf; yet the influence of the current of the Mississippi is sensibly felt full seventy miles to the southward, its strength being found to set in that direction. Our breeze freshened gradually all the evening, until by midnight it blew a rattler; but, thank Heaven, we are clear of the mud; no more lead-lines bandying about the decks. _Friday, 27th._--How time flies! and yet how same has been my existence since this day week,--five days of expectation, with but two of action; yet the fifty-secondth part of the year is away scarce marked! One is here actually compelled to turn back to the date of one's last _mem._ and look what day one has fallen on, so hard is it to keep note of time without occupation, or the remembrancers that surround us in our daily affairs on shore. I do not wonder at Crusoe notching his stick; the wonder is, that he should have been able to decide whether or no to-day was yesterday.