After breakfast my mind kept running to this question of the Roman Persecution, and (I know not how) certain phrases kept repeating themselves literally “_ad nauseam_” in my imagination. They kept pace with the throb of the steamer, an altogether new sensation, and my mind seemed (as my old tutor, Mr. Blurt, would put it) to “work in a circle.” The pilot will take this. He is coming over the side. He is not in the least like a sailor, but small and white. He wears a bowler hat, and looks more like a city clerk than anything else. When I asked the First Mate why this was, he answered “It’s the Brains that tell.” A very remarkable statement, and one full of menace and warning for our mercantile marine. * * * * * _Thursday, Oct. 1, 1873._ I cannot properly describe the freshness and beauty of the sea after a gale. I have not the style of the great masters of English prose, and I lack the faculty of expression which so often accompanies the poetic soul. The white curling tips (white horses) come at one if one looks to windward, or if one looks to leeward seem to flee. There is a kind of balminess in the air born of the warm south; and there is jollity in the whole ship’s company, as Mrs. Burton and her daughters remarked to me this morning. I feel capable of anything. When the First Mate came up to me this morning and tried to bait me with his vulgar chaff I answered roundly, “Now, sir, listen to me. I am not seasick, I am not a landlubber, I am on my sea legs again, and I would have you know that I have not a little power to make those who attack me feel the weight of my arm.” He turned from me thoroughly ashamed, and told a man to swab the decks. The passengers appeared absorbed in their various occupations, but I felt I had “scored a point” and I retired to my cabin. My steward told me of a group of rocks off the Spanish coast which we are approaching. He said they were called “The Graveyard.” If a man can turn his mind to the Universal Consciousness and to a Final Purpose all foolish fears will fall into a secondary plane. I will not do myself the injustice of saying that I was affected by the accident, but a lady or child might have been, and surely the ship’s servants should be warned not to talk nonsense to passengers who need all their strength for the sea. _Friday, Oct. 2, 1873._