I sit on deck from breakfast at nine, till dinner at four, and then again till it gets cold, and then to bed. We are now about 100 miles from Madeira, and shall have to run inside it, as we were thrown so far out of our course by the foul weather. 9_th_ _Aug._—Becalmed, under a vertical sun. Lat. 17°, or thereabouts. We saw Madeira at a distance like a cloud; since then, we had about four days trade wind, and then failing or contrary breezes. We have sailed so near the African shore that we get little good out of the trades, and suffer much from the African climate. Fancy a sky like a pale February sky in London, no sun to be seen, and a heat coming, one can’t tell from whence. To-day, the sun is vertical and invisible, the sea glassy and heaving. I have been ill again, and obliged to lie still yesterday and the day before in the captain’s cabin; to-day in my own, as we have the ports open, and the maindeck is cooler than the upper. The men have just been holystoning here, singing away lustily in chorus. Last night I got leave to sling my cot under the main hatchway, as my cabin must have killed me from suffocation when shut up. Most of the men stayed on deck, but that is dangerous after sunset on this African coast, on account of the heavy dew and fever. They tell me that the open sea is quite different; certainly, nothing can look duller and dimmer than this specimen of the tropics. The few days of trade wind were beautiful and cold, with sparkling sea, and fresh air and bright sun; and we galloped along merrily. We are now close to the Cape de Verd Islands, and shall go inside them. About lat. 4° N. we expect to catch the S.E. trade wind, when it will be cold again. In lat. 24°, the day before we entered the tropics, I sat on deck in a coat and cloak; the heat is quite sudden, and only lasts a week or so. The sea to-day is littered all round the ship with our floating rubbish, so we have not moved at all. I constantly long for you to be here, though I am not sure you would like the life as well as I do. All your ideas of it are wrong; the confinement to the poop and the stringent regulations would bore you. But then, sitting on deck in fine weather is pleasure enough, without anything else. In a Queen’s ship, a yacht, or a merchantman with fewer passengers, it must be a delightful existence.