pale features gave them the look of corpses.” A common occurrence, but always of great interest to the passengers, is thus described:— “_July 7._—Contrary to our usual sleepy habits, we are all to‐day in a state of excitement and agitation. The _China_ is to come to the point where it ought to meet the _America_, which was to leave Hong‐Kong five‐ and‐twenty days ago. Our top‐sails are filled with little Chinamen, whose eager eyes are fixed on the horizon. The captain and officers are standing close to the bowsprit, their telescopes pointed in the same direction. Even my Spanish friend has left his engine, his flower‐pots, and his wife’s portrait, to gaze at the blue sea, slightly rippled, but, as usual, without a speck of a sail. No _America_! The captain’s heart is in his shoes. He consults his charts, his instruments, his officers, all in vain. The day passes without the steamer being signalled. The dinner is silent and sad. Every one seems preoccupied, and the captain is evidently anxious. It seems that the directors of the company make a point of their two boats meeting. It is to them a proof that their captains have followed a straight course, and that the San Francisco boat has crossed, without any accident, a third of the Pacific. The passengers gladly avail themselves of this precious opportunity to write to their friends. For the captains themselves it is a question of honour. They like to show their skill in this way, and their cleverness in being able, despite the variable and imperfectly‐understood currents of the Pacific, to make a straight course across this enormous sheet of water. “_July 8._—At five o’clock in the morning the second officer rushed into my cabin—‘The _America_(17) is in sight!’ I throw on my clothes and tumble on deck. The morning is beautiful, and this colossal steamer, the largest after the _Great Eastern_, draws near majestically. The usual salutes are exchanged, and the _America’s_ gig brings us an extract from their log, the list of the passengers, the newspapers from Hong‐Kong, Shanghai, and Yokohama, and, which is essential, takes charge of our letters for America and Europe. A few moments after she resumes her course. What a grand and imposing sight! At six o’clock she has already disappeared behind the horizon. At the moment of meeting we had run exactly 1,500 miles—that is, half the distance between England and New York.”