before she is fairly out of the squall; and she is going on in her course. The sun comes out once more, hotter than ever, dries up the decks and the sailors' clothes; the hatches are taken off; the sail got up and spread on the quarter-deck; spun-yarn winch set a whirling again; rigging coiled up; captain goes below; and every sign of an interruption disappears. These scenes, with occasional dead calms, lasting for hours, and sometimes for days, are fair specimens of the Atlantic tropics. The nights were fine; and as we had all hands all day, the watch were allowed to sleep on deck at night, except the man at the wheel, and one lookout on the forecastle. This was not so much expressly allowed as winked at. We could do it if we did not ask leave. If the lookout was caught napping, the whole watch was kept awake. We made the most of this permission, and stowed ourselves away upon the rigging, under the weather rail, on the spars, under the windlass, and in all the snug corners; and frequently slept out the watch, unless we had a wheel or a lookout. And we were glad enough to get this rest; for under the ``all-hands'' system, out of every other thirty-six hours we had only four below; and even an hour's sleep was a gain not to be neglected. One would have thought so to have seen our watch some nights, sleeping through a heavy rain. And often have we come on deck, and, finding a dead calm and a light, steady rain, and determined not to lose our sleep, have laid a coil of rigging down so as to keep us out of the water which was washing about decks, and stowed ourselves away upon it, covering a jacket over us, and slept as soundly as a Dutchman between two feather-beds. For a week or ten days after crossing the line, we had the usual variety of calms, squalls, head winds, and fair winds,-- at one time braced sharp upon the wind, with a taut bowline, and in an hour after slipping quietly along, with a light breeze over the taffrail, and studding-sails set out on both sides,-- until we fell in with the northeast trade-winds; which we did on the afternoon of-- Sunday, August 28th, in lat. 12° N. The trade-wind clouds had been in sight for a day or two previously, and we expected to take the trades every hour. The light southerly breeze, which had been breathing languidly during the first part of the day, died away toward noon, and in its place came puffs from the northeast, which caused us to take in our studding-sails and brace up; and, in a couple of hours more, we were bowling gloriously along, dashing the spray far ahead and to leeward, with the cool, steady northeast trades freshening up the sea, and giving us as much as we could carry our royals to. These winds blew strong and steady, keeping us generally upon a bowline, as our course was about north-northwest; and, sometimes, as they veered a little to the eastward, giving us a chance at a main top-gallant studding-sail, and sending us well to the northward, until--