by Jesuits in New Orleans, and had
passed some years in Vienna, preparing himself
for a diplomatic career. He was a good-looking
young fellow, but brought up as if the world did
not belong to eighteen hundred and sixty-one,
but to one thousand three hundred. He
condemned the wickedness of the bold assertion that
our earth moved round the sun. I thought he
was joking when I heard him express that
opinion, but by his stammering and blushing I
saw that he was in sober earnest.

The luncheon was a very paltry affair, but we
good humouredly excused the scantiness and
confusion, and hoped better for the dinner. It
was difficult to secure a place at table, for the
steward did not understand his business.

At dinner my vis-à-vis was an old English
gentleman, whom I liked the better the more I
saw of him.  His hair was quite white, but his
high-coloured, beardless, and exceedingly well
shaven face, did not look old.  His clothes,
linen, and all belonging to him, was fresh and
clean, even under circumstances which might
have excused some trifling negligence.  Yet,
there was not the slightest foppery about him;
he was one of those English old bachelor gentlemen
whom I consider (I am a foreigner) to be
the most amiable of the English nation, and who
ought to be kept always travelling abroad, to
promote in the world a good feeling towards
England.  At the head of our table sat a gentleman
who appeared to be the elder brother of the
jolly commis-voyageur.  He, too, was a traveller,
doing business for a tract society, and had
already begun his labours, by popping a whole
pile of tracts in French, into the hands of the
young lady fresh from the Rouen boarding-
school. He also had managed to tumble down
a staircase, and his head and eye were bandaged
in the most scientific manner by our good and
skilful doctor.

At night we all slept exceedingly well:
almost better than in our own beds. We did
not feel the slightest movement, and the
noise of the engine could only be heard when
pressing the ear close to the pillow. The
morning of Wednesday, the 11th of September,
was fine, the coast of Ireland in view. Most
of us were early on deck to enjoy the fresh
air, but we were very hungry, and called in
vain for a cup of coffee. We had to wait till
nine o'clock for breakfast.

Somehow, we had by this time all derived a
notion that the arrangements of the big ship did
not work kindly together. Even an inexperienced
eye could see that things were not managed
properly. At starting, the blue peter in being
hauled down got entangled, and a young
sailor had to go up and liberate it. When
sail was to be made or shortened, it was done
with great difficulty. Of the officers, none
seemed to know his proper place. One of them
who had the personal comfort of the passengers
under his particular charge attended only to his
own comfort. I did not like, cither, to see the
captain always in plain clothes. I think on
board so enormous a ship inhabited for a time
by so many hundreds of persons, the captain
ought to be easily recognisable by every one.

Notwithstanding all this disorder, the Great
Eastern sped along satisfactorily at the rate of
about fourteen knots an hour. In the evening
the moon shone, and most of the ladies were
on deck. Some of them had nestled under a
bench on the paddle-box protected from the
keen wind, when I ascended the staircase to
enjoy the evening and the view of the waves
from my favourite seat. As I was challenged
by a musical tittering, I retired and went into
the gorgeous grand saloon, where gentlemen
and ladies lounged on velvet sofas, and where a
black-whiskered Italian played on the piano.

On Thursday morning the 12th of September
—we all had good reason to remember the date
—there was a smart breeze. The great ship,
which on the previous day had taken no notice
of the waves, was gracefully dancing now,
occasionally rolling to the right and the left.
I took my place on the paddle-box and watched
the waves leaping over each other, as if
anxious to have a peep at the deck of the
leviathan. Breakfast over, the gale increased,
and it began to rain. A polite gentleman with
an opera-glass appeared on deck all waterproof,
from his oilskin suit down to his india-rubber
boots. I had the pleasure of catching his loose
cap-cover several times, and the polite gentleman
enjoyed his waterproof condition very
much.

At luncheon we found the table provided with
a storm apparatus: a framework with openings
for plates, bottles, and glasses. The dishes in
the middle of the table, however, which were
not secured in that way, began chasing each
other about very unpleasantly, and chairs
behaved like American rocking-chairs. I thought
it wise to tie my right leg to a leg of
the table, and therefore lunched in peace.
There is in the first dining-saloon over the
entrance from the great staircase, a long glass
sideboard, filled with plates, teapots, dish-
covers, and similar things. Some dozen china
plates jumped over the edges of the tables
placed on the banisters, and fell on the windows
which gave light to the intermediate deck;
forks and knives were darting about, and my
bottle of stout mistook my legs for a tumbler
by emptying its contents upon them. We were
all rather astonished, for we had entertained the
superstition that the Great Eastern was much
too grand to be affected by the waves, and we
had read scientific proofs of the impossibility of
her rolling or pitching.

On the previous morning I had visited our
two milch cows, and admired the skill of a sailor
in milking. Both of them, together with two
swans emigrating to America, were lodged in a
very slightly-built shed immediately over the
ladies' saloon, and leaning against the back of
the staircase house. The poor cows were now
terribly knocked about, and one of them was
dashed through the wall of her shed, and,
probably fancying she had a right to a place in the
ladies' saloon, popped her horned head through