The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-10-01
TRIP EIGHTY YEAYS AGO.
SOLOMON ToWNSESD's DIARY
 oFA VOYAGE TO CHINA.

In these days of swift moving, com fortable vessels. a trip to China and back is not a very formidable under taking, But eighty years ago similar trip on a sailing vessel was different matter. A story of such a voyage is told in 9 diary recently found by Colo mel Robert Townsend, an assistant dis trict attorney on Mir. Jerome's staff.
 Colonel Townsend found the diary among some old papers belonging to his father, Solomon Townsend, who died in 1880. The elder MT. Townsend was a member of the state legislature for five years, from 1SfO to 1S45, and a member of the constitutional conven- tions Of 1S46 and 1866. With James Clinch. brother-in-law of A. T. Stew art. and Oscar Dyke he founded the firm Townsend, Clinch & Dyke, impor- ters of teas and spices, which was in existence for fifty years in this city.
 MT. Townsend was a lad of twenty when, in 1925, he went. as supercargo on the good ship Washington for a voyage to China and back, and kept record of his impressions and a description of everything he saw. The voyage took lone hundred and thirty-one days going and one hundred and thirty-six days re- turning. Although MT. Townsend spent ninety-one days in Canton, he makes no mention of anything he saw there.
 It was fourteen days after he sailed out of New York harbor before the youthful voyager was well enough to put his observations into writing. And the reason for this he candidly explains in his introduction:
 "It may no doubt appear somewhat singular" he wrote, Ito those who may hereafter peruse this, that journal should commence at a distance of up- wards of two thousand miles from the place of departure. But the mystery will be readily accounted for when in- form the reader that this Is my first voyage and that I have suffered much from it's almost constant attendant, viz, seasickness, a malady which has not entirely left me-
 The young man must have been con- siderably better few days later, for he speaks of sighting a brig and re- marks that "She was sharp built boat, but showed no disposition to speak us, and we suspect that she was one of the few vessels still engaged in tho slave trade"
 He encountered his first storm the lnext day. The vessels foretop-gallant mast and main skysai1 were blown away. Then he wrote the following and maybe at the time he suffered from a recurrence of the illness that caused him so much trouble during the first part of the voyage:
 T have often read beautiful descrip- tions of the boundless ocean, but can not agree with many of the admirers of mature in their fanciful delineation of tthis part of her works. As yet, at any Irate, l have seen nothing that has ex- cited my admiration in viewing the ocean's surface, whether in commotion or at ease.
 The night view, however, was more rleasing, as the author depicts It a little Ilater:
 "The ship is bounding over the long waves, nine or ten miles an hour the waves surmounted by whitecaps for several miles. The different objects on the deck are clearly outlined; the steer lman at the wheel, the officer of the watch pacing, near him and the crew at their stations ready to cast off their I halliards whenever a sudden increase of wind makes it necessary.
 Then the pleasing sensations that are produced in the beholder are only Icounteracted by the recollection that every wave he is hurried over is a bar Tier between him and the country and those friends whom, perhaps, he will #lnever see again"
 MT. Townsend tells of catching fly ing, which the crew called ''beneter." Tt was cooked, but he didn't like 1t. They also harpooned a porpoise which weighed about one hundred pounds. He liked the porpoise.
 He was much liked when he caught an albatross on a hook and line baited with pork. The bird measured nine feet between the tips of it's wings and weighed nearly seventeen pounds.
 On the eve of the Fourth of July the thoughts of the traveller turned to home lin the following entry:
 aAs this day is within but one of our independence, my thoughts naturally revert to what I was occupied with at the time last year. and I cannot but re- Eflect how little thought then that at this time would be on the Indian I Ocean.
 I Instead of being awakened on the morning of the Fourth of July by the sound of cannon, he was called from his sleep by the crash of the nainyard on the deck. The ship rolled all day and the gale did not moderate until midnight.
 ! There is mention of meeting an English vessel:
 i We did not give them a. chance to hail first" the diary says, "a privilege that the vessels of that nation used to claim in the days of their supremacy on l the ocean" I There were English soldiers on board, and Mr. Townsend was very much im- I pressed with their appearance.
 There is in this entry about the indif- ference of the crew on the Washington: ''All they care for is to get all they can to eat and drink and to do as little duty as possible"
 The Washington made a stop at the island of Java and the skipper and MT, Townsend went ashore in an armed boat to observe the character of the [soli and the occupations Of the natives. I If any disas had hapnpned to 1Ic I