Year: 1871

In Mid Ocean, Nov. 6, 1871. Friend Pease :-i believe you extorted from me promise to give you few lines from the ocean, and perhaps few more from the shore. Never ask friend to do the first again, if it be November voyage, unless he does it in retrospect after touch ing terra Jirana, for you might as we'll write while sitting in the top of one of the beau tiful elms on friend Little's meadows in a gale, as to write in a ship bounding as ours has done for the first five days over the bil- lows of old ocean. This (Monday,) is the first and only day since we left port, except Sunday, that writing has been practicable, and even now my beautiful chirography may need an interpreter. But the promise must be fulfilled, brief though the response may be.

 We left New York in the midst of a heavy rain, waving adieus to many dear friends on shore with the best heart we could command, and then adieus to the fairest land on earth. Yes, it grows dearer every hour in which we recede from it, and push out into the wild, tumbling waves of the ever restless sea. Soon after dismissing the pilot at Sandy Hook, the ladies began to retire, one after another, to their berths, even at midday, followed also before night by some of the brace gentlemen, whose stately tread upon the deck in the morning seemed to say, zee are not to be cowed by old oceans waves. Frail man How soon this pride of power quailed before the majesty of the sea, Their subsequent hu- mility would have been amusing if it had not been SO sincere. All who were thus withdrawn within the first twenty-four hours, and I think they constituted one half at least of our thirty-six passengers, had retired to enjoy life "upon the ocean wave," in manner they had not dreamed of few hours before, and such as often falls to the lot of landsmen, and women too, on first Atlantic voyage.

 We sail in ship 3sO feet long and 40 broad. as staunch, apparently, as wood and iron can make her, and yet she rises and falls almost constantly at least ten feet above and below a horizontal line; some times at the sides and sometimes from stem to stern. The great foaming white caps, that seem conscious of their power, come tumbling about and toying with the ship as with plaything, and then roll off as though they were proud of the wilderness of space in which they are permitted to roll. One thing is certain none but an Almighty power can control them. Our first four days were rough, and those of us who could get on deck could witness their dread power. The wind aided us in our progress, and we have averaged over 800 miles per day for five days, which puts us this after noon on the constantly lessening half of the voyage. A part of yesterday and to- day have been milder and calmer, hence the deck has beer the resort of more than half the passengers, who feel their emanci- patton joyously.

 One hundred and four men manage the ship in it's various departments, and the order, thus far, is like clock work. We have an excellent captain, an agreeable company, a splendid table, and nothing to pray for in connection with tue voyage but five days more of favorable weather, and enduring machinery, when we may hope to escape this wilderness of waters, and touch the land again at Liverpool. Our first view of mother earth will probably be the green hills of Queenstown, where we call to land passengers and leave mails for home.

 Noo. lOM.-Four days have elapsed since we have attempted writing, and dur. ing those days we have been able to sit and walk upon the deck in such numbers and in such groups that we have become quite like an agreeable family circle. British