channel and past the fortresses at a magnificent gait.

I have been up to Sacramento and squared accounts with the Union. They
paid me a great deal more than they promised me.
Yrs aff
SAM.




VI.

LETTERS 1866-67. THE LECTURER. SUCCESS ON THE COAST. IN NEW YORK.
THE GREAT OCEAN EXCURSION

It was August 13th when he reached San Francisco and wrote in his
note-book, "Home again. No--not home again--in prison again, and
all the wild sense of freedom gone. City seems so cramped and so
dreary with toil and care and business anxieties. God help me, I
wish I were at sea again!"

The transition from the dreamland of a becalmed sailing-vessel to
the dull, cheerless realities of his old life, and the uncertainties
of his future, depressed him--filled him with forebodings. At one
moment he felt himself on the verge of suicide--the world seemed so
little worth while.

He wished to make a trip around the world, a project that required
money. He contemplated making a book of his island letters and
experiences, and the acceptance by Harper's Magazine of the revised