Every one has tied up his head in an angry-looking silken bandana, drawn
over his nose with a dogged air. Beards are unshaven, a black stubble
covering the lemon-coloured countenance, which occasionally bears a look of
sulky defiance, as if its owner were, like Juliet, "past hope, past cure,
past help."

7th.--This morning the monotony of fine weather was relieved by a hearty
squall, accompanied by torrents of rain, much thunder, and forked
lightning. The ship reeled to and fro like a drunken man, and the
passengers, as usual in such cases, performed various involuntary
evolutions, cutting right angles, sliding, spinning round, and rolling
over, as if Oberon's magic horn were playing an occasional blast amidst the
roaring winds; whilst the stewards alone, like Horace's good man, walked
serene amidst the wreck of crockery and the fall of plates. Driven from our
stronghold on deck, indiscriminately crammed in below like figs in a drum;
"weltering," as Carlyle has it, "like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers,"
the cabin windows all shut in, we tried to take it coolly, in spite of the
suffocating heat.

There is a child on board who is certainly possessed, not by a witty
malicious demon, a diable boiteux, but by a teasing, stupid, wicked imp,
which inspires him with the desire of tormenting everything human that
comes within his reach. Should he escape being thrown overboard, it will
show a wonderful degree of forbearance on the part of the passengers.

8th.--The weather is perfect, but the wind inexorable; and the passengers,
with their heads tied up, look more gloomy than ever. Some sit dejected in
corners, and some quarrel with their neighbours, thus finding a
safety-valve by which their wrath may escape.