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Our cook is also a young man but taller and stronger. He is a negro man and a very skillful cook. In the morning he makes us good coffee and serves us with fresh eggs or an omelet. At noon he prepares for us a well-seasoned thigh or side of a hog, an excellent dish of rice pudding, another of choice victuals, another of fine beans, another of exquisite fish, another of rare cabbages, another of choice potatoes. He dresses and roasts every day two admirable ducks or hens or cocks. In the evening he prepares good tea. Indeed, our cook is an excellent man, and I do not doubt that if any lord knew him, his lordship would entice him away.

Wednesday, July the 10th. How little provident I have been! I brought with me but one quire of paper, and I believed it would be sufficient for all the time of my passage from Havre to New York. In this I was deceived. I began to fail of paper yesterday, and today I entirely fail of it. M. Gallaudet and our other companions were not more provident. They fail of it as well as me, and I was sorry that I could not continue my journal. Luckily we were informed that the mate possessed two slates and that he could lend one of them to us. We asked it of him and he cheerfully lent it to us. It is then on this slate I prepare my diary, and when M. Gallaudet shall have corrected it, I shall transcribe it in my stitched book. This day was the finest day possible. The sun overflowed with splendour, the sea was calm, the waves quite subsided, and in the evening, the moon dissipated the darkness of the night and the stars embellished the Heavens. But if this day was favorable to us, it was not so to our voyage. There was no wind at all, so that the ship being not able to advance, we did not make any way. The interior of our ship abounds with mice. Now and then we see some running here and there. From time to time we kill some, and every day we hear them cry in their holes. They make a horrible ravage among our effects. They gnaw our books, papers, linen, clothes, provisions, etc. We have a cat, it is true, but she is so little that she cannot make war on them, and even if she were larger she would not know how to catch them, because she is spoiled and because she is nourished deliciously. She thus loses the taste of the most of the mice. Some one lately presented her with a dead mouse which she smelled and disdained. By way of retaliation our ducks are more warlike and courageous. We once threw a dead mouse upon deck and they pounced upon it, tore it in pieces, disputed over it and endeavored to eat it. And another time they swallowed, in a trice, several little mice which were put before them. I was extremely surprised at seeing that and I said that since ducks eat mice dead or live, doubtless we also eat mice when we eat ducks. I requested, therefore, that I should no more be served duck at dinner.

The weather was likewise pleasant to the inhabitants of the ocean. It was, so to speak, one of their holidays. In the morning we saw a multitude of porpoises sporting in groups on the surface of the water and amusing themselves by leaping, appearing and disappearing by turns. They were even bold enough to approach us. Full of indignation that such little animals dared to brave us, we prepared ourselves to make them repent of their temerity. A sailor, armed with a destructive instrument, mounted upon the bowsprit and waited for them with firmness, but it happened that they were informed of the snare which we had laid for them since they removed from us. In the evening we saw other groups of them but they smelled us from afar and had the same prudence. I shall speak no more of our breakfast, dinner, supper and prayers to avoid repetition. I caution the reader of this. However, if some extraordinary event should happen during our meals, then I shall not fail of returning to them.

Thursday, July the 11th. The weather was as fine as yesterday, but much warmer. At noon the sun darted its beams on our head. The deck was burning. We could find shade nowhere, so that we were forced to descend into our cabin, hoping to find there some air. In this we were deceived. The cabin was also very warm. We, however, stayed within, not being able to do better.

Our ducks have been constantly locked up since our departure from Havre. The Captain, seeing such fine weather, thought they ought to be set at liberty to make them better. He therefore opened their cage, and as they are set free, jump against each other and peck with their beaks. One of them especially was so glad that he lost his senses and fell into the sea. Had the ocean been agitated there would have been an end to him. The poor duck would have perished, but happily for him the sea was calm and pleasant and there was no danger of his sinking. The Captain called, then, some sailors and ordered them to unite and put down the Jolly-boat. (1) They proceeded to do it and when the boat was upon the sea, they descended within it. The unfortunate duck did what lay in his power to keep himself upon the water. They came to save him. At length he was saved. We were very glad of it, because our provisions would not be diminished. We must use them with great care, and so much the more, the wind being always contrary, our passage consequently will be the longer. The sailors continued to be upon the water where they perceived a great way off, I do not know what kind of a fish floating in the ocean. They boarded it, and what they took was a tortoise. When the Jolly-boat was hoisted up and set again in its place, the sailors deposited the tortoise upon the boo- by-hatch, and we all ran about him to examine it.