thet when only a baby of a few months I crossed the
Atlantic, and here I am now in the middle of my life

if I should be permitted by the Almighty to live as long
again as I have lived - and on the great Ocean. And to
me the Gulf of Guinea about three degrees north (3°) of
the Equator, and two (2°) degrees east of the Meridian
of Greenwich. It is a bright & beautiful day and every-
thing is very quiet, comparatively, on board. In our
little prayer meeting last night we prayed that the
people on board might be more considerate, and the Lord
heard our prayer for the day passed off very nicely.
Nothing of importencs during the day exeept in the
morning the 18t & 20° uates were working with the native,
whom they were taking down to work on the R. Re They
were divided one lot on each side of the ship & were
counted and instead of veing (200) two hundred, were
(77) seventy-seven. ‘You should have seen the 2°¢ wate
ealling the roll. He is a Gemaen & cannot talk much
English but he called the names in English, in such
broken Eng. that about 1/2 the no. could not understand,
and then he would burst out in ea storm of passionate
words, not sweet. I think he went through this perform-
ance about 4 times, and finally succeeded in getting the
names to correspond to the men. About (7) seven o'elock
Ppem.e @ canon was fired off and a large red blaze was
left on the water which we could see for some distance
after we had passed. After supper I went around to the
sailors department. All Germans, and there they hed a
Xmas tree. A small tree whitted out of wood with limbs
and cotton stuck on the upper side of the branches to
make it look like snow. Little cakes were hung on it,
and in the absence of real oranges, apples, Bananas &
were some made of tin foil. On each limb wag one or more
pieces of candle and when all were lighted it looked very
pretty. I told them a little story of the birth of the
Savior &@ and spent about 15 minutes very pleasantly with
them. They also had a piece of steel made into a triangle
and one fellow Jingled that and made a merry chime
keeping time with an accordian and a drum - the latter
being made ‘by themselves. I then went back to my state
room and found the other boys gathered there for prayers
so I joined them. Now I will say good night.
