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Having made a dutiful promise to my mother to "keep a faithful diary" of our cruise, which, in event of disaster, shall be duly corked in a large bottle and sent adrift, I now enter my first date since April 8, 1898, the day on which we set sail from San Pedro. California.

North Pacific Ocean, June 5.—We are seventeen days out from San Francisco, and have made a little over twelve hundred miles: that is, in a direct line on our course to Unamak Pass through the Aleutian Islands, for we have had many unfavorable winds against which we were compelled to tack. We have sailed two thousand miles, counting full distance. We have experienced two storms which, put together, as the captain says, makes "a good half a gale." While the "Penelope" rides the highest billows like a duck, at times she pitches and rolls in a terrific fashion. Her movements are short and jerky, unlike those of a steamer or larger vessel. When the wind blows hard on her quarter, the rail is often under water. This makes locomotion difficult, especially if the waves are rolling high, and everything is bouncing about on deck. It is my duty to carry "grub" from the galley to the cabins, and I can never handle more than one thing at a time, as I am obliged to keep one hand free. I wait for my opportunity, else a heavy sea starts at the same time and we go down together, "grub" and all. However, I have had few accidents. Once I landed a big platter of mush upside down on the deck, and at another time a gust of wind took all the biscuits overboard, while a big sea filled the milk pitcher with salt water. This was not so bad as Dana's experience with the "scouse," which "precious stuff" came down all over him at the bottom of the hatchway. "Whatever your feelings may be, you must make a joke of everything at sea," he wrote just after he had found himself lying at full length on the slippery deck with his tea-pot empty and sliding to the far side. We are better off than the crew of the "Pilgrim" in 1840, for there is plenty more, if half the breakfast goes to feed the fishes.