7th Paper (7a.)
Ship Franklin.  North Pacific. Lat.17.38 degrees.  Long. 167 degrees East.  57 days out.

Nothing new, we go jogging along about 125 to 140 miles a day, and one would hardly think we were going at all.  Pilgarlic wakes up about 4:30 A.M. lies still ‘till 5, gets up, takes a mug of hot coffee, then walks the deck while the sun rises.  It is a fine sight, then washes and looks about the ship.  The sail makers are all at work, some men washing the decks, and pumping water.  Lately I have been making a draft of the ship.  It is tedious work, everything is becalmed  by our own hands, shimmying their way on the yards or at the mastheads-  Ain’t what it is cracked up to be, but of course we must have The Franklin drafted all to joices(?), else she would not sail nor do anything else.
We have just completed a new mainsail No 1 cotton duck, 266 Yards @ 60 cents a yd.  It is a perfect success and Pilgarlic is very proud of it.  It saves W.L.W & Co. a good many dollars.  I wish we had plenty more canvass to make many more sails and awnings.  It is no small thing to find a ship in sails.  The sailors are all turned out of the forecastle, and carpenter is rebuilding the berths.  We are scrubbing and scraping it ready for a coat of paint.  It is astonishing what a great quantity of dirt we have got out of it.  It will be in nice order when we get ready to move into it.  Our consumptive passenger coughs fearfully.  I am afraid his chance’s a hard one.
-Quein? sabe??
Sunday, July 18th.     42 days from San Francisco.
Longitude 158.10 East.    Lat. 18.00 degrees
We are sailing over the same sea that the great Theoagelpheaus did 350 years ago and almost as slowly.  He was 500 days out from Spain to the Ladrone Islands.  We shall be there in about 5 days.  Our sunrise and sunset are beautiful.  It would take a poet to describe it properly.  There is hardly any motion to the ship and sh-sh- makes little noise.  Pilgarlic has been all last week measuring her and taking her draft on a scale of 8th of an inch.  It has been hard work to climb all over the yards and masts.  The rigging is dripping with tar and it sticks to his rale, his hands, and everything…

 

…else.  He has torn one shirt to pieces, but it has been good exercise for him, and he has slept well for it.  And the draft is done all by his own hands, and looks first rate too.  And it is perhaps better than any he has done before.  But his eyes want new _____ before he does any fancy work.  Yes Pil your eyes ain’t so good as they were once, and it is not strange, for they have done as much work as any pair of eyes ever put in a man’s head.
I gave our sick Chinaman some Ayers Cherry Pectol? and it has helped him a good deal.
Chin has a glorious time talking to the Chinamen in his own country’s language.  Evenings they talk for an hour and his voice sounds as different, from what does when he talks English as can be.

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 Chapter 10 – Continuing to the Orient