Page 1 Advertisements Column 6

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 7, Issue 352, 16 July 1863, Page 1

EXTRACTS FROM MR. PEABODY’S DIARY. AT SEA. June have-at length crossed the long talked of * line*’ and that without under* (going any of the rough practical jokes commonly played by Neptune upon green passengers. Some of the children kept looking over the ship’s side to see the ‘line,’ and I heard one—a wee scotch lassie—ask, “ whar’s the line mither ? I dinna see’d ; is’t down under the water! ” We are now becalmed a few degrees south of the Equator. Not a breath of wind is stirring ; the sea is a boundless, unbroken mirror, reflecting the dazzling rays of the tropical! : Sun. The heat is intense.. We lounge on deck watching the manoeuvres of seabirds, &c., grumbling at the delay—the heat —the bad water—everything. The truth is we are dying of ennui. I know of nothing more ,wearisome, more awfully monotonous, than a lengthened calin, nothing more truly solitary than a ship in own position. Stretching around is is the illimitable ocean,— 14 the unbeginiug endless sea, emblem of eternity,” as- Montgomery sings—with our lone vessel upon its broad bosom. Our vessel is none of the smallest of its kind, yet what a speck it is upon the boundless -waste !', -Fancy a stalk of corn in the midst of an American prairie or a Russian steppe ! Each morning tl e sun rises, climbs to the meridian, pouring his vertical rays upon the white sails and deck of our sea house, and by and bye he sinks, flushed with his long day’s journey, into the cool aqueous elemeut, leaving behind him. a sky composed of trauscendently beautiful tints. Then, uprises the round white moon, "pouring a flood of mellow dreamy radiance upon the gently heaving waters across- which tin re is asi immering path of silver, reaching, far away to the horizon, where some magnificent banks of cumulus cloud are Abating; near the moon. It is very beautiful, very grand p stolid, indeed, must be the mind whii h can yievv such scenes without interest, even thongh it should, soar no higher than the stars which twinkle “ up above the world so high-” June 10th.—The ship has been so like a painted ship- upon a painted ocean” for the last ten days that we seemed to have forgotten all about such events as “lurches” and “spills.” Tt -lay Ventosus j layed us a trick which brought us to our senses in this respect. We were seated at? dinner when a breeze sprung up suddenly, tailing our good ship and all therein quite aback.- Joliny B. was thrown from his seat, with the peasoup over mm. TMaiee, pannikins, -spocmaj Jto. went off to leeward like shot, Tlie- pkun duff was sneaking 'off after the rest when old 8., with admirable presence -of mind, transfixed it with a fork, thus rendering valuable service pro bono publico. Poor I Pat, who had been seated at foot of the j stair quietly enjoying his dinner, was thrown (forward upon his nose, and his plate being !under him, the duff was squashed as flat as a pancake, and to make matters worse, a hookpot full of cold water, incautiously left by some one at the top of the stair, came down full souse upon the prostrate Hibernian, who roared out he was killed .and drowned. June 12.—-Off again on the wings of the wind; yesterday it blew quite a gale. The hatches were down all night. June 13th;—-This evening Mrs. gave birth to a male infant, which lived only two hours. Late in the night it was wrapped iu a sheet with a weight-attached, and quietly dropped overboard. It was a first child. All night I heard the sobs and moans of the poor mother who, like Rachel, would not be comforted.

The Chaumontel Pear.— The Cliaumontel pair attains its greatest perfection iu Guernsey, owing, no doubt, to the peculiarities of climate it enjoys, and the absence of night frosts when its final ripeningapproaches. Great attention also is paid to the culture. These pears are usually picked on or about the 10th October, but are not fit for use fur several, weeks, being in perfection about Christmas. TL s weighing sixteen ounces are regarded as litst-rate aud fetch good prices. Pears of this size average iu value from four to five pounds sterling per hundred in the Guernsey or Jersey market; but as they diminish in size and weight, the value falls rapidly, the numerous small fruit being considered only fit for baking, although iu point of flavour they are little inferior. Chaumontel pears of extraordinary size ai e sometimes obtained by removing most of the fruit from a tree. The largest- and best grown fruit on record was grown at Laporte in Guernsey, in 1849. It measured Clinches in length, inches in girth, and weighed thirty eight ounces Eng’ish weight. No chanmontel weighing mere than thirty ounces appears to have been produced iu Jersey. As a group of pears from a single tree, there is perhaps no more remarkable instance recorded, than one occurring iri the season of 1861, when of five fruit obtained from one tree, in the gardens of Mr. Marquund of Bailiff's Cross, Guernsey, four of them weighed together 7| lb. It is worthy of remark that in tlr's case the tree, thougn usually prolific, bore only these five trim. The pears in question weighed respectively thirty-two and a half, thirty-three, tluriyone and a half, aud twenty-two ounces.— The Channel Islands.