OB, INCIDENTS OF A CRUISE IN THE UNITED STATES FRIGATE CONGRESS TO CALIFORNIA. WITH SKETCHES OF RIO JANEIRO, VALPARAISO, LIMA, HONOLULU, AND SAN FRANCISCO. 9:8.453 NARVARD COLLEGE SRARY GIFT OF GARDNER VID LLEN Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year Eighteen Hundred and fifty, By A. S. BARNES & COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY F. C. GUTIERREZ, Printer, PREFACE. ON joining the United States frigate Congress, fitting for sea, at Norfolk, and destined to the Pacific, I commenced a journal, in which I sketched down the incidents of each day, as they occurred. It was more a whim of the hour, than any purpose connected with the public press. It was a diverting experiment on the monotony of a sea-life; was continued because it had been begun-and the present volume is the result. The streamlet flows from gathered drops. I send it to the press as it was written, except the division into chapters, which has been made at the suggestion of the publishers, who perhaps, think the yarn will reel better if the thread be broken. It undoubtedly contains passages which may seem light and irrelevant; but a diary has privileges, in this respect, which are not extended to compositions of a graver character. He who gathers what the chance wind may shake from the trees of his garden, will find some leaves as well as fruit in his basket; and he may find there the nest of some insect that has a sting in it, but this he has no right to send to market. He may send the leaves-perhaps their sear hues may set off the bloom of his fruit, as a wrinkle the rouge through which age sometimes seeks to blush. back again into youth. The members of Congress are responsible for any typographical errors which the volume may contain, for they so lumbered the mails, between Washington-where the proofs were sent-and New York, with their speeches, that my publishers had about as little chance of getting a corrected copy through this travel |