The wind holds pertinaciously ahead so as to check our speed a little, but here we find the superior efficacy of steam, which average so much forward progress, no matter how the wind may blow. We are now more than two hundred miles from the coast of Iceland, and I encourage Mrs Adams to hold out, though she feel so much depressed under constant recurrence of sickness as to make the trip a labour. I weather however is135 all we could desire. The young people amuse themselves on deck until ten o’clock at night in trying to dance to the music of a very poor fife and worse fiddle. We saw a few vessels passing in the distance. But on the whole the monotony is much greater in this expeditious way of travelling than it was by the lagging process of a sailing ship forty four years ago. The Captain, who is an excellent Officer as well as an attentive gentleman to the wants of his passengers, tells me we shall see the land by five o’clock in the morning.