December 16 Sunday – From Sam’s letter to the Alta of Dec. 18: 

NOON, 16th
All the afternoon, yesterday, two or three hundred passengers paced the promenade deck, and so quiet was the sea that not half a dozen of them succumbed to sickness. But at 8 or 9 at night the wind began to rise, and from that time it steadily in creased in violence until, at midnight, it was blowing a hurricane. There was a tremendous sea running, and the night was so pitch dark that a man standing on the deck would find by voices at his elbow that other persons were almost touching him, when he imagined himself alone. On deck, above the lashing of the waves, and the roaring of the winds, the shouting of the captain and his officers, and the hurried tramping of the men were scarcely to be heard [Schmidt].

From Sam’s notebook:

“This is a long, long night. I occupy the lower berth & read & smoke by a ship’s lantern borrowed from the steward (I won the middle berth, but gave it to Smith because he is seasick & we have piled our apples, limes, wines, books & small traps in the upper one)” [MTNJ 1: 246].