Dear Mother,

    This ship is so nice, but I thought it was just some sort of adventure where you are just going to sail around and die of malaria. Oh, but Mother, just yesterday we saw a "pod of whales", I heard one shipmate call them. Oh, Mother there were babies and their parents and the rest. Oh, it was such a moment. This travel agency is so nice. Oh, and mother there are dolphins and wonderfuly colored fish, and yet I feel afraid some times. Why, only two days ago there was a weird creature that Mr. Darwin himself exclaimed the animal to be either a sea monster or a creature that does not have a name.
    Mother, you should hear the stories I have heard about mermaids and tropical islands with people who are described as barbarians. Oh, how I shudder in my bed at night when these people pop into my dreams screaming words and dancing in war dances, but I have had dreams about the mermaids and their kingdoms. Yet the more stories I have heard, the less I sleep. Why just today I heard a story about people that the shipmates call cannibals and they eat people! Oh, Mother, I dare not go asleep tonight. What if we run into them? These canibals are real, it's true I know.
    Oh, Mother--even though many pleasures have happened, there is surely to be a horrible event to take place. The food is running short. I am a housewife or should I say "shipwife" helping the cook and caring for the sick. I have never had such a tight schedule--why, as I am writing this letter I can see the sky darkening. It might be a hurricane! A swirling storm that is ever so powerful. The last one left us with a sail with a large rip! We were able to fix it, but I heard that the last one was actually a very weak one and we managed not to have to go right through the storm. Oh, there goes another sailor rushing by...
    Oh, looking out, I want so much to be home, but there is no going back. Oh, my goodness, a shout from the crow's nest signals that not only are we in for a horrible storm, we have to go right through it!!
    People are rushing about. I have to go down below deck! I am being hurried away right now.

    From the one who will love you forever,
Mary