Another of our discussion group, ______ Armstrong, is a retired New Zealand farmer, on his way home from a visit to England to see his old mother. Wilkinson is interested in early voyages and is getting together materials on Drake's third voyage. A full account of this voyage has never been published. Wilkinson plans to work on it in his retirement. Tried to get access to the records in the British Museum and those of the Hakluyt Society, but owing to war damage and disturbance these records are not yet available. Suggested that he get in touch with Robert Cushman Murphy, who is now in New Zealand, and through him get information on the records available in U.S.A. Murphy is a student of early voyages. Of the ten men in my room only one is a little objectionable in personal habits. This is a Canadian named Woods. A very widely travelled man, too. Seems to have spent much of his life dodging Canadian winters, though apparently not a man of at all substantial means. Rather, a beachcomber of sorts. Elderly, so narrow in build as to be almost shoulderless, but pot-bellied, and with an untidy thatch of greasy, yellowed gray hair. His one article of underwear - one in kind and number - is a pair of jocky shorts which will not need description after a week of wear. His one visible shirt used to be white. It has a collar, a detachable one, which he wore for a few days. Now he dresses sans collar, and with the lower buttons of the shirt open to show a wrinkled old belly. He travels without a toothbrush. At night his unwashed dentures go into one of the three tumblers with which we are provided for drinking. Apart from all this he seems a nice enough fellow. Thursday Dec. 19: The weather gets clearer, and steadily hotter, as we glide along toward the equator. The overcast condition for several days was from a big disturbance farther north. This morning there was a report of a severe storm 1500 miles to the north of our position, and a Liberty ship breaking up in it. We left San Francisco in nice time to miss this bad weather. Our ship is Kaiser-built. Yesterday we came across a derelict U.S. landing craft. It was about one-third under water, and evidently had been adrift a long time. Our ship radioed a report on it to Pearl Harbor. The ship's crew has changed to summer khaki, the younger passengers, and the Jewish refugees especially, are discarding more and more clothing, and getting sell burned by the sun. U.S. military insignia are worn by the officers of the ship. The captain sports the much tarnished eagles of a full colonel; the first mate is a lieutenant-colonel, the chief steward a captain, and so on. Have seen no one wearing corporal's or sergeant's stripes. There is nothing fancy about Captain Johansson. He invited me up to his quarters after dinner this evening. Stripped to the waist - "This bloody ship is hot as hell" - he told me about his war experiences on U.S. troop transports. He took troops to Milne Bay, Hollandia, Leyte, Japan, also the North African invasion. A Boston Swede, and a real old sea dog. He gave me a good photograph of the balsa raft "Ron-tiki" on which six young Norwegians recently drifted from the coast of Peru to the Tuamotus. Friday Dec. 19: We have plugged along at about 390 to 400 miles a day and at noon were about 4 degrees north of the equator. Our course should take us through the Line Islands before dark. Quite a number of sea birds around this morning - gannets, a brown petrel, an albatross, several frigate birds, and a tropic bird. I spent some time