morning, noon
And so , in a good ship of the best build , well owned , well arranged , well officered , well manned , well found in all respects , we parted with our pilot at a quarter past four o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh of March , one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one , and stood with a fair wind out to sea . It may be easily believed that up to that time I had had no leisure to be intimate with my passengers . The most of them were then in their berths sea-sick ; however , in going among them , telling them what was good for them , persuading them not to be there , but to come up on deck and feel the breeze , and in rousing them with a joke , or a comfortable word , I made acquaintance with them , perhaps , in a more friendly and confidential way from the first , than I might have done at the cabin table . Of my passengers , I need only particularise , just at present , a bright - eyed blooming young wife who was going out to join her husband in California , taking with her their only child , a little girl of three years old , whom he had never seen ; a sedate young woman in black , some five years older -LRB- about thirty as I should say -RRB- , who was going out to join a brother ; and an old gentleman , a good deal like a hawk if his eyes had been better and not so red , who was always talking , morning , noon , and night , about the gold discovery . But , whether he was making the voyage , thinking his old arms could dig for gold , or whether his speculation was to buy it , or to barter for it , or to cheat for it , or to snatch it anyhow from other people , was his secret . He kept his secret . These three and the child were the soonest well .