Our two guns, nine pounders, have been raised from the hold and painted
black. They have been in the hold much of the time, and unless we
meet a pirate they will not be needed, except in case of their being
required to announce an astounding passage. A hundred and twelve days
is the ship’s shortest passage. We are only twenty-five hundred miles
from San Francisco, which is small compared to the fifteen thousand
five hundred with which we began.