It is out of their nature to be happy.

To find fault, to fling away the good the gods provide them, and to aggravate the pain of every real wound by the impatience of idle complaints, is their diseased joy.

"Evil, be thou my good!" they might well exclaim; for, instead of heightening the pleasures of life by full participation, or subduing its inevitable evils, or, at all events, softening their asperity by enduring with fortitude and cheerfulness what cannot be helped, these self-tormentors reject what is substantially pleasing, and cling with habitual but morbid relish to whatever is disagreeable.
As we glided along, through the Trade-winds, towards the neck of sea which divides Africa from South America, the symptoms of a change in climate became daily more manifest.

Every skylight and stern window was thrown wide open, and every cabin scuttle driven out, that a free draught of air might sweep through the ship all night long.

In the day-time, the pitch in the seams of the upper-deck began to melt, and, by sticking to the soles of our shoes, plastered the planks, to the great discomfiture of the captain of the after-guard.