CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. the prospect of restoration, but as much at the idea of a not distant revenge. Shooting, hanging, burning, barbecuing, were all spoken of, besides a variety of other tortures peculiar to this southern land. Rare punishments-no lack of them-were promised in a breath to the unfortunate absconder who should chance to get caught. You who live far away from such sentiments can but ill comprehend the moral relations of caste and colour. Under ordinary circumstances, there exists between white and black no feeling of hostility-quite the contrary. The white man is rather kindly disposed towards his coloured brother; but only so long as the latter opposes not his will. Let the black but offer resistance-even in the slightest degree-and then hostility is quickly kindled, justice and mercy are alike disregarded-vengeance only is felt. This is a general truth; it will apply to every one who owns a slave. Exceptionally, the relation is worse. There are white men in the southern states who hold the life of a black at but slight value-just the value of his market-price. An incident in the history of young Ringgold helps me to an illustration. But the day before, my squire' Black Jake had given me the story. This youth, with some other boys of his acquaintance, and of like dissolute character, was hunting in the forest. The hounds had passed beyond hearing, and no one could tell the direction they had taken. It was useless riding further, and the party halted, leaped from their saddles, and tied their horses to the trees. For a long time the baying of the beagles was not heard, and the time hung heavily on the hands of the hunters. How were they to pass it? A negro boy chanced to be near 'chopping' wood. They knew the boy well enough-one of the slaves on a neighbouring plantation. 'What sport?' 'Let us hang him for sport.' The proposal of course produced a general laugh. 'Joking apart,' said the first speaker, I should really like to try how much hanging a nigger could bear without being killed outright." 'So should I,' rejoined a second. 'And so I too,' added a third. The idea took; the experiment promised to amuse them. 'Well, then, let us make trial; that's the best way to settle the point.' The trial was made-I am relating a fact-the unfortunate boy was seized upon, a noose was adjusted round his neck, and he was triced up to the branch of a tree. Just at that instant, a stag broke past with the hounds in full cry. The hunters ran to their horses, and in the excitement, forgot to cut down the victim of their deviltry. One left the duty to another, and all neglected it! When the chase was ended, they returned to the spot: the negro was still hanging from the branch he was dead! There was a trial-the mere mockery of a trial. Both judge and jury were the relatives of the criminals; and the sentence was, that the negro should be paid for! The owner of the slave was contented with the price; justice was satisfied, or supposed to be; and Jake had heard hundreds of white Christians, who knew the tale to be true, laughing at it as a capital joke. As such, Arens Ringgold was often in the habit of detailing it! You on the other side of the Atlantic hold up your hands and cry 'Horror!' You live in the fancy you 123 have no slaves-no cruelties like this. You are sadly in error. I have detailed an exceptional case-an individual victim. Land of the workhouse and the jail! your victims are legion. Smiling Christian! you parade your compassion, but you have made the misery that calls it forth. You abet with easy concurrence the system that begets all this suffering; and although you may soothe your spirit by assigning crime and poverty to natural causes, nature will not be impugned with impunity. In vain may you endeavour to shirk your individual responsibility. For every cry and canker, you will be held responsible in the sight of God. The conversation about runaways naturally guided my thoughts to the other and more mysterious adventure of yesterday; having dropped a hint about this incident, I was called upon to relate it in detail. I did so- - of course scouting the idea that my intended assassin could have been Yellow Jake. A good many of those present knew the story of the mulatto, and the circumstances connected with his death. Why was it, when I mentioned his name, coupled with the solemn declaration of my sable groom-why was it that Arens Ringgold started, turned pale, and whispered some words in the ear of his father? THE LOST TOWNS OF YORKSHIRE. TEACHERS being supposed to know everything, I, as an instructor of youth, took shame to myself for being unable to answer a question addressed to me by a young pupil a week or two ago. It was this: 'Where is Ravenspur? The history of England tells us that the Duke of Lancaster, afterwards Henry IV., landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire in 1399; but we cannot find its name on the map, or any mention of it in our geographies.' This question disconcerted me not a little. I had taken Ravenspur for granted. Although I had, in the course of twenty years as pupil and teacher, heard the name of the landing-place of Henry of Bolingbroke repeated times out of count, I had passed it without seeking any further acquaintance, and was now nonplussed by a simple question from a child. I was ashamed to own that I could tell her nothing, so I had recourse to finesse. 'I will give you,' said I, 'until tomorrow morning to try to obtain the information for yourself; should you fail, I will then furnish you with all needful particulars.' I knew that before another day I should ascertain all about Ravenspur, if the children could not; and by this little stratagem preserve my reputation for unlimited knowledge. My first clue to the whereabouts of Ravenspur-I was going to say, but the term is improper, for it has no whereabouts-was obtained from the encyclopædia, and this gained, the rest was easy. I need not tell how my pupils were unsuccessful in their search, from not knowing how to set about it, or how my newly gained knowledge was imparted to them in turn. But the subject interested me, and I have since acquired additional particulars connected with it, which I have gathered from various sources, including my own recollections of the locality. The first bit of information I obtained was, that Ravenspur was, but is not; that place, and a number of other ports and towns in the Holderness district of Yorkshire, having been gnawed away piecemeal and swallowed up by the German Ocean. Like the celebrated 'Big-bellied Ben' of our nurserydays, this glutton has deliberately washed down into his maw, ports, villages, churchyards with their human remains, and even churches. Like the nursery hero, he has not spared even the steeples; for, unable to toss his briny arms quite so high, he has stolen away 124 the ground from under them, and thus they became since, fifty years before, it yielded them a rental of an easy prey to his insatiable appetite. Insatiable, IL.111, 3s.-a very large sum in the good old times; say, for the depredations of the ogre still continue; and since he is a foe against whom all valour is useless, and on whom weapons, whether offensive or defensive, produce no impression, in all probability much of the Holderness division of Yorkshire will in the course of a few generations disappear. Lest this may seem too bold an assertion, let us glance backward over a similar space of time, and tell what the sea has done, and still continues doing. Poulson, in his learned and elaborate History of Holderness, mentions a number of lost towns which, from records of undoubted authenticity still extant, must have been places of considerable importance in their day. Of these, perhaps the most important was Ravenspur. It was known by the various names of Ald Ravenser, Ravenesse, Ravensburgh, and Ravenspur or Spurn. It stood in the parish of Kilnsea, and had a neighbour named Ravenser Odd, with which it was often confounded. Both were ports, though the latter was a place of more recent growth, and both Ravenser have alike perished from the same cause. Odd, supposed by some to have been an offshoot of Ravenspur, was begun, rose into importance, and perished by the encroachments of the sea within a century and a half. As to its magnitude, nothing can be ascertained; but it was so large as to excite the jealousy of the 'goodmen of Grimsby,' who envied the prosperity of their opposite and rival neighbour on the lumber, little deeming how soon that arm of the sea would avenge their grievances, by swallowing up every vestige of their opponent. When Hull, large and thriving as it now is, paid L.100 for its charter, this port paid L.264 for a similar one; and in the fourth and eighth years of Edward II.'s reign, it was called upon to supply a vessel to aid the king in his expeditions against Scotland, besides having to answer sundry demands made upon it for arms and provisions. In a manuscript of 1240 is the first mention of Ravenser Odd. In 1396, it was totally destroyed and forty years previous to this catastrophe, orders were given to remove the uncovered bodies of the dead from its churchyard, and re-inter them in that of Easington. Ravenspur, three years after the destruction of its neighbour, witnessed the landing of Henry of Bolingbroke. Shakspeare, in Richard II., has recorded this, and tells how The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself, besides alluding to it in several other parts of the same But although it is probable that no place of greater importance than Ravenspur has been thus swept away, it has not gone alone. Besides it, Poulson mentions Redmare, Tharlesthorp, Frismersh, Potterfleet, and Upsal, amongst the towns lost from the Yorkshire coast of the Humber. It is not known when they first disappeared, but the manor of Tharlesthorp was swept away in 1393, though the monks of Meaux, who drew a fat revenue therefrom, had previously erected a bank as a defence against the rebellious arm of the sea, which had often threatened to rend it from them, before it finally succeeded. No trifling loss it was, and only three years later, the monks complained that their lands in Frismersh had also been seized by the same rapacious foe. Camden names Potterfleet and Upsal, but nothing more is known of them, or of a place called Penismerk. The places above enumerated were all on the bank of the Humber, with the exception of the last three, the sites of which are unknown. On the shores of the main ocean, towns and hamlets bearing the names of Hartburn or Auburn, Winkton, Hornsea Beck, and Hyde or Hythe, have been submerged. The luckless monks of Meaux had cause again to mourn the loss of tithes, for Hyde paid L.30 per annum as its tithe of fish. The finny tenants of the sea, could they have derived any satisfaction from the fact, were amply avenged by their native element, which swallowed up Hyde altogether, thus putting an effectual stop to its fisheries. Hornsea, now a pleasant and quiet watering-place, with something less than a thousand inhabitants, was a port in the thirteenth century, and possessed a pier and harbour in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but this port, called Hornsea Beck, with pier and all connected with it, has long since disappeared. From 1546 to 1609, when the pier was destroyed, thirty-eight houses, and as many small closes adjoining, were decayed by the flowing of the sea; and the coast, for a mile in length, had during the same period suffered an average annual diminution of four yards. The appetite of this sea for churches rivals that of the far-famed Dragon of Wantley, though, more merciful than this latter celebrity, its invasions have never molested or swallowed their congregations. Besides those that probably existed in the lost towns already enumerated, others at Aldborough, Withernsea, Owthorne, Kilnsea, and a parochial chapel at Colden Parva, have gone the way of all churches on the Holderness part of the Yorkshire coast. Strange scenes have been witnessed during the progress of these inroads. Sir George Head gives a Not having the Home graphic description of one he saw in 1835, when walking from Spurn to Kilnsea. Tour at hand, I cannot give his exact words; but he tells us that he was shocked to observe human remains strewed, and by no means sparingly, on his path; and that, believing them to be the bones of shipwrecked mariners, he was led to form no very favourable opinion of the people who could permit these tempesttossed relics of humanity to remain exposed to the winds and waters. A very short time sufficed to convince him of his mistake; the bones having been perhaps centuries buried, but only now torn from their resting-place in Kilnsea churchyard. The church fell about nine years before his visit; and gazing upwards at the churchyard from the shore, he saw rows of coffins, or parts of them, with their ghastly tenants, some mere fleshless skulls, exposed to view. A friend of my own, whose hair is now but slightly sprinkled with gray, has just given me a similar account of Owthorne Church and Churchyard, as it appeared in his boyhood. When about thirteen years old,' said he, 'I accompanied my father to the shore. In those days, I was not a very good jockey, and a spirited mare on which I was riding manifested her dislike to the human bones, with which she could scarcely help coming in After an absence contact, in so disagreeable a manner, that I found it a difficult matter to keep my seat. of many years, being near Owthorne, I resolved to revisit the spot which had so forcibly attracted my boyish attention. But after vainly endeavouring to find it, I applied to a female passer-by, and was informed that since 1838 scarcely a vestige of either church or churchyard could be discovered.' A rather amusing tradition of the origin of Owthorne Church is still told. The manors of Owthorne and Withernsea were owned by two maiden sisters, who resolved to build a church, and one was commenced at the former place. All went on smoothly for a while, when a quarrel arose between the damsels, the one wishing for a spire, the other for a tower. A wily monk, who was wide awake to the interests of the establishment' of those days, suggested, by way of removing the difficulty, that each should build a church in her own domain; which was accordingly done, and they ever afterwards bore the name of 'The Sisters.' This tradition has been disputed; but it matters little now, since both founders and churches are crumbled to dust. Withernsea lost a former church in 1444, and it was four years after that the 'Sister Kirk' above alluded to was commenced. When the British Association met at Hull, several papers were drawn up relative to the depredations of the sea on the Holderness coast, and from them it appears, that though the annual rate of diminution amounts to as much as seven and a half yards in some parts, it is in others but trifling. Still, the average annual decrease amounts to two yards and a half along the whole coast-line. A bite of thirty miles in length, and the above-mentioned width, is no trifle. It may not be uninteresting to add a few further data, partly from the works of Poulson and Bedell, the historian of Hornsea, and partly from the papers submitted to the British Association. Poulson says, the cross at Atwick, which was, in 1786, distant from the sea thirty-three chains, sixty-one links, is now, in 1840, scarcely half that distance. Aldborough Church, in 1786, 2044 yards from the sea, is now a mile. An inn built in 1847 at Kilnsea, is now only 480 yards or thereabouts from the sea; whereas, when erected, it was 534. Holmpton Church in seventy years is nearly 100 yards nearer the ocean. At Mappleton, the loss is about three yards annually. My maternal grandfather, a Holderness man, of course remembered and spoke of various incidents connected with this, to him, most interesting topic. He used to say that Hornsea Church, now 934 yards, was at one time ten miles distant from the sea. In proof of this assertion, he quoted the following rhyme, said to have been inscribed on its steeple: Hornsea steeple, when I built thee, Ten miles off Beverley, and ten miles off sea. As this inscription is merely traditional, and Poulson can find nothing to justify such an assertion as the last line contains, he gives the following humorous explanation. He says, our forefathers were extremely liberal with their ciphers, and often made use of them when only writing a figure expressing a unit. He quotes the following example from some parish books: 'In copying the churchwarden's accounts in 1660, a payment to the painter is made to be L.10, 148.; whereas in the original document it stood thus, L.01, 14s. 00d. ;' a waste of ciphers which reads oddly enough in modern eyes. He thinks, therefore, that by a similar transfer of the cipher by some illiterate person, the one mile has been stretched to ten. This explanation certainly sounds plausible; but the church was, in a great measure, rebuilt in the fifteenth century, and if it was then a mile from the sea, it would since that date have lost about a couple of yards per annum, which is the average loss at present in that particular locality. But one instance of comparatively modern times may be quoted, which seems to bring the ten miles quite within the range of possibility. A notorious pirate and smuggler named Pennel, murdered his captain, and sank the vessel near Hornsea. He was tried in London, and his body sent thence to the scene of his crimes, to be exposed on a gibbet on the north cliff, in 1770. From the parish register, it appears that, in 1780, this gibbet was fifty-six feet from the sea-cliff; and six years later, it was entirely washed away. Perhaps the German Ocean never took a bite which gave the same cause for satisfaction as when it swallowed this disgusting relic of barbarity. The visitors to this Yorkshire watering-place will find little in the way of gaiety; but those who seek quiet, and love to investigate the geological remains of past ages, may find a rich field for study and exploration. Sir George Head uses enthusiastic terms in mentioning it. He says: 'Of all parts of England, the eastern coast exhibits the most apparent phenomena of diluvial action; of all parts of the eastern coast, that of Holderness; and of all parts of Holderness, the country in the immediate neighbourhood of Hornsea. Here the earthy cliffs form a concrete mass of heterogeneous matter, studded with shells and fossils; seaward, a black line or reef of peat resembling rocks marks the ancient position of a forest below highwater-mark, now washed by the waves of every succeeding tide. Further on, he quotes the words of Ovid, written two thousand years ago: The face of places and their forms decay, Of the peat before mentioned, Sir George adds: 'I gathered a handful which yielded like dough, and kneading it into a ball, retained it in my possession ; dry, it became uncommonly hard and sound; when cut by a knife, the divided surface assumed a polish which made it difficult to distinguish whether it were wood or stone. As it exists in considerable abundance, it might perhaps be employed with effect either to the purposes of modelling, or other use requiring matter soft and malleable when moistened with water, but hard when dry.' We have all read often enough of the changes in the face of nature-how the ocean swallows up in one place, and makes a gradual restitution in another, and how, by means of insect labours, islands rise up in spots where formerly the waves were seen careering; but for myself, I can say I never fully realised the extent of these changes, until it was brought home to me by an examination of what has taken place on this small portion of the coast of my native land. There is something affecting in the thought, that where our ancestors ploughed, sowed, and reaped their harvest, the waves now wanton recklessly, themselves ploughed, but no longer furrowed,' by the vessels which pass over them; and that where stately forest trees reared their heads, ocean-plants flourish, but far beyond our reach. Ruthless, however, as the waves have been in spoliation, they have, like penitent robbers, made some attempts at compensation on the Holderness coast. At Paul, great damage was formerly done by the Humber, but between that place and Patrington, thousands of acres of rich land have been recovered by means of embankments. This, however, can scarcely be called voluntary restitution; but at Patrington, great difficulty is experienced in keeping the haven clear, in consequence of the continual warping which takes place there. Adjoining the lordship of Patrington, is a large tract of land bearing the name of Sunk Island, which has been thrown up by the sea within the last two centuries. It was first noticed as a sand-bank, and was given by Charles II. to the governor of Hull, who had a rabbit-warren on it. Two years later, it was leased to that gentleman for thirty-one years, at an annual rent of five pounds. In 1764, 1500 acres of fertile land were under cultivation. Fines were paid at various times for the renewal of the leases; and, just before the expiration of one of these leases in 1802, it was valued by the surveyors from the office of the Woods and Forests at L.9814 per annum. Thirty years later still, Sunk Island measured nearly 6000 acres, and was formed into a parish, with a church endowed by the crown. many better figures than his, for he was short and thick-set, and a little round-shouldered, but a handsomer face it would be hard to find anywhere; and certainly, according to the old phrase, a braver man never trod a deck' than Captain Gilbert of the Welsh Mountaineer. I saw him afterwards when the gale raged round him, and his voice could hardly be heard in the wild chorus of wind and wave, yet his words and his glance were as kingly as that of the men whom history celebrates for breasting storms ashore. Thus has the sea disgorged a great portion of what On looking about me, I found that I had only one it had swallowed, and the same process is continually companion in the cabin-a lady who was going to going on. Unhappily, the luckless proprietors, on America to see her uncle. All the rest of the pasthe wasting side, gain nothing by this compensation sengers, to the number of about fifty, were emigrants of the ocean. The whole of Sunk Island is crown- seeking a home in the New World. For four or five land, and must be rather an eyesore than otherwise to days I had little else to do than to make note mentally those whose fate it is to witness a gradual, but certain-for I found a journal too tedious-of such little incidiminution of their patrimony, by the encroachments of a foe against whom resistance would be useless. A PASSENGER'S LOG. I SUPPOSE every passenger, when about to make a sea-voyage, is comforted with the assurance, that his ship stands Al at Lloyd's, and is built of British oak. I can, at all events, say from my experience, that almost every emigrant with whom I have come in contact infallibly believes that the vessel in which he is to embark is something unusual as to strength, and at some time in its history had made the shortest passage' on record. The passengers who embarked for New York in the Welsh Mountaineer on the 11th of June in the year of our Lord 1851, could not be comforted with the latter assurance, for it was her first voyage; but the Al at Lloyd's and the British oak were thrust into the minds of passengers by large placards and persevering agents. Moreover, all Cwent out to see her launched, for never before in the maritime history of the town had she had the honour of launching a bark upwards of 700 tons burden. As I had taken a cabin-passage in this vessel, and had watched her building, from the setting of the keel to the nailing of the deck-planks, I went to see how she would take to the water. All Cwere, however, destined to be disappointed; for, after a great deal of hammering and shouting, the ship moved on the slips as if about to take to the water gallantly, but the shouting of the crowd was suddenly stopped by her stopping abruptly when halfway down, and refusing to stir. A little knot of old sailors shook their heads ominously, and declared that they never knew a ship make a passage that stuck in the launching. The sequel will prove whether they were right. She was, however, got into the water a day or two after, though no one was there to see; and a little while afterwards a busy steam-tug towed her into the open channel. I suppose every one who leaves Old England in the distance, has a friend to say 'Good-bye" to, and so the tug was loaded with anxious parents and nervous lovers. As I was going out to recruit shattered health, I formed no exception to the rule, and must confess that when we rounded the roadstead headland, its scenes of alabaster danced fitfully through farewell tears. It was pleasant to us all that we did not at once go into open sea, but passed the Channel between the shores with a favouring breeze. Old England disappeared at last in the fading light of the next day, and we were left to the consolation, that the huge waves that dashed past us broke upon home shores. After a while, on that same evening, the light streamed on the deck from the round-house window, and looking in, I saw the captain studying his chart, and marking out our path upon the high seas. I had leisure for the first time to regard him attentively. I have seen dents as occurred on deck, to watch the sea in its eternal play with the wind, and to wonder it was never tired of the game. Very soon afterwards, however, the face of the ocean had so changed, that no one would have known it to be the same. Its fringing foam was exchanged for an angry, roaring surge. A heavy gale had sprung up from N.N.W., and the Welsh Mountaineer was fairly put on her trial, and it must be recorded that for a time she behaved gallantly. I used to sit at the round-house door, looking at the mountainrange of water approaching, as if it must overwhelm us, and wonder how it was possible we could find a pass through its dense mass. Time after time, however, it seemed to open at our approach; and when it did not, it kindly took us on its crest, and sent us gliding on the other side. When I saw the ship standing steadily in dock beside its fellows, I used to think they must be rough waves, indeed, to hurt it; but now I could have no other thought than that the great waves only spared us because they liked a toy to play with. One night, just after the gale had commenced, there was an unusual noise over my berth in the roundhouse-moving feet and loud voices, that could be plainly heard above my head, notwithstanding the roar of the wind and the rush of the water. I was too wakeful to sleep, yet too lazy to move; but I could gather from the prodigious rolling of the ship, and the strong blows that made every timber shiver, that the gale was raging terribly. Dozing towards morning, I was suddenly awaked by a boisterous laugh, mingled with the strangest noise that I had yet heard in the cabin, the effect of which was not at all diminished by a queer sensation of being turned upside down. I looked out quickly, and found that the old sea herself had taken a peep into the cabin. It was rushing against open doors, floating chairs and tables, and soon began inconveniently meddling with portable articles in my cabin. Fortunately my berth was near the roof, so that I could watch its liberties without much personal inconvenience. I stretched my neck across the narrow space between my bed and the cabin door, and found that from stem to stern the sea covered the Welsh Mountaineer, and that she was fairly on her beam-ends. Two figures met my glance-there was Captain Gilbert, with a huge hatchet in his hand, breasting the waves with the chivalry of an old knight; and then there suddenly turned up the mate, who, having lower quarters than myself, had been floated out of his bed in his sleep. This at once explained the loud laugh I had heard, and which at first seemed so strange. The expression on his face was ludicrous; for he was evidently not yet aware whether he was awake or dreaming. The captain continued his stern march through the waters, and in another moment the light timber of the bulwarks was giving way to his blows, and the water rushing out at the rent. Most fortunately, the hatchways were fastened down, and no CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. wave broke over us in the interval, or our fate had been sealed. The ship soon righted, and we were delivered from immediate peril; but it became evident that she had received a terrible strain, for the morning-watch reported that they could not keep the pumps free. She had formerly made very little water, twenty minutes morning and evening sufficing to keep her free. Every eye was watching the pumps, hoping with each discharge of water to hear them suck; but evening came, and no sign of abatement, but manifest increase. The captain and mate disappeared with a lantern down a hole in the after-cabin, and on their reappearance, the former taking me by the arm on the quarter-deck, said quietly: You are not afraid of learning bad news; I cannot take her over: the Welsh Mountaineer must go down at sea.' I have not before said that she was laden with railway iron; and I now learned that, when on her beam-ends, some unequal strain had forced a plank. water for twenty-four hours, and that he was sorry It may startle the reader if I say that it is worse The gale continued with unabated fury, and it soon became evident that the crew would be quite unable to manage the ship and work the pumps. The next morning, all the male passengers assembled on the quarter-deck, and relays were formed to work with the watch. If the experience of the Welsh Mountaineer be that of all foundering ships, there was nothing of the terror and excitement of a ship breaking on an icemountain, or of one dashed upon a rock; it was more like the trench-work of a siege. As the second day wore on, and the light began to fade, and it became evident to all that the leak gained, a dead silence I can see the group at reigned over all the ship. the pump now; they all looked as if they were wondering what they could say to their wives and little ones when they went down the ladder. There was an old man, whose figure and visage had a solemn look in the dying day. His white hair blew in gusts over his face, like snow-drifts before the breath of the gale. He clutched the levers, as if he held himself upright with them, rather than rendered any help. Nor was it a seeming only, for while I was regarding him attentively, a 'weather-roll' of the ship, and a heavy sea that swept the decks at the same time, carried him right off his legs to the break made in the bulwarks the day before. The splintered timbers gave way even to his feeble grasp, and he must have been lost, but for the quick rush of the captain to his aid. Never shall I forget the night that succeeded. I was in no way terrified, yet sleep was out of the question at such a time. Although the storm had been raging for nearly three days, it was now at its height. I kept the deck throughout the night, moving about as much as the violent and eccentric movements of the ship would allow. The night was densely dark, and I could only just discern the teeth of the sea' in the The moon was in her gloomy wilderness around us. first quarter, and appeared once or twice that night. It cast little light on us, but enough just to reveal great dark clouds hurrying through the heavens, as if on some work of death. The noise of the wind was deafening; I scarcely knew which was the loudest the everlasting roar it made with the waves, or its rushes through spars and sails and open places in the ship. Added to this, there was the constant motion of the pumps beating time to the rough music of the tempest, and the now plainly heard movement of the water in the hold, as it moved with the pitching of the vessel. When we first heard it, the sound was like that made by waves retiring from the narrow gullies of a rock; but as the night advanced, it grew deeper and more sonorous. One wish with reference to our apparently inevitIt was an able fate we both uttered, and but one-it was, that we might go down in broad daylight. odd desire; but perhaps the darkness of the sea made the shadow of the silent land weigh more heavily upon us. There were groups in earnest consultation on deck; and a little after midnight the captain lit his lamp in the round-house, and invited me in. He told me there was scarcely a chance of the ship keeping above The cold leaden gray of the next morning came at length. Did ever such a morning dawn in my short life? Far off, over the cold waste of waters, in the hazy light of half-past three on a June morning, better eyes than mine had spied a sail. My first notice of it was the rush of the mate into the cabin, who seized the glass with a convulsive grasp, and made for the top of the round-house. He said not a word until his well-trained eye was sure of the prize, and then, 'A sail-a sail to windward!' What a scene followed! with a voice that rang wildly on the wind, cried out: The captain rushed from the round-house, the morning-watch turned out from the fore-deck, and in a Then poured forth from below moment more the hatchways, yet unopened, burst like a bomb-shell. every soul on board-man, woman, and child. The scene that followed baffles description. Many for the first time understood the immediate danger that threatened the ship; the wild cry they had heard a moment before told it all. Every eye was turned towards the direction which the captain's glass now took, but scarcely one could discern the black speck only just visible to sea-eyes. From such a prospect, fewer still could realise the possibility of help. I turned from the sea to the shivering group upon the deck. All the pent-up excitement of the last three days burst forth in the ecstasies of despairing love. Mothers were embracing their little ones, and rougher hands than theirs were busy at gentle work. As As the morning wore on, and the light was stronger, it became evident that there were two vessels about eight or ten miles to windward, one considerably in advance of the other, but both some miles astern. soon as it was of any use, we hoisted the signal of distress-the merchant ensign inverted-and, lest that should escape observation, we hauled up the sails so imagine the interest with which every one watched as to shew that something was wrong. You may For two long hours, the progress of the nearest ship to see whether she would take any notice of us. every eye was fixed on her as she came steadily on, but without making any alteration in her course so as |