of his tail and threw him overboard; what he did I will not mention, lest it should bring discredit upon other parts of these pages which the reader is disposed to think may be true; but the last we saw of him he seemed to be feeling for his tail.

In the afternoon of the next day we crossed a strong current setting to northwest, which roared like breakers; soundings before one hundred and twenty fathoms; during the evening there was no bottom, and we supposed we must have passed Cape Catoche.

On the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth there was the same dead calm, with a sea like glass and intense heat. We were scant of provisions, and alarmed for entire failure of water. The captain was a noble Spaniard, who comforted the passengers by repeating every morning that we were enchanted, but for several days he had been uneasy and alarmed. He had no chronometer on board. He had been thirty years trading from Havana to different ports in the Gulf of Mexico, and had never used one; but out of soundings, among currents, with nothing but the log, he could not determine his longitude, and was afraid of getting into the Gulf Stream and being carried past Havana. Our chronometer had been nine months in hard use, jolted over severe mountain roads, and, as we supposed, could not be relied upon. Mr. Catherwood made a calculation with an old French table of logarithms which happened to be on board, but with results so different from the captain's reckoning that we supposed it could not be correct. At this time our best prospect was that of reaching Havana in the midst of the yellow fever scason, sailing from there in the worst hurricane month, and a quarantine at Staten Island.

On the thirteenth of July everything on board was

getting scarce, and with crew and passengers twenty in number, we broached our last cask of water. The heat was scorching, and the calm and stillness of the sea were fearful. All said we were enchanted; and the sailors added, half in earnest, that it was on account of the heretics; sharks more numerous than ever; we could not look over the side of the vessel without seeing three or four, as if waiting for prey.

On the fourteenth the captain was alarmed. The log was thrown regularly, but could not give his position. Toward evening we saw an enormous monster, with a straight black head ten feet out of water, moving directly toward us. The captain, looking at it from the rigging with a glass, said it was not a whale. Another of the same kind appeared at the stern, and we were really nervous; but we were relieved by hearing them spout, and seeing a column of water thrown into the air. At dark they were lying huge and motionless on the surface of the water.

On the fifteenth, to our great joy, a slight breeze sprang up in the morning, and the log gave three miles an hour. At twelve o'clock we took the latitude, which was in 25° 10′, and found that in steering southward at the rate of three miles an hour by the log, we were fiftyfive miles to the northward of the reckoning of the day before. The captain now believed that we were in the midst of the Gulf Stream, had been so perhaps two or three days, and were then two or three hundred miles past Havana. Mr. Catherwood's chronometer gave 88 longitude; but this was so far out of the way by our dead reckoning, that, with our distrust of the chronometer, we all disregarded it, and the captain especially. We were then in a very bad position, short of provis ions and water, and drifted past our port. The captain

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called aft passengers, sailors, cook, and cabin-boy, spread the chart on the companion-way, and pointed out our supposed position, saying that he wished to take the advice of all on board as to what was best to be done. The mate sat by with the log-book to take notes. All remained silent until the cook spoke, and said that the captain knew best; the sailors and passengers assented; for, although we considered it all uncertain, and that we were completely lost, we believed that he knew better than anybody else. The captain pointed out the course of the Gulf Stream, said it would be impossible to turn back against it, and, having a light, favourable breeze, recommended that we should follow the stream, and bear up for New Providence for a supply of provisions and water. All assented, and so we put about from the south and squared the yards for the northeast. At that moment we considered ourselves farther from Havana than when we started.

With most uncomfortable feelings we sat down to a scanty meal. Supposing that we were in the Gulf Stream and in the track of vessels, the captain sent a man aloft to look out for a sail, who very soon, to our great joy, reported a brig to leeward. We hoisted our flag and bore down upon her. As we approached she answered our signal, and with a glass we recognised the American ensign. In an hour we were nearly within hailing distance; the captain could not speak English, and gave me the speaking-trumpet; but fancying, from his movements, that our countryman did not like he Spanish colours, and afraid of some technical irreg ularity in my hail, which would make us an object of suspicion, we begged him to lower the jolly-boat. This was lying on the deck, with her bottom upward and her seams opened by the sun. The water poured into her VOL. II.-3 N

and before we were fifty yards from the brig she was half full. We sat up on the gunwale, and two of the men had as much as they could do to keep her afloat, while we urged the others to pull. Sharks were playing around us, and for a few moments we wished to be back on board the old brig. A breeze seemed to strike the vessel, which for two or three minutes kept steadily on; but, to our great relief, she hove to and took us on board. Our Spanish colours, and our irregular movement in attempting to board without hailing, had excited suspicion, and the sailors said we were pirates; but the captain, a long, cool-headed down-easter, standing on the quarter with both his hands in his pockets, and seeing the sinking condition of our boat, said, "Them's no pirates." The brig was the Helen Maria, of North Yarmouth, Sweetzer, master, from Tobasco, and bound to New-York! The reader cannot imagine the satisfaction with which I greeted on the high seas a countryman bound for New-York. My first question was whether he could take us on board, next for provisions and water for our friends, and then where we were. He showed us his observation for the day. We were about four hundred miles from the spot we supposed. The current which sets up between Cape Catoche and Cape Antonio the captain had taken for the Gulf Stream. If we had attended to Mr. C.'s chronometer we should not have been far out of the way. As it was, we were perfectly lost; and if we had not met this vessel, I do not know what would have become of us. The captain was but seven days from Tobasco, with a wind that had carried away one of his sails, and had lost one of his men. He had no surplus of provisions, particularly with two additional passengers; but he sent on board what he could, and a supply of water. We returned, told the

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captain, much to his surprise and astonishment, of his position, not more than two hundred miles from Sisal, and bade all hands farewell. They were not sorry to get rid of us, for the absence of two mouths was an object; and though, perhaps, in their hearts they thought their bad luck was on account of the heretics, it was pleasant, that with all our vexations, parting thus on the wide ocean, we shook hands with captain, passengers, sailors, cook, and cabin-boy, having no unkind feeling with any one on board. How long they were out I do not know, but I heard that they arrived at Havana in wretched condition, having eaten up the last morsel on board.

Our new vessel had a full cargo of logwood, the deck being loaded even with the quarter, and stowed so close that the cabin-door was taken off, and the descent was over a water-cask; but the change from the Spanish to the American vessel was a strange transition. The former had a captain, two mates, and eight sailors; the latter one mate and three sailors, with plank over the deck-load for sailors to run on, an enormous boom mainsail, and a tiller instead of a wheel, sweeping the whole quarter-deck, and at times requiring two men to hold it. In the evening we had two or three hours of calm; we were used to it, but the captain was annoyed; he detested a calm; he had not had one since he left Tobasco; he could bear anything but a calm. In the evening the charm was broken by a squall. The captain hated to take in sail, held on till the last moment, and then, springing from the tiller, hauled on the ropes himself, and was back again at the rudder, all in a flash. Mr. C. and I were so well pleased with the change that we were in no hurry; and, noticing the shortness of hands, and stumbling over logwood, we suggested to the cap