boding of I knew not what, through my heart. The book fell from my hand, and trembling excessively, I made my way to the door. A waiter was hurrying past, but stopped to inform me that the lady in the next room had a singular fit. She was,' he said, 'wife to the captain with whom my friends had embarked.' This was all I could gather from the garçon; but just as he left, a lady stepped from the next room in great agitation. She motioned me toward her, and led me into the room. Three or four ladies were endeavoring to hold the unfortunate wife in a large chair. Her dark hair fell in glossy masses to her feet. Her eyes were fixed wildly on the sea, which was tossing before the open window. One hand tightly grasped the landlady's robe, the other was pressed to her heart. Her face was as rigid as marble, and as colorless. 'Let me go!' she cried; 'I can save them. See! see! oh, why cannot you see! Hist! how the water gurgles, gurgles through the portholes! 'Tis he, 't is he! - Harry, Harry!'- here she shrieked fearfully, and struggled to free herself. 'He is sinking-I must save him! Let me go!' I aided the others in holding her, for they were quite exhausted. She turned her eyes, for the first time, from the water, as I grasped her form. She gazed into my face a moment. All gone!' she murmured faintly, shaking her head as she spoke; the mast parted; she sunk! all swept down! Her hair looked like the sea-weed! Harry, my Harry! will no one save you? See! see! how the plank tosses!' She shook fearfully: I expected every moment to see her die with mental agony. For several minutes she trembled in this manAt

ner, without speaking, and her eyes fixed on the heaving sea. length, with a sigh, she closed her eyes, and sank into a deep swoon, as she softly whispered: Gone, all gone!'

The ladies retired to rest, leaving the patient with the doctor and myself. The former had just arrived. She laid motionless for two hours, then the color gradually came to lip and cheek, and a deep sigh heralded her returning consciousness. She opened her eyes, pressed her hand to her forehead, and said: Such a dream awful!' She endeavored to rise, but in vain. The physician desired her to keep quiet, for she had fainted, and any exertion would make her dream again. As her strength returned, her frenzy became again apparent. On the second day of her illness, after the physician had reduced her by bleeding, she motioned me to her side. The tears fell fast on her pillow, and with broken accents she said: Was it a dream?'

I shuddered: since her first frenzy a dread fear had haunted me. I had been, and was then, as now, a believer in spiritual foresight and prophetic admonitions. A dream?' I inquired; what was a dream? Of what are you thinking?'

'Oh, that terrific sight!- Harry and all sinking, sinking!'

'Yes, dear creature, that was a sort of dream certainly.'

Have you heard? Are they safe? Is all well?'

'I have heard nothing to the contrary.'

" You will

you will!' she hid her face in the pillow. I could hear her praying softly for resignation. The landlady entered. She was deathly pale.

The Oberon' has arrived,' she whispered. They passed a

'No more,' I cried, overcome with horror. She saw it!' I pointed to the invalid.

'Yes!' gasped the terror-stricken woman; 'all lost!' She hurried to the window. The invalid raised herself half out of bed. She had caught one word.

་

Lost! you know it now; you would not let me save him!' She fell back on her pillow, struggled for a moment, then life passed away with her prophetic spirit.

To this day the image of Anna's sister often rises to memory, as described by the poor wife. 'Her long hair looking like the sea-weed.' The Oberon' picked up one body, which proved to be the Captain. He was lashed to a plank, and no doubt could have been saved had the Oberon' arrived a few hours sooner to the site of the wreck. It was a satisfaction to us all that husband and wife were buried together. She generally accompanied her husband, but was prevented this trip by the illness of her sister. This lady recovered her health, and sailed in the next vessel. She wrote a letter to us all from her home in Baltimore. I received and read it beside Anna's grave. A year afterward she revisited Havre in buxom health, accompanying her husband, also a sea-captain. For aught I know to the contrary, she is living yet.

I have related these facts leaving the reader to make his or her own comments upon them. When I undertook to write these recollections I did not promise to add any comments or ornaments. Should these occur, they may be regarded as the spontaneous offerings of my musing moods.

THE hour was midnight; but the midnight gloom
Was all dispelled from that unholy room

By two fair lamps, that shed their light, and shone
As if the scene were a delightful one:
Alas! there was no happiness, no rest,

For those who crowded round the board unblest!
For though at times a smile would light a face,
Few were the hearts that smiling left the place.
One tall old man- I can remember now
His thin, pale visage, and his care-worn brow-
Threw with a look of agony his all
Upon one chance of the revolving ball!
His few gold pieces down, he turned away
To where the light more faintly lent its ray,
And bending low, with superstitious air,
He kissed a crucifix, and said a prayer:
This done, he slowly raised his aged head,
And stealing back with short and noiseless tread,
Beheld - oh, GoD! 't would melt a heart of stone! -
The wretch beheld his gold, his last hope, gone!
He screamed, he shrieked, he fell upon the floor,

And howling wild, his hoary tresses tore;

Then from his mouth and nostrils blood-drops ran,
And he was carried out a dying man:

This was but one of many scenes of sadness,

Where all is hope, or misery, or madness.

D.

THE clouds of autumn drift along the sky,
And lights are seen at windows in the glen,
And in the populous thoroughfares of men;
All else is night and silence, save the cry
Of winds that sport in the old wilderness:

Wild autumn winds! how doth your voice restore
The memory of days that come no more-
Departed days of joy and bitterness!

Where are ye now, amid the vast unknown,'
Friends of my youth, and sharers of my glee?
Will ye return no more to solace me

With your familiar looks and kindly tone?
Ye answer not; yet far along the shore

A sweet voice seems to sigh, 'No more! No more!'

II.

Creak, ye black forests! and ye mournful forms
That flit like hooded monks across the bare
And desolate solitude, urge through the air
Your cloudy legions, O! ye gloomy Storms,
Dark ministers of Night! I hear the roll

Of rising winds; and in the lonely vale
The dying Autumn lifts her mournful wail;
Yet pleasant is her sadness to my soul:
Lo! where the old Year bears her in his arms;
The pale CORDELIA and the trembling LEAR;
Will he not deck with heather her sad bier,
And keep her safe from Winter's rude alarms?
'Vex not his ghost!'- his life will soon be o'er !
The 'sweet, low voice' he loved he hears no more!

VOL. XXXVI.

Mourn, Voice of the solemn Wilderness!

For HIM who shed his precious blood for thee:
JESU REDEMPTOR! - Lamb of Calvary!

The heir of glory, anguish, and distress!
O! how shall mortal tongue the love express
With which THOU didst so love us, as to be
Our sacrifice upon the accursed tree,
Bearing the burden of our wickedness!
O! ye wild winds, and wilder blasts that wail
Amid the ebon darkness, have ye known
Man's deep iniquity, that thus ye moan
In hollow accents through the lonely vale?
Alas, my soul! thy sins slew GOD's dear SON!
'Kyrie eleeson! CHRISTE eleeson !'

29

CENTRAL AMERICAN SKETCHES.

NUMBER ONE.

It was a dark and rainy morning, when 'Land on the lee-bow,' was sung out by the man at the helm, and in considerably less time than is occupied in writing it, the occupants of the close little cabin, in which they had been cooped up for twenty-six mortal days, made their way on deck to look for the first time upon the coast of Central America. The dim outlines of the land were scarcely discernible through the murky atmosphere, and many and profound were the conjectures hazarded as to what precise point was then in view. The result finally arrived at was, that we were off Monkey Point,' about thirty miles to the northward of our destined port. This conclusion was soon confirmed by observing close under the shadow of the shore an immense rock, rising with all the regularity of the Pyramids to the height of three hundred feet; a land-mark too characteristic to be mistaken.

We were sweeping along with a stiff breeze, and were comforted with the assurance that we should be in port to breakfast,' if,' as the cautious captain observed, the wind held.' But the perverse wind did not hold, and in half an hour thereafter we were tumbling about with a wash-tubby motion, the most disagreeable that can be imagined, and of which we had had three days' experience under the Capes of San Domingo. The haze cleared a little, and with our glasses we could make out a long, low line of shore, covered with the densest verdure, with here and there a feathery palm, which forms so picturesque a feature in all tropical scenery, lifting itself proudly above the rest of the forest, and the whole relieved against a back-ground of high hills over which the gray mist still hung like a veil.

Some of the party could even make out the huts on the shore; but the old man at the helm smiled, and said there were no huts there, and that the unbroken and untenanted forest extended far back to the great ridge of the Cordilleras. So it was when the adventurous Spaniards coasted here three centuries ago, and so it had remained ever since. These observations were interrupted by a heavy shower, which was acceptable for the wind it brought, which filled the idle sails, and moved us toward our haven. And though the rain fell in torrents, it did not deter us from getting soaked in vain endeavors to harpoon the porpoises that came tumbling in numbers around our bows.

But the shower passed, and with it our breeze, and again the brig rocked lazily on the water, which was now filled with branches of trees, and among the rubbish that drifted past, a broken spear and a cocoanut attracted particular attention; the one showed the proximity of a people whose primitive weapons had not yet given place to the more effective ones of civilized ingenuity, and the other was a certain index of the tropics. The shower passed, but it had carried us within sight

of our port. Those who had before seen cabins on the shore could not now perceive any evidences of human habitations, and stoutly persisted that we had lost our reckoning, and that we were far from our point of destination. But a trim schooner which was just then seen moving rapidly along under a pouring shower in the same direction with ourselves, silenced the pretended doubters, and became immediately a subject of great speculation. It was finally agreed on all hands that it must be the B- a vessel which left New-York three days before us, the captain of which had boasted that he would 'beat us in by at least ten days.' So every body was anxious that the little brig should lead him into the harbor, and many were the objurgations upon the wind, and desperate the attempts of the sailors to avail themselves of every 'cat's-paw' that passed.

The excitement was great, and some of the impatient passengers inquired for sweeps, and recommended putting out the yawl to tow the vessel in. They even forgot, such was the excitement, to admire the emerald shores which were now distinct, not more than half a mile distant, and prayed that a black-looking thunder-storm that loomed gloomily in the east, might make a diversion in our favor. And then a speck was seen in the direction of the port, which every moment grew larger as it approached, and by and by the movement of the oars could be seen, and bodies swaying to and fro, and in due time a pitpan, a long, sharp-pointed canoe, pulled by a motley set of mortals, stripped to the waist, and displaying a great variety of skins, from light yellow to coal black, darted under our bows, and a burly fellow in a shirt pulled off his straw-hat to the captain, and inquired in bad English, 'want-ee ah pilot? The mate consigned him to the nether regions for a lubber, and inquired what had become of his eyes, and if he could n't tell the 'Francis' any where; the 'Francis,' which had made thirty-seven voyages to this port, and knew the way better than any black son of a gun who ever put to sea in a bread-trough! And then the black fellow in a shirt and straw-hat was again instructed to go to below, or if he preferred, to go and pilot in the lubberly schooner to windward.' The black fellow looked blacker than before, and said something in an unintelligible jargon to the rest, and away they darted for the schooner.

Meantime the flank of the thunder-storm swept toward us, piling up a black line of water, crested with foam, while it approached with a noise like that of distant thunder. It came upon us; the sails fluttered a moment and filled, the yards creaked, the masts bent to the strain, and the little brig dashed rapidly through the hissing water. In the darkness we lost sight of the schooner, and the shore was no longer visible, but we kept on our way; the Francis knew the road, and seemed full of life and eager to reach her old anchorage.

'Don't she scud!' said the mate, who rubbed his hands in very glee. 'If this only holds for ten minutes more, we 're in, like a spike!'- and strange to say, it did hold; and when it was past, we found ourselves close to Point Arenas,' a long narrow spit, partly covered with water, which shuts in the harbor, leaving only a narrow opening for the admission of vessels. The schooner was behind us, but here was a dif