Journal of an African Cruiser

ral's Cook-Nautical Musicians-The Sick Man-The Burial at Sea-Arrival at the Cana

one; she was caught in a wintry gale from the north-east, dismasted, and towed back into Portsmouth harbor, within three days after her departure. The second move brought us to New York; the third, from the Navy Yard into the North river; a

shes you a prosperous cruise, and goes over the side. His life is full of greetings and farewells; the grasp of his hand assures the returning mariner that his weary voyage is over; and when the swift pilot boat hauls her wind, and leaves you to go on your course alone, you feel that the last connecting link with home is broken. On our ship's deck, there were perhaps some h

ly, dipping into the white foam of our track, to seize the food which our keel turns up for them out of the ocean depths. Mysterious is the way of this little wanderer over the sea. It is never seen on land; and naturalists have yet to discover where it reposes, and where it hatches its young; unless we adopt the idea of the poets, that it builds its nest upon the turbulent

course. But the incessant and uneasy motion of the ship deprives us of any steady comfort. In spite of all precautions, tables, chairs, and books, have tumbled about in utter confusion, and the monotony is enlivened by the breaking of bottles and crash of crockery. A

at once determined not to board her; and, after asking the captain to report us, we stood on our course again. The newspapers will te

on that point, lest the Commodore should be disposed to engage the services of so distinguished an artist for his own table. But our self-congratulations were not of long continuance. The sugared omelet passed with slight remark. The beefsteak smothered in onions was merely prohibited in future. But when, on the second day, the potatoes were served with mashed lemon-peel, the general discontent burst forth; and we scolded till we laughed

to which sailors are as much addicted as the Sultan in the Arabian Nights. But music is the order of the evening. Though a band is not allowed to a ship of our class, there are always good musicians to be found among the reckless and jolly fellows composing a man-of-war's crew. A big landsman from Utica, and a dare-devil topman from Cape Cod, are the leading vocalists; Symmes, the ship's cook, plays an excellent violin; and the commodore's steward is not to be surpassed upon the tambourine. A little black fellow, whose sobriquet is Othello, manages the castane

osses painfully in his cot. His messmates gently bathe his hot brow, and, watching every movement, nurse him as tenderly as a woman. Strange, that the rude heart of a sailor should be found to possess such tendernes

r the first time, in a cruise likely to be fatal to many on board, the boatswain piped "all hands to bury the dead!" The sailor's corpse, covered with the union of his country's flag, was placed in the gangway. Two hundred and fifty officers and men stood around, uncovered, and reverently listened to the beautiful and

f Teneriffe are in full sight, though the lofty s

the mole, to see the Consular Agent, on duty. While waiting in our boat, we were stared at by thirty or forty loafers (a Yankee phrase, but strictly applicable to these foreign vagabonds), of the most wretched kind. Some were dressed in coarse shir

en, of highly respectable family, fell in love with a young man, her inferior in social rank, though of reputable standing. The affair was kept secret between them. At length, the lover became jealous, and, one evening, called his mistress out of her father's house, and stabbed her five or six times. She died instantly, and her murderer fled. It was b

e punishment of guilt, which has made them outlaws of the land; some, to drown the memory of slighted love; while others flee from the wreck of their broken fortunes ashore, to hazard another shipwreck on the deep. The jacket of the common sailor often covers a figure that has walked Broadway in a fashionable coat. An officer sometimes

town, of similar size. Around the city there is an aspect of great fertility; fields of corn and grain, palm-trees, and vineyards, occupy the valleys among the hills, and extend along the shores, twining a glad green wreath about the circuit of the island. The vines of Canary produce a wine which, two or three centuries ago,

on, where they dwell like swallows in a sand-bank. Judging from the number of these excavations, the mouths of which appear on the hill-sides, there cannot be less than a thousand persons living in the manner here described. Not only the destitute inhabitants of Grand Canary, but vagabonds from Teneriffe and th