Border and Bastille

-bound, in the early morning of the 20th of last December. The same sullen neutral tint pervaded and possessed everything-the leaden sky-the bleak, brown sho

iver wavelets, boiling and breaking angrily, there was s

ld feel the railway carriages trembling and quivering, as if shaken by some rude giant's hand, when they halted at any exposed station; and, this morning, the pilots shake their wise, grizzled beads, and hint at worse weather yet in the offin

tter to decide. There are as nice points of honor, and as much jealous regard for professional credit in the merchant service as in any other. Only once, since the line was star

e she could make fast alongside. It was hard to keep one's footing on the shaking, slippery bridge, but in ten minutes all staggered or tumbled, as choice or chance directed, on to the deck of the little steamer. I was looking for a dry corner, when an American passenger made roo

erica," he said, "and then we started

tone, like that of any brave man on his way to encounter some irresistible pain or woe; but saddened by a

after the sober and stately fashion befitting a mighty "liner." Half an hour sees the end of the long stream of mail-bags, and the huge bales of newspapers shipped; then the moorings are cast lo

-hopelessly, among the breakers of the North Sands. She had tried to run in without a pilot, and ours seemed to think her fate the justest of judgments; but

d went ou

ther roughly for a conflict with vaster billows. Thirteen hours of hard steaming barely brought us abreast of Holyhead. The

ngencies), and then lightly as thistle-down. On the rare occasions when the mal-de-mer proved too much for his valiant self-assertion, he yielded to an overruling fate without groan or complaint: folding the scanty coverlet around him, he would subside gradually into his berth, composing his little limbs as gracefully as C?sar. His courtesy was invincible and untiring: he was anxious to defer and conform even to my insular prejudices. Discovering that I was in the habit of daily immersing in cold water-a feat not to be accomplished without much toil, trouble, and abrasion of the cuticle-he thought it necessary to simulate a like performance, though nothing would have tempted him to incur such needless danger. His endeavors to

ng (I think he said) his thirtieth transit within five years. He was certainly entitled to the freedom of the ocean, if intimate acquaintance with every fathom of its depth and breadth could establish a claim. It rather surprised me, afterwards, to see such science and experience yield so easily to the common w

on Saturday-as though gathering breath for the final onset-the storm fairly reached its height, and then slowly abated, leaving us substantial tokens of its visit in the shape of shattered boats, and the ruin of all our port bulwarks forward of the deck-house. I fancy there was nothing extraordinary in the tempest; and, in a stout ship, with plenty of sea room, there is probably li

series of dissolving views-mutton and beef of mature age, leaping about with a playfulness only becoming living lambs and calves-while the proverb of "cup and lip" becomes a truism from perpetual illustration? Neither is it a

ith were our g

ir cork-he

"unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentlema

him. Instantly there came back to my memory a horrible German tale, read and forgotten fifteen years ago, of a certain old and unjust steward, Daniel by name, who, having murdered his master by casting him down an oubliettes, ever haunted the fatal tower, first as a sleep-walker, then as a restless ghost-moaning and gibbering to himself, and tearing at a walled-up door with bleeding hands. The train of thought thereby sugges

quickly enough by the after-scuppers, surged backwards and forwards with every roll of the vessel, as if it meant to keep you down and bury you forever. Lying in my berth, I could feel the heavy seas smite the strong ship one cruel blow after another on her bows or beam, till at last she would seem to stop altogether, and, dropping her head, like a

e in to dinner, out of the wild weather, the moral contrast with the turmoil outside was quite refreshing. Report speaks highly of Captain Grace's seamanship; and I believe in him

ite through it, but I read enough to be enabled to affirm, that its principles are unexceptionable, its style grammatically faultless, and its purpose sustained (ah, how pitilessly!) from first to last. The few amatory scenes are conducted with the most rigid propriety; and when there occurs a lover's quarrel, the parties hurl high moral

:" it may be that their vast breadth and volume takes off from their apparent height, but I scarcely thought it reached Dr. Scoresby's standard-from 26 to 30 feet, if I remember right, from trough to crest. One realizes thoroughly the abysmal character of the turbulent chaos, a

Paris, and a rapid tour through Germany and Southern Europe. Most of the countries, that he had been compelled to hurry over, I had loitered through in days past, and I ought to have been shamed by the contrast in our recollections-his, so clear and systematical-mine, so vague and dim. An intellectual American travelling through strange lands does certainly look at nature, ani

to lose, gained, by joining the ranks of either army, a social position to which they could not otherwise have aspired; and the speculators, who, directly or indirectly, fairly or unfairly, made gains vast and unholy, such as wreckers are wont to gather in time of tempest and general disaster. He scarcely alluded to the corruption and peculation prevalent in all high places, diluted in its downward percolation till sutlers and horse-thieves would strive in vain to emulate the fraudulent audacity of their superiors. It was well he spared me then, for soon after landing, my eyes and ears grew weary with the repet

assertion in his tone; nevertheless, I judged him to be a man of mark somewhere, and I afterwards

s all the way in. We sighted the first pilot-boat on the afternoon of January 3d, and, as she came sweeping down athwart us, with her broad, white wings full spread, our glasses soon made out the winni

autical as much as possible in their attire. The "anxious inquirers" got little satisfaction from him-he seemed taciturn by nature, if not sullen-and they came back to where the rest of us stood on the hurricane deck, muttering discontentedly, "Gold at 46. No news." It seemed very odd-

overing a disastrous, if not shameful defeat; the papers crowded with dreary funeral notices, showing how, to every great city of the North, from hospital and battle-ground, the slain are being gathered in, to be buried among their own people; a wail of widows and orphans and mothe

ng these things, I remembered how, four thousand years ago, a stiff-necked generation were brought to their senses and on their knees. It was on the morning after the visit of the Dark Angel, when Egypt awoke,

intending to admire the famous harbor which Americans love to compa

ist came up a

s eye co

altogether. It was dangerous to advance, ever so cautiously, when the keenest sight could not pierce half a ship's length ahead. So there we lay at anchor for weary hours,

g my fortunes. I was far from entreating him to leave me; landing utterly alone in a strange land, one does not lightly cast aside c

an will recognize the sobriquet), beaming upon the world in general with the placid cheerfulness that no changes of time or place or fortune seem able to alter, looking just as comfortable and thoroughly "at home" as he did, steering Horniblow to victory at Brixwort

hich is obligatory on a visitor to New York; for the "Colonel's"

gling everywhere with full evening toilettes, assisted at a massacre-unmusical and melancholy-of "Lucrezia." We drove out through the crude, unfinished Central Park to Harlem lane, whither the trotters are wont to resort, and saw several teams looking very much like work (though no celebrities), almost all of the lean, rather ragged form which characterizes, more or less, all American-b

them down in their delicate dens, waiting for a more clement season, to renew external depredations; though sometimes you could just catch a glimpse of bright eyes and a little pink nose peering over dark fur wrappings, as a brougham or barouche, carefully closed, swep

e discontents of all parties; not comprehensive enough for the ultra-Abolitionists, it was stigmatized by the Democrats as unconstitutional and oppressive; while moderate politicians a

on, and prophesied weeping in the South if she and their batteries should meet: few then dared to insinuate a doubt about Charleston's certain fall, when once the leaguer was fairly mustered for assault. Grave doubts were now expressed as to the seaworthiness of all the new iron-clads, though their advocates could point to a sister of the unhappy Monitor, which had survived a great part of the same storm. That they all must be more unsafe in really rough weather than the crankiest of our old "coffin brigs," seems quite ascertained now: the fact of their being unable to make headway through a heavy sea unless towed by a consort, speaks for itself. The immediate cause of the Monitor's foundering (according to Captain Worden'

e Rosecrans the Invincible came in for his full share of credit-perhaps not more than he merited. Few other Federal commanders can claim that epithet; and, though some people persisted in c

red-each going his own way, east, north, and s