rather than in the storm or freshening breeze. And where did they betake themselves at those times less pleasant for their cradling on the blue billow? I gave them credit for sinking to their calmer homes, far down in the deep, whenever there was aught but pleasant seas and favoring skies above. But why found not these thousand fragile barks, which were here driven on the beach, a like security from shipwreck, by seeking a calm far down in the deep, before they were cast upon the coral shore of Sacrificios, by the tempestuous Northers?

I gathered from the beach specimens of corals of curious shapes and colors-some scallop-shells also, of less interest, and placed them among the cane-brakes to be brought off to the ship, at another hour. I tramped upon a greater curiosity still -a black piece of sea-pitch, so thoroughly hardened on a piece of white coral, and so entirely insinuated into the pores, that it seemed a layer of Egyptian marble on a Parian slab, and would form a fine surface for a cameo. The sea-pitch floats in sufficient quantities, in these seas, to enable the men-ofwar to collect sufficient supplies from the reefs, for lacquering their guns, to which it gives a beautiful surface of polished black. Whence this dark substance comes, some say that nobody knows, except it be from the capacious mouth of that submarine volcano, which some other very imaginative people think, may give heat to the gulf stream, although that stream be a hundred and more miles wide, and in some places, for all I know to the contrary, as many miles deep, and flows on in one mass, from the south to the northern latitudes. There is an odor given out by the soft specimens of this sea-floating substance, like that which is peculiar to the fresh guava. Some of its harder specimens deserve the appellation of the black amber of the seas.

THE SABBATH, MARCH 22, 1846.

To-day is Sunday. The usual religious services have been gone through-prayers read, hymn, music of the band, and sermon. A heavy sigh waking in the deep stillness that followed the conclusion of the discourse, I felt to be one of the best assurances that the subject had reached the emotions, at least, of one heart. A sigh, when none is thought to hear—a tear, when none is thought to see, evidences to the sincerity of the feelings of the swelling bosom and the breaking heart.

Before the services, one of the Lieutenants was seated at the mess-table turning over the leaves of his Prayer-Book, preparatory to the services of the day, and called me to listen to some beautiful lines which he had copied upon one of its blank leaves; and he read them to me as copied below. The heart of every one, who has lived longer or shorter, can testify to the truthfulness of the sentiment, and to the natural poetry of the lines. They were in such harmony with my discourse, that I was almost induced to repeat them.

"Tell me, ye winged winds

That round my pathway roar,

Do ye not know some spot,
Where mortals weep no more?
Some lone and pleasant dell,
Some valley in the west,
Where, free from toil and pain,

The weary soul may rest?

The loud wind settled to a whisper low,
And sighed for pity, as it answered, no!

"Tell me, thou mighty deep

Whose billows round me play,
Knowest thou some favored spot,

Some island far away,

Faith, Hope and Love, best boons to mortals given,
Waved their bright wings and whispered, 'yes-in

Heaven!""

There were several beautiful things of nature, that this same blessed Prayer-Book in the hands of the Lieutenant developed, which I would not too freely communicate, but which he, in his frankness and fullness of heart, as it mellowed with the affectionate reminiscences of those he loved, freely narrated to me. His wife, who is young like himself, and beautiful like her own lovelier self, exacted from him a promise, as they talked of their separation, that every morn

ing and evening, while absent from her, he would read, by himself, the prayers for morning and evening, of the PrayerBook. And he forgets it not, and adds another manuscript prayer of his own, one expression of which shows the devotion of his love. I would copy it all, but I should fear I trespassed too much on the hallowedness of private emotions; and yet it would show how hearts of devoted love are often called, in the naval service, to separate from each other for months and years, with the solicitudes, and anxieties, and affection, which are felt only by those whose spirits are blended as one, for time and a hoped-for happy eternity. He prays his God, the Father of all mercies, to bless his dear wife, now separated from him; to sustain her; guard her from all evil, and (as the passage to which I have already alluded) "render her ever what she now is, the best as well as the fairest of creatures." Some might think there was some little peculiarity of theology in the phraseology of this; but he who has a heart that has given its devotion to an object worthy of its hallowed trust, knows that even such words could be offered in sincerity, profound thanksgiving, and humility, to the God who sees the heart in all its openness and gratitude.

It is said by a divine who is still living, and of some deserved distinction-"I would never give up even an abandoned young man, so long as there is hope that his heart may be captured by a virtuous woman."

"We are made much better, by the hallowed influence of such a character," I said to the Lieutenant, as I alluded to the religious solicitude of his companion; "and women are the best half of our world; and nothing more certainly assures me of the defect in that man's character, and a secret corruption in his morals if not an open disregard to them, than when I hear him speaking sneeringly or slightingly of the female sex.

"Yes," replied the Lieutenant, "they make us better than our nature has made us." And the conversation glided on to the peculiar relationship of the married life, in its self-devotion of each to the other, and a fullness of the heart's breathing aspirations for the happiness of one's companion in all things, which none can know in its fullness who has not formed those relations. The subject was one that led our thoughts into associations that broke my heart; and soon "all hands" were called, by a toll upon the ship's bell, to religious worship.

A SEAMAN'S BURIAL IN A SQUADRON AT ANCHOR.

There is much that is imposing, and much that is profound, in the solemnity of a burial at sea. More especially so, when that burial is from on board a man-of-war of the largest class. But there is something, perhaps, equally and yet more striking in the exhibition presented to the eye, when the body of a sailor is borne from some ship of a squadron, lying at anchor. Such a scene occurred to-day, the 8th of April, from our squadron, now lying under the island of Sacrificios. On board the St. Mary's, the farthest out ship of the fleet, lay the sleeping sailor in his coffin, with the flag of his country shrouding it. A boat from the Cumberland-another from the frigate Potomac, which has been added to our force-another from each of the sloops, the John Adams and the Falmouth, had pulled to the St. Mary's at the hour at which the signals from the Cumberland, as the Fag Ship, had directed. It was 5 o'clock of the evening. The wind was blowing heavily, and the swell ran high, but the waves broke not. Still, the wind being so fresh and the St. Mary's lying at the windward, a signal was made at the mizzen head of the Cumberland, saying, that "the Chaplain would join the procession near the shore," as they stood in to the island, in