the wind had increased to a mimic gale. It continued, with rain; and our ship seemed a less inviting dwelling-place, for people who would seek their comfort, than she was on the Friday before. Surely she had been playing with our fairy dreams of sunnier latitudes; and if such were to be our treatment by the winds without, and the lubberly ship within, we were several times on the point of protesting that she should lose her fair name with us, though eulogized by others. The ship rolled most abominably, as we lay to under the main spencer and fore storm-stay-sail. The water dashed into the stern ports and at the rudder coat, drenching the wardroom sufficiently to give a dozen men employment in bailing the water from the thoroughly soaked apartment. And then the delightful chowder, always meaning by chowder not that down-eastern savory dish made up of a little of every thing, and a good deal of the layers of fish; but by chowder, here, meaning the Chinese chow-chow, that is, medley of any thing; and in this instance it was chow-chow, differing only from a medley of any thing by being a mingling of every thing almost that the wardroom contained—twentytwo chairs, two extra wash-hand stands, a nameless quantity of empty bottles; and before the gale was over, trunks, crockery, tables, lieutenants, the watch officers and civilians, the non-watch officers alike taking their places, at one moment to the larboard, and at the next moment to the starboard side of the lubberly ship. Some gentlemen seemed in utter despair as the water flooded their apartments, and were willing for the rest of the voyage to commute for any shore-man's cellar, with the one condition that it should be dry, for their sleeping apartment. Others deemed the ship a beast, that ought to be ashamed of herself for such ungallant movements; and I, forsooth, knew too well where comfort was, in a dry room, to allow me to be abroad from my bed at such hours. But the one quality of amiableness and

sympathy for another's distress seemed to be universal, and the storm went on to have its blow out; and the ship, though rebuked, continued to have her own way, and to take her tumble, for it was all a gambol in harmony with the fashion of the regions through which she was passing, namely, between the Bermudas and the Hatteras. And what browncheeked sailor has not learned the poetic language of his brother tars, who have gone before him? If the poetry of the couplet be questioned, the warning it awakes is as faithful as the whirlwind on the seas is real :

"If Bermudas let you pass,

Then look out for Hatteras."

Could we have caught one of that peculiar species of comfortables called congressmen, and tied him to the quarterdeck with the watch officer, or tumbled him among the movables along with the idlers below, and laved him with the abundance of water now found in shipboard currents without allowance, almost any where, said comfortable would not have been soon caught again forsaking his carpeted halls and his pay for the pleasures of a sea voyage in one of the frigates of that fine proportioned old gentleman they call Uncle Sam. No, no, Mr. Comfortable. Nor for all the allowance which the gentlemen of the Navy receive, or the prospect before them of a premature old age and a bare support for their families while living, and no prospect of leaving to their families but a very small living when they die, would said comfortable undertake, himself, to navigate our nation's ships. Should the subject for augmenting the pay of these officers chance to come up before his honorable body of comfortables at. Washington, you would see him in his place, among the first to rise, and not only with erect person but with hands up, exclaim, "Give it to them—their pay-Mr. Speaker; give it to them, by all means. I would

you would sooner double their pay, and our own too, before catch me again to be the sharer of their weal and woe among storms and hurricanes, off the Bermudas and the Hatteras. Give it to them, by all means, Mr. Speaker."

In truth, landsmen know but little of the scenes, and the wear and tear of life which the officers of our Navy go through. For myself, I should most certainly decline going through the details of a Lieutenant's duties, on shipboard, for the amount of his emoluments and future expectations; standing a watch, as he often does, for four hours, in the tempest, and gale, and sleet, and cold. And three times in every four nights, amid all weathers, for four successive hours, must he walk the deck and take care of the ship, either from 8 o'clock till midnight, or from midnight till 4 o'clock in the morning, or from 4 o'clock in the morning until 8 o'clock, A. M.; besides another additional watch of four hours during every day. The position of the Navy officer is any thing but a sinecure. He earns his pay; and it should be continued to him, and augmented, with the addition of a respectable pension for his family when he leaves them, after having, of necessity, spent the amount of his yearly pay in their support. If there are dandy officers floating about the streets of our cities, spending more than their pay, the great body of the navy officers are worthier men, and should be cared for, liberally judged, and provided for while they grow prematurely brown, gray, and weather-beaten in the service of their country.

On the 9th of February the gale continued: the frigate lay to, and rolled as abominably as ever. After trying her at scudding, she was found to be easier, having labored much in laying to in the storm. During the morning we had a second edition of breaking of dishes, thunder claps of smashing bottles, tables, and pitching lieutenants and other bodies into the lee-scuppers. But the clouds began to thin,

and the blessed sun gave forth his smiles again. The ship rolled on her due course, and before night the decks were dry, the atmosphere mild; and music (thank God for blessed. harmonies, and an ear and a heart that can appreciate them) woke from the full band, cheering the hearts of all, men and officers, as the sunshine of the skies and the deep blue of the seas seemed, alike with all above and beneath and around them, to rejoice that the dark clouds and the drifting currents of rain had betaken themselves off to the northwest, and hid themselves in their olden haunts of the Bermudas and the Hatteras.

THE GULF STREAM.

Gales, storms, and bad weather, with a general gathering of the dark-winged spirits of the winds, seem to delight to make the Gulf Stream their haunts and play-grounds. This same stream of the ocean is a mystery to the navigator, even to the present day, in many particulars, though the tradewinds may have some influence in giving origin to this current. Some of the observed phenomena of the stream are interesting. It commences some seventy miles east of the Havana, runs along the north coast of the Island of Cuba westward, and thence enters the Straits of Florida, towards which it has been approaching at the rate of one and a half miles the hour, but increases as it passes through the Florida Straits to three and four miles the hour; and at the narrowest point of the straits, between Cape Florida and the nearest of the Bahama Islands, it being about forty-five miles across, the current runs in the month of August at the rate of five miles the hour. Still stretching itself north, it runs by that wild promontory, the Hatteras, twenty miles at sea, and onward to the banks of Nantucket, in a course from southwest to northeast. At Nantucket and St. George's

banks, it takes a more easterly direction, brushing the southern extremity of the great bank of Newfoundland, and extending in this direction between the parallels of 37° and 43° north latitude, as far as longitude 44° west. It then bends to the southeast and south; and thence is lost in the ocean. The length of the Gulf Stream, from the Salt Keys, south in its circular course, north and east to the Azores, is 3000 miles. And what is one of the great peculiarities of the stream is, that its temperature is ten or eleven degrees higher than the ocean water in the same latitude out of it. The average breadth of the current is some 120 miles; and a peculiar sea-weed floats in the stream, sometimes in extensive fields, at other parts of it in lesser quanties and in single sprigs. Columbus marked this peculiarity of sea-weed in the ocean, and argued, for the encouragement of his crew, that it indicated the neighborhood of land; which, after having continued his course west through fields of it, at length greeted his wishful eye, and made him the wonder and the admired, for a time, of his own age, and the benefactor and the admired of mankind in all succeeding time.

THE FRIGATE GAINS SOUTHING.

Having struck the northeasterly trade-winds, ever prevailing in one direction, we soon were borne along by them on our course south, beyond the regions of storms, to sunnier latitudes and placid seas. The sailing in the trades is always pleasant. The ship, for leagues, keeps on one tack, hardly a sail being lifted when once set, and the officers and men lounging in their rest, and change, and enjoyment, after their escape from the cold of more northern climes, the storms of wilder tracks of the ocean, and the exposures of the ship and their persons to the dangers and the disagreea