bles of navigation. The unpleasant of the past is soon forgotten in the comforts of the present. SUNDAY SERVICES. Sunday, the 15th of February, very unlike the drifting rain and storm of the preceding Sabbath, was pleasant, the temperature of the air mild; and the ship, gliding over the blue deep, made her way, still south, at a good rate, while her motion was scarcely perceptible to the officer as he traversed her deck. The awning had been spread, to ward off the too great heat of the sun. The men were ordered to dress in their white trowsers and frocks. The capstan had been covered with bunting, and the Bible and the Prayer Books were placed upon it, preparatory for the religious services of the Sabbath. At ten o'clock, the shrill pipe of the boatswain and the hoarse voices of the boatswain's mates sounded over the decks of the frigate: "All hands to muster!" The marines in their full dress, the seamen in their clean white trowsers and frocks, and the band in their crimson costume, with the officers in their uniform dress, occupied their several positions. The deck having been thus arranged, I advanced, with the Captain, to the capstan, and commenced the usual services of the Church. The prayers were said; the responses well read; and when the prayers of the service, which to-day I abbreviated, were ended I read the following hymn: "When through the torn sail the wild tempest is streaming, Nor hope lends a ray the poor seaman to cherish, We fly to our Maker; 'save, Lord, or we perish.' O Jesus, once rocked on the breast of the billow, Who cries in his anguish, 'Save, Lord, or we perish.' 38 And O! when the whirlwind of passion is raging, As the last line of the hymn fell on the air, the music of the full band broke the stillness that prevailed throughout the ship; and the melody went on the breeze over the blue deep, as wave after wave bore on the strain, until it died away, where, save but for ourselves, there were none to hearThe sermon followed, and the none to feel—and the solitude of ocean reigned, in its profound and in its expanse. services were ended. This scene was not new to me; but a landsman, standing for the first time on the decks of a United States frigate, with the ship's company thus arranged for religious service, would be impressed deeply by the order, the beauty, and the solemnity of the scene. STILL GAINING SOUTHING. CROSSING THE TRACK OF COLUMBUS. Still onward and southerly stood our ship the next day, with the ever-favoring trade-winds-crossing the track of the immortal Columbus in his Santa Maria, led on by the Pinta and attended by the Niña, the three gallant ships that dared the unknown and mysterious ocean of the west, until, on the 12th of October, 1492, at two o'clock in the morning, a gun · from the Pinta, being always in the lead, announced to the other ships, that land was seen! What emotions must have swelled the bosoms of the crews of those three ships; and sublimer still, the soul of that man, the chief of the gallant expedition, as the ships lay to for the few hours, more before the break of day. The dreams of Columbus were now to be realized; and his heart must have ached of its breathings as he waited the developments of the morning. And then, with the earliest light, and in the sunniest seas, Andalusia," the The green isle and in the softest climate, "as April in shores of a New World opened upon him. of San Salvador, as he afterwards named it, now fell on his vision, with its green pile, and trees like orchards, and fruits various and unknown; while the island was seen to be inhabited by a numerous people, as they gathered from the groves; and all giving the noble adventurer the triumph of his theories, success against the predictions of failure from opposing princes, and a name as immortal as the proudest of all preceding or succeeding time. I love to review associations, as they are awakened by localities over which I am passing. And the story of Columbus, as we course by the Bahama Isles, and along the sunny seas of the West Indies, comes up refreshingly to the memory as one first makes the traverse of the same seas, and notes how natural were the impressions of this adventurous navigator, and fancies what must have been the varied emotions that alternately ruled the superstitious crews and the philosophic chief and officers as they gave way to hope and fear, apparent success and succeeding disappointment; at one moment turning their most favorable circumstances into superstitious apprehensions, and at another moment ready for mutiny and for sacrificing their commander; at another, awed or persuaded or defied by his superior genius; and at another still, shouting "gloria in excelsis" as the sequel of the exulting cry from the commander of the ever foremost Pinta, as he sent the hail to the ship of Columbus, exclaiming, “Land, land, señor, I claim my reward!" and pointing at the same moment to the southwest, the course on which our own ship is now sailing. But ere long the loom of land, as had other appearances before this apparently more certain one, faded away, and seemed but another mysterious vision, which their superstitions began to think the unseen beings of these sunny climes were using to woo and decoy them onward to a ruin from which they never might again return. And here in this connection it may be stated as a curious fact, that Columbus started with the purpose of sailing on a course due west, as far as practicable, which he affirmed would develope the truth of his theories, by his finding land ; and that he deviated from this course southerly only to satisfy the demand of his almost mutinous associates, as the appearances to them, at times, seemed the most strongly to indicate the existence of land in that direction. He unwillingly indulged these entreaties, to put the ships some points farther south. And by calculating his position at the time he did this, six days before the discovery of land, we find that he was sailing on a parallel of latitude which, with the drift of the Gulf Stream, would have taken his ships to the eastern coast of Florida, and thus might have turned his discoveries along the coast of North America, and finally led to the settlement of the colonies of the North by a Spanish people instead of its present population. But, having deviated from his course for a moment only to dissipate the false appearances, as seen by other eyes than his own, Columbus again stood due west with his ships; and ere long the cry, that could only be realized by one man of the world, and only once by him in the peculiarity which it now sounded, came to the ear of the bold navigator, and made him feel that a New World there was, and it was his-its gold, its viceroy and admiralty, and its fame. That fame. all time will give to thee, thou noble Genoese! Our ship still kept her southerly course with easting, that we might make the Mona passage, one of the boldest inlets into the Caribbean sea. This pass lies between the islands of Hayti and St. Domingo on the west, and Porto Rico on the east; and we were nearing it on the 16th, the sunny sea presenting its beautiful blue expanse and the winds favoring us on our course, as they came in their blandness like garden gales, which might justly awaken the idea, in the mind of Columbus, that this placid clime must be a perpetual paradise. There could be no more beautiful sailing. And our run over the comparatively smooth sea, with the favoring breeze, took us rapidly south. The 17th found us in momentary expectation of making land, while the skies continued as fair and the winds as favorable as bore us yesterday over these placid seas. It was almost like the enjoyment of Italian music in Italian climes, though here the skies were sunnier and more placid still. Thus pleasantly were we now sailing; and, as expected, the cry from the tops came: "Land ho!" "Where away?" "One point forward the beam!" And there it was; looking as much like a huge elephant with a broken back as any thing else, as seen from our deck; and as much like any thing else as an elephant with a broken back; or, as the nautical books say, "bearing south by west, makes two heads like a wedge." Yet there it was, the beautiful Island of Hispaniola, as called by Columbus, where he longest delayed on his first voyage, and where he was shipwrecked, and where he built a fort, and left some of his followers to await his return, during which time he expected they would collect a tun of gold and spices, which should enable his royal sovereign at length to regain the holy sepulchre from the sacrilegious possession of the Moslems. And on that beautiful island, which he found inhabited by a people so simple in all their habits, affectionate and hospitable, there was happiness, in its primeval form; but it was destined to an unhappy history in onward years. It is HAYTI now, the olden name of the Indians, meaning high land; and its story since the 6th of December, when Columbus entered the harbor, which he then called St. Nicholas, and which has since been retained, has been one of |