Let bloody steel awhile be sheathed:

And all those harsh and rugged sounds

Of bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds,

Exchanged to Love's more gentle style,

To let our reader breathe awhile.

 

HUDIBRAS.

 

 

The damages done on board the Albatross were all repaired before sunset; the dead body of the poor fellow that was killed was committed to its watery tomb with becoming solemnity, and by the next morning the north-east trade-wind was blowing fresh and steady, and, as it usually does in both the Atlantic and Pacific, from almost due east. The ship, with booms rigged out and studding-sails set on both sides, dashed swiftly towards the west, rolling almost gunwales under at every motion, and initiating the two females into all the mysteries of sea-sickness. However, in two or three days the sea, that is always heaviest near the land, subsided into the long, regular undulation peculiar to the ocean, properly so called, and Isabella recovered from her sea-sickness, and, by keeping as much as possible in the open air, and walking the deck almost constantly, assisted at first by the arm of some one of the gentlemen, soon got her sea-legs on.

 

I would substitute some other phrase, if, by so doing, I could make myself intelligible; but as the case is, it is impossible to mince the matter--fashion has not yet, thank God, invaded the "Dictionary of Sea-Terms;" and ladies, when off soundings, must still be content to have "legs" like other folks--on shore they may vote it indecent to have even "ankles," for aught I care.

 

Captain Williams, having neither missionaries nor tracts on board, did not stop at the Sandwich Islands, nor did he even pass within sight of them; but holding on his course, on the fortieth day after leaving St. Blas, he saw Cape Espiritu Santo, the southern extremity of the island of Lugonia, or Lucon, one of the Philippine Islands. Passing through the Straits of Samar, he changed his course to the northward and westward, and steered for Macao, where he arrived six days afterwards.

 

The passage across the Pacific Ocean afforded the two lovers numerous moonlight quarter-deck walks. Morton, as first officer, had the first watch, from eight to twelve, every other night, and on these occasions was invariably accompanied by his fair bride elect, who, wrapped in a cloak or great coat, walked the deck leaning upon his arm; or, seated upon the hen-coop, listened with interest to his descriptions of American, or, more properly, New England, scenery, manners, and history; or gazed upon that lovely object, a moon-lit ocean in fine weather.

 

There is something peculiarly soothing in this scene--something in the soft light of the heavens, and in the dark and dimly-seen ocean, that induces a pleasing melancholy, a pensive tranquillity; the low, gentle murmuring of the waves calms the mind, tranquillizes its angry passions and boisterous feelings, and brings on those dreamy reveries that contemplative people are so fond of indulging. It is then, when the "grim-visaged" ocean has "smoothed his wrinkled front,"--when the winds of heaven are hushed to gentle airs, and the cloudless moon looks down upon the scene, tipping the crests of the lazy waves with silver,--that the memory and imagination of the wanderer are busy; it is then that the scenes of childhood and of manhood--the forms of friends, more loved because sundered from them by thousands of miles of water and land--all rise before him in original freshness and beauty.

 

Isabella also proposed to her lover to accompany him in his middle watch--that is, from midnight to four in the morning--but I grieve to say, that she proved worse on these occasions than an old man-of-war's man, not only "standing two calls," but, in fact, not "turning out" at all. She made some amends, however, by coming on deck at four o'clock frequently, to witness that splendid spectacle, sunrise at sea, which is particularly glorious between the tropics, not only on account of the extreme purity of the air, but from the shortness of the morning twilight; the sun rushing so suddenly from his salt water couch, as to come "within one" of catching the stars napping.

 

On arriving at Macao, Isabella was doomed to undergo another separation from her beloved Morton, whose qualities of head and heart she had had sufficient opportunities of studying and appreciating during the voyage from Mexico, and in the daily and familiar intercourse of a merchant-ship's cabin. As the Chinese eschew the society of foreign women even more rigorously than the children of Israel did that of "strange" ones--and, taking this notion of theirs "by and large" in connection with their laws, and manners, and tastes, we think they are perfectly right--Isabella was consequently landed at Macao, and placed in the care of a venerable and highly respectable Portuguese family, and after having arranged the means of as regular a correspondence as could be carried on in that country, where there are not quite so many mail-coaches and post-offices as with us, she saw with tearful eyes the whale-boat "shove off," containing in its stern-sheets Morton, a Chinese custom-house mandarin, two Chinese pigs, a hind-quarter of Chinese beef, a Chinese river pilot, and sundry baskets of Chinese fowls and vegetables.

 

Macao is beautifully situated upon a small island, near the mouth of the river Tigris, commanding a fine view towards the sea, and was, when I had the fortune to visit it, very clean and neat in its streets and the external condition of its houses--a circumstance the more remarkable, as its inhabitants are Portuguese and Chinese, two of the dirtiest people on the face of the earth: to these, of course, numerous other nations and parts of nations may be added; and among them, a very large proportion of the aristocratic and fastidious English, who prefer spitting in their pocket-handkerchiefs instead of the fire-place or the street; all the Spaniards; all the French in their houses, and food, and furniture; all the Dutch in their persons; all the Russians in every thing; nearly all the Irish and Scotch; and a very respectable modicum of my beloved countrymen, the Yankees, together with the greater part of the natives of the southern states, who, being nursed, brought up, and associating with negro slaves from the cradle to the grave, smell dirty, if they are not.

 

After an absence of about six weeks, Isabella one morning received a letter from Canton, informing her that the ship would commence "working" down the river that day, or, according to the date of the letter, two days previous, and that she would be off Macao on the second or third day from said date. Accordingly she made all necessary preparations for another and much longer voyage, and after dinner walked down to the water-side, accompanied by her Portuguese friends. They had been on the look-out for nearly half an hour, when a large ship hove in sight, evidently from Canton.

 

As she approached, steering apparently direct for the town, she suddenly tacked and stood out to sea, or directly away from it. The party had already made out with their glasses that the ship was indeed the Albatross; but poor Isabella, who had seen, on her passage from Mexico, nothing but fair winds, was exceedingly distressed by this last unintelligible manoeuvre. Were they actually going away without her?--the thought was agony. The ship, that was but four miles off when first seen, was now at least eight, and her hull was fast sinking below the line of direct vision. Her companions, who had hitherto been occupied in silently admiring that most splendid effort of human genius, a ship under full sail, were suddenly startled by an exclamation betokening extreme anguish from their lovely friend--"They have gone! they have gone!" sobbed the unhappy girl. The most affectionate kindness, and the most earnest assurances that the apparently unaccountable movement of the ship was no more than was absolutely necessary from the direction of the wind, were equally lost upon her--she "would not be comforted." In a few minutes the Albatross hove in stays (you need not hold your fan to your face, madam), and seemed to approach the shore as rapidly as she had before receded from it.

 

"Look up, my dear child," said M. de Silva; "see, your ship is flying in, and will soon be safely at anchor."

 

Isabella raised her head from the shoulder of Madam de Silva, and applying the glass to her tear-dimmed eye, was convinced of the folly of her grief. They sat down to watch the gallant ship as she rapidly approached the "roads." Before the sun was hid behind the hills in the rear of the town, they had the pleasure of seeing the Albatross commence reducing her sails; presently the topsails were clewed up, and the jib hauled down, the ship "rounded to," her anchor let go, and in a moment the men were seen clustering upon the lower and topsail yards. A minute or two afterwards Isabella plainly distinguished, by the help of her glass, the well-known whale-boat sweeping round the ship's stern, and rowing swiftly towards the shore. A deep blush announced that the glass had also informed her who was, in midshipman's language, the "sitter," the person in the stern-sheets, to wit, and she immediately proposed returning to the house. Morton, on landing, informed her that the ship would get under weigh the next morning at day-break, and that it would be most advisable, as the ship could approach no nearer than five miles to the town when beating out of the bay, to go on board as soon as possible that evening, to which she, of course, assented, and, having taken an affectionate leave of her Macao friends, who insisted upon supplying her with "sea-stores" enough to fit out half a dozen sail of Liverpool packets, she accompanied Morton to the boat.

 

The next morning at day-break she was startled from her slumbers by the clanking of the windlass-pauls, the voices of the officers, and the tramp of feet o............