vessel was all at fault. Unintelligible orders were so rapidly given, and so immediately executed; there was such a hurrying about, and such an intermingling of strange cries and stranger actions, that I was completely bewildered. There is not so helpless and pitiable an object in the world, as a landsman beginning a sailor's life... At length, those peculiar longdrawn sounds which denote that the crew are heaving at the windlass, began; and in a few moments we were under way. The noise of the water thrown from the bow began to be heard, the vessel leaned over from the damp night breeze and rolled with the heavy ground-swell, and we had actually begun our long, long voyage. This was literally bidding "good night' to my native land.

The first day we passed at sea was the Sabbath. As we were just from port, and there was a great deal to be done on board, we were kept at work all day, and at night the watches had time for reflection. I felt for the first time the perfect silence of the sea. The officer was walking the quarter deck, where I had no right to go; one or two men were talking on the forecastle, whom I had little inclination to join, so that I was left open to the full impression of everything about me... However much I was affected by the beauty of the sea, the bright stars, and the clouds driven swiftly over them, I could not but remember that I was separating myself from all the social and intellectual enjoyments of life. Yet strange as it may seem, I did then and afterwards take pleasure in these reflections, hoping by them to prevent my becoming insensible to the value of what I was leaving.

But all my dreams were soon put to flight by an order from the officer to trim the yards, as the wind was getting ahead, and I could plainly see, by the looks the sailors occasionally cast to windward, and by the dark clouds that were fast coming up, that we had bad weather to prepare for; and I had heard the captain say that he expected to be in the Gulf Stream by twelve o'clock. In a few minutes eight bells were struck; the watch called, and we went below.

I now began to feel the first discomforts of a sailor's life. The steerage in which I lived was filled with coils of rigging, spare sails, and ship stores, which had not been stowed away. Moreover, there had been no berths built for us to sleep in, and we were not allowed to drive in nails to hang our clothes upon The sea too had risen, the vessel was rolling heavily, and everything was pitched about in grand confusion. Í shortly heard the rain-drops falling on deck thick and fast; and

the watch evidently had their hands full of work, for I could hear the loud and repeated orders of the mate, the trampling of feet, the creaking of blocks, and all the accompaniments of a coming storm.

The

When I got upon deck, a new scene, and a new experience were before me. The little brig was close hauled upon the wind and lying over, as it then seemed to me, nearly upon her beam ends. The heavy head-sea was beating against her bows, with the noise and force of a sledge-hammer; and flying over the deck, drenching us completely through... The topsail halliards had been let go, and the great sails were filling out, and backing against the masts with a noise like thunder. wind was whistling through the rigging, loose ropes were flying about; loud, and to me, unintelligible orders were being constantly given, and rapidly executed, and the sailors were "singing out" at the ropes in their hoarse and peculiar strains... În addition to all this, I had not got my "sea-legs" on, was dreadfully sick, with hardly strength enough to hold on to anything, and it was "pitch dark." This was my state, when I was ordered aloft for the first time, to reef topsails.

How I got along, I cannot now remember. I "laid out" on the yards, and held on with all my strength. I could not have been of much service, for I remember having been sick several times before I left the topsail yard. Soon all was snug aloft, and we were allowed to go below... This I did not consider much of a favor, for the confusion of everything below, and that inexpressible sickening smell caused by the shaking up of the bilge-water in the hold, made the steerage but an indifferent refuge from the cold wet decks. I had often read of the nautical experiences of others, but I felt as though there could be none worse than mine; for in addition to every other evil, I could not but remember that this was only the first night of a two years' voyage.

This state of things continued for two days. On Wednesday morning, when I came on deck at four o'clock, I found things much changed for the better. The sea and wind had gone down, and the stars were out bright. I expected a corresponding change in my feelings; yet continued extremely weak from my sickness. I stood in the waist on the weather side, watching the gradual breaking of the day, and the first streaks of the early light... Much has been said of the sunrise at sea; but it will not compare with the sunrise on shore. It wants the accompaniments of the songs of birds, the awakening hum of men, and the glancing of the first beams upon trees, hills,

spires, and house-tops, to give it life and spirit. But though the actual rise of the sun at sea is not so beautiful, yet nothing will compare with the early breaking of day upon the wide

ocean.

There is something in the first grey streaks stretching along the eastern horizon and throwing an indistinct light upon the face of the deep, which combines with the boundlessness and unknown depth of the sea around you, and gives one a feeling of loneliness, of dread, and of melancholy foreboding, which nothing else in nature can give. This gradually passes away as the light grows brighter, and when the sun comes up, the ordinary monotonous sea day begins. Dana.

THE EPHEMERA; AN EMBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE.

You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day... I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too great application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your charming language.

I listened through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but, as they, in their national vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation. I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, one a cousin, the other a musquito ; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living a month.

Happy people! thought I; you are certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention, but the perfections and imperfections of foreign music... I turned my head from them to an old grey-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his

soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony.

"It was," said he, "the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion; since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably toward the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction.

"I have lived seven of those hours, a great age, being no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few of us continue so long! I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire. My present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth, who are now, alas, no more! And I must soon follow them; for, by the course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer.

"What now avails all my toil and labor, in amassing honeydew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy! What political struggles I have been engaged in, for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies for the benefit of our race in general! for, in politics, what can laws do without morals? Our present race of ephemera will in the course of minutes become corrupt, like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched.

"And in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long, and life is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name, they say, I shall leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera who no longer exists? And what will become of all history in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end, and be buried in universal ruin ?",

Benjamin Franklin.

A TIDAL HARBOR AT EBB AND FLOW.

I HARDLY know two things more different in appearance than what is called a tide harbor when the sea is in, and the same harbor when the sea is out. At high water we behold a beautiful basin, brim full, and bearing on its surface numberless vessels, all of whose masts, ropes and sails loosed to dry, are reflected in the mirror upon which they rest so gracefully, the bold originals, in all their pomp and bustle, or their inverted and softened representations beneath... The little boats which pass up and down or flit across the harbor, and the ships arriving or departing, some dropping their anchor with a thundering splash into the stream, and others laboriously heaving up that ponderous load of iron to their bows, give an endless variety to this busy scene. The cheerful voice of the seamen, singing as they work, mingled with the anxious word of command spoken by the cautious pilots, form a fitting music for the scene.

Even the brawling of the noisy boatmen has its characteristic and stirring interest, as they cross or recross the port with hawsers, which they tie and untie, or pass along from post to post, with an address that astonishes the ignorant and delights the professional eye, netting the whole space over with cords with the industry of spiders, as if their mischievous purpose were to catch or retain the ships, not to expedite their departure or aid their entrance into the port... The adjacent wharves and piers, at that busiest, because the most available season of the tide, are generally crowded with spectators, composed either of persons eagerly watching the arrival of longfooked-for friends, or bidding an adieu to those who are departing; or finally, of that large majority of idlers, who, having no precise business anywhere, are attracted, unconsciously, by the beauty and interest of this ever varying scene, and who, without having either taste or knowledge enough to analyse their feelings, are yet moved by what is so essentially picturesque, that the dullest senses are made to feel its charm.

Nor is this a scene which palls on the observation, for it is scarcely possible that we shall discover it to be alike on any two days of the year. On one day there may be either a faint breeze, or a dead calm. The vessels, in that case, drop out gently to sea with the first turn of the ebb, while others enter the harbor with the last drain of flood—each being aided by a little tiny boat, connected with its parent bark by a cord, alternately dipping in the water and jerking out of it, as the seamen with a loud huzza strain their backs to the oar.