IT is a good thing, said an aged Chinese Travelling Philosopher, for every man, sooner or later, to get back again to his

own teacup. And Oo Long was right. Travel may be "the conversion of money into mind,". and happy the man who has turned much coin into that precious commodity, but it is a good thing, after being tossed about the world from the Battery to Africa, that dry-nurse of lions, as Horace calls her, to anchor once more beside the old familiar tea-urn on the old familiar tea-table. This is the only "steamy column" worth hailing with a glad welcome after long absence from home,

and fully entitled to be heartily applauded for its "loud-hissing" propensities.

I am not a Marco Polo or a William de Rubruquis, and I have no wonders to tell of the Great Mogul or the Great Cham. I did not sail for Messrs. Pride, Pomp, Circumstance, and Company; consequently, I have no great exploits to recount. I have been wrecked at sea only once in my many voyages, and, so far as I know my tastes, do not care to solicit aid again to be thrown into the same awkward situation. But for a time I have been

"Placed far amid the melancholy main,"

and now I am among my own teacups. This is happiness enough for a cold winter's night. Midocean, and mid teacups! Stupendous change, let me tell you, worthy friend, who never yet set sail where sharks and other strange sea-cattle bob their noses above the brine, who never lived forty days in the bowels of a ship, unable to hold your head up to the captain's bluff "good-morning" or the steward's cheery "good-night." Sir Philip Sidney discourses of a riding-master he

encountered in Vienna, who spoke so eloquently of the noble animal he had to deal with, that he almost persuaded Sir Philip to wish himself a horse. I have known ancient mariners expatiate so lovingly on the frantic enjoyments of the deep sea, that very youthful listeners have for the time resolved to know no other existence. If the author of the "Arcadia" had been permitted to become a prancing steed, he might, after the first exhilarating canter, have lamented his equine state. How many a first voyage, begun in hilarious impatience, has caused a bitter repentance! The sea is an overrated element, and I have nothing to say in its favor. Because I am out of its uneasy lap to-night, I almost resemble in felicity Richter's Walt, who felt himself so happy, that he was transported to the third heaven, and held the other two in his hand that he might give them away. To-morrow morning I shall not hear that swashing, scaring sound directly overhead on the wet deck, which has so often murdered slumber. Delectable sensation that I do not care a rope'send "how many knots" I am going, and that

my ears are so far away from that eternal "Ay, ay, sir!" "The whales," says old Chapman, speaking of Neptune, "exulted under him, and knew their mighty king." Let them exult, say I, and be blowed, and all due honor to their salt sovereign but of their personal acquaintance I am not ambitious. I have met them now and then in the sixty thousand miles of their watery playing-places I have passed over, and they are not pretty to look at. Roll on, and so will I, for the present, at least, as far out of your reach as possible.

Yes, wise denizen of the Celestial Empire, it is a good, nay, a great thing, to return even to so small a home-object as an old teacup. As I lift the bright brim to my lips, I repeat it. As I pour out my second, my third, and my fourth, I say it again. Oo Long was right!

And now, as the rest of the household have all gone up bed-ward, and left me with their goodnight tones,

"Like flowers' voices, if they could but speak,"

I dip my pen into the cocked hat of the brave little

bronze warrior who has fed us all so many years with ink from the place where his brains ought to be. Pausing before I proceed to paper, I look around on our household gods. The coal bursts into crackling fits of merriment, as I thrust the poker between the iron ribs of the grate. It seems to say, in the most persuasive audible manner of which it is capable, "O, go no more a-roaming, a-roaming, across the windy sea!" How odd it seems to be sitting here again, listening to the old clock out there in the entry! Often I seemed to hear it during the months that have flown away, when I knew that our ancient" was standing sentinel for Time in another hemisphere. One night, dark and stormy on the Mediterranean, as I lay wakeful and watchful in the little steamer that was bearing us painfully on through the noisy tempest towards St. Peter's and the Colosseum, suddenly, above the tumult of the voyage, this household monitor began audibly and regularly, I thought, to mark the seconds. Then it must have been only fancy. Now it is something more, and I know that our

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