vain for the Susquehanna, which was expected from Cumsing moun, but she had not arrived. I would have given much for another sight of her big hull and familiar spars; and, better still, for a hail from some of her jolly men.

The river now became broader and frequently expanded on either side into great arms, some of which extended for many miles into the country. We passed the first bar, which was created by the Chinese sinking junks to prevent the English from reaching Canton. A high hill on the southern shore, near the second bar, which we reached about 5 P. M., is crowned with a pagoda 150 feet high, which is visible at a great distance. Beyond this, the river again expands, to be finally contracted into a narrow pass, at the Bocca Tigris, which we fortunately reached before dusk. It is a fine, bold gateway, formed by two mountainous islands, which leave a passage of about half a mile between them. There are several Chinese batteries on either hand, but they are more formidable in appearance than in reality.

By the time we had passed the Bogue, it was dark. The tide was now in our favor, and we stood away towards Lintin. We had a large number of friends, including Messrs. Nye and Tuckerman of Canton, at dinner in the cabin, but about 10 P M. they all bade us good-bye and returned aboard the steamer. We were cast off a little after midnight, and taking a northeast wind ran down past the Ladrones at the rate of ten knots an hour. When I went on deck in the morning, China was no longer visible. The weather was dull and rainy, but we continued to make good progress. On the afternoon of the 12th, by which time we had made 300 miles, a violent squall came on tearing our maintop-gallant sail and jib into ribbons. Heavy

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showers of rain succeeded, and during the night the wind grad ually settled into the regular south-west monsoon. By noon the following day, we were in Lat. 14° 54' N.-consequently south of the Paracel Reefs, and beyond the latitude of violent typhoons. As the wind still blew steadily from the south-west, Captain Howland determined to change his course and make for the Straits of Mindoro, Basilan and Macassar, hoping to get the south-east trade wind in the Java Sea, and thus make a better run to Angier than by slowly beating down the China Sea.

I found the Sea Serpent an excellent sea-boat, in every respect. She behaved admirably on a wind, slipping through the water so softly that we would not have suspected the speed she made. Although so sharp in the bows, she was very dry, scarcely a spray flying over the forecastle. In addition to Lieut. Contee and myself, there was but one other passenger, Mr. Parkman of Boston. Capt. Howland was accompanied by his wife and child. The officers were intelligent and obliging, and our party, though small, was large enough to be agreeable. We were all well satisfied with the prospect of a cruise among the Indian Isles, and therefore welcomed the Captain's decision.

At sunset, on the 14th, we made land ahead, at a considerable distance. As the passage required careful navigation, on account of its abundant reefs, we stood off and on until the next morning. Passing the North and North-west Rocks, the mountainous island of Busvagon, or Camelianes, opened to the south and east, its lofty hills, and deep, picturesque valleys clothed in eternal green. The rocky islets which bristled between us and its shores exhibited the most striking peculiarities of form and structure. Some shot upwards like needless or obelisks from

the dark-blue sea; others rose in heavy masses, like the turrets or bastions of a fortress, crowned with tufts of shrubbery. The rock of which they were formed was of a dark slate color, in vertical strata, which appeared to have been violently broken off at the top, bearing a strong resemblance to columnar basalt.

Busvagon stretched along, point beyond point, for a distance of forty or fifty miles. The land rose with a long, gentle slope from the beaches of white sand, and in the distance stood the vapory peaks of high mountains. We sailed slowly along the outer edge of the islets, to which the larger island made a warm, rich background. The air was deliciously mild and pure, the sea smooth as glass, and the sky as fair as if it had never been darkened by a storm. Except the occasional gambols of the bonitas, or the sparkle of a flying-fish as he leaped into the sun, there was no sign of life on these beautiful waters.

Towards noon the gentle south-east breeze died away; and we lay with motionless sails upon the gleaming sea. The sun hung over the mast-head and poured down a warm tropical languor, which seemed to melt the very marrow in one's bones. For four hours we lay becalmed, when a light ripple stole along from the horizon, and we saw the footsteps of the welcome breeze long before we felt it. Gradually increasing, it bore us smoothly and noiselessly away from Busvagon and the rocky towers and obelisks, and at sunset we saw the phantomlike hills of the southern point of the island of Mindoro, forty miles distant. The night was filled with the glory of the full moon -a golden tropical radiance, nearly as lustrous, and far more soft and balmy, than the light of day-a m.ystic, enamored bridal of the sea and sky. The breeze was so gentle as to be felt, and no more; the ship slid as silently through the water

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as if her keel were muffled in silk; and the sense of repose in motion was so sweet, so grateful to my travel-wearied senses, that I remained on deck until midnight, steeped in a bath of pure indolent happiness.

Our Voyage the next day was still more delightful. From dawn until dark we went slowly loitering past the lovely islands that gem those remote seas, until the last of them sank astern in the flush of sunset. Nothing can be more beautiful than their cones of never-fading verdure, draped to the very edge. of the waves, except where some retreating cove shows its beach of snow-white sand. On the larger ones are woody valleys, folded between the hills, and opening upon long slopes, overgrown with the cocoa-palm, the mango, and many a strange and beautiful tree of the tropics. The light, lazy clouds, suffused with a crimson flush of heat, that floated slowly through the upper heavens, cast shifting shadows upon the masses of foliage, and deepened, here and there, the dark-purple hue of the sea. Retreating behind one another until they grew dim and soft as clouds on the horizon, and girdled by the most tranquil of oceans, these islands were real embodiments of the joyous fancy of Tennyson, in his dream of the Indies, in "Locksley Hall." Here, although the trader comes, and the flags of the nations of far continents sometimes droop in the motionless air-here are still the heavy-blossomed bowers and the heavy-fruited trees, the summer isles of Eden in their purple spheres of sea. The breeze fell nearly to a calm at noonday, but our vessel still moved noiselessly southward, and island after island faded from green to violet, and from violet to the dim, pale blue that finally blends with the air.

The next day was most taken up with calms.

The captain

and mates spent much of their time in shifting the sails so as to get the most of the faint wind-flaws that reached us, watching for distant ripple-lines on the ocean, or whistling over the rail. In the afternoon land was descried ahead-the Cagayanes Islands, a little group in the middle of the Sooloo Sea. We passed between them about four o'clock, and had a fair view on either hand. The shores are smooth walls of perpendicular rock, about a hundred feet in height, and almost completely hidden under a curtain of rich vegetation. Here and there the rock falls away, leaving little beaches of sand, behind which rise thick forests of cocoa or palm. I could distinguish with the glass half a dozen bamboo huts on the shore. A few boats were drawn up on the beach. The islands looked so lovely as we passed them, in the soft lustre of sunset, that I longed for a day of calm, to go ashore where so few Europeans have ever set foot, and have a glance at the primitive barbarism of the natives. The sea still remained as smooth as a mountain lake. We saw great quantities of drift-wood, upon which boobies and cormorants perched in companies of two and three, and watched for fish as they drifted lazily along. In the neighborhood of the islands we frequently saw striped snakes, four or five feet in length.

The lofty coast of Mindanao, one of the largest of the Philippine Islands, was visible at sunrise, on the 19th. Before long Basilan appeared in the south-east, and by noon we were in the mouth of the strait. The observation gave Lat. 7° 3′ N., Long. 121° E. Two vessels were descried ahead, a ship and a brig, both lying close in to Mindanao, and apparently becalmed. In fact, we could easily trace a belt of calm water near the