yellow, blue, and white, and tubs of aldermanic turtle, we attain the shore, and, presently, the steamer.  Here we find a large deputation of the towns-people taking passage with us for a pleasure excursion to Havana.  The greater number are ladies and children.  They come fluttering on board, poor things, like butterflies, in gauzy dresses, hats, and feathers, according to the custom of their country; one gentleman takes four little daughters with him for a holiday.  We ask ourselves whether they know what an ugly beast the Gulf-Stream is, that they affront him in such light armor.  “Good heavens! how sick they will be!” we exclaim; while they eye us askance, in our winter trim, and pronounce us slow, and old fogies.  With all the rashness of youth, they attack the luncheon-table.  So boisterous a popping of corks was never heard in all our boisterous passage;—­there is a chorus, too, of merry tongues and shrill laughter.  But we get fairly out to sea, where the wind, an adverse one, is waiting for us, and at that gay table there is silence, followed by a rush and disappearance.  The worst cases are hurried out of sight, and, going above, we find the disabled lying in groups about the deck, the feather-hats discarded, the muslins crumpled, and we, the old fogies, going to cover the fallen with shawls and blankets, to speak words of consolation, and to implore the sufferers not to cure themselves with brandy, soda-water, claret, and wine-bitters, in quick succession,—­which they, nevertheless, do, and consequently are no better that day, nor the next.

But I am forgetting to chronicle a touching parting interview with the Major, the last thing remembered in Nassau, and of course the last to be forgotten anywhere.  Our concluding words might best be recorded in the form of a catechism of short questions and answers, to wit:—­

“How long did the Major expect to stay in Nassau?”

“About six months.”

“How long would he stay, if he had his own way?”

“Not one!”

“What did he come for, then?”

“Oh, you buy into a nigger regiment for promotion.”

These were the most important facts elicited by cross-examination.  At last we shook hands warmly, promising to meet again somewhere, and the crimson-lined barge with the black Zouaves carried him away.  In humbler equipages depart the many black women who have visited the steamer, some for amusement, some to sell the beautiful shell-work made on the island.  These may be termed, in general, as ugly a set of wenches as one could wish not to see.  They all wear palm-leaf hats stuck on their heads without strings or ribbons, and their clothes are so ill-made that you cannot help thinking that each has borrowed somebody else’s dress, until you see that the ill-fitting garments are the rule, not the exception.

But neither youth nor sea-sickness lasts forever.  The forces of nature rally on the second day, and the few who have taken no remedies recover the use of their tongues and some of their faculties.  From these I gather what I shall here impart as