vinced we were in one of the finest sea-boats that ever swam. But what could all the skill of the ship-builder avail in a situation like ours? With a night full fifteen hours long before us, and knowing that we were fast driving on the land, anxiety and dread were on every face, and every mind felt the terrors of uncertainty and suspense. At length, about twelve o'clock, the dreadful truth was disclosed to us. Judge of my sensations when I saw the surf and the frowning rocks of Arran, scarcely half a mile distant on our lee-bow! To our inexpressible relief, and not less to our surprise, we fairly weathered all, and were congratulating each other on our escape, when on looking forward, I imagined I saw breakers at no great distance on our lee; and this suspicion was soon confirmed, when the moon, which shone at intervals, suddenly broke out from behind a cloud, and presented to us a most terrific spectacle. At not more than a quarter of a mile's distance on our lee-beam, appeared a range of tremendous breakers, amongst which it seemed as if every sea would throw Their height, it may be guessed, was prodigious, when they could be clearly distinguished from the foaming waters of the surrounding ocean. It was a scene seldom to be witnessed, and never forgotten! 'Lord have mercy on us!' was now on the lips of every one-destruction seemed inevitable. Captain Swaine, whose coolness I have never seen surpassed, issued his orders clearly and collectedly when it was proposed, as a last resource, to drop the anchors, cut away the masts, and trust to the chance of riding out the gale. This scheme was actually determined on, and everything was in readiness, but happily was deferred until an experiment was tried aloft. În addition to the close-reefed main-topsail and foresail, the fore-topsail and trysail were now set, and the result was almost magical. With a few plunges, we cleared not only the reef, but a huge rock, upon which I could with ease have tossed a biscuit; and in a few minutes we were inexpressibly rejoiced to observe both far astern.

us.

We had now miraculously escaped all but certain destruction a second time, but much was yet to be feared. We had still to pass Cape Jeller, and the moments dragged on in gloomy appreliension and anxious suspense. The VOL. IV.-L

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ship carried sail most wonderfully, and we continued to go along at the rate of seven knots, shipping very heavy seas, and laboring much—all with much solicitude looking out for daylight. The dawn at length appeared, and to our great joy we saw the land several miles astern, having passed the Cape and many other hidden dangers during the darkness. Matters on the morning of the 5th assumed a very different aspect from the last two days' experience: the wind gradually subsided, and with it the sea, and a favorable breeze now springing up, we were enabled to make a good offing. I have nothing further worth mentioning respecting ourselves, than that we anchored here this morning, all safe. Fortunately, no accident of consequence occurred, although several of our people were severely bruised by falls. Poor fellows! they certainly suffered enough: not a dry stitch, not a dry hammock, have they had since we sailed. Happily, however, their misfortunes are soon forgot in a dry shirt and a can of grog. Now, they are singing as jovially as if they had just returned from a pleasure-cruise.

The most melancholy part of my narrative is still to be told. On coming up to our anchorage here this morning, we observed an unusual degree of curiosity and bustle in the fort crowds of people were congregated on both sides, running to and fro, examining us through spyglasses: in short, an extraordinary commotion was apparent. The meaning of all this was but too soon made known to us by a boat coming alongside, from which we learned that the unfortunate Saldanha had gone to pieces, and every man perished! Our own destruction had likewise been reckoned inevitable from the time of the discovery of the unhappy fate of our consort, five days beforehand; and hence the astonishment excited at our unexpected return. From all that could be learned concerning this dreadful catastrophe, I am inclined to believe, that the Saldanha had been driven on the rocks about the time our doom appeared so certain in another quarter. Her lights were seen by the signal-tower at nine o'clock of that fearful Wednesday night, December 4, after which it is supposed she went ashore on the rocks at a small bay called Ballymastaker, almost at the entrance of Lochswilly

Harbor. Next morning, the beach was strewed with fragments of the wreck, and upwards of two hundred of the bodies of the unfortunate sufferers were found washed ashore. One man-and one only-out of the three hundred is ascertained to have come ashore alive, but almost in a state of insensibility. Unhappily, there was no person present to administer to his wants judiciously, and upon craving something to drink, about half a pint of whiskey was given him by the country people, which almost instantly killed him! Poor Pakenham's body was only recognized this morning amid the others, and, like these, stripped quite naked by the inhuman wretches, who flocked to the wreck as to a blessing! It is even suspected that he came on shore alive, but was stripped, and left to perish! Nothing could equal the audacity of the plunderers, although a party of the Lanark Militia was doing duty around the wreck. But this is an ungracious and revolting subject, which no one of proper feeling would wish to dwell upon. Still less am I inclined to describe the heart-rending scene at Buncrana, where the widows of many of the sufferers are residing. The surgeon's wife, a native of Halifax, has never spoken since the dreadful tidings arrived. Consolation is inadmissible, and no one has yet ventured to offer it.

CULTIVATIONS.

ALL men are not agriculturists, horticulturists, or arboriculturists; but yet almost all men are cultivators. By this it is meant, that men in general cultivate, or coax, or unduly appreciate and fondle, some particular feature of their persons, or else, perhaps, some integument connected with their persons, to such a degree as to be rather conspicuous, while to everything else they only give the ordinary degree of attention. There are many features of human nature which remain to be detected and described; and this is one-cultivations. So far as I am aware, no one

ever thought of pointing it out to mankind; the subject of cultivation has hitherto remained totally uncultivated. So it shall be no longer.

Hair, as the only part of the person which actually grows like a vegetable, is naturally a large subject of cultivation. The Cavaliers long ago cultivated love-locks, which they kept hanging down in graceful fashion from their temples. These locks, or curls, are now changed for tufts, or bunches of hair, which the young men cultivate at the same place, and are ever shaking up and tedding, exactly as if it were a crop of hay instead of hair. Mark a modern beau as he walks along the street, and you will observe at one glance that the principal part of the man, the heart-the sensorium-the cynosure-the point from which all the rest evolves-the root of the man, in short, is the tuft under the right rim of his hat. All the rest of him is a mere pendulum, vibrating from this axis. As he walks along, he hardly feels that any other part of him is in existence, besides that. But he feels his tuft most intensely. Thought, feeling, everything, lies concentrated in that; head, body, and limbs, are all alike mere members devolved from it. If you were to cut off the side-bunch of a modern beau in his sleep, he would, for the time, be utterly ruined. It would be like the polypus, deprived of everything but a single leg; and he would require several months of dormant existence-that is, retirement from the streets-to let the better part of him grow out again from the worse, which had reinained behind. Let not the demure Puritan, however, think that the joke lies all against the gay cavalier or beau. There may be as much of the sin of cultivation in the stroked and glossy hair of the Roundhead, or plain man, as in the love-locks and bunches of their antipodes in sentiment. I have seen some men, who affected to be very unaffected, cultivate a peak on the top and centre of their brows as sedulously, and with as much inward gratulation on account of it, as ever I saw a dandy cultivate a tuft or train a side-curl. It must be understood that there are cultivations of a negative character, as well as of a positive, and he who is guiltless of cultivation in his heart is alone guiltless. Next to curls, stand whiskers. What a field of

cultivation have we there! The whisker is a bounty of nature, which man does not like to refuse taking advantage of. The thing presses upon him-it is there; and to put it altogether aside, except upon the demand of temporary fashion, is scarcely to be thought of. Some men, however, are more able to resist the demon of whiskers than others. There are some men so prone to the temptations of this fiend, that they enlarge and enlarge their field of cultivation, by small and imperceptible degrees, till at length the whole chin falls a prey, excepting, perhaps a small bit about the mouth-just enough to preserve the cultivator within the pale of the Christian church. Sometimes the Whisker Fiend makes an insidious advance or sally up towards the corners of the mouth; and there-in those small creeks or promontories-does the sin of cultivation invariably flourish more proud and rampant than anywhere else. The whisker of the cheek is a broad, honest, candid, downright cultivation; but that down about the corners of the mouth is a sly and most impish one-a little pet sin, apt to beset its cultivator in a far less resistible fashion than any other; and it may indeed be said, that he who has given himself fairly up to this crime, is almost beyond redemption.

There are some men who cultivate white hands, with long fair nails. For nothing else do they care very particularly all is well, if only their hands be neat. There is even a ridiculous notion, that elegant hands are the most unequivocal test of what is called good birth. I can say, for my own part, that the finest hands I ever saw belonged to a woman who kept a butcher's shop in Musselburgh. So much for the nonsense about fine hands. Then there is a set of people who cultivate a ring on a particular finger-evidently regretting, from their manner of managing it, that the South Sea fashion of wearing such ornaments in the nose has never come into this country. Some men cultivate neat ebony canes with golden heads, which, they tell you, cost a guinea. Some cultivate a lisp. A few, who fall under the denomination of stout gentlemen, rejoice in a respectable swell of the haunch, with three wrinkles of the coat lying upon it in majestic repose. Some cultivate a neckcloth-some a shirt breast-some a