the midst of this tumult struggled a solitary human figure, sometimes sitting, sometimes kneeling, sometimes rolling, or desperately clinging to the table, till the table itself burst its bonds, threw a preliminary summerset, and taking a loose sofa between its legs, prepared for a waltz. It was a countryman of Van Tromp, who had thus resolved not to be drowned in his bed; and as even fright becomes comical by its extravagance, I could not help laughing, in spite of my own miseries, to see the poor Dutchman at any extraordinary plunge clapping his hands as ecstatically as if it had been meant for applause. To tell the truth, the vessel occasionally gave such an awful lurch that I seriously thought we should be left in it. At last, towards morning, our terrors were brought to a climax by a tremendous crash overhead, followed by a prodigious rush of water, under which the Lord Melville seemed to reel and stagger as if it had been wine, whilst part of the briny deluge rushed down into the cabin and flooded the lower beds. Our claqueur, poor Mynheer, clapped his hands long and loudly, taking it of course for the catastrophe of the piece. The vessel had been pooped, as it is called, by a monstrous sea, which had torn four men from the helm, where they were steering with a long iron tiller, and had thrown them luckily almost to the funnel instead of over the quarter, when they must inevitably have perished. On such angles, in this world, depend our destinies ! On going on deck I found the captain and the pilot anxiously looking out for the buoys which mark the entrance into the Maas. "I congratulate you, sir," said the yellowface: ""steam has saved us, mere canvas has not been so fortunate; " and he pointed to the hull of a large ship with only her lower masts standing: she had gone down in shoal water, her stern resting on the bottom, whilst her bows still lifted with the waves. "And the crew?" The yellowman significantly shook his head. "No boat could live in such a sea." For the first time, Gerard, I felt sick, sick at heart. I have seen many completer wrecks, with their naval anatomy quite laid bare, but from that very circumstance, their wooden ribs and vertebræ being thus exposed, they looked more like the skeletons of stranded marine monsters; whereas, in the present instance, the vessel still preserved its habitable shape, and fancy persisted in peopling it with hu 66 man creatures, moving, struggling, running to and fro, and at length in desperation clinging to the rigging of those now bare spars. I had even painted, Campbell-like, that wretched character, a Last Man, perched in dreary survivorship in the maintop, when, in startling unison with the thought, a voice muttered in my ear: "Yes! there he is! — he's been up there all night, and every soul but himself down below! The speaker was the red-faced man. "A pretty considerable bad night, sir," said his antipathy, by way of a morning salutation. "An awful one, indeed," said the red-face; "of course you've been sick at last?" "Not a notion of it." 66 Egad, then," cried my uncle, who had just emerged from the companion, you must have some secret for it worth knowing!" "I guess I have," answered the other, very quietly. "Renounce me, if I didn't think so!" exclaimed the red-face in a tone of triumph: "it can't be done fairly without some secret or other, and I'd give a guinea, that's to say a sovereign, to know what it is." "It's a bargain," said the yellow-face, coolly holding out his hand for the money, which was as readily deposited in his palm, and thence transferred to a rather slenderly furnished squirrel-skin purse. "Now, then," said the Carnation. Why, then," said the Yellow Flower of the Forest, with a peculiar drawl through the nose, "you must jist go to sea, as I have done, for the best thirty years of your life." The indignation with which this recipe was received was smothered in a general burst of laughter from all within hearing. Luckily we were now summoned to breakfast, where we found my aunt, who expatiated eloquently on the horrors of the past night. "I really thought," she said, "that I was going to poor George." "Amongst sailors, ma'am," said our rough captain, very innocently, "we call him Old Davy." 66 In consequence of the sea running so high, we were unable to proceed to Rotterdam by the usual channel; and were occupied during a great part of the second day in going at half speed through the canals. Tedious as was this course, it afforded us a sight of some of the characteristic scenery of that very remarkable country called Holland. We had abundant leisure to observe the picturesque craft, with their high cabins, and cabin windows well furnished with flower-pots and frows, in fact, floating houses; while the real houses, scarcely above the water-level, looked like so many family arks that had gone only ashore, and would be got off next tide. These dwellings of either kind looked scrupulously clean, and particularly gay; the houses, indeed, with their bright pea-green doors and shutters, shining, bran-new, as if by common consent, or some clause in their leases, they had all been freshly painted within the last week. But probably they must thus be continually done in oil to keep out the water, the very Dryads, to keep them dry, being favored with a coat, or rather pantaloons, of sky-blue or red, or some smart color, on their trunks and lower limbs. At times, however, nothing could be seen but the banks, till perchance you detected a steeple and a few chimneys, as if a village had been sowed there, and was beginning to come up. The vagaries of the perspective, originating in such an arrangement, were rather amusing. For instance, I saw a ruminating cow apparently chewing the top of a tree, a Quixotic donkey attacking a windmill, and a wonderful horse, quietly reposing and dozing with a weathercock growing out of his back. Indeed, it is not extravagant to suppose that a frog, without hopping, often enjoys a bird's-eye view of a neighboring town. So little was seen of the country, that my aunt, in the simplicity of her heart, inquired seriously, "Where's Holland?" "It ought to be hereabouts, madam," said the yellow face, "if it was n't swamped in the night." Swamped, indeed!" said the red face; "it's sinful to mistrust Providence, but renounce me if I could live in such a place without an everlasting rainbow overhead to remind me of the promise." They'd be drowned to-morrow, sir," said the captain, "if they was n't continually driving piles, and building dams, like so many beavers. on two legs." They have all the ways of beavers, sure enough,” chimed in my uncle, " and, egad!" pointing to a roundsterned fellow at work on the bank, "they have the same breadth of tail." 66 Amongst other characteristic features of the landscape, if it had land enough to deserve the name, we frequently saw a soli⚫ary crane or heron at the water's edge, watching patiently for food, or resting on one leg in conscious security. I pointed them out to my uncle, who, sportsman-like, was taking aim at a stork with his forefinger, when a hand was suddenly interposed before what represented the muzzle of the gun. It was the act of Mynheer the Claqueur. My uncle reddened, but preserve said nothing, though he afterwards favored me with his opinion. "The Dutchman was right. I have been thinking it over; and I have a misgiving we are too wasteful of animal lives. In England, now, those birds would not live a week without being peppered by the first fellow with a gun." "Because,” said I, “we can sleep in England in spite of Philomel; but the Dutch nightingales are more noisy, besides being as numerous as their frogs, and they are glad to any birds that will thin them out." "No, no, Frank,” replied my uncle, gravely shaking his head; "it's beyond a joke. I didn't say so before the Dutchman, because I don't choose to let down my native land: there's plenty of travellers to do that with a pretended liberality: but I don't set up for a cosmopolite, which, to my mind, signifies being polite to every country except your own." "I have never heard the English accused,” suggested your humble servant, "of wilful cruelty." "Not as to humankind, Frank: not as to humankind; but have n't we exterminated the bastards I mean to say, bustards; and haven't we got rid of the black cock of the walk I should say, the woods? As for the storks, they're the most filial and affectionate birds to old parents in all nature, and I take shame to myself for only aiming at them with a finger. God knows I ought to have more fellow-feeling for sudden death!" It was night ere we arrived at Rotterdam, safe and well, with the exception of my uncle's umbrella and great-coat, supposed to have been washed overboard by the same sea that endangered the lady and her carriage. Whilst the rest of the family comfortably established themselves at the Hôtel des Pays Bas, I took a hasty ramble by moonlight through the city, and have thrown my first impressions into verse, which, according to agreement, please to present with my dear love. to your sister. In plainer but not less sincere prose, accept the hearty regard of, My dear Gerard, yours ever truly, 2 TO ** I GAZE upon a city, Before me lie dark waters, Tall houses, with quaint gables, All tell me you 're in England, Those sailors-how outlandish And now across a market |