rushing by with inimitable speed. No haven appeared in sight to which to fly for shelter; and the seamanship of every man was tried to the uttermost, in manœuvring to escape shipwreck upon these inhospitable shores. The storm-sails were tried; but before they were well hoisted they were torn to ribands, and the flapping shreds became knotted, like thongs, in an instant.

The night of the second day set in. The crew by this time had become acquainted with all the dangers of their fearful progress. The first day had been passed without meeting with many islands; but with the experience of the second, they now saw nothing but the horrors of death before them at every plunge. Still they were bold and courageous, and blenched not. They were ready to use all human means for their preservation; but they were deeply impressed with the belief that their time was come, and that all exertion would be unavailing among the dangerous archipelagoes through which they were forced to thread their uncertain way. The night was dark; and the look-out upon the bows, while endeavouring to pierce the gloom, declared, from time to time, as he was hailed in the pauses of the storm, that he could not distinguish the end of the bowsprit. Thunder and lightning now accompanied the blast. The roar of the one seemed to give notice that all Pandemonium was let loose, while the vivid lightning, so terrible and impressive at other times, was now a relief to the terror-stricken men, who eagerly strained their eyes in the direction of the ship's course, whenever it sent forth its strong lurid coruscation upon the waters. Flash after flash gave them a momentary reprieve, and showed them, as yet, clear sea-room ahead.

The night was considerably advanced when the fierce tempest began to lull. Hope, for the first time, sprung up in the bosoms of all. The ship was now brought with her side to the wind, and her speed to leeward was consequently greatly diminished. Sails were about

being set to keep the ship in her position, when a strong flash of lightning brought a renewal of all their dangers. "Land on the lee-bow!" resounded from twenty voices.

"Let go the anchor!" shouted the captain: but before the order could be executed, the ship struck and became immoveable. The shock was not severe, but seemed to produce a sort of grating sound, as if the keel was passing like a sleigh-runner over bare ground.

After the first confusion subsided, it was discovered, by the flashes of the lightning, that the ship, after being brought to the wind, had worked herself, by the aid of a strong current, around a projecting point of land, and had grounded at some distance from the shore, on the lee-side of a high island. As yet it could not be discovered whether the situation was dangerous, or whether the ship could be got off at a favourable state of the tide. It was with great joy, however, that the pumps were sounded, and no leak appeared. The ship in a few minutes gently heeled over, and showed that the tide was receding. It was determined to wait for the dawn of day, and for the reflux of the tide, before any measures should be taken to relieve the ship. The eyelids of the sailors were by this time almost glued together with watching and fatigue. They had been constantly and fearfully occupied for more than two days, without a wink of sleep; and deep anxiety had deprived them of all appetite for food. Now all was comparatively safe, and they were fain to seek nourishment and repose for their worn bodies. The captain alone slept not. He continued walking the deck until morning. The storm had by that time ceased altogether.

As the day broke, the situation of the ship became apparent. Her keel was found to be slightly sunk in a yielding bed of coral branches, and the vessel lay about two miles from the shore of a well-wooded island, of large dimensions. By sunrise the tide was on the

flood, and all hands were called to assist in constructing a raft of the spare spars, in order to lighten the ship of such heavy articles as could be got at readily. The longboat was launched; and that, as well as the quarter-boats, were filled to overflowing with provisions and water-casks, whose contents had as yet been undisturbed. The raft, too, groaned under its burden; and every thing was got ready to heave the ship off when the tide should be at its height.

When all was prepared, Macy caused a spare boat to be manned, and carried off a small kedge anchor to a suitable distance from the ship, where, carefully dropping it, the warp was hove taught on board, and kept ready to take the first advantage when the ship should float clear of the reef. He now heedfully sounded the passage by which he had entered upon this dangerous ground, and noted the bearings and distances of the crooked channel. At times, shoaling the water upon the steep sides of the coral banks, he ordered his men to rest upon their oars for a minute, to enable him to look at the brilliant scene beneath him.

Columns and spires of variegated coral shot up from the bottom of the sea, assuming the appearance of architectural regularity, which, with but little stretch of the imagination, might have passed for Gothic ruins of spar, changing the hues of its material as the bright sun darted its rays directly or obliquely upon its varying surface of stone and adhering shell, until all other colours were blended with the green of the water in unfathomable depths. Here and there the bright-hued tropical fish would dart across the eye, or gently swim out from the recesses of the rocks, or carelessly approach the surface, as if to flaunt its surpassing beauty of intermingled tints of gold and silver, in the strong light of the sun. No comparison between the rich sparkling dies of the fishes that play between the glowing tropics, among the ever-changing coral reefs of the Pacific, can be instituted with those of the piscatory

tribes of any other seas. Their colour and loveliness are rich in the gorgeousness of their splendour, beyond the power of language to portray. Well might the poet ask, when looking upon such a scene—

"Who can paint like nature ?"

Yet one poet has painted a scene like this, and that poet is our own inimitable PERCIVAL, who, to the deep regret of his friends, holds himself, we are. told, retiringly in the shade, while he is capable of sending forth finished pictures, burnished with gold and studded with diamonds, like the following:

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"THE CORAL GROVE.

Deep in the wave is a coral grove,

Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with falling dew,

But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine.

The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift,
And the pearl-shells spangle the snow :
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift

Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow:

The water is calm and still below,

For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air;

There, with its waving blade of green,

The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen

To blush, like a banner bathed in slaughter;
There, with a light and easy motion,

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean,

Are bending, like corn on the upland lea;
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the wave his own :
And when the ship from his fury flies,

Where the myriad voices of ocean roar,
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore-

Then far below, in the peaceful sea,
The purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the waters murmur tranquilly,

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove."

We know not that the poet ever looked upon the reality of what he so eloquently shows up to our wondering eyes; but this much we do know, that had he been present during the whole of the voyage of our ship, he could not better have grouped his figures from nature. The truth and aptitude of his picture were so striking, that when the "Coral Grove" first met our eyes in the columns of the "Charleston Courier," it revived this scene of our by-gone days, and restored reminiscences of the sea, and of real life, much older than himself. As we cut the gem from the musty folds of the newspaper, we could have sworn in earnestness that its author had been one of our crew of the Grampus, and had looked with us upon "life in rare and beautiful forms," and upon growing "bowers of stone, that may at no distant day emerge from the great valley of the Pacific, to form the substratum of an immense continent like our own, and become instinct with human life.

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But to return to our story. Macy had scarcely completed his surveys, when he espied a stealthy gathering of natives on the shore, and a launching and mustering of warlike canoes, with javelins and missiles bristling above the heads of the savages as they put off towards the ship. The whale-boat was instantly put in motion, and a race for life commenced. The natives manœuvred to cut Macy off; but the sinewy rowers bent to their oars with Herculean vigour. The boat reached the ship, and the last man sprang into the chains just in time to avoid the stroke of a well-poised lance, which was aimed to pin him to the side of the vessel.

The ship was now surrounded with savages of fierce and frightful aspect, and forms of gigantic mould. Already were the natives clambering up the sides of the