just heard, which deserved more calm consideration than I have yet had time to give them. I had hardly reached the deck, however, when I was joined by the first-mentioned of my fellow travellers, who, fixing at once, as usual, upon the most obvious topic, observed that it was a beautiful night. I agreed with him simply, and he then went on to say--

"It is much pleasanter up here than down below. The cabin is very hot, and that brute of a slave-dealer makes it still hotter."

"I have heard," I replied, "that you Virginian gentlemen hold these slave-dealers in great horror and contempt."

"First, let me tell you I am not a Virginian," responded he; "but I can answer as well as if I were. The slave-dealer is looked upon here, and all through the South, as a necessary nuisance. He is tolerated, and that is all; but there are very few cases in which that toleration is carried so far as to sit in the same room with him. At an ordinary, on board a ship, or in a stage coach, men are obliged to do it; and sometimes--for 'misery makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows'--when a gentleman owes one of them a good round sum of money which he can't pay, he will not only put his legs under the mahogany with him, but drink with him across the table. Hic et ubique--it is the same thing. I have seen men drink with a money-lender in your country--which I presume is England--and I am quite certain that if a rattlesnake had a side pocket, and we could get in debt to him, and we should pull off our hats and be as civil to the reptile as possible." He ended with one of his sharp, short laughs; and, taking a cigar case out of his pocket, offered me a very delicious Havanah. The conversation went on much in the same style for some time; and at length the captain came up and joined us, telling us that Mr. Lewis had turned in.

"Well, that's satisfactory," replied my fellow passenger; "for though one must sometimes be in close companionship with a snake, one does not always like to hear him hissing. As soon as I am sure he's asleep, I'll go down and turn in too." By this time we had got so far into the bay that those beautiful sea anemonies, as they are called, or medus[ae], were flashing past the ship in every direction, looking like the lamps which the Hindoo women are said to send floating on the Ganges. I made some observation upon them to my companion, and he replied somewhat in the words of Sir Henry Wotton:

"As if the heaven let fall
Its lesser stars upon the earth."

"But I think the wind is going to change, captain," resumed he. "Don't you see that haze over there?"

"I shouldn't wonder, Mr. Wheatley," answered the master of the vessel; "and if it does, it will blow pretty stiff." These hints determined me to go down once more to the cabin, and take possession of my berth, although the scene from the deck was very beautiful: the stars shining, still, bright, and clear above; the faint outline of the Virginian coast upon our right; the waters of the bay heaving gently under us, gemmed with phosphorescent light, and innumerable white sails gliding along in the same direction with ourselves, some near and some far off, but all, like the beautiful phantoms that pass by us on the wide sea of human life, deriving much of their charm from imagination and indistinctness. But the horror of sea-sickness--that most unimaginative and unpoetical of all maladies--made me anxious to get to sleep before it fixed its fangs upon me. Accordingly, I was soon in the little den allotted to me, which was certainly less comfortable, and not much more spacious, than a coffin. Some fatigue, however, and the late hour to which I had sat up at Mr. E----'s, on the preceding night, brought slumber to my eyes before the wind changed or the gale began to blow. I suspect we were tossed pretty well during the night; but nothing awoke me till day had long dawned. By this time the sea was tolerably calm again, but the breeze not quite so favourable as it had been before; and it was not till yesterday afternoon that we rounded Cape Charles, and entered what is called Hampton Roads. Thenceforward the wind was very fair, and we had no difficulty in making our way to this place. I cannot say that the scenery we passed was very beautiful; yet I do not think I was ever more charmed or struck by anything affecting merely the sight, than I was with the glorious sunset of that evening, as we sailed up the Elizabeth River. In the morning, some clouds had been in the sky; about midday they had thickened and grown darker; and the weatherwise predicted a storm. But, just as those who pretend to the most philosophical knowledge of human nature are generally the most ignorant of men, so the weatherwise, I have remarked, are the most ignorant of the weather. Before three o'clock every cloud had vanished; floating vapour might be here and there, but it was so thin that the eye could not even discern its shadow on the blue, and it was not till the sun nearly touched the horizon that a thin, golden line, brighter than the rest, showed that there was something to catch and reflect the rays. On the right hand and the left, were piney points, with deep bays and indentations between, but with hardly a house visible; though now and then some blue smoke curled up from amongst the trees, near narrow creeks or little rivers opening their mouths into the wider stream, on which hardly a sail was seen to float, and where merely a canoe with a black man quietly dangling his line over the side, gave human vitality to the aspect of the waters. Beyond, towered up dense and lofty forests, massed in the shades of evening, with a sort of light haze resting upon them, and thus leaving a sort of mysterious flatness over the surface. You could see that they were green, yet the tint was curiously indefinite, approaching black in some places, and showing brighter colours in others; but beyond all, to the west, rose up the most gorgeous sky I ever beheld, of a burning fiery yellow towards the horizon, a broad orange glow above, and thence passing gradually into pink and purple, as the rays of the setting sun reached his zenith. To us, indeed, the sun was already set; for he was hidden by the trees and the gentle slopes of the land to the westward; but that he was not yet below the verge of earth, could be plainly perceived; for every here and there along the shores, where a deep creek or cove wandered up into the woods, his rays could be seen, as it were a path of light, reflected from the surface of the waters. At the mouth of two of these creeks, standing long-legged in the midst of the blaze, I perceived a party of storks or cranes, finding their evening meal on some shoal of the river. But the absence of all traces of civilized man; the glorious sunset; the dim woods; the calm, dull, unexpectant attitude of the storks; the width of the river; the sea-like motion of the waves; the solitary negro fishing from his canoe--all gave a strange, solemn, sublime aspect to the scene, and I could not help figuring to myself that such must have been the appearance of the country as it presented itself to the eyes of the first settlers here, who were amongst the earliest of those who visited the North American continent, when first their venturous barques approached these shores. What bold and hardy fellows they must have been! How unimpressible and resolute! I declare the sight of that sunset made me feel a kind of awe; and I do believe that, had I been amongst them, the solitude and the grandeur would have had a sort of sacredness in it to my mind, which would have induced me to turn the prow homeward, and leave the holiness of nature unprofaned. They were not such tempers, however; and some of the results of their persevering and dauntless spirit of adventure were soon visible in the houses and wharves of Norfolk, looking black and ragged upon the sky, with masts, and sails, and columns of smoke, and boats flitting across and across the river, and