LITMIR.BIZ

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lie quietly on their oars, and see their means of livelihood torn from them by the secure navigation of these waters. They will sound, from island to island, the tocsin for the gathering of their strength, and concentrate for the destruction of these enemies to their honest calling, before they have cast their cheering beams over these stormy seas a score of nights.

      As we approached the Hole in the Wall, the breeze which we had brought down the channel, stole in advance and set in motion the fleet of becalmed vessels, which rolled heavily on the long, ground-swell, about a league ahead of us. The spur or promontory of Abaco, around which we were sailing, is a high, wall-like ridge of rock, whose surface gradually inclines from the main body of the island to its abrupt termination about a quarter of a league into the sea. As we sailed along its eastern side we could not detect the opening from which it derives its name. The eye met only a long black wall of rock, whose rugged projections were hung with festoons of dark purple sea-weed, and around whose base the waters surged, with a roar heard distinctly by us, three miles from the island.

      On rounding the extremity of the head-land, and bearing up a point or two, the arch in the Cape gradually opened till it became wholly visible, apparently about half the altitude of, and very similar in appearance to the Natural bridge in Virginia. The chasm is irregularly arched, and broader at thirty feet from the sea than at its base. The water is of sufficient depth, and the arch lofty enough, to allow small fishing vessels to pass through the aperture, which is about one hundred feet in length through the solid rock. There is a gap which would indicate the former existence of a similar cavity, near the end of this head-land. A large, isolated mass of rock is here detached from the main wall, at its termination in the sea, which was undoubtedly, at some former period, joined to it by a natural arch, now fallen into the water, as, probably, will happen to this within a century.

      These cavities are caused by the undermining of the sea, which, dashing unceasingly against the foundations of the wall, shatters and crumbles it by its constant abrasion, opens through it immense fissures, and loosens large fragments of the rock, that easily yield and give way to its increased violence; while the upper stratum, high beyond the reach of the surge, remains firm, and, long after the base has crumbled into the sea, arches over like a bridge the chasm beneath. By and by this falls by its own weight, and is buried beneath the waves.

      As the shades of night fell over the sea, and veiled the land from our eyes, we had a fresh object of excitement in giving chase to the vessels which, as the sun went down among them, were scattered thickly along the western horizon far ahead of us—ships, brigs, and schooners, stretching away under all sail before the evening breeze to the south and west. We had lost sight of them after night had set in, but at about half past eight in the evening, as we all were peering through the darkness, upon the qui vive for the strangers, a bright light flashed upon our eyes over the water, and at the same moment the lookout forward electrified us with the cry——

      "A ship dead ahead, sir!"

      The captain seized his speaking-trumpet, and sprang to the bows; but we were there before him, and discovered a solitary light burning at the base of a dark pyramid, which towered gloomily in the obscurity of the night. The outline of the object was so confused and blended with the sky, that we could discern it but indistinctly. To our optics it appeared, as it loomed up in the night-haze, to be a ship of the largest class. The spy glass was in immediate requisition, but soon laid aside again.

      Let me inform you that "day and night" marked upon the tube of a spy-glass, signifies that it may be used in the day, and kept in the beckets at night.

      We had been gathered upon the bowsprit and forecastle but a few seconds, watching in silence the dark moving tower on the water before us, as we approached it rapidly, when we were startled by the sudden hail of the stranger, who was now hauling up on our weather bow—

      "Ship-ahoy!" burst loudly over the water from the hoarse throat of a trumpet.

      "Ahoy!" bellowed our captain, so gently back again through the ship's trumpet, that the best "bull of Bashan" might have envied him his roar.

      "What ship's that?"

      "The Plato of Portland," with a second bellow which was a very manifest improvement upon the preceding.

      "Where bound?"

      "New-Orleans!"

      Now came our turn to play the querist. "What ship's that?"

      "The J. L., eleven days from New-York, bound to New-Orleans."

      "Ay, ay—any news?"

      "No, nothing particular."

      We again moved on in silence; sailing in company, but not always in sight of each other, during the remainder of the night.

      A delightful prospect met our eyes, on coming on deck the morning after making the Hole in the Wall. The sea was crowded with vessels, bearing upon its silvery bosom a floating city. By some fortuitous circumstance, a fleet of vessels, bearing the flags of various nations, had arrived in the Bahama channel at the same time, and now, were amicably sailing in company, borne by the same waves—wafted by the same breeze, and standing toward the same point. Our New-York friend, for whom, on casting our eyes over the lively scene we first searched, we discovered nearly two leagues from us to the windward, stretching boldly across the most dangerous part of the Bahama Banks, instead of taking, with the rest of the fleet, the farther but less hazardous course down the "Channel"—if a few inches more of water than the Banks are elsewhere covered with, may with propriety be thus denominated.

      A little to the south of us, rocking upon the scarcely rising billows, was a rough clumsy looking craft, with one low, black mast, and amputated bowsprit, about four feet in length, sustaining a jib of no particular hue or dimensions. Hoisted upon the mast, was extended a dark red painted mainsail, blackened by the smoke, which, issuing from a black wooden chimney amidships, curled gracefully upward and floated away on the breeze in thin blue clouds. A little triangular bit of red bunting fluttered at her mast head; and, towed by a long line at her stern, a little green whale-boat skipped and danced merrily over the waves. Standing, or rather reclining at the helm—for men learn strangely indolent postures in the warm south—with a segar between his lips, and his eye fixed earnestly upon the J. L., was a black-whiskered fellow, whose head was enveloped in a tri-coloured, conical cap, terminated by a tassel, which dangled over his left ear. A blue flannel shirt, and white flowing trowsers, with which his body and limbs were covered, were secured to his person by a red sash tied around the waist, instead of suspenders. Two others similarly dressed, and as bountifully bewhiskered, leaned listlessly over the side gazing at our ship, as she dashed proudly past their rude bark. A negro, whose charms would have been unquestionable in Congo, was stretched, apparently asleep, along the main-boom, which one moment swung with him over the water, and the next suspended him over his chimney, whose azure incense ascended from his own altar, to this ebony deity, in clouds of grateful odour.

      "What craft do you call that?" inquired one of the passengers of the captain.

      "What? It's a wrecker's lugger.—Watch him now!"

      At the moment he spoke, the lugger dropped astern of us, came to a few points—hauled close on the wind, and then gathering headway, bounded off with the speed of the wind in the direction of the New-York packet ship, which the wrecker's quicker and more practised eye had detected displaying signals of distress. Turning our glasses in the direction of the ship, we could see that she had grounded on the bank, thereby affording very ample illustration of the truth of the proverb, "The more haste the less speed."

      About the middle of the forenoon the wind died away, and left us becalmed within half a mile of a brig loaded with lumber. The remaining vessels of the fleet were fast dispersing over the sea—this Yankee "fruiterer" being the only one sailing within a league of us.

      These lumber vessels, which are usually loaded with shingles, masts, spars, and boards, have been long the floating mines of Maine. But as her forests disappear, which are the veins from whence she draws the ore, her sons will have to plough the earth instead of the ocean. Then, and not till then, will Maine take a high rank as an agricultural state. The majority of men who sail in these lumber vessels are both farmers and sailors; who cultivate

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