to shoals, or the shore, and "the hands were turned up to wear ship."

That part of the crew which had retired to their hammocks, and who slept as soundly, amidst the storms and dangers of the ocean, as if a calm had prevailed, received the unwelcome shouts of "All hands, ahoi !"-" Rouse out!" with drowsy murmurs; while sundry significant remarks passed among them, on old officers and old women who were likely to run on a weathershore by an over-anxiety to avoid a lee one.

Jack's growl, however, was but momentary, and the whole crew were soon on deck obeying the stern commands of the first lieutenant, which, with the wind whistling among the rigging, the boatswain's shrill pipe, the creaking of the blocks, and the rustling of the waves against the side, was all that could be heard, as the ship veered round on the opposite tack.

"By the mark thirteen !" proclaimed a voice, which seemed to have acquired music from the time, and solemnity from the meaning of its

utterance. It was that of the leadsman on a

lee-shore.

"By the deep nine!" was the next sound that thrilled through the night air, as the ship breasted the waves which broke furiously against her bows, shaking the very masts by their liquid shocks.

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Quarter less seven !" was next uttered, but the note had lost something of its usual length and force, and orders were given merely to make known the soundings without the song.

The mainsail, which had been previously reefed, was instantly set, but the ship heeled till the muzzles of her guns were occasionally in the water, and the sail was again obliged to be taken in.

Every ear now listened for the leadsman's voice, and though "a quarter seven," and "a half six," had often been hailed with delight on entering their native ports, yet, on an open coast, they indicated the fearful reality of being

near shoals, which only told of land to make it the more dreaded.

The night passed on, but the seamen's eyes, instead of being closed in sleep, were bent upon the turbulent gathering of short waves, which broke in foam around them.

The soundings clearly showed that they were sailing along the very margin of those dangers where three of the finest ships of the British navy had been wrecked but a few years before, and where so many hundreds of English seamen had found a watery grave, or only escaped the waves to lie buried on the sandy, arid shore.

The time of sunrise had been earnestly looked for, but no sun appeared. A dull light, at last, circulated through the dense misty gloom that environed them; and eventually a few bright rays, from behind the wild dark clouds, threw a clear reflected hue of light along the lee horizon, which gleamed on a ridge of low undulating sand-hills.

This beautiful though portentous glimpse,

like the iris formed in the spray over the dark fangs of a sunken rock, seemed but to warn them of their danger.

There were many on board who had lost friends and messmates of their youth on the very coast at which they now gazed; but before they could distinguish either the sedge or the reed, those emblems of desolation, which in storms are wont to cut their curves upon the sand, the shore was again hid in mist; but with the mist came a more favourable breeze; and the ship was steered off the land, while her crew thus experienced a sudden transition from threatened danger to comparative security.

I

It was at such a time the pilot came to the binnacle, and, clearing his mouth from the envelope of a red comforter and a Flushing coat, exclaimed, in the most satisfactory accents, knew she would do it! it is just as I expected! Very well thus.-I remember, the time I was master of the Dorothy-"-which story we shall leave him to repeat on the ship's passage to

England, and proceed with our messmate to the perusal of a manuscript which had been sent to him, accompanied by a letter, from which the following is an extract :

"As you have witnessed similar scenes to those attempted to be described in the MS. should you think the memorandums, thus thrown together in the shape of stories, likely to inculcate right principles without appearing presumptuous, or afford rational amusement without offending, perhaps the sketches of Naval life contained in them may be new to the public, and, as such, tolerated in print.

"As stories, they may fail to please; but, in aiming at something more, I hope they may not be found to possess something less."