"Here's love the dreamy potent spell, That beauty flings around the heart; "And Friendship rarest gem of earth, (Who e'er hath found the jewel his) Frail, fickle, false, and little worth, Who bids for friendship as it is? "Fame! hold the brilliant meteor high, Ye millions! now's the time to buy, How much for Fame-how much for fame! "Sweet star of Hope with ray to shine In every sad foreboding breast, Even in this saddest one of mine, Come bid for man's last Friend and best." I don't know whose lines these are, (I only know they are not mine, I wish they were), nor do I know where I found them, and on the chance that others are no better read I appropriate themand so end my disquisition as to man's hope of happiness. Before we started at a speed on Saturday morning, a turtle passed close to us and turned up his eye rather knowingly, (these somnolescent brutes are rarely awake) as if to say don't flatter yourself you won't have me in your casserole this time, and yet he might as well as serve for the supper of Jack Shark, who will not even honour him with wine and spice and forced meat balls, nor with a posthumous eulogium; we had a member of his family for dinner on Saturday. He came from Teneriffe market in our service and fulfilled his destiny this day. He deserves honourable mention, as before we discussed him we had a satisfactory talk with Bentinck about our project. I had never intended speaking upon it again, believing his mind to be made up, and I could not (with the impulsiveness which is one of the many faults of my character), understand how a man could take several days to arrive at a SEA DRIFT. conclusion which I jumped into-but so it was. I found that his objections were more against the immediate than the ulterior prosecution of our search, that he did not think our boats competent to remove anything one might find from so angry a landing. That the fishermen in our way was a difficulty, and we had no tent or means of taking up our abode for some days, which might be required on this unhospitable rock, but that he and Murray did believe au fond de leur Cours in Christian Cruize, and he thought it would be well worth while for me to write to my old friend (Veitch) at Madeira, and obtain more particulars as to the chest of dollars referred to, and for Bentinck to go to Liverpool and try and pump the crew of the John Wesley,' and decipher, if he could, the mystical copper coin, and for Bentinck to write to a friend at Marseilles, to discover if any dollars were landed there per the John Wesley,' in 1847. If the result of these enquiries, he added, were such as to lead us to hope for any good in doing so he would get a tent, two strong boats, and take us again. And, he continued, if Murray or you, one or both of you, were prevented accompanying one, I would still hold to the tripartite division of anything that might be found. All this was highly pleasing the opinion of Christian Cruize was satisfactory to his manes, and to my opinion of this Prince of Denmark. The difficulty as to the fishermen I set no great store by, they might be silenced by dollars, or by fear, but all the other difficulties of Bentinck, were such as might be expected from his clear sound head, and the suggestion as to the money was what I should have expected from an off-hand, fair, liberal man. Money is the pierre de touche of character. To be sure, "first catch your money," but we must take the will for the deed. The Madeira information I did not much reckon upon. José de Lisboa, if alive, or his heirs, administrators and assigns, would be very shy of letting the coregidor of Funchal get any scent of a matter of treasure trove, and though intelligence or anything else, could be purchased for money, the quantum valeat of the information was another matter, if we wanted a man "Who never was forsworn At no time broke his faith, would not betray The devil to his fellow-and delights No less in truth than life," I am afraid we should have to go to some other part of the town, and would not pick him up at Madeira. The particulars as to how deep they dug, where they dug, did they dig under the body, and how deep? How did the Squelette repose and in what direction were his arms, and the marks on the copper coin were all worth investigating ? A large treasure was secreted in a Jesuit Church in this country, and a body was found. It was subsequently discovered that the right arm of the body was extended in the direction of the Schatz. The resurrection men were sought for to ascertain the fact of the position of the arm, but they could not be found. In the middle ages when long annuities and the three-and-a-halves did not exist, and civil wars did, and free lancers made short work with hoards of silver and gold-the hiding of these metals became a system. When the sea shall give up her dead, the land will have a good deal to do in that way, with hidden treasures. There are marvellous stories in Belgium of wonders to be found. The old Castle of Franchemont (mighty in the time of Charlemagne), was supposed to communicate by some unknown souterrain, with Spa four miles distant, which cavern is supposed to be as rich as Captain Rolando's Cave, or that of the Forty Thieves. 66 The open sesame" has not, however, been hit off. A friend of mine found some old coins at Franchemont, and some more at Spa, and The coin we think may be obtained, and should be sought for and examined. None of us think much that anything will turn up, but we all think the matter worth sifting and setting at rest. The romance should not deter us. For real life is more romantic than romance, and in my own experience, I have met with things which I should be shy to relate. Our romance, therefore, may be real. What nonsense exclaimed one student, "Here lies the soul of the licentiate," &c. "Who ever heard of a soul being buried under a stone," and he laughed and passed on. The other more contemplative returned and dug and found the bag of ducats. The question now arose as to what story we should tell on our arrival in England, and we agreed that what is proverbially said to be "soonest mended," should be our course. When we were setting out for Brussells, a new bonnet was brought home for my wife. I thought it a very unhappy combination of silk and satin-and though we could not afford to discard it at once, she promised to burn it, if we found the dollars. We agreed, therefore, that if the treasurer turned up, I should announce the fact by telegraphing the three words, "burn-the-bonnet." All the story which these three words conveyed would thus be communicated in the cheapest and most secret manner, and the telegraph-office would be none the wiser, but as the conflagration could not be directed, I resolved to say nothing by telegraph, but tell my story in person-it was unhappily a meagre chronicle enough, but such as waited any reasonable time for one or the other in preference to the Prometheus. Lord Spencer gave the name (in 1794) of his hounds to the Gun Brigs of the day. If the dogs were like the craft, they caught but few foxes. The present Gun Boats are the Dapper, the Fidget, the Daisy, the Whiting, the Opossum ("Possum up a gum tree,") and such like, not Homer's catalogue certainly. My son, who was to have one, was in much terror lest it should be the Herring; they set him at ease by giving him the Blazer.' Tuesday, August 12th, 1856. Latitude 4045; Longitude 14:30; Cape Finisterre, E.N.E. 280 miles, Barometer 30° 5'; Thermometer 70°. Exchanged colours with a French Merchant Brig, steering to the Southward. Steady moderate breeze, slipping along with the wind on the quarter. These fore-and-aft vessels make baddish way before the wind. The square sail and a triangular topsail which we have named the cocked hat pull us along pretty well, but the cocked hat is unmanageable amongst the rigging, and has to be put into his box at night. During the war the Yankee Privateers had enormous square sails (too unwieldy for a yacht), which if they once got to bear there was no catching them. I was cruizing in a miserable sloop of war, which I commanded, in company with a noble, fast, thirty-eight gun frigate, commanded by a capital gallant unscientific sailor (brought up, mind you, before the mast). At three o'clock in the afternoon, the snow-storm cleared off suddenly, and there was a beautiful large privateer schooner, three points on the weather bow, and six distant. Jonathan saw pretty quickly what to do, and kept two points off the wind to cross our bows. The frigate kept her wind till the |