446 Voyage of the Xovara. 



the two nationalities, God save the Queen and Partant pour la 

 Sjrle were regularly called for each night. A more serious 

 cause of alarm was the fear lest we should have to put into 

 some intermediate port to coal. When she left St. Thomas 

 the Magdalena had 1200 tons on board, but as, notwithstand- 

 ing constant calms and a sea like a mill-pond, she never made 

 above 190 to 220 miles in the early part of the voyage, at a 

 consumj^tion of 70 tons per day, there seemed every prosj)ect 

 of our exhausting our supply. As she consumed her stock, 

 however, she lightened perceptibly, till she even got up to the 

 for her unusual speed of 280 miles a day. How different from 

 the same Company's ships Atrato and La Plata, which fre- 

 quently make 340 miles a day, and in fact average only 13 

 days on the passage home, while the average of the Magdalena 

 and her consorts is 18 days! 



At last, on 18th July, we sighted the Lizard's. Although 

 barely 200 miles from our destination, the captain thought it 

 best to put into the nearest port for a sujoply of coal, and 

 shortly after noon we anchored in Falmouth Harbour, where 

 the first intelligence we got was that peace had been con- 

 cluded. Singular to say, even this intelligence produced no 

 accession of harmony between the two great political parties 

 on board. As for myself, I had kept as much as possible by 

 myself; and now stepping ashore, I wandered through the 

 narrow dirty streets of Falmouth, whicli presents the accurate 

 type of the old-fashioned English provincial town. The 

 meadows and sloping hills around shone forth in all the fresh 



