WELCOME!? PR6M SHtP TO SHOEE. 355 



gers in the court of the Eoyal Victoria Hotel, he received, par- 

 ticularly from the ladies, attentions which helped to palliate the 

 heart-aches incident to a sudden sundering of all the tendrils of 

 affection that had bound him to the small coral island upon which 

 he was born and reared. Words of kindness were mingled Avith 

 the small coin given him from time to time, partly as a reward 

 for such services as he was able to render. Sometimes he was 

 seen reclining upon packages of freight, taciturn and sober, 

 apparently the victim of two maladies — sea-sickness and sickness 

 of the heart. He, however, manifested as much fortitude and 

 cheerfulness as could be expected under the peculiar circum- 

 stances in which he was placed. 



Although dui'ing our absence new scenes had afforded us much 

 enjoyment, while relaxation from business and a change of air 

 had been of substantial benefit in a sanitary point of view, our 

 hearts throbbed with no small degree of pleasurable excitement 

 as we approached the city of New York, through shores which 

 art and nature have done so much to adorn. Long Island and 

 the Island of Manhattan, as seen from the deck of the Austin, 

 belted with forests of masts, enlivened by numberless steamers, 

 each with passengers enough to make a good sized town, and 

 covered with the immense warehouses and palaces of merchant 

 princes, together with the constantly increasing evidences that 

 we were in close proximity to vast, swift, and ever changing 

 eddies and currents of human life, strangely and sharply con- 

 trasted Avith all that we had seen and experienced among the Isles 

 of Summer, upon the peninsular of Florida, and in ocean soli- 

 tudes. 



Our return to the north was well-timed. The morning was 

 lovely; the air of a most agreeable temperature; the sky cloud- 

 less. Nature, with smiling face, welcomed us home. The little 

 dimpled waves glistened and gleefully danced iu the sun-light. 



