16 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
surface just enough with snow-white crests to please the eye, but 
not enough to awaken feelings of danger even in timid minds. 
The clouds gradually thickened overhead, a few snowflakes with 
sceming reluctance noiselessly descended, and were instantly lost 
in the “mysterions depths of the ocean—for a snowflake and a 
steamship are alike insignificant so far as old océan is concerned. 
Soon we experienced the pleasure of seeing, what is not very often 
witnessed, a heavy snow storm off the capes of Virginia, and it 
seemed so queer to see the snow fall hour after hour and leave 
not a trace behind. No rocks, no shrubs, no evergreen trees 
were glorified by it, but ocean, with cold indifference, received 
this gift from heaven unmoved and unaffected. Earth may well 
_ welcome the snow storm which protects and saves its priccless 
floral treasures, but what is the use of wasting snow storms upon 
the ocean? 
At half-past six o’clock on the evening of J anuary i9th, the 
snow storm being over, we saw at a distance of some fifteen miles, 
the revolving light of Hatteras. Can it be, we inwardly ex- 
claimed, that this is the place that navigators of the sca would 
be so glad to avoid; the home of the strongest and most fitful 
winds, and of wildest storms; a place loved only by wreckers? 
Our steamship still spread her sails to the wind, and her rocking 
was so gentle that not a passenger’s scat was empty at the supper 
table. It was not long before spittoons commenced a game of 
ten-pins upon the floor of the main saloon, the wind howled and 
. hissed at us as it passed; the propeller uttered its cry of alarm, 
as, in the rolling and pitching of the vessel, it protruded out of 
the water; strong men staggered and reeled, while during the 
short momentary intervals of comparative repose, they moved 
from one holding-on place to another; the ladies sought refuge in 
their state-rooms, and, devoutly thankful that he had not broken 
any of his or his fellow-passengers’ bones, the author soon fol- 
