WELCOMES FROM SHIP TO SHORE. 355 
gers in the court of the Royal 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 with — 
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 during 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 with all that we had seen and experienced among the Isles 
of Summer, pen 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 in the sun-light, 
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