THE PACKET SHIP. 



225 



The " Mexican," for so our packet was called, was a 

 fine new vessel, clean and well-ordered, a fast sailer, 

 and altogether the most comfortable ship I ever was in. 

 We had our staterooms on deck in a kind of open round- 

 house. 



The voyage was, upon the whole, prosperous ; and for 

 many days it seemed as if it would have been made in 

 an unusually brief space of time — such was the rapid ad- 

 vance made under the influence of a steady breeze, and 

 the rapidity of the great gulf stream, whose current was 

 in our favour. In one forty-eight hours, we logged an 

 advance of full five hundred miles. However, three 

 days' storm in the latitude of Cape Hatteras, delayed us 

 considerably ; and it was on May 19th before we crossed 

 the bar at Sandy Hook, and entered the port of New- 

 York. 



There was one occurrence on board, however, which 

 made a great impression upon the ship's company at the 

 time, and with the mention of that I terminate my chron- 

 icle. Among the Europeans who had come down from 

 the capital with the other passengers for the packet, was 

 Mr. P., a young French gentleman of family, an attache 

 of the French legation. He had spent two years in the 

 country, and was now returning to New-York and Paris 

 with despatches, to the joy of his parents, to whom, as 

 we learned afterward, this long separation had been a 

 grievous trial. 



Gay and careless, on arrival at Jalapa, far from fol- 

 lowing the advice or example of every other individual 

 of the party similarly circumstanced, he persisted in con- 

 tinuing his journey to Vera Cruz without delay, laughing 

 at the idea of the danger — preferring to pass jovially a 

 day or two with his acquaintances in that city, to the 

 detention in a town on the mountains, where he felt no 

 particular interest. He went — and on the evening of 

 sailing, he joined us on board, dilating upon the social 

 hours he had passed in consequence of his better man- 

 agement. 



Poor fellow ! — little did he imagine, that that heedless 



