33 



Cruz, scarcely carries off the sick with so alarm- 

 ing a rapidity. Another Asturian, still younger, 

 did not leave one moment the bed of his dying 

 friend, and, what is very remarkable, did not 

 contract the disorder. He was to follow his 

 countryman to St. Jago de Cuba, by whom he 

 was to be introduced to the house of this rela- 

 tion, on whom all their hopes depended. No- 

 thing could be more affecting than the sorrow 

 of him who had survived his friend, and who 

 bewailed with bitterness the fatal counsels, 

 which had thrown him on a foreign climate, 

 where he found himself abandoned, and without 

 support. 



We were assembled on the deck, absorbed in 

 melancholy reflections. It was no longer 

 doubtful, that the fever which raged on board 

 had assumed in these last days a fatal aspect. 

 Our eyes were fixed on a hilly and desert coast, 

 on which the Moon, from time to time, shed it's 

 light athwart the clouds. The sea, gently agi- 

 tated, shone with a feeble phosphoric glittering. 

 Nothing was heard but the monotonous cry of 

 a few large sea-birds, flying toward the shore. 

 A profound calm reigned over these solitary 

 abodes, but this calm of nature was in discord- 

 ance with the painful feelings by which we were 

 oppressed. About eight the dead man's knell 

 was slowly tolled ; at this lugubrious sound, the 

 sailors ceased their labor, and threw themselves 



