TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIAS. 
29 
night, however, was worth beholding. It was one o’clock ; 
the sky overhead was clear and starry ; around the north¬ 
western horizon hung a cluster of swollen clouds, like 
Moorish towers, faintly tipped with the dim light. In the 
southwest lay another mass, piled in silent grandeur, dark 
battlement-like, as if it were the citadel of the seas ! The 
waters were in an easy mood. The ship moved through 
them evenly, save that she cut the long smooth swells more 
deeply than the space between them, and occasionally 
started from his slumber a porpoise or a whale. 
We turned-in again and slept till the breakfast dishes clat¬ 
tered on the table, and Tom informed us that Mr. Newell 
supposed he had seen at sunrise the looming of the land in 
the southeast! That announcement brought us to our feet; 
sleep gave place to the most active efforts at hauling on and 
buttoning up the various articles of our wardrobe. u On 
deck ! on deck ! where away the land and we tasked 
our eyes with their utmost effort to scan the nature of the 
dark embankment on which the mate had founded his au¬ 
guries. The excitement at length drew all the passengers 
and officers to the starboard-quarter ; each man looked and 
expressed himself in his own way. To guess, was the 
Yankee’s part; to look and doubt, was John Bull’s plea¬ 
sure ; to wuss it might be true, was the Scotch contribu¬ 
tion ; and to reckon awhile and commend himself to be 
dumbfound red if anything could be known about it, was 
the Carolinian carpenter’s clincher. The matter left 
standing thus, we obeyed Tom’s summons to breakfast. 
While engaged in filling our countenances with the reali¬ 
ties of life, we were startled with a bird’s note from the deck! 
It proved to come from one of those winged songsters of the 
islands, which often greet the toiling ship far at sea, and with 
their sweet voices recall to the soul, weary with the rough 
monotony of an unnatural life, the remembrance and antici¬ 
pation of the land ; the green and beautiful land ; where the 
glorious light brightens the flowers ; where the flowers shed 
