then we could discover that the unfortunate little creatures, one after another, either popped right into the dolphin's jaws as they lighted on the water, or were snapped up instantly afterwards. It was impossible not to take an active part with our pretty little friends of the weaker side, and accordingly we very speedily had our revenge. The middies and the sailors, delighted with the chance, rigged out a dozen or twenty lines from the jib-boom-end and spritsail yard-arms, with hooks baited merely with bits of tin, the glitter of which resembled so much that of the body and wings of the flying fish, that many a proud dolphin, making sure of a delicious morsel, leaped in rapture at the deceitful prize, and in his turn became the prey of a successful enemy.

THE DYING DOLPHIN.

The truth and beauty of the following description of a dying Dolphin by Falconer, will be attested by those of our readers who may have witnessed a similar scene.

And now, approaching near the lofty stern,
A shoal of sportive dolphins they discern.
From burnish'd scales they beam refulgent rays,
Till all the glowing ocean seems to blaze.
Soon to the sport of death the crew repair,
Dart the long lance, or spread the baited snare.
One, in redoubling mazes, wheels along,
And glides, unhappy! near the triple prong.
RODMOND unerring o'er his head suspends
The barbed steel, and every turn attends.
Unerring aim'd, the missile weapon flew,
And, plunging, struck the fated victim through
Th' upturning points his ponderous bulk sustain,
On deck he struggles with convulsive pain-
But while his heart the fatal javelin thrills,
And flitting life escapes in sanguine rills,
What radiant changes strike th' astonish 'd sight!
What glowing hues of mingled shade and light!
Not equal beauties gild the lucid west,
With parting beams all o'er profusely drest.
Not lovelier colors paint the vernal dawn,
When orient dews impearl th' enamel'd lawn,
Than from his sides in bright suffusion flow,
That now with gold imperial seem to glow:
Now in pellucid sapphires meet the view,
And emulate the soft celestial hue:
Now beam a flaming crimson on the eye;
And now assume the purple's deeper dye.
But here description clouds each shining ray.
What terms of art can nature's powers display

HENRY HUDSON.

The distinguished English naval discoverer, Henry Hudson, sailed from London in the year 1607, in a small vessel, for the purpose of discovering a north-east passage to China and Japan, with a crew of only ten men and a boy besides himself, and, proceeding beyond the 80th degree of latitude, returned to England in September. In a second voyage, the next year, he landed at Nova Zembla, but could proceed no farther eastward. In 1609, he undertook a third voyage, under the patronage of the Dutch East India Company. Being unsuccessful in his attempt to find a north-east passage, he sailed for Davis's straits, but struck the continent of America in 44° N. lat., and holding a southerly course, discovered the mouth of the river Hudson, which he ascended about fifty leagues in a boat. His last voyage was undertaken in 1610. He sailed, April 17th, in a bark named the Discovery, with a crew of twenty-three men, and came within sight of Greenland, June 4th. Proceeding westward he reached, in latitude 60°, the strait bearing his name. Through this he advanced along the coast of Labrador, to which he gave the name of Nova Brittannia, until it issued into the vast bay, which is also called after him. He resolved to winter in the most southern part of it, and the crew drew up the ship in a small creek, and endeavored to sustain the severity of that dismal climate, in which attempt they endured severe privations. Hudson, however, fitted up his shallop for farther discoveries; but, not being able to establish any communication with the natives, or to revictual his ship, with tears in his eyes he distributed his little remaining bread to his men, and prepared to return. Having a dissatisfied and mutinous crew, he imprudently uttered some threats of setting some of them on shore; upon which a body of them entered his cabin at night, tied his arms behind him, and put him in his own shallop, at the west end of the straits, with his son, John Hudson, and seven of the most infirm of the crew. They were then turned adrift, and were never more heard of. A small part of the crew, after enduring incredible hardships, arrived at Plymouth, in September, 1611.

FAMINE ON BOARD THE FRENCH SHIP
LE JACQUES.

Of all the disasters to which mariners are subject, the want of provisions is doubtless one of the most dreadful. In the history

of the return of the French ship Le Jacques from Brazil to France, Jean de Lery gives an account of an extraordinary famine on board that vessel, attended with the most appalling circumstances.

This ship, called St. Le Jacques, having completed her cargo of dying-wood, pepper, cotton, monkeys, parrots, &c. at Brazil, weighed anchor on the fourth of January, 1558. The whole crew, seamen and passengers, consisted of forty-five men, exclusive of the captain. They had sailed seven or eight days, when a leak in the hold was discovered, which induced five of the passengers to return in a bark offered them by the captain, in preference to continuing on the course to France.

We shall give in Lery's own words, the narrative of the remaining part of the voyage.

"On the third of February we found, that, in seven weeks, we had not made more than one third of our way. As our provisions diminished very fast, it was proposed to bear away for Cape St. Roch, where some old seamen assured us that we should be able to procure refreshments. But the majority advised that we should eat the parrots and other birds, of which we had brought away great numbers; and their opinion prevailed.

"Our misfortunes began with a quarrel between the mate and the pilot; who, to aggravate each other, then went so far as to neglect their duty. On the twenty-sixth of March, the pilot being at the helm, in his turn, for three hours he kept all the sails set, when a violent squall assailed the vessel with such force that she was completely thrown on one side, so that the tops of the masts were immersed the water. The cables, the hen-coops, and all the boxes which were no lashed fast, were swept overboard, and the vessel was on the point of upsetting. The rigging, however, being instantly cut away she righted again by degrees. The danger, though extreme, tended so little to produce a reconciliation between the two enemies, that the moment it was past, they attacked each other and fought with the most savage ferocity, notwithstanding all the endeavors that were made to pacify them.

"This was only the beginning of a horrid series of calamities. A few days afterwards, in a calm sea, the carpenter, and other artisans, in the attempt to relieve those who were laboring at the pumps, were so unfortunate as to remove, among others, a large piece of wood in the ship's hold; upon which the water rushed in with such impetuosity, that the affrighted workmen hurried breathless upon deck, unable to give an account of the danger. At length they cried, in a lamentable voice: We are lost! We are lost!' Upon this the captain, master, and pilot, not doubting of the magnitude of the danger, and determined instantly to put the ship about, ordered a great quantity of Brazil wood and other articles to be thrown overboard, and concluding to abandon the vessel, they first provided for their own safety. The pilot fearing lest the boat should be overloaded by the numbers who demanded a

place in her, took his station, with a cutlass in his hand, and declared he would despatch the first who should endeavor to enter. Seeing ourselves thus left to the mercy of the sea, we who re mained fell to work with all our strength, to pump out the water, and if possible to keep the ship from sinking. We had the satisfaction to find that the water did not gain upon us.

"But the most happy consequence of our resolution was, that it caused us to hear the voice of our carpenter, who, though small in stature, was a young man of great spirit, and had not, like the others, quitted the ship's hold. On the contrary, taking off his jacket he spread it over the largest leak, and stood upon it with both feet to prevent the entrance of the water, the violence of which, as he afterwards informed us, lifted him up several times. In this situation he shouted with all his might, desiring us to bring him clothes, cotton, and other things, to stop the leak, till he should be able to do it more effectually. I need not say that this demand was instantly complied with, and thus we were preserved from this danger.

"We continued steering, sometimes to the east and sometimes to the west, which was not our way; for our pilot, who did not perfectly understand his business, was no longer able to observe his route. In this uncertainty we proceeded till we came to the tropic of Cancer, where we sailed a fortnight on a sea covered with grass and marine plants. These were so thick and close that we were obliged to open a passage through them for the ship. Here we were near perishing by another accident. Our gunner being employed in drying some powder in an iron pot, left it so long upon the fire that the powder exploded, and the fire spread so rapidly from one end of the ship to the other that the sails and rigging were instantly in flames.

"They had nearly communicated to the wood, which being covered with pitch, would soon have taken fire, and have burned us alive in the midst of the ocean. Four men were much injured by the fire, and one of them died a few days afterwards. I should have experienced the same fate had I not covered my face with my hat, which defended me from its effects; so that I escaped with only the tips of my ears and my hair scorched."

This misfortune Lery reckons only among those which he calls the prelude.

"It was now, (he continues) the fifteenth of April, and we had still a run o five hundred leagues before us. Our provisions fell so short, that notwithstanding the retrenchment we had already made, it was resolved that we should be confined to only half of this reduced allowance. This measure, however, did not prevent our provisions from being exhausted by the end of the month. Our misfortune was occasioned by the ignorance of the pilot, who imagined that we were near Cape Finisterre, in Spain, while we were in the latitude of the Azores, at least three hundred leagues

distant from it. This cruel error suddenly reduced us to the last resource, which was, to sweep the storeroom where the biscuit was kept. These sweepings were distributed by spoonfuls, and made a soup as black and more bitter than soot Those who had any parrots left (for most had eaten their's long before this time,) resorted to this kind of food, at the beginning of May, when the ordinary provisions failed. Two seamen, who died of hunger, were thrown overboard; and to prove the miserable state to which we were reduced, one of our sailors, called Nargue, standing reclined against the main-mast, after swallowing their eyes, which he could not digest, I reproached him for not assisting the others to set the sails; the poor man, in a low and lamentable voice, replied: alas, I cannot,' and instantly dropped down dead.

"The horrors of this situation were augmented by the roughness of the sea, so that, either from want of skill, or strength to manage the sails, they were obliged to reef the sails, and even to lash the rudder fast. Thus the vessel was left to the mercy of the wind and waves. The unfavorable weather likewise deprived them of the only hope they had left, that of taking some fish.

"Thus (continues Lery,) all on board were reduced to the lowest degree of weakness and debility. Necessity obliged us to consider and contrive in what manner to appease our hunger. Some cut in pieces the skins of an animal called Tapirous sou, and boiled them in water, but this method was not approved of. Others laid them on the coals, and when they were a little broiled, scraped them with a knife and eat them: this expedient proved so successful that we imagined it to be broiled sward of bacon. After this experiment, those who had any of these skins, preserved them with the greatest care; and being as hard as dried ox-hide, they required to be cut with hatchets, and other iron instruments. Some even eat their leather stocks, and their shoes. The cabinboys, pressed with hunger, devoured all the horn of the lanterns, and as many candles as they could get at. But notwithstanding our feebleness and hunger, we were obliged, for fear of foundering, to stick to the pumps night and day.

About the twelfth of May our gunner, whom I had seen eating the intestines of a parrot quite raw, died of hunger. We were not much affected by this circumstance, for we were so far from thinking of defending ourselves, if we were attacked, that we rather wished to be taken by some pirate who would have given us something to eat. But we saw, on our return, only a single vessel, which it was impossible for us to approach.

"After devouring all the leather on boa.d, even to the coverings of the boxes, we imagined that our last moments were at hand. Necessity, however, inspired some one with the idea of catching the rats and mice, and we hoped to be able to take them the more easily as they no longer had any crumbs to subsist on, and ran about the ship in great numbers, dying with hunger. They were