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"I am afraid, sir, it is a fog bank coming down upon us." And so it proved.

The experienced eye of the sailor, who in his youth had been a fisherman on the banks of Newfoundland, detected a strip or extended cloud, hanging along the verge of the horizon, like the first appearance of a low coast. This gradually swept down to leeward, and, at length, enveloped rock, boats, and all, in a mantle of fog, so dense that we could not see ten yards in any direction.

Although our predicament may now be supposed as hopeless as need be, it was curious to observe the ebbs and flows in human thought as circumstances changed. Half an hour before, we had been provoked at our folly in not having left the rock sooner; but it was now a matter of rejoicing that we possessed such a. fixed point to stick by, in place of throwing ourselves adrift altogether. We reckoned with certainty upon the frigate's managing, sooner or later, to regain the rock; and as that was the only mark at which she could aim, it was evidently the best for us to keep near.

We had been cruising for some time off the north of Ireland, during which we observed that these fogs sometimes lasted a couple of days or even longer; and, as we had not a drop of water in the boats, nor a morsel of provisions, the most unpleasant forebodings began to beset us. The wind was gradually rising, and the waves, when driven against the rock, were divided into two parts, which, after sweeping round the sides, met again to leeward, near the spot where we lay, and dashed themselves into such a bubble of a sea, that the boats were pitched about like bits of cork in a mill-lead. Their motion was disagreeable enough, but our apprehension was, that we should be dislodged altogether from our place of refuge; while the gulls and seamews, as if in contempt of our helpless condition, or offended at our intrusion, wheeled about and screamed close to us, in notes most grating to our ears.

While we were waiting in this state of anxiety in the boats below, our faithful watchman perched on the peak of the rock, suddenly called out, "I see the ship!" This announcement was answered by a simultaneous shout from the two boat's crews, which sent the flocks of gannets and sea-mews screaming to the right and left, far into the bosom of the fog.

An opening or lane in the mist had occurred, along which we could now see the frigate, far off, but crowding all sail, and evidently beating to windward. We lost as little time as possible in picking our shivering scout off the rock, an operation which cost nearly a quarter of an hour. This accomplished, away we rowed, at the utmost stretch of our oars towards the ship.

We had hardly proceeded a quarter of a mile before the fog began to close behind our track, so as to shut out Rockall from our view. This we cared little about, as we not only still saw tho

ship, but trusted, from her movements, that she likewise saw the boats. Just at the moment, however, she tacked, thereby proving that she had seen neither boats or rock, but was merely groping about in search of her lost sheep. Had she continued on the course she was steering when we first saw her, she might have picked us up long before the fog came on again; but when she went about, this hope was destroyed. In a few minutes more we, of course, lost sight of the frigate in the fog; and there we were, in a pretty mess, with no ship to receive us, and no island to hang on by!

It now became necessary to take an immediate part; and we decided at once to turn back in search of the rock. It was certainly a moment of bitter disappointment when we pulled round; and the interval between doing so and our regaining a resting-place, was one of great anxiety. Nevertheless we made a good landfall, and there was a wonderful degree of happiness attendant even upon this piece of success. Having again got hold of Rockall, we determined to abide by our firm friend till circumstances should render our return to the ship certain. In the meantime we amused ourselves in forming plans for a future residence on this desolate abode, in the event of the ship being blown away during the night. If the weather should become more stormy, and that our position to leeward was rendered unsafe, in consequence of the divided waves running round and meeting, it was resolved, that we should abandon the heaviest of the two boats, and drag the other up to the brow of the rock, so as to form, when turned keel upwards, a sort of hurricane house. These, and various other Robinson Crusoe kind of resources, helped to occupy our thoughts, half in jest, half in earnest, till, by the increased gloom, we knew that the sun had gone down. It now became indispensable to adopt some definite line of operations, for the angry looking night was setting in fast.

Fortunately, we were saved from farther trials of patience or ingenuity by the fog suddenly rising, as it is called-or dissipating itself in the air, so completely, that, to our great joy, we gained sight of the ship once again.

It appeared afterwards that they had not seen our little island from the Endymion nearly so soon as we discovered her; and she was, in consequence, standing almost directly away from us, evidently not knowing exactly whereabouts Rockall lay. This, I think, was the most anxious moment during the whole adventure; nor shall I soon forget the sensation caused by seeing the jib-sheet let fly, accompanied by other indications that the frigate was coming about.

I need not spin out this story any longer. It was almost dark when we got on board. Our first question was the reproachfu' one, Why did you fire no guns to give us notice of your position?"

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"Fire guns?" said they-" why, we have done nothing bu blaze away every ten minutes for these last five or six hours." Yet, strange to say, we had not heard a single discharge!

THE SUBTERRANEAN STREAM.

BY MRS. HEMANS.

Darkly thou glidest onward

Thou deep and hidden wave!

The laughing sunshine hath not looked
Into thy secret cave.

Thy current makes no music-
A hollow sound we hear,
A muffled voice of mystery,
And know that thou art near!

No brighter line of verdure
Follows thy lonely way!
No fairy moss, or lily's cup,
Is freshened by thy play.

The halcyon doth not seek thee,

Her glorious wings to lave;

Thou know'st no tint of the summer sky

Thou dark and hidden wave!

Yet once will day behold thee,
When to the mighty sea,

Fresh bursting from their caverned veins

Leap thy lone waters free.

There wilt thou greet the sunshine

For a moment, and be lost,

With all thy melancholy sounds,
In the Ocean's billowy host.

Oh! art thou not, dark river!

Like the fearful thoughts untold,
Which haply in the hush of night
O'er many a soul have rolled?

Those earth-born strange misgivings—
Who hath not felt their power?

Yet who hath breathed them to his friend,
Ev'n in his fondest hour?

They hold no heart-communion.

They find no voice in song,

They dimly follow far from earth
The grave's departed throng.

Wild is their course and lonely,
And fruitless in man's breast;
They come and go, and leave no trace
Of their mysterious quest.

Yet surely must their wanderings
At length be like thy way;
Their shadows, as thy waters lost,
In one bright flood of day

CAPTAIN INGLEFIELD'S NARRATIVE.

THE Centaur, captain Inglefield, and four ships of the line, part of a large convoy from Jamaica to England, foundered at sca, in a dreadful hurricane, in September 1782.

Captain Inglefield, and the officers and crew, did every thing possible for the preservation of their lives and ship, from the 16th to the 23d of September; when the Centaur, by repeated storms, became a wreck, and was in a sinking state. Some of the men appeared perfectly resigned to their fate, and requested to be lashed in their hammocks; others lashed themselves to gratings and small rafts, but the most prominent idea was, that of putting on their best and cleanest clothes. The booms were cleared, and the cutter, pinnace, and yawl were got over the ship's side. Captain Inglefield and eleven others made their escape in the pinnace; but their condition was nearly the same with that of those who remained in the ship; and at best appeared to be only a prolongation of a miserable existence. "They were in a leaky boat, with one of the gunwales stove, in nearly the middle of the ocean, without compass, quadrant, sail, great coat, or cloak; all very thinly clothed, in a gale of wind, with a great sea running." In half an hour they lost sight of the ship; but before dark a blanket was discovered in the boat, of which they made a sail, and scudded under it all night, expecting to be swallowed up by every wave. They were two hundred and fifty or two hundred and sixty leagues from Fayal.

Their stock consisted of "a bag of bread, a small ham, a single piece of pork, two quart-bottles of water, and a few French cordials." Their situation became truly miserable, from cold and hunger. On the fifth day their bread "was nearly all spoiled by salt water; and it was necessary to go to allowance-one biscuit divided into twelve morsels, for breakfast; the same for dinner. The neck of a bottle broke off, with the cork in, served for a glass; and this filled with water, was the allowance for twentyfour hours for each man. This was done without partiality or distinction. But they must have perished ere this, had they not

caught six quarts of rain-water: and this they could not have been blessed with, had they not found in the boat a pair of sheets, which by accident had been put there."

On the fifteenth day that they had been in the boat, they had only one day's bread, and one bottle of water remaining of a secon supply of rain. Captain Inglefield states: "Our sufferings were now as great as human strength could bear; but we were convinced that good spirits were a better support than great bodily strength; for on this day Thomas Matthews, quartermaster, the stoutest man in the boat, perished from hunger and cold. On the day before, he had complained of want of strength in his throat, as he expressed it, to swallow his morsel; and in the night drank salt water, grew delirious, and died without a groan.

"As it became next to a certainty that we should all perish in the same manner in a day or two, it was somewhat comfortable to reflect, that dying of hunger was not so dreadful as our imagination had represented. Others had complained of the symptoms in their throats; some had drunk their own urine; and all but myself had drunk salt water."

Despair and gloom had been hitherto successfully prohibited; and the men, as the evenings closed in, had been encouraged by turns to sing a song, or relate a story, instead of a supper. This evening it was found impossible to do either. At night they were becalmed, but at midnight a breeze sprung up; but being afraid of running out of their course, they waited impatiently for the rising sun to be their compass.

On the sixteenth day their last bread and water had been served for breakfast; when John Gregory, the quarter-master, declared with much confidence, he saw land in the south-east, at a great distance. They made for it, and reached Fayal at about midnight, having been conducted into the road by a fishing-boat: but they were not, by the regulation of the port, permitted to land till examined by the health officers.

They got some refreshments of bread, wine, and water in the boat, and in the morning of the seventeenth day landed; where they experienced every friendly attention from the English consul, whose whole employment for many days was contriving the best means of restoring them to health and strength. Some of the stoutest men were obliged to be supported through the streets; and for several days, with the best and most comfortable provisions, they rather grew worse than better.

A court-martial was held at Portsmouth on the 21st of January 1783, on the loss of the Centaur; when the court honorably acquitted Captain Inglefield, as a cool, resolute, and experienced officer; and that he was well supported by his officers and ship's company; and that their united exertions appeared to have been so great and manly, as to reflect the highest honor on the whole,

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