sire more detailed information respecting Cuba
will find it in a work entitled _La Reine des Antilles_. Par LE VICOMTE
GUSTAVE D'HARPONVILLE. 1850.]

CHAPTER XIII.

_Change of Dynasty_.

The month of February was drawing to a close, when I took my passage on
board the "Isabel," bound for Charleston. A small coin removed all
difficulty about embarking luggage, cigars, &c.; the kettle was boiling,
hands shook violently, bells rang rapidly, non-passengers flew down to
shore-boats; round go the wheels, waving go the kerchiefs, and down fall
the tears. The "Isabel" bounds o'er the ripp'less waters; forts and
dungeons, as we gaze astern, fade from the view; an indistinct shade is
all by which the eye can recal the lovely isle of Cuba; and, lest memory
should fail, the piles of oranges, about four feet square, all round the
upper-deck, are ready to refresh it. How different the "Isabel" from the
"Cherokee!" Mr. Law might do well to take a cruise in the former; and,
if he had any emulation, he would sell all his dirty old tubs for
firewood, and invest the proceeds in the "Isabel" style of vessel. Land
a-head!--a flourishing little village appears, with watch-towers high as
minarets. What can all this mean?

This is a thriving, happy community, fixed on the most dreary and
unhealthy-looking point imaginable, and deriving all their wealth and
happiness from the misfortunes of others. It is Key West, a village of
wreckers, who, doubtless, pray earnestly for a continuance and increase
of the changing currents, which are eternally drifting some ill-fated
barque on the ever-growing banks and coral reefs of these treacherous
and dangerous waters; the lofty watch-towers are their Pisgah, and the
stranded barques their Land of Promise. The sight of one is doubtless as
refreshing to their sight as the clustering grapes of Eschol were to the
wandering Israelites of old. So thoroughly does the wrecking spirit
pervade this little community, that they remind one of the "Old Joe
Miller," which gives an account of a clergyman who, seeing all his
congregation rise from their seats at the joyous cry of, "A wreck! a
wreck!" called them to order with an irresistible voice of thunder, and
deliberately commencing to despoil himself of his surplice, added,
"Gentlemen, a fair start, if you please!"

We picked up a couple of captains here, whose ships had tasted these
bitter waters, and who were on their road to New York to try and make
t