tower, one hundred and
sixty feet high.'"

"That must be St. Augustine Light: there can be no possible doubt of
it. It fits the description; and that is exactly where we ought to find
it," added the mate.

The Sylvania had been on a ten weeks' cruise to Nassau, Havana, and the
Bermuda Islands. In Havana we had been startled by the report of a few
cases of yellow fever, and we had hastily departed for the Bermudas,
where we had cruised by sea and journeyed by land for a month. The
steam-yacht was now on her return to Florida. The weather had been
thick and rainy, and for the last two days I had failed to obtain an
observation. But we had heaved the log every two hours, though there
was rarely a variation of half a knot from our regular speed. We had
made careful calculations and allowances for the current of the Gulf
Stream, and the result was that we came out right when we made the
Florida coast.

We had two sets of instruments on board; and Washburn and myself had
each made an independent observation, when the sky was clear enough to
permit us to do so, and had ciphered out the latitude and longitude. We
had also figured up the dead-reckoning separately, as much for practice
as to avoid mistakes. We had varied a little on the dead-reckoning, and
it proved that I was the nearer right, as the position of St. Augustine
Light proved.

The steam-yacht was under charter for a year to my cousin, Owen
Garningham, a young Englishman, who was spending the winter in the
South. The after cabin was occupied by four other persons, who were his
guests,--Colonel Shepard, his wife, son, and daughter. Miss Edith, the
daughter, was Owen's "bright particular star," and she was one of the
most beautiful young ladies I ever saw. I may add that she was as
gentle and amiable as she was pretty. All the Shepard family were very
pleasant people, invariably kind to the ship's company; and though the
Colonel was a very wealthy man, none of them ever "put on airs" in
their relations with the crew.

Though I did not pride myself on the fact that some of my ship's
company had "blue blood" in their veins, I certainly believed that no
vessel was ever manned by a more intelligent, gentlemanly, and skilful
crew. Robert C. Washburn, the mate, was a college student, who would
return to his studies at the end of the voyage. He was one of the best
fellows I had ever met, and was competent to command any vessel, on any
voyage, so far at least as its na