the island discovered the day before, which was slightly elevated above
the surface of the water, and about four miles distant from the wreck.
As we approached the shore, some new birds, unlike any I had seen
before,--indolent-looking, quiet, and amiable,--flew out, and hovered
over the boat, peering down at us, as if inquiring what strange
creatures were about to invade their home. Probably they had never seen
any human beings before. The sailors said they were "boobies;" and they
certainly appeared very unsophisticated, and quite devoid of the wit and
sprightliness of most birds.

Only a few persons could be landed at a time, and I wandered about at
first almost alone. It was two days before all the passengers were
transferred. Every thing was so new and strange, that I felt as if I had
been carried off to another planet; and it certainly was a great
experience, to walk over a portion of the globe just as it was made, and
wholly unaltered by man.

I thought of an account of a wreck on this same water I had once read,
in which the Caribbean was spoken of as the most beautiful though most
treacherous of seas, and the intensity of color was mentioned. Such
rose-color I never saw before as in the shells and mosses we find here,
nor such lovely pale and green tints as the water all about us shows.

We have been here on this bare reef six days, with the breakers all
around us, and do not know whether we shall get off or not. We amuse
ourselves every morning with looking at the pert little birds, as queer
as the boobies, though quite different from them, that sit and nod to
each other incessantly, and give each other little hits with their
bills, as if these were their morning salutations,--a rough way of
asking after each other's health.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 2, 1865.

We are safely here at last, after forty-two days' passage,--longer than
the children of Israel were in the wilderness. When we return it will be
by a wagon-train, if the Pacific Railroad is not done.

When we landed on Roncador Reef, we had no data for conjecturing where
we were, except that we remembered passing the island of Jamaica at
twilight on the evening preceding the wreck. We were afterwards
informed that the vessel was seized by a strong current, and borne far
away from her proper course. How gay we were that night, with our music
and dancing, exhilarated all the more by the swiftness of the white,
rushing water that drove us on to our fate