t, who, wrapped in a
cloak or great coat, walked the deck leaning upon his arm; or, seated
upon the hen-coop, listened with interest to his descriptions of
American, or, more properly, New England, scenery, manners, and history;
or gazed upon that lovely object, a moon-lit ocean in fine weather.

There is something peculiarly soothing in this scene--something in the
soft light of the heavens, and in the dark and dimly-seen ocean, that
induces a pleasing melancholy, a pensive tranquillity; the low, gentle
murmuring of the waves calms the mind, tranquillizes its angry passions
and boisterous feelings, and brings on those dreamy reveries that
contemplative people are so fond of indulging. It is then, when the
"grim-visaged" ocean has "smoothed his wrinkled front,"--when the winds
of heaven are hushed to gentle airs, and the cloudless moon looks down
upon the scene, tipping the crests of the lazy waves with silver,--that
the memory and imagination of the wanderer are busy; it is then that the
scenes of childhood and of manhood--the forms of friends, more loved
because sundered from them by thousands of miles of water and land--all
rise before him in original freshness and beauty.

Isabella also proposed to her lover to accompany him in his middle
watch--that is, from midnight to four in the morning--but I grieve to
say, that she proved worse on these occasions than an old man-of-war's
man, not only "standing two calls," but, in fact, not "turning out" at
all. She made some amends, however, by coming on deck at four o'clock
frequently, to witness that splendid spectacle, sunrise at sea, which is
particularly glorious between the tropics, not only on account of the
extreme purity of the air, but from the shortness of the morning
twilight; the sun rushing so suddenly from his salt water couch, as to
come "within one" of catching the stars napping.

On arriving at Macao, Isabella was doomed to undergo another separation
from her beloved Morton, whose qualities of head and heart she had had
sufficient opportunities of studying and appreciating during the voyage
from Mexico, and in the daily and familiar intercourse of a
merchant-ship's cabin. As the Chinese eschew the society of foreign
women even more rigorously than the children of Israel did that of
"strange" ones--and, taking this notion of theirs "by and large" in
connection with their laws, and manners, and tastes, we think they are
perfectly right--Isabella was conseque