of myself. The being described as _beautiful_, oh
beautiful as an angel was she! was by his side. Love, full, passionate
love, brimmed over in her dark black eye, darker, more dazzling than the
gazelle's, which was reflected back from his dark orbs, which took their
brightest brilliancy from hers. Over her cheek the rosy god had spread
his crimson mantle, and in the dimples of her chin the mischievous boy
had found a lurking-place. They walked and talked, and in what phrase?
Truly they knew not themselves! and yet each word, each glance, each
touch, had a meaning perfectly intelligible. Time passed, but what was
time to them, they saw nothing of his beard, heard not the rustling of
his ancient wings, his scythe was hidden. The heavens are overcast,
thunder rolls above them, and the lightning's glare makes the black
fringes of the heavy cloud more funereal. A shadow, heavy, dense,
_material_, interposes, and the boy seeks for his fair companion--but
she is gone: "Got to see the hammocks up! six bells, come turn out,"
"rouse and bitt," "show a leg in a purser's stocking." "Zounds, how he
sleeps," "where, where, oh where is my hammock boy?" who appeared at my
call, and whom I wished at the gangway, that I might have slept on. But
turn out I must now--and so turned out my dream.

Other races were upon the _tapis_. The launchers, like brave old Taylor,
would not stay beaten, and demanded another trial; they offered to
oppose any thing, from the Captain's gig, down to the dingui--they even
wanted to challenge the boats of the whole squadron, and old A., the
coxswain, in the true spirit of Rhoderick Dhu, exclaimed, "Come one,
come all," but the regatta was put a stop to, by orders to get out of
the Typa, and the men commenced "mud-larking," as they termed it. The
Typa is filling up so rapidly that we never could get out _now_ without
a _scrape_, and the senior officer perhaps thought it better we should
move before we had formed a bar with our beef bones.

So out of the Typa again we got, poised our wings in the outer harbor,
and took flight for Whampoa again, and settled down in our old resting
place in the "Reach," on the 11th of October. From here I took another
trip to Canton, made a few purchases, as I then supposed it would be our
last opportunity. Heard there of an extensive fire which had raged near
the factories, in which over five hundred houses had been destroyed. A
fire in Canton is a serious affair, and from the