isten in rapt silence and
delight. Sometimes at a dead hour of the night her voice is heard, and
then it seems that she is under a special afflatus--she seems to be
inspired by the very soul of music, and her songs, wild and sad, wailing
and rollicking, by turns, but all exquisitely sweet, fill the long
night-hours with their melody."

The shock caused by the sudden death of her betrothed lover overthrew
her reason, and blighted her life. By the mercy of God, the love of
music and the gift of song survived the wreck of love and of reason.
This girl's voice, pealing forth upon the still summer evening air, is
mingled with my last recollection of Stockton and its refuge for the
doubly miserable who are doomed to death in life.

San Quentin.

"I want you to go with me over to San Quentin next Thursday, and preach
a thanksgiving-sermon to the poor fellows in the State-prison."

On the appointed morning, I met our party at the Vallejo-street wharf,
and we were soon steaming on our way. Passing under the guns of Fort
Alcatraz, past Angel Island--why so called I know not, as in early days
it was inhabited not by angels but goats only--all of us felt the
exhilaration of the California sunshine, and the bracing November air,
as we stood upon the guards, watching the play of the lazy-looking
porpoises, that seemed to roll along, keeping up with the swift motion
of the boat in such a leisurely way. The porpoise is a deceiver. As he
rolls up to the surface of the water, in his lumbering way, he looks as
if he were a huge lump of unwieldy awkwardness, floating at random and
almost helpless; but when you come to know him better, you find that he
is a marvel of muscular power and swiftness. I have seen a "school" of
porpoises in the Pacific swimming for hours alongside one of our
fleetest ocean-steamers, darting a few yards ahead now and then, as if
by mere volition, cutting their way through the water with the
directness of an arrow. The porpoise is playful at times, and his
favorite game is a sort of leap-frog. A score or more of the creatures,
seemingly full of fun and excitement, will chase one another at full
speed, throwing themselves from the water and turning somersaults in the
air, the water boiling with the agitation, and their huge bodies
flashing in the light. You might almost imagine that they had found
something in the sea that had made them drunk, or that they had inhaled
some sort of piscatorial anaesthetic. Bu