with wave, and all against us--never
mind!--

"Hurrah! for the marvels of steam,
As thus through the waters we roam;
For pistons that smite, oh! for funnels that gleam,
And to carry us safe through the _foam_."

Whew, whew!--but greater divinities than Neptune are abroad
to-night!--What! expect our _black_ chimney to show the _white_ feather!
Pooh! pooh! old _Eunosigaeus_, what are thy _white horses_ to the
invisible hoofs of two hundred and forty coal-black steeds stamping in
the hold? We had, however, a sharp seven-hours' tussle for it; at the
end of which, the buffeted Mongibello came bounding into the harbour,
and swirled round in the face of Vesuvius, who was smoking his cigar as
quietly as ever!

We have tried several Mediterranean steamers, and our report of all is
much the same--bad is the best! A sea passage any where, to be
comfortable, depends _solely_ on the smoothness of the water; if this be
rough, what care you for mahogany, rosewood, and plate-glass? Whether
the cabin where you are to be sick, and to hear others groan, has its
Scotts, its Byrons, and its Moores, under a convex mirror; its rows of
curtained births, and horse-hair sofas, and its long line of polished,
well articulated tables? Whether the smell of empyreumatised grease be
wafted to the nostrils by a _Maudsley_ or a _Bell_? Whether the captain
have his _ears bored_, or be an Englishman? Your brass nails and
varnished _buffets_ are very well _in dock_, when the vessel has _stank_
off her last voyage, and lies clean washed, like that other _syren_ of
the opposite coast, who coaxed Ulysses and his men, some years ago--not,
indeed, to _come on board_, but the contrary. But when her deck is all
soot and nastiness, when she has quartered her vermin on her passengers,
and goes gurgling along, as if _she had an Empyema under her pleura
costalis_; when she _pitches into_ the waves, as if to _punish_ them,
and tramples on their crests, as if to crush them under her keel, why
all the brass you want is "AES TRIPLEX;" and there is no _varnish_ in the
world that will enable _you_ to put _a good face on it_. A few heaves
more, such as those of our present imagining, and brandy and water,
bottled porter, and _bottled philosophy_, are uncorked in vain!

As to particular steamers, the Castor since he lost his twin-brother,
who was run down off _Capo D'Anzo_ (he forgot, we suppose, to invoke
Fortune "_gratum quae regit Antium_"), has becom