sullen
breeze, which hardly deigned to fan the scorching cheeks of the numerous
and exhausted patients. The numbers on the list daily increased, until
every part of the ship was occupied with their hammocks, and the surgeon
and his assistants had scarcely time to relieve one by excessive
bleeding, and consign him to his hammock, before another, staggering and
fainting under the rapid disease, presented himself, with his arm bared,
ready for the lancet. More blood was thrown into the stagnant water of
the bay than would have sufficed to render ever verdant the laurels of
many a well-fought action (for our laurels flourish not from the dew of
Heaven, but must be watered with a sanguine stream) and, alas! too soon,
more bodies were consigned to the deep than would have been demanded
from the frigate in the warmest proof of courage and perseverance in her
country's cause.

It is a scene like this which appals the sailor's heart. It is not the
range of hammocks on the main-deck, tenanted by pale forms, with their
bandages steeped in gore; for such is the chance of war, and the blood
has flowed from hearts boiling with ardour and devotion. If not past
cure, the smiles and congratulations of their shipmates alleviate the
anguish and fever of the wound: if past all medical relief; still the
passage from this transitory world is soothed by the affectionate
sympathy of their messmates, by the promise to execute their last
wishes, by the knowledge that it was in their country's defence they
nobly fell. 'Tis not the chance of wreck, or of being consigned,
unshrouded, to the dark wave, by the treacherous leak, or overwhelming
fury of the storm. 'Tis not the "thought-executing fire." Every and
all of these they are prepared and are resigned to meet, as ills to
which their devious track is heir. But when disease, in its most
loathsome form and implacable nature, makes its appearance--when we
contemplate, in perspective, our own fate in the unfortunate who is
selected, like the struggling sheep, dragged from the hurdled crowd, to
be pierced by the knife of the butcher--when the horror of infection
becomes so strong that we hold aloof from administering the kind offices
of relief to our dearest friends; and, eventually prostrated ourselves,
find the same regard for self pervades the rest, and that there is no
voluntary attendance--then the sight of the expiring wretch, in his last
effort, turning his head over the side of his h