tates. In going to Havana, or to New Orleans, or to other ports on the
gulf, commanders of vessels try to avoid the current of the gulf-stream
which would carry them to the north, and they, therefore, shave the
Florida coast, and keep near the reefs which you see yonder. They often
strike the reefs inadvertently, or are driven against them by storms. In
returning northward the navigation is safer; we give a good offing to the
reefs and strike out into the gulf-stream, the current of which carries us
in the direction of our voyage."

A little before nine o'clock we had entered the little harbor of Key West,
and were moored in its still waters. It was a bright moonlight evening,
and we rambled two or three hours about the town and the island. The hull
of a dismasted vessel lay close by our landing-place; it had no name on
bow or stern, and had just been found abandoned at sea, and brought in by
the wreckers; its cargo, consisting of logwood, had been taken out and lay
in piles on the wharf. This town has principally grown up since the
Florida war. The habitations have a comfortable appearance; some of them
are quite neat, but the sterility of the place is attested by the want of
gardens. In some of the inclosures before the houses, however, there were
tropical shrubs in flower, and here the cocoanut-tree was growing, and
other trees of the palm kind, which rustled with a sharp dry sound in the
fresh wind from the sea. They were the first palms I had seen growing in
the open air, and they gave a tropical aspect to the place.

We fell in with a man who had lived thirteen years at Key West. He told us
that its three thousand inhabitants had four places of worship--an
Episcopal, a Catholic, a Methodist, and a Baptist church; and the
drinking-houses which we saw open, with such an elaborate display of
bottles and decanters, were not resorted to by the people of the place,
but were the haunt of English and American sailors, whom the disasters, or
the regular voyages of their vessels had brought hither. He gave us an
account of the hurricane of September, 1846, which overflowed and laid
waste the island.

"Here where we stand," said he, "the water was four feet deep at least. I
saved my family in a boat, and carried them to a higher part of the
island. Two houses which I owned were swept away by the flood, and I was
ruined. Most of the houses were unroofed by the wind; every vessel
belonging to the place was lost; dismasted hul