who ought to have made peace overtures to
you, not you to her. I'm quite ashamed of
you."

And Gabrielle felt happy now, and was soon
at rest, and all the house was quiet and still.

           TO VENEZUELA.
       SAILING ON A FRIDAY.

"NEEDLES indeed! they look more like Grinders;
and, á propos of that, if this confounded
wind continues dead in our teeth, we shall pitch
bows under as soon as we get outside." I
uttered these words without addressing myself
to any one in particular, for I knew no one on
board, and, in fact, there was no one near enough
to hear me but my servant, who, like myself,
was leaning over the taffrail, watching the pilot
drop astern. I looked at my watch; it was
seven minutes past seven, on the 17th of June
(I like seven, it is a lucky number); we were oft
the Needles; the pilot had just left us; there
was a strong breeze right ahead, and the weather
did not look altogether so propitious as it should
do on a midsummer evening. My servant, Juan,
was a fine specimen of a Santa Cruz man. He
stood six feet five inches in his boots, was
au excellent valet, never drank, smoked, nor
swore, spoke Spanish and English, loved England
with all his heart, and, like most natives of Santa
Cruz and Saint Thomas, fully considered himself
an Englishman. I knew little of Juan, who had
been in my service only a few days, and was now
to learn one of his peculiarities. He was subject
to an extraordinary flow of spirits on the
occurrence of anything which others regarded as
depressing. A simple contretemps put him in a
good humour; but a disaster made him jocular,
and the graver the case the more he was elated.
On hearing my exclamation he turned round
approvingly, and said, "Yes, no fears, sir, but
we'll have a rough night of it; I never hur-red
no good of sailing on a Friday." "Pooh, pooh,
Juan," said I, "that's a mere prejudice. Why,
on Friday, the 9th of August, 1492, no less a man
than Cristóval Colon sailed from Lagos to
discover the New World, these very West Indies
to which we are now going, and on Friday, the
12th of October, he did discover San Salvador,
not so very far from where you were born; and
on Friday, the 1st of March, 1493, he saw land
on his return—that is, he ought to have seen it
if the weather had not been rather thick." I
said the last words with some hesitation, for, in
fact, I recollected that Colon, on his homeward
voyage, encountered a regular tormenta off
Portugal, and was near foundering; so that the
third Friday was rather against me. Juan, however,
as became a man of his inches, was not to
be beaten from his opinion, and said: "I don't
know nothing about Columbus, sir, but my father,
who was a better man, leastways made more
voyages 'tween 'Merica and Europe—for he was
a ship's steward, and spoke English as well as I
do—said he never hur-red no good of sailing on
a Friday." So saying, and laying a peculiarly
grating emphasis on the word hur-red, Juan
stalked off.

"Confound the fellow!" said I to myself, "it's
absurd, but he makes me melancholy with his
forebodings. Yet, imagine anything like risk in
a grand vessel of three thousand tons and
upwards! Why, the wretched carvel in which
Columbus made his voyages, was hardly so large
as the long-boat there. It is no exaggeration to
say that she would scarcely have carried the
admiral's potted meats, which the steward tells
me weigh over twenty tons. It is true, however,
that though the voyage from Lagos to Guanahari
was three thousand and forty miles nearly
as long as from Southampton to Saint Thomas,
which is but one hundred and forty-seven more—
yet, as Humboldt says, 'A voyage from the
coast of Spain, and thence to South America,
is scarcely attended with any event which
deserves attention, especially when undertaken in
summer. The navigation is often less dangerous
than crossing one of the great lakes of Switzerland.'
Whereas in our voyage there is that
odious Bay of Biscay to be crossed, and a still
worse sea on the homeward passage; and steamers,
however grand, have risks of their own.
Well, who knows! Juan's forebodings may be
justified." So, after finishing my reverie, I went
to smoke a cigar in the allowable place before
the funnel, and next to arrange my cabin, and
so, in due course, to bed.

I was awoke in the morning by a hideous
jabber of several small voices crying all at once,
"Steward! steward! for vy I say call I you
many times? Vy you by your own selves not
ask me vat I vant?" This reminded me of
Trollope's grinning Frenchman and his rotten
walnut; and incontinently I laughed somewhat
loudly, which had the effect of shaming my neighbours
and stilling the clamour. On leaving my
cabin I was astonished to see outside the next
cabin door four such Lilliputian pairs of half-boots
that I could not but come to the conclusion
that my neighbours must be all children, and
yet their voices were the voices of middle age.
Afterwards I discovered that the Spanish Creoles
have feet as tiny as those of Chinese ladies, but
of a natural tininess, and without deformity.

Travelling per steamer is a trite affair. People
think little more of crossing the Atlantic in one
of the gigantic vessels of the Royal Mail Steam
Packet Company, or of the Cunard line, than of
passing a river on a bridge. "The river," says the
old Sanscrit proverb, "is crossed, and the bridge
is forgotten." Fourteen days, or so, of short whist
and long flirtations, of bad cigars and pleasant
yarns, of hot calms and cold gales, a transfer of
cash and billets, and the voyage is over. But
the utility, wealth, and importance of such an
association as the Royal Mail Company, the
admirable system organised for the performance of
the duties of every individual serving under it,
and the consequent safety with which so many
voyages, at all seasons, are performed, deserve