in, storms would arise, accompanied with torrents of rain, and violent gusts of wind; and as these last came rushing from the high lands, where the temperature was colder by many degrees than on the shore, they would come with an uncomfortable sensation of frigidity, which could not fail to be injurious to negroes who had just left the burning climate of Africa.

The progress of disease amongst the members of our small community was frightful to contemplate; the smallpox was increasing in violence, and dysentery committing additional ravages. It was a sad spectacle to behold the daily diminution of ranks at muster; each revolution of the earth around its axis, that brought an alteration of light and darkness, brought no revival of life, but the repulsive gloom of the tomb. Death was reaping a rich harvest. Many, apparently healthy in appearance, would be taken sick, and in the brief space of a few hours be cut down like the flowers of the field. One instance of the rapidity of the passage between life and death was presented to my notice at the time, and has never been forgotten; not that there was anything unusual in his seizure, for many died in the same manner, but because it was the first case of the sort, and was brought before my notice by the sailors belonging to the "Julia," with whom he had been a particular favourite. Poor Paulo was seemingly in the possession of health at dinner-time, yet before the approach of night he had expired in the greatest agonies, complaining of severe pain across the abdomen. Indeed, disease had assumed so formidable a malignity, that I despaired for a while of seeing an end to the depredations of the Destroyer, until there would be no more victims for him to slay. It appeared that the Angel of Death had received a commission to proceed on with his terrible work of destruction here, and intended to acquit himself of the task with vengeance. From being a secluded spot, the seat of solitude, Lemon Vale had become converted into the busy mart of pestilence; it was literally the "valley of the shadow of death"-" a real Golgotha"66 a place of skulls." Never had I reason to deplore so much the inefficacy of human knowledge and skill, and the uselessness of medical science.

Sickness, so prevalent amongst the Africans, was not confined to them. Charles Fuller, not being able to endure the noise and smell that disturbed our repose in the cabin of the "Andorinha," made his bed upon deck, in spite of my remonstrances. Just as I had predicted, so it happened to him. The cold wet night, after the heat of the day, induced an attack of pleurisy, which incapacitated him from farther exertions, and the whole charge of the hospital ship devolved upon me. I was glad to think I had been prudent in remaining below, and that I had put up with the annoyances, to escape from which Fuller had acted in the manner described, and incurred the penalty of a severe illness. After he had been laid up for some days, it was necessary for me to procure assistance. A man of the name of William Smith was sent from James'town for the purpose. Whether it was his previously-debauched habits that brought on his complaint, or whether he had caught it on board, I could not say, but he fell ill within a week of his arrival to take charge of the "Andorinha," and four days from the invasion of the malady,

which proved to be a bad species of fever, he was a corpse. In the beginning of his sickness, a rose-coloured efflorescence struck out over his body, which became changed into a purple and black colour, previously to death, with spots, and patches, and wheels, of all sizes and hues, interspersed. It was the first death that occurred amongst the officials of the establishment. We had been familiar with the wholesale destruction of our black brethren, and thought nothing of it; but when a white man had paid the debt of nature, the security of us all was shaken, and we felt, if not alarmed, at least awed, by the event. It threw a general gloom over the establishment, and for many days afterwards there was no singing, dancing, or rejoicing at the station.

It was a solemn occasion that of our conveying the dead body of the late overseer out to sea. There were two boats, containing the corpse, almost all the officials, and a couple of negroes. We rowed in silence until we were about a mile from the shore. It was a lovely morn-not a ripple broke the glassy surface of the deep, not a breath of wind disturbed the appropriate silence of nature. There was a solemn and a sublime grandeur in the solitude of the ocean around us. We read the funeral service, and when we committed the body to the waves, there was not a person there but was deeply affected. We needed not the paraphernalia of pride-the hearse, the pall, and the coffin-to excite impressions; the simple ceremony of the prayer-book, the exposed countenance, and frame of the deceased, dressed only in his shirt and wrapped in a blanket-the contact of living limbs with a dead carcass when the body was lifted up, the plunge it made into the smooth bosom of the waters, and its disappearance for ever-were much better calculated for overpowering our feelings. I trust we left that scene better than we went there, with hearts and minds improved by what we had witnessed.

By the end of the year, the hitherto increasing progress of disease seemed arrested; sickness assumed a milder type, and in consequence the mortality lessened in proportion. Some other changes took place about this time; amongst them was the loss of society we met with, a matter of no small importance to persons in our situation, by the departure of Lieutenant Wilcox and the crew of the "Julia," for their triurnal (if I may be permitted to coin such a word) residence at Old Woman's Valley. En passant, I cannot avoid complimenting the Colonial Authorities on their kindness in thus affording British tars such a rare opportunity of witnessing the sublime and terrific in nature, as presented to their view by the tremendous cliffs and bold rocky shore which they were going to visit; and at the same time I must offer my tribute of admiration to the wonderful wisdom and ingenuity that dictated that measure, inasmuch as, if after being exposed to smallpox as they had been, the hot suns which would broil them in the day, and the rains which would drench them at night, unprotected, as they were, by even a shed or tent from the weather, would not set the infection into activity, and bring out the disease, it might safely be relied on that nothing on earth would.

The departure of the British crew left the "Julia" vacant, and it was

with unspeakable delight I took possession of the vessel, and made my head-quarters there. It was a most satisfactory relief to be free from the annoyances I had experienced in the "Andorinha;" and the nights I spent in my new domicile were peculiarly pleasant, from that consideration. Unconnected with any comparisons with the past, my present position was indeed comfortable. In a little box that shut up with a sliding door, by sailors called a bunk, situated on deck, my couch was made, and there I lay, though in the open air, yet without being exposed to the weather; the firmament of heaven for my canopy, and the ocean spread around me for a dormitory. No longer disturbed by the cries of suffering, or disgusted by the stench of corruption from living flesh as well as the dead, I was lulled to sleep by the soft murmur of waves, and inhaled the delicious perfume of a balmy atmosphere, loaded with the odours of the moon-plant and the saphora, as every gentle wind would waft the treasured sweets from the gardens and fields on shore. Often would I prefer to lie awake, gazing on the scene so full of placid beauty, exposed as it was to my view from an opening in the bulwarks of the ship opposite to my bunk. The lovely moonbeams, streaming a flood of silver over the immense pile of rocks that formed the coast of the island, and tipping the tiny ripples of the stream with its rich metallic light-the whirring of the flying-fish pursued by the porpoise the splash of the bonita, leaping and gambolling about, and the scream of the seamew, as it would fly from its nest in the cliffs, and flit, like a phantom, with its unearthly cry, across the spars and rigging of the vessel, were all pleasing and interesting incidents, addressing with equal force the sense and the imagination. Alone, for I was without a companion or a servant, yet I felt no solitude, nor did I ever experience alarm for the occurrence of danger or sickness. I might have been taken ill, and who was there to assist me? The chain-cable might have given way, and the ship been drifted out to sea during a dark night; and on awakening I might have found myself in the centre of the ocean, far from land, without food, and almost without hope; yet night after night was passed, without any of these dismal anticipations entering into my head to disturb my rest.

About this time occurred the first instance of suicide amongst the Africans a crime which is frequently perpetrated by them in order to escape from the miseries of life. It was committed more frequently by the slaves who subsequently arrived, and, with two exceptions, always within a month of their arrival. The principal motive which incited the deluded people to have recourse to this last dreadful alternative for relief, was, as I was informed, the impression, imbibed no doubt from the Portuguese, that the English had devoted them to destruction; and this conviction, I am afraid, was not calculated to be removed or lessened by the treatment which they too often received from their British liberators after their capture. In almost every instance they effected their purpose by throwing themselves into the sea at night, when they could escape the observation of the overseers. The loss of relations and friends, and perhaps their own affliction by disease, far from their country and those who could speak and administer comfort

to them, would, no doubt, contribute to produce despondency and despair, under the influence of which desponding passions the act was generally done. Some cases, however, occurred from totally different causes. A negro, who was a servant to one of the best and kindest masters in the island, hanged himself for love; a young negress drowned herself to escape from the tormenting addresses of five indefatigable suitors; and a stout negro was found dead in a grove of firtrees, so deformed by putrefaction, that whether he died by suicide, murder, or by natural means, constituting what is termed by coroners, the visitation of God, could never be ascertained, nor even his identity be discovered.

However much distrust the Africans entertained towards us at their arrival, it was pleasing to observe their fear ceding to a more correct appreciation of their position towards us, and our feelings towards them; for the longer they remained in the establishment, and the better they got acquainted with us, the greater was the confidence they reposed, and I think I may add with respect to the officials, bad as they were, their greatest faults being of omission, not commission, that the more the Africans saw and knew of them, the more they liked them, if they did not altogether respect and esteem them. The progressive obliteration of hostile feelings, supplanted as they were by others of a more amiable kind, was an important triumph over ignorant and suspicious barbarism. Apathy, melancholy, despair, and madness, were the most general features of the negro's mind on his first introduction to our acquaintance; his demeanour was humble, and his gait slow and crawling; and there was on many a perfect expression of indifference, as if it were written on their foreheads that they were cursed-that even Hope had left them, but ere she had fled, had in pity extinguished their sensibility. Never did I remark amongst them the quick step, the erect attitude, and the manly deportment. Never did I observe activity in their movements, or alacrity in their actions. When, however, they had become accustomed to our presence, familiar with our manners, and had learned by experience the benevolent nature of our intentions, the humiliating attitudes, the servile forms of address, the extended hands, and bent knees, were less frequently practised, especially as such observances were discouraged by us: a little more pride would shine in the countenance, and a little more dignity beam in the eye, which could now be raised from the earth, and return the white man's look, as if to tell him they had learned at length they were fellow-creatures; and finally, the large smiling mouth, the coarse merry laugh, the happy expression of countenance, the erect posture, and active and rapid progression, would reflect, like a mirror, the improvement in both their moral and physical condition, and indicate the recovery of that independence which is the birthright of man, be he black or white.

If the exertions of philanthropy had partially succeeded in ameliorating the condition of the Africans, and in improving their manners, the remains of previous habits still existed; they had been too deeply rooted to be easily extirpated. In no respect was the continuance of

savage usages more shown forth than in their voracious and gluttonous dispositions, as the following anecdotes will prove.

The neighbourhood of the station being infested with wild cats that would come and carry off a chicken or two from Dirty Doll's poultryyard, much to her grief and vexation, the old lady begged of me to adopt some means that would protect her property against their incursions. One evening, then, I lay in wait for the rapacious spoilers, and just as they were descending the hill at the back of the store-room, I shot one dead, as much to the diversion of the negroes as to Dolly's satisfaction. The source of their delight was, however, different. Dolly was glad to be revenged of the depredators who had committed so much mischief amongst her feathered favourites, while the Africans rejoiced only because they had now the means of supplying themselves with a little fresh meat of the description best relished by them. These, with the exception of Dolly, ran and caught hold of pussy, and soon extinguished her "nine lives," if any were remaining after the reception of my salute. They pulled and hauled and fought for the animal at such a rate, that it was torn in pieces among them.

About the same time, a dead cow, which had no doubt expired on board some ship lying at James'-town, and been thrown overboard, came floating off towards the " Andorinha." As soon as the object was spied, there was a loud shout of rejoicing on board, and a consultation was held about the means of becoming possessed of the treasure. This Capitango Dula undertook to effect, and accordingly, though just recovered from dysentery, he stripped and leaped into the water for the purpose. Poor fellow! he had not the strength to swim far, and most probably would have sunk exhausted and been drowned, but that the station boat was despatched after him. He was brought back to the vessel quite helpless. Many others then wished to go, but they were prevented, and it was with feelings of deep disappointment that they witnessed the prize floating slowly away, as it was carried by the current past the vessel. Only think of the feasting and carousing there would have been on board an hospital ship off a carrion cow, had they been permitted to carry their wishes into execution!

ON THE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF THE WATERS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE AND OTTAWA.

BY E. S. DEROTTERMUND,

CHEMIST TO THE PROVINCIAL GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

THE waters of the River St. Lawrence which flow past Montreal are of two kinds;-the one, coasting along the left side of the river, appertains to the Ottawa; the other, flowing opposite to the city, comes from the upper lakes. These run together for several leagues without intermingling, a fact demonstrable from the preservation of their respective