who have perished by famine and by sword in the political convulsions of the last ten years, within and around the neighbouring castle. Heaps of skulls and broken skeletons are clustered on every side, while entire bodies, shrivelled and dried like a mummy, with the clothes in which they were shot or cast down still clinging to them-from the once showy uniforms of the officer and soldier, to the rags and tatters of the beggar, with here and there a winding sheetlie scattered abroad in sickening confusion and deformity! The scene was too horrible to witness, and almost too much so to describe; and we hastened from it to the beach, on the side of the point open to the full swell of the sea. Here the wildest and most fearful surf was rolling, as if again about to burst over its wonted barrier, and desolate the land. Beneath a gloomy and clouded sky, it, too, looked melancholy; and I returned on board ship, sick at heart at the many evidences I had met, both among the living and the dead, in the short walk of an hour, of the sin, and sorrow, and calamity with which the world has been and still is filled! It was near sunset; and then came my last address and my last prayer with the crew-not calculated, in the immediate and necessary association, to dissipate the gloom, had not the only source of true consolation, and the brightness of an unchanging world, where "all tears shall be wiped from our eyes," and there "shall be pleasures for evermore," been sweetly brought to sight by the hymn of Moore containing these beautiful lines: "Oh! who could bear life's stormy doom, Did not thy wing of love Come brightly wafting through the gloom Our peace-branch from above? Then sorrow, touch'd by thee, grows bright, As darkness shows us worlds of light We never saw by day." Washington Eslands. LETTER XXIII. DEPARTURE FROM PERU. U. S. Ship Vincennes, off Callao, THE Guerriere, dear H, is no longer my home, and I am once more afloat in the midst of strangers. The morning was to me a sad one, spent chiefly, till the hour I expected to join this ship, in scribbling, by farewell notes, to Commodore Thompson and Captain Smith, what I dared not trust to my lips, when I should be called to give them the parting hand; and in passing from deck to deck, to bid adieu, as I had opportunity, to the crew individually. The Vincennes was expected to weigh anchor at twelve o'clock, immediately after the firing of a national salute by each vessel of the squadron, in honour of the day; and, early after breakfast, Captain Smith kindly apprised me of an intention of seeing me on board my new home in his own gig. This he did, but not till my heart had been deeply touched by a letter of much good-will and affection from him. Coming, utterly unexpected as it did, from one I had learned to admire as a man, and sincerely to love as a friend, but of whose cordial return of warm interest I was till then ignorant, the perusal of it affected me, under the circumstances, even to tears; and gave me the feelings of a child, when called immediately afterwards to exchange parting salutations with my shipmates of the steerage, and fellow-officers of the PARTING SALUTATIONS. 125 gun-room. And when I came at last to Commodore Thompson, alone in his private apartment, I was incapable of uttering a word-to have opened my lips, in answer to his assurances of every kind regard, accompanied with a warm blessing, would have been to betray a weakness of which I should have been ashamed-and I left the cabin literally speechless. : Different marks of honour are shown to different officers, according to their respective rank, both on coming on board, and on leaving a ship-of-war; and, as these are always paid when the individual receiving them crosses the gangway, the etiquette established is, that an inferior precede a superior in entering a boat alongside. Had I been alone, I should have been attended by two side-boys only at the ladder, and a boatswain's mate to "pipe over," as the phrase is but a captain is entitled to four sideboys, to the attendance of the boatswain himself, and to a guard of marines presenting arms. When the boat was reported to the captain on the quarter-deck as ready, I, of course, bidding farewell to the officer in command, moved before him to the gangway, the boatswain at the foot of the steps beginning at the same time his whistle. By some means I had missed him in my morning round; and now, stretching out his left hand, while he held his pipe in the other, he seized mine as I was passing, and shook and piped, and shook and piped, again and again--the officer of the deck, marines, captain, and all, waiting my movements-till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and I was obliged to tear my hand from his iron grasp, and hasten over. Captain Smith could not avoid a smile, as he followed, and evidently was not displeased at the disregard of ceremony into which the feelings of the generous-hearted man had betrayed him; and as he looked up, after taking his seat in the gig, and saw every port filled with sober faces, he broke silence by saying, "It makes our good fellows look sad, Mr. Stewart, to see you shove off; and, to tell you the truth, I suspect none of us have felt more so, since we bade our own fire-sides farewell." I mention these trifles, to show you the reason there is to believe that the office and services of piety are far from being regarded with indifference on board a man-of-war; and that, even in the hardiest sailor's bosom, there are affections alive to the true character, design, and value of the appointment. The wind was too light to allow of sailing at the time intended, and we did not get under way till sunset; but we then did it beautifully. The hour was greatly in our favour for effect, as we filled gently away, in the gaze of all the shipping of the port, and dropt closely under the stern of the Guerriere, crowded with eager spectators, from the quarterdeck to the forecastle. As in the deepest silence we approached her quarter, the rigging of the Vincennes, at a given signal, was in an instant manned by the whole crew in holiday dress, and we gave three noble cheers, followed by "Hail Columbia!" from a delightful band. A thundering answer was quickly poured from the shrouds of the Guerriere, filled as by magic with hundreds that I love. It seemed to come from the heart; and while I accredited a full portion of the enthusiasm breathed in it to myself, it thrilled through the heart: then we gave another three, followed by "Yankee Doodle;" and, as we glided by, heaping sail upon sail to the breeze, cheer after cheer burst upon and around us, from the Guerriere, the St. Louis, and the Dolphin, till, hiding my face in my cap, and leaning against the mizzen rigging, I wept like a child: and mine, I can assure you, dear H-, were far from being the only tears. As we rapidly cleared the shipping, "Auld Lang Syne," in all the power of its best associations, PARTING OF THE VINCENNES. 127 breathed its plaintive melody around; and I know not where the excitement would have ended, had not "Home-sweet-sweet Home!" as we spread all our canvass to the breeze, brought, with the fulness of its tones, thoughts and affections that hurried the imagination, for the time, far from the passing scene. The darkness of the night almost immediately afterwards gathered round us, and I retired to my state-room; but had scarce thrown myself on my mattress for a moment of repose, before the cry, "A man overboard!" rang once more through the ship. I had been under the excitement of such strong feeling during the whole day, however, that it scarce produced on me its almost irresistible effect: and had not the lad—it proved to be a lad of fifteen or sixteen-been speedily picked up by a boat, I should have been obliged to charge myself with a want of sensibility, notwithstanding the many gushes of feeling through which I had just gone. The agitation I experienced, however, may have been quite as great as that suffered by the boy himself: for, on scrambling over the ship's sides, and stepping on the deck again, his only exclamation, as he looked at his feet, and that, too, with an air of no little nonchalance, was, "I'll be hanged if one of my shoes an't gone!" LETTER XXIV. VOYAGE TO THE WASHINGTON ISLANDS. U. S. ship Vincennes, at Sea, THE first destination of the Vincennes is to the Washington Islands, a group in the vicinity of the Marques de Mendoça's, and frequently included with them under the general appellation of the i Marquesas." They bear a relation to these last, both in position and proximity, similar to that which |