would some-
times preach, if not, the purser would read the Epis- copal service. Every few days, after the waiter had put the rooms in order, the captain and steward made a tour of inspection, looking into each room as they passed by, while the waiter followed in the rear. The kitchen of a Rotterdam housewife is not more brightly polished than the cook's galley on inspection days. Lighted up at night, to one viewing it from a distance, the steamer looked like a fairy floating palace.
Some few were suffering from Panamd, fever, and one poor fellow, a young man in the second cabin, died. It is a sad sight, a burial at sea ; sad m its mo- nitions, and sad in its suggestive retrospections; sad in its summoned thoughts of hopes cut off, of riven hearts and wailing homes. The body was sewed up in a canvas shroud, and a shot and some pigiron at- tached to the feet ; it was then placed upon a plank, one end of which was extended over the ship's side ; the steamer was stopped for a moment, a prayer was read, the signal given, and the body slid off into its liquid grave.
Skirting the low, abruptly changing shores of Guat- emala, its huge volcanic mountains are seen in dim outline rising from the plain of foliage to a height of thirteen and fourteen thousand feet, with their grace- ful cones seemingly smoking within a veil of mist. Here we met the steamer with eastward bound pas- sengers. The ship's officers were looking for her. At first nothing: was seen but a column of black smoke rising from below the horizon, then the smoke-pipe, and beneath it an ink-spot not larger than a pea-pod, which stood for the hull. This black spot gradually enlarged and assumed shape, until it loomed high upon the water, a bellowing monster flaunting its finery not a hundred yards from us, with its decks crowded with men and women waving hats and handkerchiefs. Guns were fired, and a boat lowered to make the ex- changies. There is much that is grand and i
