dark masts of a sunken ship across the neighboring island. Those
motionless spars have, after all, a nearer interest, and, as I
saw them sink, I will tell their tale.

That vessel came in here one day last August, a stately,
full-sailed bark; nor was it known, till she had anchored, that
she was a mass of imprisoned fire below. She was the "Trajan,"
from Rockland, bound to New Orleans with a cargo of lime, which
took fire in a gale of wind, being wet with sea-water as the
vessel rolled. The captain and crew retreated to the deck, and
made the hatches fast, leaving even their clothing and provisions
below. They remained on deck, after reaching this harbor, till
the planks grew too hot beneath their feet, and the water came
boiling from the pumps. Then the vessel was towed into a depth of
five fathoms, to be scuttled and sunk. I watched her go down.
Early impressions from "Peter Parley" had portrayed the sinking
of a vessel as a frightful plunge, endangering all around, like a
maelstrom. The actual process was merely a subsidence so calm and
gentle that a child might have stood upon the deck till it sank
beneath him, and then might have floated away. Instead of a
convulsion, it was something stately and very pathetic to the
imagination. The bark remained almost level, the bows a little
higher than the stern; and her breath appeared to be surrendered
in a series of pulsations, as if every gasp of the lungs admitted
more of the suffocating wave. After each long heave, she went
visibly a few inches deeper, and then paused. The face of the
benign Emperor, her namesake, was on the stern; first sank the
carven beard, then the rather mutilated nose, then the white and
staring eyes, that gazed blankly over the engulfing waves. The
figure-head was Trajan again, at full length, with the costume of