the rescue of "regulation" portmanteaus from sailors who were running off
with them, and the indulgence of that errant curiosity which glances at
everything and rests on nothing, occupied the time before the arrival of
the mail-boat with about two tons of letters and newspapers, which were
consigned to the mail-room with incredible rapidity.

Then friends were abruptly dismissed--two guns were fired--the lashings
were cast off--the stars and stripes flaunted gaily from the 'fore--the
captain and pilot took their places on the paddle-boxes--the bell rang--
our huge paddle-wheels revolved, and, to use the words in which the same
event was chronicled by the daily press, "The Cunard royal mail steamer
_Canada_, Captain Stone, left the Mersey this morning for Boston and
Halifax, conveying the usual mails; with one hundred and sixty-eight
passengers, and a large cargo on freight."

It was an auspiciously commenced voyage as far as appearances went. The
summer sun shone brightly--the waves of the Mersey were crisp and foam-
capped--and the fields of England had never worn a brighter green. The
fleet of merchant-ships through which we passed was not without an
interest. There were timber-ships, huge and square-sided, unmistakeably
from Quebec or Miramichi--green high-sterned Dutch galliots--American
ships with long black hulls and tall raking masts--and those far-famed
"Black Ball" clippers, the _Marco Polo_ and the _Champion of the Seas_,--
in short, the ships of all nations, with their marked and distinguishing
peculiarities. But the most interesting object of all was the screw troop-
ship _Himalaya_, which was embarking the Scots Greys for the Crimea--that
regiment which has since earned so glorious but fatal a celebrity on the
bloody field of Balaklava.

It is to be supposed that to those who were crossing the Atlantic for the