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on the occasion of that terrible disaster were the means of saving the lives of six hundred people, many of whom were women and children. When the ship struck the panic among this large number of persons was of course awful; but so perfect was the discipline of the crew, and so great their attachment to their commander- that not a cabin-boy left the ship in that season of apprehension without his permission. Captain Leitch said that he would be the last man to quit the ship, and he kept his word; but the excitement, anxiety, and subsequent exposure to cold and fatigue, more especially in his search after the survivors of the ill-fated Arctic, brought on a malady from which he was severely suffering.

We had only sixty passengers on board, and the party was a remarkably quiet one. There was a gentleman going to Paris as American consul, a daily, animated, and untiring advocate of slavery; a Jesuit missionary, of agreeable manners and cultivated mind, on his way to Rome to receive an episcopal hat; two Jesuit brethren, five lively French people; and the usual number of commercial travellers, agents, and storekeepers, principally from Canada. There were very few ladies, and only three besides our own party appeared in the saloon. For a few days after leaving Halifax we had a calm sea and fair winds, accompanied with rain; and with the exception of six unhappy passengers who never came upstairs during the whole voyage, all seemed well enough to make the best of things.

A brief description of the daily routine on board these ships may serve to amuse those who have never crossed the Atlantic, and may recall agreeable or dis-