are made to suffice, accompanied too often with a volley of oaths and curses. Our captain, like others, habitually keeps his pistols and various weapons by the side of his birth, ready for any emergency.

We have been favored in having a commander so polite and intelligent, and free from some too common faults of ship masters. His practice is, to furnish the men with a glass of spirits daily, and an extra glass in rough weather. How much the habit of intemperate drinking may endanger a vessel, we have seen this evening in whose place the captain was obliged to supply, after he had sent him below.

Water has been free to the crew, with only occasional complaints that they were so thirsty, and admonitions to guard against its waste. We passengers have conformed to the usage of washing in that of the ocean. As yet, we have scarcely broached a cask below deck. In these, I believe, it is required by law, that merchant vessels crossing the Atlantic, shall have at least sixty gallons for each individual.

A sea life, under the most favorable circumstances, and even in the approaching millennial days, will be regarded as a necessary evil to be borne for the good of society. If the officers were reasonable in their commands, and humane in their conduct; the men attentive to their business, respectful to their officers, and obliging to each other; and if the owners were liberal in their supply of provisions, and the crew provident in their purchases of clothing ;--there would still be such a destitution of healthful diet, such exposure to weather, and change of climate, and such want of medical skill, as would doubtless make the generation of seamen shorter lived than any other class.

The information to be derived from visiting foreign countries, which soon lose most of their interest, would by no means compensate for a long continued absence from family and friends. How much more then, is the sailor deserving our sympathy in the present imperfect state of society, and degraded condition of the profession. Seldom have I met with one, who did not regret that he had entered upon an employment, from which nothing but habit prevented his breaking away. Their vices, together with the unavoidable causes which have been mentioned, bring most of them to an untimely end. A sailor at forty, is an old man, and if my observation has been correct, is rarely to be met with. Add to this, his necessary absence from the sanctuary, and many of the means of grace, his want of Christian society, and exposure to peculiar temptations, and how loud is the call, that they who care for the better life of poor Jack, should hold out a helping hand, to encourage him in his way Zion-ward.

Gibraltar, Oct. 23.

It was just five weeks since the music of the Boston bells died away on our ears, when we yesterday entered the harbor, in season to hear those of this place, summoning its Christian population to their Sabbath morning's worship. Mr. Gridley went on shore, to attend the evening service at the Methodist chapel, and has not yet returned. Cape Spartel, the first land which we made in the old world, is only thirty or forty miles from Gibraltar. Had it not been for a head wind which blew down the straits, we should have been at anchor here on Saturday. On the whole, our voyage

has been long and rough. Several vessels were much injured in the gale which we encountered, and one from New York is supposed to be lost. But we, through the hand of our God upon us for good, have been borne across the mightier ocean, to enter on "this great and wide sea," around whose shores, we expect to spend the remaining years of our pilgrimage.

CHAPTER II.

GIBRALTAR.

Jewish synagogue-The Rock-The town-Military worksMissionaries-Want of American chaplains abroad.

MY DEAR G.

Gibraltar, Oct. 25.

THOUGH I anticipate, if life is spared, revisiting my native land after a few years, yet, considering your advanced age and increasing infirmities, I may not find you still a sojourner below. I desire, therefore, before I leave this place, where I can already look out on Jewish dwellings, and Mahometan and Catholic lands, to stop and hold another conversation with you. I wish much, while I am now writing, I could reach you some of those rich grapes, almost equal to the clusters of Eshcol, which lie piled up in the market-place. I wish more, I could show you the interior of the Jewish synagogue, into which I have twice been. You might have seen me there seated in the midst of venerable men, whose flowing robes, and long descending beards, silvery as the locks now thinly scattered over

your own brow, brought to my mind the patriarchs of old. Alas! for the unbelief of these elders of Israel. Yet I felt it in my heart to pity, rather than condemn, when they rose up and turned their faces towards Jerusalem; then covered them with their hands, and bowing down to the earth, exclaimed in the Hebrew tongue, "Blessed art thou, Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts."

October 26.-Though almost as thread-bare at heme as the ocean, you will expect me to say something of Gibraltar. Pass up then the straits, until just where they open into the Mediterranean, and the Spanish coast bends abruptly to the northeast. Loosen next from its foundations, one of your hills of secondary magnitude, say, fourteen hundred feet in height, two or three miles in length, and from three fourths, to a mile and a half in breadth at its base. Place this nearly at right angles to the straits, with its perpendicular sides to the north and east, and frightful precipices to the south; join it also on the north, by a low sandy isthmus to the European shore. That hill, with its camel-formed summit, often concealed in the clouds, is the "rock of Gibraltar." The sandy isthmus is the "neutral ground," at the extremities of which, are stations of British and Spanish guards. The portion of water, four miles in depth, and about the same in breadth, embosomed by the rock and the Spanish coast, is Gibraltar Bay. At the head of the bay, is the pleasant Spanish village of St. Roque, and on the western side, the town of Algeziras. The high mountains of Spain rise one above the other, far in the distant horizon.

3

From the narrow ridge of the rock, in which you may observe three eminences higher than the rest, the descent towards the west is more gradual. Upon this side also, there are some acres of a tolerable level, between the foot of the mountain and the sea. Here, then, you will look for the town of Gibraltar, with its crowded population of twenty or thirty thousand, English, Spanish, Jewish, Moorish, &c.* On entering the bay from the south, you first pass the naval and military stations, and next the public gardens, in which are a few trees, a bust of the Duke of Wellington, and a statue of Gen. Elliot. The latter is holding in his hand the key of the city, which he so successfully defended against the grand attack of the Spaniards. Still farther up the harbor, is the town. This is surrounded by

separate walls, and when the sun-down gun is fired, its gates are closed, and if lingering within, you are a prisoner until the morning. Yet you are a prisoner in safe keeping, for the soldiers which are posted in the street every stone's cast, constitute a most vigilant police.

Many of the houses have a small open court in the centre, around which, are galleries, with flights of winding stairs. In some instances we observed trees and shrubbery growing in this inner area. Into this also, the windows often open. As might be expected from the very limited extent of ground, house rent is very dear. Board at one or two tolerable hotels, is

* Since the wasting sickness of the last year, (1828,) and now that Cadiz is also become a free port, ten or twelve thousand inhabitants are said to have left the place. Probably its commercial importance will still continue to diminish.