Leone-Carlisle Bay, and anecdote of Lord Nelson-Bridgetown and its environs-The cabbage-tree-The letter-bearer -The letter and its results.

It was in the latter part of the month of August, and about a week after our arrival in Carlisle Bay, Barbados, from Sierra Leone, that I sat in the fore-cabin of H. M. brig Hydra. The day was sultry and oppressive; and this enervating state of the weather, combined with a depression of spirits, frequently one of the sequelae of the bilious fever engendered on the coast of Africa, and from an attack of which I was now slowly recovering,-had induced just

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that morbid frame of mind, which is fitted to receive, and is sensitively alive to such impressions only, as tend to plunge it yet deeper into despondency and gloom. My eye caught the last, and otherwise, inoffensive step of the companion ladder, as it stood out beyond the entrance of the cabin; and this object alone sufficed to conjure up the most melancholy reflections, and to renew in vivid and protracted succession, each scene of suffering and despair, as it had occurred on board the brig in her disastrous passage from Sierra Leone. We had gone there on business connected with a slaver that we had captured; and her adjudication being determined, had at length sailed from thence,—not, however, without conveying with us, the concealed miasma of the Bulam, or marsh-fever.

This fell monster shewed itself to its unsuspecting victims, when we had been nearly a week at sea; and our brig, lately teeming with life and freshness, seemed now the abode of death and corruption. None was wholly exempt from its ravages; all, to a man, on board, came under the scourge of our dread visitant, which, after stalking forth, in all its horrors, on

its isolated stage, from the cabin's berth to the lowliest hammock, and satiating itself on those who were food for its voracity, left us the scanty remains of an enfeebled crew-barely sufficient to work our vessel. I was of that relic; and in my arms died our much regretted and gallant commander. Stricken with the disease, which day after day consigned to the deep, the black and already putrefying remains of his officers and crew, he never laid himself down, but walked wildly in his delirium, alternately on the deck, and in his cabin; and when nature could bear up no longer, he sunk exhausted, and breathed his last on that very step, which now recalled these sad and mournful images. Such painful associations, added to which, the close and confined cabin I was in, gave rise to the most distressing and suffocating sensations in my chest and head, similar to those I had recently experienced during my illness, so that I rose hurriedly from my seat, seized my cap that lay beside me on the table, and rushed on the deck in order to breathe more freely, and to divert the current of my thoughts into a less gloomy and revolting channel, by other and surrounding objects

of contemplation. Mounted on the carriage of one of the guns, and looking over the bulwarks of the brig, Carlisle Bay, Bridgetown, and its environs, soon occupied my attention in such a manner as to chase away the "devil's blue," and all recollections of the fever and its consequences.

In Carlisle Bay, anchored the immortal Nelson, when in 1805 he came to these latitudes in pursuit of the French fleet; and an anecdote still told of him in Barbados, is aptly illustrative of the all-absorbing passion for naval deeds of daring excitement and glory, that ever strongly marked the character and history of that gallant commander, and which, like the mountain torrent that rages and breaks from its bounds at every obstacle to its mad and impetuous course to the sea, led him in this instance to a burst of feeling,—an expression reflecting on the conduct of a truly brave man, the use of which, it is to be hoped, that he afterwards regretted.

On arriving in the bay, Lord Nelson immediately telegraphed for the Admiral on the station to come on board the Victory; and Sir Alexander Cochrane, who held this command,

obeyed the command. "Well, Cochrane," said the excited and impatient Nelson; "the French! the French! where are they?" "I cannot tell," was the reply, "report says—" "Not tell!" echoed the other, in a disappointed tone of voice, and stamping his foot on the deck. "Oh! Cochrane, Cochrane, if my friend, Sam Hood, had been here, I should have known to-day where to find the French fleet!"

The view of Bridge-town, the capital of Barbados, is by no means a very striking one; yet, on the whole, does it present a pleasing and not uninteresting picture from the harbour or bay in which we lay at anchor. Needham's Point and the Garrison, which by the way, is an extensive and handsome range of buildings, and makes a very respectable appearance in the prospect, from the south angle, or horn of the bay, while the northern, or opposite one, is occupied by Rickett's battery, low coral reefs in front, and by Fontabelle and its neighbourhood behind, embosomed in trees, among which the tall coco-nut erects its tufted head, and towers high above its more leafy companions. The interval between these two points, receding beyond the graceful curve