due consultation, abandoned it. Every inquiry was of course made about this unaccountable appearance; but nothing satisfactory could be obtained. All the inhabitants from Haverstraw and the shores of the Tappan Sea to Buttermilk Falls, had a dread of that spot. An old man, who kept the ferry at the entrance of the Horse Race, and who was the patriarch of that region, was the only being able to give any account of it. He said, that groans had been heard there, and figures seen about it, for fifty years; that when he was a child, the inhabitants were greatly alarmed by the appearance of a mysterious bark, which, gliding down the river, shot into the cove formed by the mouth of the creek with the swiftness of an arrow. No human being could be seen in it excepting the helmsman, who was a little deformed man with withered cheek and sunken blue eye. He never left the helm, and wherever he turned the vessel, blow the wind as it would, or not at all, she darted forward with the swiftness of lightning. Her sails were black, and her sides were painted of the same colour; and a black flag with a death's head and cross-bones, floated from the top of her mast. After remaining there about an hour, when last seen by the inhabitants, she departed, and had not been heard of since. A few hours after her last visit, there was found at the head of the cove a freshly dug pit, in the bottom of which the shape of a large pot was distinctly defined in the earth, and a scull, with a few human bones, were scattered

about the ground. Groans are still said to issuefrom the wood, at the hour of midnight, and a figure similar to that which has been described, is reported to flit restlessly through the glade. Certain it is, that old and young are alike careful to avoid getting benighted near the HAUNT OF THE WITHERED MAN.

THE DEAD OF THE WRECK.

-A meal was bought
With blood, and each sat sullenly apart,
Gorging himself in gloom; no love was left;
All earth was but one thought, and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails-men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meager by the meager were devoured.-BYRON.

THE 29th of October, 1828, opened with as clear and as beautiful an autumnal morning as ever dawned upon the plains of Abraham; and for once I arose ere the sunbeams began to gild the battlements of the Castle of St. Louis. My spirits were animated, and my feelings unusually cheerful and buoyant; for I was this morning to embark for the green island of my nativity, and although my regiment had so long been stationed in this ancient Canadian capital, as to allow of my forming many warm friendships and strong attachments, yet the thoughts of "Home, sweet home," with all its exhilarating and endearing recollections, were uppermost in my mind. And bright-eyed fancy, too, was already picturing to my imagination the joyous welcome, which, after three years of banishment, I hoped in one short month to receive from a doting

and beloved mother and three fond sisters, to say nothing of another, who, though not yet bound to me by the legal ties of relationship, was an object of my liveliest solicitude, and deepest and tenderest affection. Our baggage and private ship-stores had all been placed on board on the preceding evening, and nothing remained for the morning occupation of the passengers but to make their parting calls, exchange adieus, and embark. The good people of this Frenchified city not yet having broken their slumbers, I sallied forth for an early stroll upon the Plains of Abraham, to take what was probably to be the last survey (the last indeed!) of the Martello towers, and the bed of glory of Wolfe and Montcalm. A heavy hoar-frost covered the ground, which sparkled in the early sunbeams glancing athwart the plain, as though the turf had been studded with countless millions of diamonds, while the crisped grass rustled and broke at every step beneath my tread. I walked briskly for more than an hour, in catching such hasty views as the time would allow, of those objects which appeared most worthy of being treasured up for my future reminiscences of this memorable spot. The air was cool and bracing, and never did the castle, the citadel which crowns the naked precipices overlooking the lower town, the beautiful bay, which, though but a section of a river, lies apparently embosomed among the surrounding heights like a lake; the town beneath, or the landscape abroad, look so beautiful, so imposing, so magnificent.

Returning to my quarters as a thousand dense masses of smoke came curling and rolling upward from the chimneys of the town at my feet, a bountiful breakfast was soon despatched. The usual civilities between parting friends having been interchanged, by twelve o'clock I found myself safely on board the barque Granicus, just as the sailors were beginning to haul her into the stream to the deep sonorous cry of "Yo heave O!”

1

By one o'clock our vessel began slowly to drop down the bay. It was just at the close of that beautiful portion of an American autumn, called the Indian summer. The sun imparted a genial warmth during the middle hours of the day. A thin light-blue haze yet hung on the verge of the distant landscape; the current of air was insufficient to ruffle the bosom of the waters; and our sails hung flapping lazily against the masts and rigging of the bark. Floating thus quietly and gently down the stream, an agreeable opportunity was afforded for taking one more survey from the water of this picturesque city, and the rugged scenery and imposing sweep of structures by which it is surrounded. The lower town is built upon a long narrow piece of land, between the river and the base of the precipitous rocks, upon whose peaked summits stand the castle and citadel as before mentioned. These rude heights; the delightful villages of neat white cottages, interspersed with more elegantly built country seats, scattered thickly upon the margin of the water;