Thou gentle almoner, in passing by,
  Smell of my wood, and scan me with thine eye;—­
  I, too, from Ceylon bear a spicy breath
  That might put warmness in the lungs of death;
  A simple chest of scented wood I seem,
  But, oh! within me lurks a golden beam,—­

  A beam celestial, and a silver din,
  As though imprisoned angels played within;
  Hushed in my heart my fragrant secret dwells;
  If thou wouldst learn it, Paul of Tarsus tells;—­
  No jangled brass nor tinkling cymbal sound,
  For in my bosom Charity is found.

* * * * *

A TRIP TO CUBA.

THE DEPARTURE.

Why one leaves home at all is a question that travellers are sure, sooner or later, to ask themselves,—­I mean, pleasure-travellers.  Home, where one has the “Transcript” every night, and the “Autocrat” every month, opera, theatre, circus, and good society, in constant rotation,—­home, where everybody knows us, and the little good there is to know about us,—­finally, home, as seen regretfully for the last time, with the gushing of long frozen friendships, the priceless kisses of children, and the last sad look at dear baby’s pale face through the window-pane,—­well, all this is left behind, and we review it as a dream, while the railroad-train hurries us along to the spot where we are to leave, not only this, but Winter, rude tyrant, with all our precious hostages in his grasp.  Soon the swift motion lulls our brains into the accustomed muddle; we seem to be dragged along like a miserable thread pulled through the eye of an ever-lasting needle,—­through and through, and never through,—­while here and there, like painful knots, the depots stop us, the poor thread is arrested for a minute, and then the pulling begins again.  Or, in another dream, we are like fugitives threading the gauntlet of the grim forests, while the ice-bound trees essay a charge of bayonets on either side; but, under the guidance of our fiery Mercury, we pass them as safely as ancient Priam passed the outposts of the Greeks,—­and New York, as hospitable as Achilles, receives us in its mighty tent.  Here we await the “Karnak,” the British Mail Company’s new screw-steamer, bound for Havana, via Nassau.  At length comes the welcome order to “be on board.”  We betake ourselves thither,—­the anchor is weighed, the gun fired, and we take leave of our native land with a patriotic pang, which soon gives place to severer spasms.

I do not know why all celebrated people who write books of travels begin by describing their days of sea-sickness.  Dickens, George Combe, Fanny Kemble, Mrs. Stowe, Miss Bremer, and many others, have opened in like manner their valuable remarks on foreign countries.  While intending to avail myself of their privilege and example, I would, nevertheless, suggest, for those who may come after me, that the subject of sea-sickness should be embalmed in science, and enshrined in the crypt of some modern encyclopaedia, so that future writers should refer to it only as the Pang Unspeakable, for which vide Ripley and Dana, vol. —–­, page —–.  But, as I have already said, I shall speak of sea-sickness in a hurried and picturesque manner, as follows:—­