Wednesday, December 24th.—­In the forenoon went out of the harbour, and examined the entrances and anchorage.  The dangers are all visible, and it is only necessary to give a berth to the reefs that make off from the points.  There is an inner reef making off to the westward from the northern island; but it, like the other, is visible, and there is no danger whatever in approaching it.  The Areas are three low keys, lying in a triangle; the northern key being the largest.  We found a hut on this latter key, a boat hauled up on the island, a net inside the hut, a boiler or two for trying out oil, and other evidences of the inhabitancy of fishermen or turtlers; but this not being the season for these pursuits, everything had apparently been abandoned for some time.  Numerous birds of the gull species were the only living things found in the island, and of these there were varieties of old birds and their fledglings, and some of the former were still laying and sitting.  They seemed to have no fear of our men, and suffered themselves to be caught by the hand, and knocked on the head with sticks.  The vegetation found was on the larger island, and on that it consisted of a dense carpeting of sea-kale—­not a shrub of any kind.  In the transparent waters on the inner reef, a great variety of the living coral was found in all its beauty, imitating the growth of the forest on a small scale.  At P.M. we got under way, and stood in and anchored under the south side of the larger island in nine fathoms, and moored ship with an open hawse to the north.

We entered by the S.E. passage between the south and the north islands.  The barque followed us, coming in by the S.W. passage between the south and the west islands, and anchored a little to the S.E. of us.  Our anchorage is open to the S.E., but at this season it does not blow from that quarter, and probably would not bring in much sea if it did.  We feel very comfortable to-night in snug berth.

Thursday, December 25th.—­Christmas-day!—­the second Christmas since we left our homes in the Sumter.  Last year we were buffeting the storms of the North Atlantic, near the Azores; now we are snugly anchored, in the Arcas:  and how many eventful periods have passed in the interval!  Our poor people have been terribly pressed in this wicked and ruthless war, and they have borne privations and sufferings which nothing but an intense patriotism could have sustained.  They will live in history as a people worthy to be free; and future generations will be astonished at the folly and fanaticism, wickedness and want of principle, developed by this war among the Puritan population of the North.  And in this class may nine-tenths of the native population of the Northern States be placed, to such an extent has the “Plymouth Rock” leaven “leavened the whole lump.”  A people so devoid of Christian charity, and wanting in so many of the essentials of honesty, cannot but be abandoned to their own folly by a just and benevolent God.