went

are united to keep all minds intent on the progress and issue of the struggle. Though with us, the interest felt in the matter is somewhat damped and depressed by the British brig getting ahead, and threatening to overhaul the chase first, still we cannot abandon all hope of getting up in time, and though faint that hope may be, as it is now four P. M., and the schooner still hull down, and pushing on with a steadiness and speed which do credit to the skill of her crew, and the sailing qualities of the craft; and even though perchance she escape both the brig and ourselves, under the favoring shades of night, still shall we have enjoyed a day of excitement which should be marked with white chalk as a god-send in the long and dull succession of those spent by cruisers on the monotonous coast of Africa. A short time before sunset, the relative positions of the parties towards each other being very slightly altered, save by our losing ground, and the schooner and brig stealing somewhat ahead; the former finding that John Bull would head him off shore, to leeward, and we might do the same to windward, changed his course so as to aim for what he supposed was Shebar River, which, when once attained, might give him shelter and safety. Finding himself mistaken, he hauled off again to leeward; and at it we again, hand over hand, the one to creep close in shore and dodge his pursuer during the night, the cruisers to bag him before it waxed too dark, or at least to hem him in, ready to be secured at break of day. Abandoning, at length, all idea of being in at the death, it was with regret and mortification that we saw the shades of night settle upon land and sea, and surrounding objects gradually shut out from the view. So, after standing in until about a couple of miles from the shore, the Jamestown was brought to anchor, it being now nearly a dead calm, and a strong current setting inland, and drifting us toward the beach. We are now in twelve fathoms water, with a star-lit night, and land close on the lee-beam. After rolling at anchor for a couple of hours, during which time we knew the Englishman was at work; two or three blue-lights having been shown in proof of his vigilance. It being thought that we were rather uncomfortably near the shore, the anchor was got up, at 2 A. M., and we were soon standing out before a brisk land breeze, intending to keep near enough to act as the case might require. Finding it rather too warm and close in my narrow room, I turned out with the rest, and kept the deck as an amateur until we had got fully under way.

THE GAME BAGGED..

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3. My boy informed me, upon my awaking at seven bells, this morning, that the brig and schooner were lying close in shore, and that we were heading in to learn more about the matter. Hurrying through my toilet, I ascended to the deck, and found the weather to be rainy and uncomfortable; and going forward, discovered the two vessels as they were reported. We were then some five miles from land, but nearing it at a good rate. When

we were within a couple of miles, the curricle was called away, and the boarding officer, or flag-lieutenant, started abont nine a. M. to learn the state of things in the schooner. We are all busy aboard speculating as to whether the stranger is our quondam acquaintance, the Boston, and are quite mortified at the Englishman having bagged the game before us. The behavior of our ship during the recent trial, has convinced me that something is wrong with her, and others also, better judges than myself I trust the department will either restore her to her former superior sailing trim, or do something to revive her former glories.

The boarding officer, on his return, reported the schooner to the Commodore as Brazilian, and prize of the British brig Rapid. She had no slaves aboard, but was provided with a slave-deck. Both vessels got immediately under way; the prize under the charge of the brig's second lieutenant. for Sierra Leone, and the latter for her cruising ground off the Gallinas: the Rapid is commanded by Commander Dixon, and has taken four prizes, but without slaves aboard, within the last eighteen months. It seems that the schooner not being able to weather the point that makes out at the mouth of Shebar river, some twelve miles distant, ran into the Bight, and anchored close to shore, but was overhauled by the brig's boats about 8 o'clock; and the blue lights we saw, announced the capture to the cruiser. When we anchored, she must have been within five miles of both. The chase lasted over twelve hours, and extended over a distance of about fifty miles. Small game it turns out to be for the brig, and as it is not, after all, our quondam acquaintance, we come in for nothing but the excitement - no little blessing in this unexciting region of the globe.

THE OLD OAK TREE.

BY GRETTA,

Do you laugh that I'm communing, talking with the old Oak tree,
Do you smile because I love it; sneer to hear my senseless glee ?'
Wonder what I see of beauty' in the white and frozen ground,
When the stream has hush'd its babblings, in its crystal prison bound,
And my Oak is clothed in armor, with the moonlight floating o'er,
Icy armor, glittering on it, like a steel-clad knight of yore.

Listen then; it tells me stories - would that you could hear them all;
Would your ear could catch the murmurs that on mine so sweetly fall.
How at first in budding beauty, forth it sprang from 'neath the sod;
Near the wave no sail had whitened, on the shore no pale face trod.
Then the wild bird as it lingered but to rest its golden wing,
Low would bend the tiny branches of the frail and trembling thing.
Then the blast would lay it prostrate, even zephyr shake its form,
Till the rolling lapse of cycles raised it up to brave the storm!

It had seen, it told me truly, it had seen the Indian's pride,
How without a cry he suffered, how without a moan he died;

It had known him in his glory, long e'er yet the white wings gleamed
O'er the blue and quiet ocean, where no eastern banner streamed.

It had watch'd with him their coming, seen them crowd the friendly shore,
Lived to know their faith all broken, and the red man there no more!

It had seen, it murmured softly, many a summer's leafy prime,
Hail'd the first young truant zephyr harbinger from summer clime.
It had watched the coming winter, centuries had watched it there;
And had braved the conqueror's terror, despot of the earth and air.
It had caught the smile of morning, on its topmost branches shed;
And the gorgeous hues of even crown'd with gold its kingly head.
It had seen the birth of flowers, untamed children of the sod,
While around they shed their incense, offered up to nature's GOD.
It had watch'd the fairy frolics in the glow-worm lighted dell;
But of all these midnight revels, though it saw, it might not tell.
Yet I knew its leaves had shaded many a scene of mirth and glee,
And I sat me down to hear them from the old and sturdy tree.

Then it told how once a lover there had wooed his youthful bride,
How through summer eve's she lingered, how at winter's birth she died;
How she perished like a flower, sister flowers drooping round,
And its waving, whispering branches shadowed o'er her holy mound.
Then it told how oft the lone one came and knelt upon the green,
Watching still her form in Heaven, through the veil of stars between;
While the sounding winds around him woke a ceaseless requiem there,
And the silent spirit priesthood answered back with voiceless prayer.

Then it told of storm and terror, lightning gleams athwart the night,
While its giant arms outstretching battled with the tempest's might;
And it heard the cry of demons, rulers of the storm and cloud,
Sailing by on flashing pinions, shrieking through night's ebon shroud :
And the far-off angry ocean sent its roar upon the air,

While at every pause of conflict rose the shrieking of despair.

Then it told of quiet mornings, Sabbath mornings, in the dell,
When it listened faintly thrilling, to the white kirk's chiming bell;
And the distant half-heard echo of the singers chanted lays,
Broke the holy noon-day stillness with the solemn sounds of praise.

Then the student had come daily, and the heavy tome had brought,
Bathing his strong thirsty spirit in the mighty stream of thought.
There the lay to live for ages to his youthful heart was given;
There the wings of inspiration lifted his rapt soul to heaven.
There he opened nature's volume, and he read her mighty page;
There his youthful spirit kindled at the glowing words of age.
Years on years he sought its coolness in the pleasant summer's prime,
Till his lofty brow was shaded by the passing wings of Time!

Oh, old tree! live on with honor, tell us now the tales of yore;
Tell of winter's stern dominion, tell of summers gone before?
Live, live on in pride and glory, noting all that passes near,
Every scene of joy and gladness, every wo that claims a tear;

And some night, when stars are glowing high on evening's placid brow,
Wilt thou murmur, softly sighing, for the one who seeks thee now?

Wilt thou tell young hearts then beating, quick as hers once beat 'neath thee,
How she came and sought thy shelter, how she loved her old Oak tree?
Wilt thou say her look was gentle, wilt thou say her heart was kind,
Will a dirge for her be given, softly to the sighing wind?

Wilt thou mourn her absent footsteps, wilt thou yearn to hear her glee; Nature miss her faithful priestess, gone from 'neath the old Oak tree? Baltimore, 1848.

THE COUNTRY DOCTOR.

WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF GLAUBER SAULTZ, M.D.

CHAPTER WHAT?

MANY long months have elapsed, dear Mr. EDITOR, since the above title, and the unpretending (many of them I fear good-for-nothing) sketches under it, appeared in your pages. Since that time, my old sulkey has gone to rack, my old horses' bones have gone to the mill to be ground up, and my entire equipage, which was a picture for a Hogarth, has become changed to a common-place respectability, which affords no picture at all. All the while I have been striving after experience, which is sometimes sweet, oftener bitter; and in the case of a medical man, they say it is not to be bought without some tomb stones erected and some epitaphs composed. My friends have often met me in the street, and said, 'Mr. Saultz, why do you not complete those sketches?' To this the same answers have been invariably returned. There is often a great interval betwixt resolve and endeavor; but how many obstacles bar up the way to completion! You see the foundation of a house dug and the portico is never placed thereon. We write My Dear Sir,' at the head of a letter, and the words of affection remain buried in the heart or the

It's

hand is palsied before the signature is affixed. But the Country Doctor! why he is on many scores the most miserable man in the world. His meals are half taken, (like the noxious medicine which he enjoins,) his sleep seldom arrives at the profundity of a snore. Nothing which he takes in hand, except the more desperate class of diseases, ever comes to an end. While he dips his pen in ink, his enemies are perhaps dipping theirs in the bitterness of gall as much as he can do to save himself from being drummed out of the country; deprived of his laurels by catnip-tea; superseded by the Græffenberg Pills; present at the tumble-down of a jolly apopletic, and suspected of quenching his vital spark; snubbed by the city practitioner, who rolls out into the country in a pompous carriage, looks wiser than he is or ever will be; takes snuff with sang froid, and charges four times as much as he ought; in short, distracted on all hands, it is enough to bear his misfortunes meekly, without recalling them again to mind in a doleful narrative; at which, what tender-hearted person could abstain from tears?

Nevertheless some things have accumulated in my port folio, to be elaborated in those happier moments when "the wicked cease from troubling." What I am now going to relate, is as true as the truest book which was ever composed. Delicacy has long caused me to withhold the pen. But certainly the persons concerned, as they belong not to the superstitious, can have no objection to the publication of the facts. They fall under a class on which mental reasoning has often been expended in vain, and they should be known, not so much to gratify the love of marvel, as to awaken philosophical research. Were I the least inclined to superstition, or of an imaginative turn, then their explanation might be found. Nay, rather had they occurred in the middle-watches of the night; when the strongest mind is easily excited by a brooding solemnity, and the thickly peopled brain, (like the earth and sea giving up the dead,) permits its images to revive. But what think you of a SPECTRE at the blazing hour of high noon? When the fumes of the brain and the mists of the earth are alike dissipated; when even poetry is at a discount, and nothing but common-places prevail. How do you do?' Where are you going?' Has the mail arrived?' 'What is the news?' I challenge philosophy, with all her boasted train of natural causes, to solve in a satisfactory manner, what follows.

It was on the twelfth of May, Anno Domini, 1848, twelve M. That was the day, that was the hour. The fact is noted on the blank leaves of a learned work on Typhoid Fever.

The routine of business brought me to a house situated at some distance from the town. There was a case of bowel-complaint within, (aggravated no doubt by the aforesaid Græffenburgh Company, whose insignia, blazoned upon the city wall with a purple impudence of colors, ought to be a shovel and spade, death's head and bones, and every thing else which is deadly.) I shall note the circumstances with particularity. It was an old double-house, with a lawn in front, and pleasant walks round about. Having tied my halter to a chain depending from a post; I passed up the avenue, ascended the steps,