The kitchen and grocery rooms were as neat as the rest of the house, and the simplicity of the whole establishment, while it admitted everything necessary for comfort and health, was well adapted for its objects. A pretty little chapel adjoined the house, and the house itself was built around an open square planted with trees,—a pleasant playground for the boys, who have their music there in the evening. On our return to town we heard that, owing to the breakage of some part of the machinery, the steamer would be detained in this port for a couple of days. We have, however, returned to our quarters on board, preferring to spend the night on the water rather than in the hot, close town. _August 7th._—To-day we have all been interested in watching the beautiful Medusæ swept along by the tide, so close to the side of the steamer that they could easily be reached from the stairway. We have now quite a number disposed about the deck in buckets and basins, and Mr. Burkhardt is making colored sketches of them. They are very beautiful, and quite new to Mr. Agassiz. In some the disk has a brown tracery like seaweed over it, while its edge is deeply lobed, every lobe being tinged with an intensely brilliant dark blue; the lobes are divided into eight sets of four each, making thirty-two in all, and an eye is placed on the margin between each set; the tubes running to the eyes are much larger than those in the intervals between, and the network of vessels on the margin is wonderfully fine and delicate; the curtains hanging from the mouth are white and closely fringed with full flounces, somewhat like our Aurelia. The movement is quick, the margin of the disk beating with short, rapid pants. Another is altogether brown and white, the seaweed-like pattern being carried down to the edge of the lobes, and the lobes themselves being more delicate than those of the blue-edged one, the disk thinning out greatly towards the periphery. The brown marks are, however, darker, more distinct, and cover a larger space in some specimens than in others. This is also true of those with the blue margin, the brown pattern covering the whole disk in some, confined to a simple zone around the disk in others, and even entirely absent occasionally. Mr. Agassiz inclines to think, from the similarity of their other features, however, that, notwithstanding their difference of color, they all belong to the same species, the variety in coloration being probably connected with difference of sex. He has, at any rate, ascertained that all the wholly brown specimens caught to-day are males. We were rejoiced this morning by the sight of our own flag coming into harbor. We presently found that the ship was the gunboat Nipsic. She had sailed from Boston on the 4th of July, and brought papers of a later date than any we have seen. The officers were kind enough to send us a large bundle of papers, which we have been eagerly devouring.