It would fill a book to enumerate all the items of baggage and effects which my new friends the Creoles had crowded into the state-cabin. Luckily, they were the only inmates of the latter, and had, consequently, full power in their temporary dominions. Had there been co-occupants, a civil war must have been the inevitable result. The ladies had a whole boat-load of citrons, oranges, bananas, and pine-apples; and their father had at least three dozen cases of Chambertin, Laffitte, and Medoc. I at first thought he must be a wine-merchant. At any rate he showed his good taste in stocking himself with such elegant and salutary drinkables, instead of the gin, and whisky, and Hollands to which many of my countrymen would have given the preference--those green and brown compounds, elixirs of sin and disease, concocted by rascally distillers for the corruption and ruin of Brother Jonathan. The tea was now ready. Monsieur Menou (that was the name of my new friend) seemed inclined to reject the sober beverage, and stick to his Chambertin. I was disposed to try both. The young ladies were all that was gay and agreeable. They were really charming girls, merry and lively, full of ready wit, and with bright eyes and pleasant voices, that might have cheered the heart of the veriest misanthrope. But there are moments in one's life when the mind and spirits seem oppressed by a sort of dead dull calm, as enervating and disheartening as that which succeeds a West Indian hurricane in the month of August. At those times every thing loses its interest, and one appears to become as helpless as the ship that lies becalmed and motionless on the glassy surface of a tropical sea. I was just in one of those moments. I had consulted any thing but my own inclination in leaving the hospitable roof and pleasant companionship of my friend Richards, to return to my own neglected and long-unvisited plantation, where I should find no society, and should be compelled to occupy myself with matters that for me had little or no interest. Had I, as I hoped to do when in New York, taken back a partner of my joys and sorrows, some gentle creature who would have cheered my solitude and sympathized with all my feelings, I should have experienced far less repugnance or difficulty in returning to my home in the wilderness; but as it was, I felt oppressed by a sense of loneliness that seemed to paralyse my energies, and that certainly rendered me any thing but fit society for the lively, talkative party of which I now found myself a member. I strove to shake off the feeling, but in vain; and at last, abandoning the attempt, I left the cabin and went on deck.