My voyage of twenty-six hundred miles was nearly ended. The beautiful Suwanee River, from which I had emerged in my paper canoe one year before, (when I had terminated a voyage of twenty-five hundred miles begun in the high latitude of Canada,) was only a few miles to the eastward. Upon reaching its debouchure on the Gulf coast, the termini of the two voyages would be united. It would be only a few hours' pull from the mouth of the Suwanee to the port of Cedar Keys, whose railroad facilities offered to the boat and her captain quick transportation across the peninsula of Florida to Fernandina, on the Atlantic coast, where kind friends had prepared for my arrival. While I gazed upon the smooth sea, a longing to pass the night on the dark waters of the river of song took possession of me, and mechanically weighing anchor, I took up my oars and pulled along the coast to my goal. Before sunset, the old landmark of the mouth of the Suwanee(the iron boiler of a wrecked blockade-runner) appeared above the shoal water, and I began to search for the little hammock, called Bradford's Island, where one year before I had spent my last night on the Gulf of Mexico with the "Maria Theresa," my little paper canoe. Soon it rose like a green spot in the desert, the well-remembered grove coming into view, with the half-dead oak's scraggy branches peering out of the feathery tops of the palmettos. Entering the swift current of the river, I gazed out upon the sea, which was bounded only by the distant horizon. The sun was slowly sinking into the green of the western wilderness. A huge saurian dragged his mail-clad body out of the water, and settled quietly in his oozy bed. The sea glimmered in the long, horizontal rays of light which clothed it in a sheen of silver and of gold. The wild sea-gulls winnowed the air with their wings, as they settled in little flocks upon the smooth water, as though to enjoy the bath of soft sunlight that came from the west. The great forests behind the marshes grew dark as the sun slowly disappeared, while palm-crowned hammocks on the savannas stood out in bold relief like islets in a sea of green. The sun disappeared, and the soft air became heavy with the mists of night as I sank upon my hard bed with a feeling of gratitude to Him, whose all-protecting arm had been with me in sunshine and in storm. Lying there under the tender sky, lighted with myriads of glittering stars, a soft gleam of light stretched like a golden band along the water until it was lost in the line of the horizon. Beyond it all was darkness. It seemed to be the path I had taken, the course of my faithful boat. Back in the darkness were the ice-cakes of the Ohio, the various dangers I had encountered. All I could see was the band of shining light, the bright end of the voyage. [Last night on the Gulf of Mexico.]