In my last I was principally occupied in giving you some account of the picturesque grounds of Green Wood Cemetery. It was on Tuesday afternoon, the thirtieth of June, at five o'clock, that we started in the well-built and beautiful steamer MASSACHUSETTS, on our way upon an excursion to Rhode Island. The scenery along the East River and up the Sound presents evidences of higher cultivation, but possesses features of less native picturesque wildness and rural beauty, than that which opens to view along the pathway of the Hudson. The atmosphere we encountered on our way to the steamboat issuing from every street of the great metropolis we had just left, was like the heat from a burning furnace. In delightful contrast with this, was the cool refreshing breeze that played around the bow of our advancing steamer, as we tracked our way up the river and along through the whirlpools and breakers of Hurlgate, a pass far more formidable, and requiring vastly more nautical skill than the famous Straits of Pelorus with Scylla on one side and Charybdis on the other. The evening was beautiful, and our sail up the Sound proved truly delightful. The last rays of twilight were beginning to fade away, and the countless stars studding the arched firmament, to twinkle with unwonted brightness, when we reached the spot where we were told the ill-fated LEXINGTON met her disastrous end. I could not but contrast the scene around me at the moment with the events of that awful night. We were sailing along over the tranquil and starlit bosom of the Sound, with the balmy breath of a summer evening fanning us: with no alarms within,--no raging tempest without. But on that fearful night, and aboard that ill-fated vessel, what a scene was exhibited! What amazement and terror and dismay must have seized every heart when the conflagration broke forth in all its fury! What added exceedingly to the excitement, and no doubt tended greatly to bereave many of all self-possession and presence of mind, was that the fire burst out in the central part of the steamer, cutting off all communication between those occupying the forward and the hinder part of the boat. Thus, in this moment of awful peril, husbands and wives,--parents and children, brothers and sisters were suddenly separated from each other by a wall of fire, and deprived of each other's counsel when most they needed it: and thus they were filled with increased alarm, not only for themselves, but for each other. Alas! this was an hour when no man could help his brother,--when the parent could neither save himself nor his children. If they remained on board the burning vessel, they must be consumed. If they plunged into the roaring waves they would sink into the depths beneath, and find there a watery grave: or if they should escape the fury of the waves by clinging to a bale of cotton, or some floating part of the wreck, the chill winds of winter, and the icy waters that dashed over them, would soon stagnate and