In one sense the attachment of Americans to the land of their birth or adoption is generally intense; our fellow-passengers gazed on the shore with delight. "You have before you, sir," said a gentleman alongside, as I leant over the bulwarks, "the most beautiful bay in the world!" "The most beautiful bay in the world"! I wonder how many places there are of that description? Several I know of in Ireland and in Scotland, some in England, a few in the Mediterranean; and others there are in Indian and Chinese seas, right away to California, north and south, and east and west, and in all the isles of the ocean. But, certainly, the approach to the great city enthroned on the Hudson, with its wide-stretching arms of river and commingling sea, is very fine, and, although the scenery around it is not of the very highest order of beauty, New York is grandly placed. "Breathes there a man with soul so dead"-- Well! though Sir Walter may have put the thought into very exalted verse, most of us have felt the sensation he describes, and it does not require a very remarkable or ancient pedigree among the nations to cause a country to be beloved of its people. Woman, however, was occupied at that particular moment on board the "_Gallia_" in devising means to evade the inquisitorial search of the myrmidons of Uncle Sam's Custom House, and to reduce the amount of her contributions to the Imperial Exchequer--for a Republic can be Imperial, I presume--to the lowest possible figure. The manners of the Custom House officers were exceedingly bland, and so were their customs as far as our baggage was concerned, because they passed it with the greatest readiness on nominal parole, and I may now declare that there was not in the whole lot a single article subject to the smallest duty. But there was a fair and charming lady who was returning with the purchased plunder of, I dare say, the best milliners and dressmakers in the capitals of Europe, and on these treasures there would be heavy duty to pay. Feminine sagacity, aided by masculine depravity, enabled her to achieve a triumph in which most of the outside accomplices rejoiced exceedingly. "Mrs. A., I see you have twenty-two packages marked; have you anything to declare?" Mrs. A. smiled, blushed, and with downcast eyes said, "Yes, sir; I have got some lace, silk, and other things of the kind in box No. 4." "We will search box No. 4, if you please, ma'am." The keys were produced, the articles duly examined and assessed, and the twenty-one unexamined boxes were marked with the sign of customs emancipation. The box which was examined contained, as the lady declared subsequently when she got on shore, the smallest number of articles liable to duty of the whole number; the others were crammed with them!