It was very pretty and affecting to see our captain and his wife--a lady from Ragusa--exchange bashful smiles and tell-tale glances, as they both listened to some song which, perhaps revealed their own story, and invested it with the fascination of a romance. Once, the volatile sailor was so moved, by an uncontrollable impulse, that he seized his wife round the waist, and whirled her off in a waltz. It was a fine tribute to the untaught craft of the singer, whose eyes lighted up with a minstrel fire, and his feet beat time as he watched them. When the captain stopped for want of breath, it was but polite to make a bow, and offer to take the lady round and round again; for there she stood, offering irresistible invitation, with foot advanced. Then the other women began to stand up; while the dark-eyed gypsies from Galicia grouped naturally round the dancers in picturesque attitudes, and looked on. So we had quite a little ball. At nine o’clock the trumpets sounded from an Austrian man-of-war on the station, and the report of a solitary cannon boomed over the sulky waters. After this, the officers went away, and our little festival terminated. So ended the first day we lay in the port of Sulina; and I noticed, as night came on, that the moon looked veiled and misty; also that light feathery clouds were flitting about in an unsettled way, as if the sky were troubled. About eleven o’clock we heard the wind rising. At first a few sobbing gusts reached us, at intervals, as if they came from afar off, but making our spars rattle, and our cordage whip the masts. I could see also, before I turned in, that the sailing-vessels in the offing had made all taut and trim, and had lowered their yards for rough weather; but the steamers got their steam up and went out to sea. From time to time during the night we heard the mournful sound of distress guns to windward, and now and then a majestic hulk drifted labouring towards us. The winds and the sea-gulls seemed to whoop in derision around her, and the waves reared their heads triumphant and rejoicing.