At the close of the fifth day after he had commenced "running down," no land, at sunset, was in sight from the top-gallant yard; and at eight o'clock the brig was again hove to. The captain declared with emphasis, that unless he should make the island of Martinico on the following day, he would adopt some different measures. The nature of those measures, however, he never was called upon to explain. In the morning, just as the gray light of dawn was visible in the east, while a dark cloud seemed to hang over the western horizon, all sail was again packed on the brig. A fresh breeze which sprung up during the night gave the captain assurance that his passage would soon be terminated; and terminated it was, but in a manner he hardly anticipated, and which he certainly had not desired. The brig had not been fifteen minutes under way when the dreadful sound of breakers was heard a sound which strikes dismay to a sailor's heart. The dark cloud in the west proved to be the mountains of Martinico, and the brig was dashed upon the shore. The vessel and cargo were lost, and it was with difficulty the crew were saved. Captain Tilton, however, was a good navigator. He had been a European trader, understood and practised "lunar observations," and always knew with sufficient accuracy the position of the brig. Few things surprised me more on my first voyage to sea than the sudden and mysterious manner in which the coverings of the head were spirited away from the decks of the Dolphin. Hats, caps, and even the temporary apologies for such articles of costume, were given unwittingly and most unwillingly to the waves. A sudden flaw of wind, the flap of a sail, an involuntary jerk of the head, often elicited an exclamation of anger or a torrent of invectives from some unfortunate being who had been cruelly rendered bareheaded, attended with a burst of laughter from unsympathizing shipmates. The inimitable Dickens, in his best production, says, with all the shrewdness and point of a practical philosopher, "There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat." But, unfortunately, on shipboard, if a man's hat is taken off by the wind, he cannot chase it and recover it; nor is it swept from his sight into the DEPTHS of the sea. On looking astern, he will see it gracefully and sportively riding on the billows, as if unconscious of any impropriety, reckless of the inconvenience which such desertion may cause its rightful proprietor, and an object of wonder, it may be, to the scaly inhabitants of old Neptune's dominions.