Here "every prospect pleases" and man is no viler than he is elsewhere. Contact with the natives of Asia and the East Indies has raised my opinion of "the heathen." The average of them appear as virtuous and upright as the mass of men in Christian lands. I have really seen less frequent display of vice than I have in our cities, and have noticed many pleasant exhibitions of family affection, kindness and honesty. The people in the interior of Sumatra are represented as being remarkable for virtue, temperance and integrity; and even on the coast they must be admitted to compare very favorably with the foreigners about them, whom it is said they speak of contemptuously among themselves as "drunken Europeans;" but they readily contract their vices. Christianity unquestionably elevates all whom it reaches, but our civilization alone has proved no moral blessing to those who have experienced its influences in the distant regions of the earth. After lying at Padang for a few days a bark appeared in the offing, and with the spy-glass I discovered that she had our owner's flag at the main. I started for her in my boat, introduced myself to the captain and piloted him into an anchorage. Capt. Blowhard was a stranger to me, but I was much pleased to have the companionship of a countryman in this far-off port. As we passed the _Rocket_, he remarked she looked very well, only she was rusty outside. We had finished painting her the day before, so this comment excited my surprise; but I soon discovered the captain's eye-sight was defective, and I had the pleasure of supplying him with a pair of spectacles. We went on shore together, and I introduced him to his consignee; but the polite Dutchman was startled at seeing the captain swing his legs over the arm of the chair and monopolize all the talk with boasts about his clipper bark and her performances. In the evening I took him to drive, and attempted to point out the sights of the place and the beauty of the scenery, but his attention was not to be secured; during the whole of the drive he kept his face toward me, and poured forth a continuous stream of narrative and self-adulation. I learned that he had resigned the command of one of the finest ships in the world to serve his country. He passed highest in examination on Navigation, was appointed executive officer of a large frigate, and soon, for his valor, was given the command of a gunboat. After a celebrated naval battle his vessel was so riddled with shot, that she was sent to Alexandria for the Government to inspect as a curiosity. President Lincoln and a committee from the Senate visited her and gave the captain public thanks for his brave conduct. Commodore ---- remarked that there were only three gentlemen in the Volunteer Navy: Smith, Jones, and Blowhard. At the close of the war he was offered a position in the regular Navy, with a splendid command, but he declined, saying he only had desired to serve his country, and he wished no reward.