To walk upon the beach and see the bright golden waves rolling beneath our feet on a sunny day, and hear the gentle surge moving like the soft cadence of dying echoes, creates in us a desire to be wafted into other climes, where we can see untold wonders, and be regaled with something new to feast our senses. It was from the promptings of a restless spirit that we embarked on a fine sailing vessel for Cuba as the morning tide was receding. An escort of sea-gulls, with their white pinions and unwearied wings, followed us far from land, as messengers of peace, wishing us a _bon voyage_. We soon commenced to feel contented in our isolated moving habitation, with its strong canvas buoying us up in the breeze, like a huge bird of passage in its aërial flight, and we looked out on the "waste of waters" as only an untried experiment, about which very fearful things had been said, but not so bad after all. While we were watching for new wonders, the sun sunk into the sea, and the stars came out one by one from their canopied homes in the blue sky, the larger, brighter ones rising first, like the stronger spirits in life, which leave their beds with the dawn, to make preparation for the feebler little footsteps that now open their eyes [Illustration: PORTUGUESE MAN-OF-WAR] timidly on the great world into whose magnitude and mysteries they are just entering. The monotony of a sea-voyage is always broken by the daily revolutions of the earth on its axis, if not more stirring events. Our second morning at sea the winds and waves were hushed quietly as the calm which pervades a sinner's sensibilities when the angel of peace first speaks comfort to his sin-burdened soul. Our sails hang loosely as a gambler's conscience, while the surge swings us around freely without taking us forward. The spars squeak, twist, and groan, as though in distress at our condition. The sailors are busy tying up ropes, mending sails, and climbing about in the rigging like cats. A kind of sea-polyp, _Physalia utriculus_, or Portuguese men-of-war, which move passively on the surface of the water, have been in sight all day, with their bubble sails of rainbow hue, supported by emerald hulls, with their anchors steadying them in their swift, uncertain voyage over the sea. How fragile and ethereal they look! These little creatures only trim their sails in fine weather, but when the wind blows they descend into more quiet quarters. The sailors look with suspicion upon their movements, as they say their appearance indicates foul weather. They present a concave surface above the water of three or four inches that is guided by purple rudder-bands, which descend about two feet into the sea. These filaments are very poisonous when handled--the sailors, while in bathing, being sometimes stung by them, which is accompanied with a very painful burning sensation, like the nettle. They may be classed among the many other curious and wonderful beings that inhabit the great deep, of which