Life of Stephen H. Branch. From Louisville I went to Wheeling, and thence to Baltimore, where I visited a noble youth who had been my classmate, and during my illness at Columbian College, he was ever by my side, when young White was absent. He was now an invalid, and about to leave for the Mediterranean in a clipper vessel, owned by his father, and strongly urged me to accompany him without charge. In about a week we left Baltimore for Gibraltar, with the captain, first and second mate, and a choice crew. We had but one gale in the Atlantic, and, after a brief sojourn at Gibraltar, we passed on, touching at various ports, until we reached Alexandria. We visited the Pyramids, and passed a moonlight evening on the Nile, and went to Damascus, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Athens, and Rome, where we sailed on the Tiber, and reveled on the soil of the departed Romans. We left for Baltimore, and had terrific gales in the Mediterranean, and in the Atlantic. About ten days before our arrival in Baltimore, my friend died, which shook me to the soul with grief. On our arrival at Baltimore, his father and mother and sisters kissed the dust in agony, and treated me like a son or brother. The father gave me $100, and I departed for New York, in deep affliction at my irreparable loss of a generous youth who had been so kind to me. I became ill, and nearly died, and exhausted the $100, and wrote to father, who sent me money, and I recovered after a severe struggle with the arrows of death. I again saw Lewis Tappan, and began to teach colored persons, for which I received a miserable pittance. I now obtained board in Beekman street, with Mrs. Tripler, some of whose boarders were named Thompson, Woodbury, Chapman, and Cuniffe. A Mr. Bliss boarded there, who had been an eminent bookseller, and an early friend to William Cullen Bryant, and, as he was now very poor, Mr. Bryant obtained a situation for him in the Custom House. Mr. Bryant often came to Mrs. Tripler’s to see Mr. Bliss, and they weekly dined at the Spanish Hotel, in Fulton street. It was a pleasing and noble spectacle to behold Mr. Bryant’s fidelity to Mr. Bliss in his penury and old age. Henry J. Raymond (now editor of the _New York Times_) was in the employ of Horace Greeley, at $4 a week, with a promise of more, if he _proved true_ to Greeley, and became an expert paragraphist. Raymond roomed and slept with my brother Thomas, at a boarding house in Beekman street, near mine, and they each paid $1 75 a week, for board and lodging, exclusive of washing, ironing, and mending. Their room was next to the roof, and their only window was the sky light. There was a large pillar in the centre of their funny little extra attic cubby-hole, which had recently been placed there, to prevent the dilapidated and shrunken and sunken roof from utterly caving in, and burying the entire inhabitants of the superannuated edifice, including the Lieutenant Governor in embryo of the Empire State. A man