It is truly unpleasant, on rubbing your eyes and opening your ears, to discover that the great bell is ringing the half-hour before your quarterly examination at college, while Locke, Lloyd, and Lucian are dancing a reel through your brain, little short of madness; scarcely less agreeable is it, to learn that your friend Captain Wildfire is at the door in his cab, to accompany you to the Phœnix, to stand within twelve paces of a cool gentleman who has been sitting with his arm in Eau de Cologne for the last half-hour, that he may pick you out “artist-like.” There are, besides these, innumerable situations in which our preparations of the night would appear, as none of the wisest; but I prefer going at once to my own, which, although considerably inferior in difficulty, was not without its own “desagremens.” When I awoke, therefore, on board the “Fire-fly,” the morning after our dinner-party, I was perfectly unable, by any mental process within my reach, to discover where I was. On ship-board I felt I must be—the narrow berth—the gilded and panelled cabin which met my eye, through my half-open curtains, and that peculiar swelling motion inseparable from a vessel in the water, all satisfied me of this fact. I looked about me, but could see no one to give me the least idea of my position. Could it be that we were on our way out to Corfu, and that I had been ill for some time past? But this cabin had little resemblance to a transport; perhaps it might be a frigate—I knew not. Then again, were we sailing, or at anchor, for the ship was nearly motionless; at this instant a tremendous noise like thunder crashed through my head, and for a moment I expected we had exploded, and would be all blown up; but an instant after I discovered it must be the escape of the steam, and that I was on board a packet ship. Here, then, was some clue to my situation, and one which would probably have elicited all in due season; but just at this moment a voice on deck saved me from any further calculations. Two persons were conversing whose voices were not altogether unknown to me, but why I knew not. “Then, Captain, I suppose you consider this as an excellent passage.” “Yes, of course I do,” replied the captain, “it’s only five hours since we left Howth, and now you see we are nearly in; if we have this run of the tide we shall reach the Head before twelve o’clock.” “Ha! ha!” said I to myself, “now I begin to learn something. So we have crossed the channel while I was sleeping—not the least agreeable thing for a man to hear who suffers martyrdom from sea sickness—but let me listen again.” “And that large mountain there—is that Snowdon?” “No. You cannot see Snowdon; there is too much mist about it; that mountain is Capel Carrig; and there that bold bluff to the eastward, that is Penmen Mawr.”