Sailing on the quiet water below was a ship of unknown build. In the most romantic imagining of fairy tale this vessel could never have been surpassed. Slightly resembling the Pinta and Santa Maria, she suggested them, but the likeness was not sustained on closer examination. She was of greater beam and depth, and of loftier bow and stern. Her prow rose to unusual height, receding gracefully, and again projecting outward in a superb figurehead in the form of a swan, whose beak was gilded, and whose head and neck were set with jewels in laminated gold. * * * * * The masts were short, two in number, and placed upon each side of the deck, instead of down the center as with us. Stretched horizontally across from mast to mast was a sail of many colors. It possessed a sheen transcending that of the finest silk and was striped perpendicularly. The masts were gilded and set with jewels. Wherever we looked the ornamentation was extreme and extended to every detail. Colored sparks flashed from remote and unexpected corners, where gem-like stones were set, and the vessel glowed and burned and blazed with creeping fires as of scintillating phosphorescence of green, yellow, red and gold. But this was not all. There were living creatures upon the deck clothed in the soft undulations of watered silk. No Eastern potentate, or denizen of Aladdin’s palace, was ever half so gorgeously attired, as the passengers aboard this extraordinary craft. The flash of powdered mica on cloaks of transparent fineness produced the impression of liquid glass. The headgear was high, and terminated in a point like a cornucopia, and ornamented with odd designs, fore and aft, in precious stones. Some in green, like emeralds, others blue, like sapphires; while what appeared to be rubies, diamonds, and gold flashed among them in dazzling profusion. On no theatrical stage had I ever seen such a sight, and we hovered low to take in the singular scene.