That panther-hunt went off in a “fizzle.” Our contingent of determined sportsmen kept tryst at daylight, fully armed, but some neighbours who were to bring the proper dogs failed. The sun rose, broad and bright, and so, after a short advance in skirmishing order over the ground where the sawmill man had been so scared--just to save their credit as Nimrods--the chase was abandoned; wisely, I should think, for I can scarcely imagine a more hopeless undertaking than the pursuit of a panther in a Tennessee forest in broad daylight without dogs. Whether Sawyer Giles had grounds for his scare, and what was the length of that panther, must now remain for all time in that useful category of insoluble questions--like the identity of “Junius,” and Queen Mary’s guilt--which innocently employ so much of the spare time of the human race. I have been back for the last fortnight “in amongst the crowd of men,” and if the things they have done are but “earnest of the things that they shall do,” well, our grandchildren will have a high old time of it! At any rate, our cousins hold this faith vigorously. Take, for instance, the case of a leading dry-goods man who has been sitting by me in the smoking-room of this ship, which has been carrying us for the last four days against a head-wind at the average rate of twenty miles an hour. Recollect, sir, that this ship is about 400 feet in length, of 8800 tons register, with engines of 14,000 horse-power, and must at this moment be as heavy as (say) lour big luggage-trains. I ventured to suggest that, whatever may be in store for us in the way of flying, science has about said her last word in the direction of driving steam or any other ships on the Atlantic. I felt almost inclined to resent the pity tinged with scorn with which he said, “Why, _sir!_ this is the hundred and twenty-eighth time I have crossed this ocean. The first time it took me twenty-two days. This vessel does it in six days and a half, and I shall do it in half that time yet,--yes, _sir!_” My friend must be at least sixty! The New York hotels were crammed as I came through with men who had come from all parts of the States for the yacht-race. I went out on a friend’s steam-yacht on the Thursday, when the second day’s race should have come off. There was fog and no wind off Sandy Hook, so after lying-to in a lopping sea for a couple of hours, we just steamed back, some hundred of us. But the game had been well worth the candle. Anything so beautiful as the movements of those two yachts in and out amongst the expectant fleet of sightseers, I never beheld. There were several old yachtsmen (Americans) on board, who seemed rather to think the _Thistle_ the more perfect of the two, and when the second and deciding race had been sailed, still guessed that if their Commodore, Pain, or Malcolm Forbes had sailed the _Thistle_, she would not have been twelve, or any, minutes behind.