of “there is many a slip between the cup and the lip;” for the scribe was, at the same instant, seen descending, and there was only time to conceal the glass before he was close to him. The old fellow stroked his whiskers, and began seriously to talk about opium; and as the white turbaned man saw him clear out from below, the long-sought enjoyment was obliged to be postponed. A Chittagong brig, commanded by a black Portuguese, anchored in the roads, on the 10th of July, from the Maldive islands, bound to Penang, with a cargo of dried fish and some tortoiseshell, which had been procured in exchange for rice; his object was to dispose of his cargo in exchange for dollars and Betel-nut at this place. The dried fish was the _Bonito_ cut into small pieces. The Maldive natives prepare it in the following manner:—A long slice is cut from each side of the fish, and these again are divided into two parts, so that each fish is divided into four pieces; it is then boiled for a short time in salt water, after which it is smoked and placed in the sun to dry; it then becomes extremely hard, and resembles, when broken, a piece of wood, having a reddish appearance at the fractured parts: after it has been soaked, it is used for curries and other native dishes. The “Golden Mountain” is a very conspicuous and beautiful object from the anchorage; but it ought to be mentioned, that, from this position, two mountains are seen to the westward, one towering to a peak, and densely wooded, the other, anterior to it, is a lofty rounded hill: the first is the one known to Europeans as the “Golden Mountain;” the second, or rounded mountain, is not named in the charts, but it may be called the “Pedir Mountain.” The “Golden Mountain” is called by the natives _Yamori_, and the other _Yamora_; the first the natives designate as the father, the second the mother (probably of all the little mountains about them).