A voyage to America in the hold of a vessel fitted up temporarily as we have described, is a scene not likely to fall under the eye of a popular author: it can only be sketched by getting the information from some unfortunate fellow who has been bumped and thumped against those huge beams which run inside the berths, and rolled about like a barrel, and has been lucky enough to outlive all such pitching and tossing. A state-cabin, in the roughest gale, must be a palace compared with such a place in a moderate calm; and a common steerage, rendered as comfortable as circumstances will permit, a perfect elysium. Picture those who have never in all their lives encountered a stronger gale than needed a safe hand to keep on the hat, turning all sorts of imaginable somersaults, and who never heard any noise louder over their heads than when some relative fell down drunk upon the chamber-floor at a feast-time, first listening to the tramp, and thunder, and hurly-burly on deck, when the ship is struck by a heavy sea, and every timber groans again in its deep agony. No regular steward to assist--no servant to attend--berth moaning to berth--child squealing against child--one praying here, another cursing there--the hold all but dark, and where a glimmering of light is seen, the sea rushing in like a cataract--and over all, the wind howling like a raging demon, and every wave knocking at the ship's side, and demanding admittance; and if such is not a picture of a certain nameless place under the earth, it would convey no bad idea of one upon the sea. And those dear children nestled together, with their little arms encircling one another in their cheerless berths, their mother incapable of comforting them! It gave one the heart-ache to think of what they were destined to endure. We pictured them in their restless slumber, murmuring like bees--dreaming of their cottage, then far away--or dizzy with the rocking of the ship, recalling the swing which hung between the apple-trees in the garden, and unconscious of the danger with which they were surrounded. Then we remembered Him who "tempereth the wind to the shorn lamb"-- "Who moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; Who plants his footsteps on the sea, And rides upon the storm."