Effects of the Race?—?Suppers and their effects?—?The stuff that Dreams are made of?—?A Scrape in the Typa?—?Again at Whampoa.

Some suppers had to be ordered, and somebody had to eat them. Suppers are spiritless affairs without wine—nay! I deny the soft impeachment,—no pun is meant! And wine came forth at the bidding. Some one observes,

Let him but whisper the name of one "familiar" of any shade, complexion, or color within the corridors of Francisco Diaz's mansion for thirsty men, in MacÀo; and lo! it appears!

His house is haunted; there are bottle imps therein. Suppers were eaten at which epicures had not lingered; wine gulped down which would not have inspired Anacreon, and segars smoked that Sir Walter Raleigh might have relished! Apropos of segars—I should have said cheroots—Manillas scent the Indian air, Havanas have few lips to greet them in the East. Cheroots, then; who is there amongst the masculine dwellers of the land of "musquitoes and myrtle," that affects not the gentle cheroot? soft in its fragrance as the sigh of love! cheering in its effects as the presence of woman in the hour of pain! seducing in its influence as the eye of beauty! And whence gains the cheroot its magical properties? Look back, if you please, to chapter twelfth of this moving tale, and there you have it fully explained. It comes from the hand of woman! the same that presented the apple to Adam, and the pitcher to Abraham, who in falling or fainting, in laughing or weeping, still infuses the sweetness and acidity that makes the lemonade of life, and in mixing the ingredients "gives it all its flavor!"

"Let the toast be dear woman!" "Hallo, old fellow, thought you were asleep. Had something of a nightmare, eh? Been mumbling away as if the supper didn't agree with you." "Well, your toast, with all the honors, and then to bed." "Agreed."

"Let us go on board ship," proposed a seasoned mate, "the fast boat shoves off at ten." "Agreed, agreed again," was chorused round the table, and "one bottle more" of sparkling champagne being called for, "success to the launch" was drank, and then a majority of the party sought the boat, gained the ship, and turned in. "Let the toast be dear woman," danced through my brain upon sparkling beams of champagne, and the vibration of the nettles in the clews of my hammock plainly said or sung—

And I had a dream, which was "all a dream." With Byron in his waking "Dream," "I saw two beings in the hue of youth," and like his lovers, they were "standing upon a hill," and "both were young, and one was beautiful." I do not know how in fitting words to tell my dream. But as it was similar to his, oh that I could with his language, without the imputation of plagiarism, set down what crossed my sleeping mind. Besides, I have a dread of offending some readers in these transcendental times, when lectures on mysterious subjects are given to married ladies only, whose faces would tingle at the mere mention of one of those English classics, from whose fount flowed "the well of English undefiled." But to my dream. It was the age of early manhood, boyhood still lingering on the face of a being who filled my mind until it formed a part of myself. The being described as beautiful, oh beautiful as an angel was she! was by his side. Love, full, passionate love, brimmed over in her dark black eye, darker, more dazzling than the gazelle's, which was reflected back from his dark orbs, which took their brightest brilliancy from hers. Over her cheek the rosy god had spread his crimson mantle, and in the dimples of her chin the mischievous boy had found a lurking-place. They walked and talked, and in what phrase? Truly they knew not themselves! and yet each word, each glance, each touch, had a meaning perfectly intelligible. Time passed, but what was time to them, they saw nothing of his beard, heard not the rustling of his ancient wings, his scythe was hidden. The heavens are overcast, thunder rolls above them, and the lightning's glare makes the black fringes of the heavy cloud more funereal. A shadow, heavy, dense, material, interposes, and the boy seeks for his fair companion—but she is gone: "Got to see the hammocks up! six bells, come turn out," "rouse and bitt," "show a leg in a purser's stocking." "Zounds, how he sleeps," "where, where, oh where is my hammock boy?" who appeared at my call, and whom I wished at the gangway, that I might have slept on. But turn out I must now—and so turned out my dream.

Other races were upon the tapis. The launchers, like brave old Taylor, would not stay beaten, and demanded another trial; they offered to oppose any thing, from the Captain's gig, down to the dingui—they even wanted to challenge the boats of the whole squadron, and old A., the coxswain, in the true spirit of Rhoderick Dhu, exclaimed, "Come one, come all," but the regatta was put a stop to, by orders to get out of the Typa, and the men commenced "mud-larking," as they termed it. The Typa is filling up so rapidly that we never could get out now without a scrape, and the senior officer perhaps thought it better we should move before we had formed a bar with our beef bones.

So out of the Typa again we got, poised our wings in the outer harbor, and took flight for Whampoa again, and settled down in our old resting place in the "Reach," on the 11th of October. From here I took another trip to Canton, made a few purchases, as I then supposed it would be our last opportunity. Heard there of an extensive fire which had raged near the factories, in which over five hundred houses had been destroyed. A fire in Canton is a serious affair, and from the ideas of fatalism which the Chinese entertain, is much dreaded by foreign residents.

Our stay at Whampoa was not marked by any incidents worth noticing, and it is only to keep up the chronological character of my journal, that the trip is introduced.