he northward we passed near the Island of Sombrero, glided
from the Caribbean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean, and wended our way
towards the Carolinas.

Sombrero is an uninhabited island, a few miles only in circumference.
It offers to the dashing waves on every side a steep, craggy cliff, from
thirty to fifty feet high. Its surface is flat, and entirely destitute
of vegetation; and at a distance, a fanciful imagination can trace, in
the outline of the island, a faint resemblance to the broad Spanish hat,
called a "sombrero," from which it takes its name.

This island, as well as all the other uninhabited islands in that part
of the world, has ever been a favorite resort for birds, as gulls of
several varieties, noddies, man-of-war birds, pelicans, and others. It
has recently been ascertained that Sombrero is entitled to the proud
appellation of "a guano island," and a company has been organized,
consisting of persons belonging to New England, for the purpose of
carrying off its rich deposits, which are of a peculiarly valuable
character, being found beneath a bed of coral limestone several feet
in thickness, and must consequently possess all the advantages which
antiquity can confer.

It was on this island, many years ago, that an English brig struck in
a dark night, while "running down the trades." The officers and crew,
frightened at the dashing of the breakers and the gloomy aspect of the
rocks which frowned upon them from above, made their escape on shore in
"double quick time," some of them marvellously thinly clad, even for
a warm climate. As soon as they had safely landed on the cliffs, and
congratulated each other on their good fortune, the brig, by a heave of
the sea, became disengaged from the rocks, and floating off, drifted to
leeward, to the great mortification of the crew, and was fallen in with
a day or two afterwards, safe and sound, near Anegada Reef, and carried
into St. Thomas. The poor fellows, who manifested such alacrity in
quitting "a sinking ship," suffered greatly from hunger and exposure.
They erected a sort of flagstaff, on which they displayed a jacket as a
signal of distress, and in the course of a few days were taken off by an
American vessel bound to Santa Cruz.

The feeling which prompts a person, in the event of a sudden danger at
sea, to quit his own vessel and look abroad for safety, appears to be
instinctive. In cases of collision, portions of the crews are sometimes
suddenly exchan