erness of waters, let us celebrate the day of our landing on
this `Canaan,' by making it our first Sabbath, and our grateful voices
shall every seventh day, from this, be lifted up in praise and
thanksgiving for the mercy thus vouchsafed to us."

While this conversation was going on, we reached the shore. Johnny
scrambled eagerly to the bow, anxious to be the first to land, and he
attained this object of his ambition, by jumping into the water nearly
up to his waist, before the boat was fairly beached. Then, after gazing
around him a moment with exclamations of wonder and admiration, he
suddenly commenced running up and down the wide, firm beach, gathering
shells, with as much zeal and earnestness, as though he was spending a
holiday by the sea-side at home, and could tie up these pretty
curiosities in his handkerchief, and run back with them in five minutes
to his father's house. There was certainly some ground for Johnny's
admiration; just at the spot where we had landed, the shore was thickly
strewn, in a manner which I had never before seen equalled, with
varieties of the most curious and beautiful shells. They were of all
sizes, and of every conceivable shape and colour. The surfaces of some
were smooth and highly polished; others were scolloped, or fluted, or
marked with wave-like undulations. There were little rice and cowrie
shells; mottled tiger shells; spider shells, with their long, sharp
spikes; immense conches, rough, and covered with great knobs on the
outside, but smooth and rose-lipped within, and of many delicate hues.
There were some that resembled gigantic snail shells, and others shaped
like the cornucopias, used to hold sugar-plums for children. One
species, the most remarkable of all, was composed of a substance,
resembling mother-of-pearl, exquisitely beautiful, but very fragile,
breaking easily, if you but set foot on one of them: they were
changeable in colour, being of a dazzling white, a pearly blue, or a
delicate pale green, as viewed in different lights. Scattered here and
there, among these deserted tenements of various kinds of shell-fish,
were the beautiful exuviae and skeletons of star-fish, and sea-eggs;
while in the shallow water, numerous living specimens could be seen
moving lazily about. Among these last, I noticed a couple of
sea-porcupines, bristling with their long, fine, flexible quills, and an
enormous conch crawling along the bottom with his house on his back, the
loc