Mexico.

Here the great current is diverted from its westward course, and,
passing through the Gulf of Florida, rushes across the Atlantic in a
north-easterly direction, under the well-known name of the Gulf Stream.
Men of old fancied that this great current had its origin in the Gulf of
Mexico; hence its name; but we now know that, like many another stream,
it has many heads or sources, the streams flowing from which converge in
the Gulf of Mexico, and receive new and united direction there.

With the Gulf Stream the bottle pursued its voyage until it was finally
cast ashore on the west of Ireland. Many a waif of the sea has been
cast there before it by the same cause, and doubtless many another shall
be cast there in time to come.

An Irishman with a jovial countenance chanced to be walking on the beach
at the moment when, after a voyage of two years, our bottle touched the
strand.

He picked it up and eyed it curiously.

"Musha! but it's potheen."

A more careful inspection caused him to shake his head.

"Ah, then, it's impty."

Getting the bottle between his eyes and the morning sun, he screwed his
visage up into myriads of wrinkles, and exclaimed--

"Sure there _is_ something in it."

Straightway the Irishman hurried up to his own cabin, where his own
wife, a stout pretty woman in a red cloak, assisted him to reach the
conclusion that there was something mysterious in the bottle, which was
at all events not drinkable.

"Oh, then, I'll smash it."

"Do, darlint."

No sooner said than done, for Pat brought it down on the hearthstone
with such force that it was shivered to atoms.

Of course his wife seized the bit of paper, and tried to read it,
unsuccessfully. Then Pat tried to read it, also unsuccessfully. Then
they both tried to read it, turning it in every conceivable direction,
and holding it at every possible distance from their eyes, but still
without success. Then they came to the conclusion that they could "make
nothing of it at all at all," which was not surprising, for neither of
them could read a word.

They wisely resolved at length to take it to their priest, who not only
read it, but had it inserted in the _Times_ on the week following, and
also in the local papers of Wreckumoft.

Thus did Mrs Gaff, at long last, come to learn something of her husband
and son. Her friends kindly told her she need not entertain any hope
whatever, but she heeded them not; and only regarding the me