departure, the breakers encircling the island, which appeared to be some twenty miles in circumference. Taking such provisions and water as were saved from the wreck, passengers were transferred to the ship's longboat in charge of the first mate, the captain preferring his gig; and on the 27th of March both boats sailed for the Ladrone or Mariana Islands.

"Twenty-two persons, with provisions, in an open boat but 22 feet in length, to undertake a voyage of 1400 miles, subject to equinoctial storms, calms, and a tropical sun, with short rations and an ocean studded with hidden rocks and coral reefs, gave but poor hope of arriving at a port with life.

"The dangers which were imminent from the frequent squalls, cross seas, and shipping seas encountered, were the greatest trials, and in thirteen days, the boat being 6° of longitude in error, arrived off the town of Guam, all in a pitiable and forlorn condition.

"The captain, with eight persons, in a boat of 20 feet in length, leaving at the same time, has not been heard from, and, unless picked up by some chance vessel, must have been swamped, as a heavy cross sea was met shortly after leaving the island. This, it is said, was the third vessel the captain was so unfortunate as to lose within the past few years.

"Among the passengers were Madame Anna Bishop, Miss Phelan, Mr. M. Schultz and Mr. Charles Lascelles, of the English opera troupe, and Mr. Eugene M. Van Reed of Kanagawa; almost all nations being represented.

"Too much praise cannot be awarded to his Excellency Francisco Moscoso y Lara, governor of the Mariana Islands, for his prompt and humane efforts to relieve the distress of the shipwrecked, who had lost their all and were in want of everything. A schooner also has been chartered and sent to search for the missing boat among the islands of the northward, and to return to Wake Island and remove the large amount of treasure which had been saved and buried there."

"Mr.Van Reed, holding an official position, together with a Japanese, were alone allowed to leave Guam prior to the return of the vessel from the scene of the wreck, and has arrived here in the Trinculo, which had put in on her way from Australia."

Letter from Madame Bishop.-Mr. Gray, No. 613 Clay Street, has received the following from Madame Bishop, the best evidence of her safety :

"Guam, Mariana Islands, May 7th, 1866. "You will be shocked to learn we have been wrecked on Wake Island on the 5th of March, and lost all. We were three weeks on the uninhabitable island. No water, and had to wait three days before we could get any from the ship. We had no clothing but what we stood in up to arriving on this island. The governor and inhabitants have been most kind, and furnished us with a few materials to make up a little clothing. They have no stores here. We came, twenty-one of us, in an open boat, fourteen hundred miles. How we wished it was

to San Francisco! A perfect miracle our safe passage to this place. The captain of the Libelle left at the same time we did from Wake Island, in a small boat, with four of his men and three Chinese, but up to this time we have heard nothing of them. We are here a month to-day. The governor has sent a schooner to Wake Island for the specie saved from the wreck, and we have to wait its return to take us to Manila, where we hope to commence operations. Mr. Van Reed and the Japanese are allowed to go with this to Hongkong.

"You cannot imagine how we suffered all one night, from 9h. p.m. till 8h. a.m., thinking every moment would be our last; but the Almighty was watchful over us, poor sinners!

"Mr. Schultz, Mr. Lascelles and Maria are with us.

"Truly yours,

"ANNA BISHOP SCHULTZ.”

It is gratifying to find the Spanish governor at Guam so highly spoken of,-an account of whose islands, the Marianas (it is time the obnoxious term Ladrone was abolished), we have given a lucid description, being the account of them by a Spanish naval officer commanding the Narvaez; and these too, as he showed, required much correction in the chart.

But of the position of Wake Island, the site of the wreck, we find the following in the same paper of a later date :

"An old and experienced shipmaster has handed us two items regarding Wake Island, the scene of the disaster to the Libelle, and the reef noticed in our last upon which a vessel was lost, and the crew reached Tahiti.

"Wake or Halcyon Island is fifteen miles in circumference, and has a lagoon inside. The island is surrounded by rocks, and the beach is covered with short brushwood. Its position is in lat. 19° 11' N., long. 166° 31' E. Vessels leaving or passing Honolulu should get into lat. 18° 30′ N., which parallel will carry them through the Ladrones clear of all danger up to 130° E., then steer for the Bashees. Vessels taking this course have the full strength of the N.E. Trades at all

seasons.

"The shoal or reef upon which the British barque Sir George Grey was lost, and which the captain says was not laid down on his charts, will be found on the French charts of D'Urville, and is styled Ile et récif de Minerve.' It is located as follows: East end, lat. 22° 35′ S., long. 135° 24′ W. of Paris. West end, lat. 22° 36′ S., long. 136° W. of Paris."

The position given by the experienced shipmaster above-mentioned accords well with the Admiralty chart of Wake Island, but which seems deficient of the reef of twenty miles' circumference about it. And there seems to be some confusion whether Halcyon Reef, laid down some twenty miles to the Northward of it, should or not be the reef alluded to. At all events, Halcyon or Wake Island seems to be con sidered but one island, affording by this doubt a reason for the ob

servation we have made. Is it so or not? No survey that we know, of has been made of it, and Wilkes seems to dismiss it.

But of the shoal on which the Sir George Grey was lost, the chart seems to give but a very limited account; although the position it is placed in thereon seems to be but a little to the Southward of nearly the middle of it. Seamen need have their eyes open at all hours when navigating the Pacific. Of one we find but a poor account given by Findlay, and none whatever of the latter-the Minerva or Ebrill Reef.

THE LITTLE MINCH CHANNEL.

(Continued from page 568.)

The gale having abated, we start for the Minch. In leaving Loch Bhracadale the visitor will be attracted by the lions of Skye. There is a singular castellated rock, standing conspicuously by itself on a peninsula jutting out from the island shore, and completely perforated by an arch, which gives it a most singular appearance. Next to this Macleod's three Maidens will attract his gaze, standing up out of the sea in the most graceful forms imaginable. The tallest is 200 feet above its level; but they really consist of masses of dark basaltic rock standing on a base of red clay and sandstone, which is annually lessened by rain, wind, and storm. The most advantageous position for seeing these figures is about a quarter of a mile distant, while the sun is setting and the weather is fine. At any time, especially in a storm, they would form a fine subject for the artist's pencil, affording a picture seldom seen. Full oft have I passed them, regretting I could not stop to gaze even on their outline, and obliged to be contented with a passing glance as my vessel rushed quickly by them in her retreat from an approaching storm.

Once on a time, as the story goes, there was a fourth Maiden; but she has disappeared for some years since, unable to withstand the rude shocks of the world, and no doubt undermined by the constant washing of the Atlantic waves, as the constitutions of others are although of flesh and blood by the vicissitudes and trials of life. The tallest, notwithstanding her feminine character, has more the appearance of a bishop in his robes than a maiden, or perhaps she might pass in the dusk for a lady in her evening dress, were it not for her position. The two smaller Maidens resemble young females in a beseeching attitude, imploring some boon from a difficult lord and master. But before he has made up his mind on the subject, the vessel is swept by and the visitor sees before him Macleod's Tables, in the shape of some peculiar flat-topped mountains, some 1500 feet high, which are fine objects for his contemplation and surprise as to how they should have obtained so common a household name.

Vaterstein Head, Meal a veg, and Dunvegan are noble headlands,

each a thousand feet above the sea, with green grassy slopes, affording excellent grazing for the many sheep he will see scattered in twos and threes on them. Most sheep, it is too true, fall by the hand of the butcher; but these are doomed to a different mode of death. They have strayed away on these heights, perhaps unconsciously, and tempted to graze, whence they can never return alive. For there they are shot, and the carcases allowed to fall into the sea beneath them, where they are picked up by boats. It has been kindly observed that this is the only way to save them. Save them, indeed! say rather, the pockets of their owner. But he is not always so fortunate, for in some parts of the South of Skye, it is said that about one hundred out of a thousand sheep are lost in this manner annually, that is, they are not killed in a scientific style, or, as it may be, secundem artem! so that the errant sheep die by the hunter instead of the butcher, as a penalty for their errantry.

Rounding Dunvegan Head the vessel runs into the spacious Loch of Dunvegan; at the head of which, standing on an almost isolated rock, is the ancient castle of that name, the property of Macleod of Macleod, the most ancient family of Scotland. At present it is occupied by Lord Hill and his family, of Hawkestone, Shropshire, who annually resort there, not only for the benefit of the mild and healthy atmosphere of Skye, but also for the shooting on the Isle of Harris. His lordship's steam schooner yacht Hawke graces the loch under the castle windows, and St. George's ensign floats proudly over the towered battlements of the castle.

Dunvegan Castle, be it remembered, soon lets the weary traveller know the true meaning of the word "hospitality." It is here he finds a larder well supplied with venison, game, and salmon trout, with fruit and vegetable gardens at his service; not to omit the dairy on the opposite side of the loch, nor the crowning advantage that, from a neat cottage in the direction of the inn, will come the richest flowers imaginable, as well as presents of vegetables for sickly crews.

Nothing can be more winning, nothing more tempting, than those beautiful scenes, so well calculated for retirement, which we meet in every part of the Highlands. But, like all this world's blessings, they have their alloy. Distance from society, from every social resource, every attraction which can render solitude tolerable, amid woods and rocks, torrents and green pastures, is here on the margins of bright lakes and blue seas, scenes of enchantment and peace, breathing that air of freshness and tranquillity, and promising ease, repose, and freedom from care, to which we long to fly from the turmoil and trouble of every day life; but where is the charm of some sprinkling of society? Solitude-lonely, silent solitude-prevails.

An hour or two among the many windings of the Castle will well repay the curious. An obliging, patient and good-tempered housekeeper attends you,-one who is entirely free from those long, tiresome, improbable stories which this class of people manage to learn by heart, and then bore you with in detail, while you are compelled to listen to them by the hour, naming the very minute, perhaps the

second, that some person saw somebody else do something! The haunted room where Sir Walter Scott slept, and from which he or Dr. Johnson (it does not matter which) imagined they saw one of Macleod's Maidens, which was impossible! Also the fairy tower, the marvellous staircase, the fairy flag, and the horn of Rory Mhor, and the still more wonderful well, (almost as strange as the well at Kilbar, which throws up the seeds of cockles,) where it is said that not long since, after dinner, one of the party fell accidentally down, a depth of 50 or 60 feet, and was never heard of afterwards. Right it was, no doubt, that after such an event it was covered over, and a side entrance formed to it. I was always curious in ascertaining the depths and temperatures of wells, and after my first visit had prepared lead lines, thermometer, and all necessary apparatus for a deep fall, repaired to the well and let go the lead, and to my utter disappointment found three feet! The man touched the bottom without wetting over his sea-boots. The housekeeper exclaimed, "Well, I never;" and was as much surprised as myself.

Dunvegan has been called Loch Follart. The castle dates (as far as is known) to the ninth century-some say the thirteenth century— that is, the most ancient portion of the building, the walls of which are of enormous thickness; but the various additions have quite altered its original form. The tower was added by Alastair Crotach, son of William, slain at the battle of the Bloody Bay.

We must here digress, just to give an idea of the improbability of the many tales of travellers that the traveller is told of these places. I have passed that "bloody bay"-if it is the same near Tobermory, Isle of Mull-on several occasions, and have always had a different account given me of the origin of its "bloody" name; therefore the chances were four to one in favour of their being all falsehoods. It is not from my desire to perpetuate either as the true one; but if the reader has them all briefly before him, he will have the privilege of judging for himself which is the most probable.

The first, and least probable, says that a man (for some reason unknown) had backed his horse over the perpendicular cliff above the bay, when, as a natural consequence, both man and horse were dashed to atoms by the fall.

The second, no less tragical, is that a man had murdered his wife there. (A very old story this.)

The third states that it was the scene of a bloody engagement be, tween the Macdonalds and Macleans when party strife ran high between different clans.

The last, which leans for support on history, declares that several ships of the Spanish Armada were sunk here; but whether in war or storm does not appear to have been "handed down." Perhaps this matters little now; but certain it is, that in Tobermory, a short distance from this bay, one of the Spanish vessels was blown up, and until very lately one of her timbers or knees formed a portion of Tobermory Pier,

Scott's Notes to the Lord of the Isles.