On arriving at Macao, Isabella was doomed to undergo another separation from her beloved Morton, whose qualities of head and heart she had had sufficient opportunities of studying and appreciating during the voyage from Mexico, and in the daily and familiar intercourse of a merchant-ship's cabin. As the Chinese eschew the society of foreign women even more rigorously than the children of Israel did that of "strange" ones—and, taking this notion of theirs "by and large" in connection with their laws, and manners, and tastes, we think they are perfectly right—Isabella was consequently landed at Macao, and placed in the care of a venerable and highly respectable Portuguese family, and after having arranged the means of as regular a correspondence as could be carried on in that country, where there are not quite so many mail-coaches and post-offices as with us, she saw with tearful eyes the whale-boat "shove off," containing in its stern-sheets Morton, a Chinese custom-house mandarin, two Chinese pigs, a hind-quarter of Chinese beef, a Chinese river pilot, and sundry baskets of Chinese fowls and vegetables.
Macao is beautifully situated upon a small island, near the mouth of the river Tigris, commanding a fine view towards the sea, and was, when I had the fortune to visit it, very clean and neat in its streets and the external condition of its houses—a circumstance the more remarkable, as its inhabitants are Portuguese and Chinese, two of the dirtiest people on the face of the earth: to these, of course, numerous other nations and parts of nations may be added; and among them, a very large proportion of the aristocratic and fastidious English, who prefer spitting in their pocket-handkerchiefs instead of the fire-place or the street; all the Spaniards; all the French in their houses, and food, and furniture; all the Dutch in their persons; all the Russians in every thing; nearly all the Irish and Scotch; and a very respectable modicum of my beloved countrymen, the Yankees, together with the greater part of the natives of the southern states, who, being nursed, brought up, and associating with negro slaves from the cradle to the grave, smell dirty, if they are not.
After an absence of about six weeks, Isabella one morning received a letter from Canton, informing her that the ship would commence "working" down the river that day, or, according to the date of the letter, two days previous, and that she would be off Macao on the second or third day from said date. Accordingly she made all necessary preparations for another and much longer voyage, and after dinner walked down to the water-side, accompanied by her Portuguese friends. They had been on the look-out for nearly half an hour, when a large ship hove in sight, evidently from Canton.
As she approached, steering apparently direct for the town, she suddenly tacked and stood out to sea, or directly away from it. The party had already made out with their glasses that the ship was indeed the Albatross; but poor Isabella, who had seen, on her passage from Mexico, nothing but fair winds, was exceedingly distressed by this last unintelligible manœuvre. Were they actually going away without her?—the thought was agony. The ship, that was but four miles off when first seen, was now at least eight, and her hull was fast sinking below the line of direct vision. Her companions, who had hitherto been occupied in silently admiring that most splendid effort of human genius, a ship under full sail, were suddenly startled by an exclamation betokening extreme anguish from their lovely friend—"They have gone! they have gone!" sobbed the unhappy girl. The most affectionate kindness, and the most earnest assurances that the apparently unaccountable movement of the ship was no more than was absolutely necessary from the direction of the wind, were equally lost upon her—she "would not be comforted." In a few minutes the Albatross hove in stays (you need not hold your fan to your face, madam), and seemed to approach the shore as rapidly as she had before receded from it.
"Look up, my dear child," said M. de Silva; "see, your ship is flying in, and will soon be safely at anchor."
Isabella raised her head from the shoulder of Madam de Silva, and applying the glass to her tear-dimmed eye, was convinced of the folly of her grief. They sat down to watch the gallant ship as she rapidly approached the "roads." Before the sun was hid behind the hills in the rear of the town, they had the pleasure of seeing the Albatross commence reducing her sails; presently the topsails were clewed up, and the jib hauled down, the ship "rounded to," her anchor let go, and in a moment the men were seen clustering upon the lower and topsail yards. A minute or two afterwards Isabella plainly distinguished, by the help of her glass, the well-known whale-boat sweeping round the ship's stern, and rowing swiftly towards the shore. A deep blush announced that the glass had also informed her who was, in midshipman's language, the "sitter," the person in the stern-sheets, to wit, and she immediately proposed returning to the house. Morton, on landing, informed her that the ship would get under weigh the next morning at day-break, and that it would be most advisable, as the ship could approach no nearer than five miles to the town when beating out of the bay, to go on board as soon as possible that evening, to which she, of course, assented, and, having taken an affectionate leave of her Macao friends, who insisted upon supplying her with "sea-stores" enough to fit out half a dozen sail of Liverpool packets, she accompanied Morton to the boat.
The next morning at day-break she was startled from her slumbers by the clanking of the windlass-pauls, the voices of the officers, and the tramp of feet over her head; and, in a few minutes after, the rushing of the water under the cabin windows, and the "heeling" of the ship, announced that they were under weigh, and dashing out to sea with a fresh breeze. The passage home was, like most passages from the East Indies and China, rather monotonous from the long continuance of fair winds. Isabella gazed with delight upon the unrivalled scenery of the Straits of Sunda, where spring, summer, and autumn reign perpetually in a sort of triumvirate; the same field, nay, in some cases, the same tree, presenting, at one and the same time, blossoms, green fruit, and ripe fruit: infancy, maturity, and decay. She saw, too, in the night the volcano on the Island of Bourbon, afterwards False Cape and Table Mountain, but not the Flying Dutchman, the weather being unfortunately too fine to induce him to put to sea. Next came St. Helena, since so famous as the cage and then the tomb of that most furious and terrible of wild beasts, a great conqueror. Near the fifth degree of north latitude, the south-east trade-wind died away, and was succeeded by four days of light, variable, "baffling" winds, when the north-east trade set in strong from about east-by-north, its usual point near the equator, and they once more flew joyously on their north-west course. A few "regular built" Mudian (i. e. Bermudan) squalls served to vary the scene, and rendered the strong, steady gale from south-west, that succeeded them, peculiarly acceptable.
It was just sunrise one lovely morning, near the last of July, when Morton, who had the morning watch, directed one of the men to go aloft, and "take a look round." The seaman had gotten no higher than the fore-topsail-yard, when he shouted "land ho!" at the very top of his throat.
"Where away?"
"Broad on the larboard bow."