Then Friends Were Abruptly Dismissed - Two Guns Were Fired - The Lashings Were Cast Off - The Stars And Stripes Flaunted Gaily

From the 'fore - the captain and pilot took their places on the paddle-boxes - the bell rang - our huge paddle-

Wheels revolved, and, to use the words in which the same event was chronicled by the daily press, "The Cunard royal mail steamer Canada, Captain Stone, left the Mersey this morning for Boston and Halifax, conveying the usual mails; with one hundred and sixty-eight passengers, and a large cargo on freight."

It was an auspiciously commenced voyage as far as appearances went. The summer sun shone brightly - the waves of the Mersey were crisp and foam- capped - and the fields of England had never worn a brighter green. The fleet of merchant-ships through which we passed was not without an interest. There were timber-ships, huge and square-sided, unmistakeably from Quebec or Miramichi - green high-sterned Dutch galliots - American ships with long black hulls and tall raking masts - and those far-famed "Black Ball" clippers, the Marco Polo and the Champion of the Seas, - in short, the ships of all nations, with their marked and distinguishing peculiarities. But the most interesting object of all was the screw troop- ship Himalaya, which was embarking the Scots Greys for the Crimea - that regiment which has since earned so glorious but fatal a celebrity on the bloody field of Balaklava.

It is to be supposed that to those who were crossing the Atlantic for the first time to the western hemisphere there was some degree of excitement, and that regret was among the feelings with which they saw the coast of England become a faint cloud on the horizon; but soon oblivion stole over the intellects of most of the passengers, leaving one absorbing feeling of disgust, first to the viands, next to those who could partake of them, and lastly to everything connected with the sea. Fortunately this state of things only lasted for two days, as the weather was very calm, and we ran with studding-sails set before a fair wind as far as the Nova Scotian coast.

The genius of Idleness presided over us all. There were five ample meals every day, and people ate, and walked till they could eat again; while some, extended on sofas, slept over odd volumes of novels from the ship's library, and others played at chess, cards, or backgammon from morning to night. Some of the more active spirits played "shuffle-boards," which kept the deck in an uproar; while others enjoyed the dolce far niente in their berths, except when the bell summoned to meals. There were weather- wise people, who smoked round the funnel all day, and prophesied foul winds every night; and pertinacious querists, who asked the captain every hour or two when we should reach Halifax. Some betted on the "run," and others on the time of reaching port; in short, every expedient was resorted to by which time could be killed.

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