Can it be that the Emerald Isle is going bodily to America?  For the last three or four hours the emigrants have been coming on board, and still they come.  Nor do they come empty-handed; they are bringing with them whatever riches in the shape of household furniture, etc., they possess; at least as much as they will be allowed space for.  They leave little but their cabin walls behind.  While watching them one is forcibly reminded of the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt.  Not a hoof do these children of Ireland leave behind if they can help it.  It may be fancy, but I am almost sure I hear a grunt from some of those Irishmen's big boxes.

As fast as the new arrivals come on board they are sent below, and, thanks to the wise discrimination of the ship's officers, they go to their own place.  And now the last emigrant--perhaps the last of the O'Flahertys-- is about to step on board.  He is a ``foine bhoy" of some twenty summers, with profuse but matted locks which might have been auburn but for their too fiery tinge.  As he comes slowly forward to be borne forever from his native isle, his eyes glisten and his hand clutches nervously at a huge bottle of the ``crathur" which is to solace the weary passage.  ``Good-by to ye, ould Ireland!  And may the divil take ye," exclaims he, as with an unsteady foot he turns round to take a last view of the old home.

``Come, hurry up here!" thunders the boatswain, whose temper has suffered by his having had to stand in the cold during the last two hours seeing the emigrants on board, and as he speaks h seizes the last of the O'Flahertys by the collar and drags him somewhat roughly on the steamer.  Now, whether it was the O'F. recognized in this treatment the last act of Saxon tyranny, or that the dignity of the squatter sovereign had already fallen upon him and been outraged, I knew not--certain it is, that his indignation knows no bounds; his eyes are on fire; he turns upon the boatswain with a torrent  of execrations, and with his bottle of whisky aims a stroke at his adversary.  As upon a more heroic occasion, ``great deeds had now been done," and the sturdy boatswain had come to grief, were it not that he very coolly seizes the unfortunate Irishman by the nape of the neck and sends him flying down the dark descent where have disappeared his companions.  Faith, Hope, Charity, and Love would willingly believe that the regions into which he and his whisky bottle descended contained bona fide steerage berths, but that the said dark descent looked so very like the entrance to the Shades.

Once more the ship is on her way, and ere many hours elapse the British Isles disappear from view.  There are upward of a thousand souls on board, each with his or her own hopes and fears, each the hero or the heroine of a life romance.  Could these lives pass, panorama-like, before our eyes what a marvelous picture should we behold!  Some of them would, not doubt, be commonplace enough; but many of them would strange ``tales unfold," while in all we should see the play of wild passions and tender emotions - the mysterious working of human nature in its higher and lower conditions.

A motley cargo is this of a thousand souls!  They are, as I have said, of the ``genus homo," but of what numerous variety!   They have scarce any thing in common, for there is all the difference among them that different climates, customs, and religious can produce; yet, strange to say, before very many years have elapsed a generation will spring from this human medley in which no radical differences will be seen.  Those composing it will speak the same language, will have the same general cast of countenance, the same national sympathies and prejudices, and, to a great extent, the same religion; indeed, the very names their ancestors bore will be altered so as to suit English speaking lips; in a word, it will be a generation of Americans.  That young lady who is reclining luxuriously in the first-class cabin--the daughter of the Hon. Ruphus Phinn--who is returning from her European tour, is a perfect type of American female beauty; and yet she is only removed by two or three generations from an ancestor--an Irish emigrant-- who crossed the Atlantic as ignorant and ragged as any now on board.  Were any one to tell you this, Miss Phinn, you would turn away in disgust, or give  it an indignant denial. You would be ready to trace an unbroken lineal descent from ``One Hezekiah Phynne, who crossed the Atlantic ocean in the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock, Anno domini 1620.  Ah, Miss Phinn!  You are not the first who has thus attempted to ignore the poor ancestor to whom you owe your fortune.  There is heroism and poetry connected with the Pilgrim Fathers, but you think neither the one nor the other can be associated with the poor Irish emigrant.  Methinks if those same Pilgrim Fathers could rise from their graves they would be rather astonished to find how numerous are their descendants, and would puzzle themselves in vain to account for it by the natural laws of increase.  No, no, Miss Phinn.  If a certain parish register, which is now mouldering in the old church of Ballymahoney, could be made legible, it would tell how that one Patrick O'Finnerty went to American and there became rich and begat Finnerty, who begat Finner, who begat Finn, who finally metamorphosed the name into Phinn, and thus threw off the last vestige of the ``ould counthry."

The name Shaunegan, whose owner is standing there against the smoke-stack enjoying a short black pipe, will undergo a similar clipping process:  Shaunegan is going to Pennsylvania, where he will ``strike ile," and acquire a fortune.  After a time, by reason of the burden of riches on its back, the family will gradually lighten the onerous Irish name of its superfluous letters until, finally, it will assume the truly Saxon form of Shaw.

But, alas! While I have been indulging in these reflections the evil that I greatly feared has come upon me.  The huge steamer rolls and pitches like a cock-boat on this rough ocean, and causes me to feel all the horrors of sea-sickness.  Adieu, sea and sky!  I must hasten down to my bunk, where I know that for three or four days I shall be a close prisoner.

I shall not attempt to describe that period.  Let not those days be numbered in the years of my life.  I only know that, as I lay helpless in my bunk against the ribs of the vessel, I often wished that the pitiless waves which roared within a few inches of my head would burst through the iron plates and swallow me up.  However, upon the fourth day the sickness is passed.  I rise, wash, eat bread, and am myself again.

It is yet early morning, and the other occupants of the berth are still in their bunks, at least partly so, for the bunks being somewhat short the owners have to hang their legs outside.  As the atmosphere of the cabin is rather close I now seek the deck for fresh air.  Heavens, what a spectacle greets my eyes!  The sun, more brilliant than every I had seen it before, like some glorious being instinct with fire, seems to be rising from the ocean, causing the waves to sparkle like liquid silver.  Nothing but sea and sky far as the eye can reach.