Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1869-01-07

Your FIRST SWEETHEART. You can never
forget her. She was so young and innocent
aud pretty She had such way of looking at
you over her prayer book in church. She
alone Of all the world did not think you boy
of eighteen, but wondered at your size and
learning, and your faint foreshadowing of a
sandy moustache, and believed you every inch
aman When at those stupid evening parties
where boys and girls, who should have been
eating suppers of bread and milk, and gone to
sleep hours before, waltzed and flrted, and
made themselves sick over oysters and cham
pague, you we're favored with glance of her
eye or whisper from her lip, you assembled to
the seventh heaven Immediately. When once
upon memorable eve she p0lke1 with the
druggists clerk, and never even looked at you,
how miserable you were. 1t is funny to think
OF it now, but it was not then,fO youwere aT-
fully In earnest.
Once at a pie mic she wore a white dress and
had roses twined in her black hair and she
looked so much like bride you fairly trembled;
sometime you thought in just spch snowy cos
tune, with blossoms In her her bair, she
might stand before the alteI, and you, most
blessed OF all mortalS, might place ring upon
her hnger, and when You were left with her
Tor moment, some of your thoughts would
form themselves into words, and though she
blu>hed and ran away, and would not let
you kiss her, she did not seem to be
angry. And then when you were somehow
parted for little while, and when you met
again she was walking with gentleman, a
large, full grown, whiskered man, of twenty
eight or thirty and had neither word nor smile
Tor you, and some well-meaning gossip inform
edyou shortly after that she was engaged" to
al. k.1l i
that lit was splendid match. 1t was ter
rible news to you then, aud sent you off to
some great city far from your native place,
where, after good deal OF youthful grief, and
many resolutions to die and haunt her, you re-
covered your equanamity and began to make
money and to call love stuff and nonsense.
You have n rich wife OF your own now, and
grown up chiidren-ay, even two or three tod
ding grandchildren about your hearth: your
hair is gray and you lock your heart up IN the
fire proof safe at your counting house when
YOU 90 home at night. And you thought you
had forgotten that little episode OF your nine
teenth year, until the other day you read her
death in the papers You know she was a
stout lady who wore glasses, and has died older
than she was in that oden time, but your heart
went back and you saw her smiling aud blush
ing with her raven hair about her face, and
yourself boy again, dreaming of wedding
robes and rings, and you laid your gray old
head upon your office desk aud wept for the
memory OF your first sweetheart Lynchbagg
FUgtniaa.
The MANATI OR MANATEE. We remember
when In Washington, shortly after the Florida
war; listening with the deepest interest to a
eraDhlc description of the capture of one of
hui IL b0
himself the chief actor on the occasion.
1t Is somewhat surprising that, filled as
Florida was at that time with highly educated
officers OF both arms oil the service, none of
them should have taken the trouble to make
drawings OF this curious beast, nor do we be-
lieve it has been done by any traveller or ma
turalist
The following description, meagre as it is, is
the best we have yet seen Of the manatee it is
from Martins West Indies, He neglects, by
the way, to state that the weight of an adult
animal is from twelve to fifteen hundred
pounds :-1wf, Field d, Farm.
The manati, or sea COW, from ten to fifteen
feet in length, has head somewhat like bull
dog, nostrils sem-lunar, and eyes very small
and near the snout; it has no ears In outward
appearance, but has two small spiracula situa.
ted at the back OF the head mouth large, with
soft and protracted hips, fitted for laying hold
of the grass or herbage growing near the shore
neck short, covered with a rough skin, thiply
sprinkled with bristly hair; the belly and sides
near the tail white. From the shoulders pro
trude two pectoral fins (the only fins OF th'
animaD, resembling arms with which 1t sup
ports itself in the water. and which enable tth'
female to give suck to its young, who IeceE'
it from several porous openings or mamm@ II
the breast of the animal. The tail Is tormec
like that of the whale. 1t is an amphlbiou;
animal, never leaving the water, but teedlne
upon the aquatic plants and shrubs growing OF
the borders of the rivers and lakes, sometimes
elevating its head to MUNICH at the bushes that
Overhang them. It's flesh is white and delicate
resembling veal in appearance and taste, par
,ieulary when dressed and it will keep goo(
several weeks, even in the hot climate OF which
1t is a native, when other meat will not resis
putrefacfinn for as MANY davs