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The sea never fails to furnish noble studies to those who, by
frequent travel, have succeeded in overcoming its annoyances.
But the number is few who feel reconciled to calm thought and
patient meditation while roaming, at large and lone, on its wilderness
of bosom. Those only who have completely undergone
that sea change, of which Shakspere tells us in the “Tempest,”
can yield themselves fairly up to the fancies which it inspires and
the subliming thought which it awakens. Unhappily, to the
greater number of those the subject has lost all its freshness.
When we have so frequently boxed the compass, that we can


“Lay hands upon old ocean's mane,
And play familiar with his hoary locks,”
he forfeits all his mysteries.

It is surprising to note how little there is really visible in the
great deeps to those who go down frequently upon the waters.
To such eyes they even lose their vastness, their vagueness, the
immensity which baffles vision, and fills the mind with its most
impressive ideas of eternity. Your “Old Salt” is a notorious
skeptic. He wears his forefinger perpetually upon the side of
his nose. He is not to be amused with fancies and chimeras.
He has outgrown wholly his sense of wonder, and his thought
of the sea is somewhat allied with the contemptuous, as was that
of the Mississippian for the brown bear whom he had whipped
in single combat. As for marvels and mysteries in the creature—
beauties of splendor or grandeur — these wholly elude his
thoughts and eyes. If he appreciates the sea at all, it is solely
because of its sharpening effect upon his appetite!

Most of those wayfarers whom you meet often upon the route
belong to this order. You will find them at all times peering
into the larder. In their sleep, they dream of it, and you will

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hear broken speeches from their lips which show their memories
still busy with yesterday's feast, or their anticipations preparing
for that of the morrow. The steward and cook aboard-ship are
the first persons whose acquaintance they make. These they
bribe with shillings and civilities. You will scarcely open your
eyes in the morning, ere you will see these “hail fellows” with
toast and tankard in their clutches; a bowl of coffee and a cracker
is the initial appetizer, with possibly a tass of brandy in the
purple beverage, as a lacer. Then you see them hanging about
the breakfast table, where they take care to plant themselves
in the near neighborhood of certain of the choicest dishes. All
their little arrangements are made before you get to the table,
and there will be a clever accumulation of good things about the
plates of these veterans, in the shape of roll and egg, etc., which
would seem destined to remind the proprietor, in the language
of warning which was spoken daily (though with a far different
object) to the monarch of the Medes and Persians —“Remember,
thou art mortal.”

This is a fact which our veterans of the high seas never forget.
They carry within them a sufficient monitor which ever cries,
like the daughter of the horse-leech, “Give! Give!” They
have no qualms of conscience or of bowels; and it seems to do
them rare good to behold the qualms of others. It would seem
that they rejoiced in these exhibitions, simply as they are, assured
by these, that the larder is destined to no premature invasion
on the part of the sufferers.

I have often looked upon this class of travellers — not with
envy, Heaven forefend! — though it would have rejoiced me frequently,
at sea, to have possessed some of their immunities —
that rare insensibility, for example, in the regions of diaphragm
and abdomen, which, if unexercised for appetite, might at least
suffer other sensibilities to be free for exercise.

But it has provoked my wonder, if not my admiration, that
inflexible stolidity of nature, which enables the mere mortal so
entirely to obtain the ascendency over the spiritual man. Our
gourmand sees no ocean waste around him — follows no tumbling
billows with his eye — watches not, with straining eagerness,
where the clouds and the waters descend and rise, as it were in
an embrace of passion. Sunrise only tells him of his coffee and

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cracker, noon of lunch, sunset of tea, and the rarely sublimed
fires of the moonlight, gleaming from a thousand waves, suggest
only a period of repose, in which digestion goes on without any
consciousness of that great engine which he has all day been
packing with fuel. Tell him of porpoise and shark, and his
prayer is that they may be taken. He has no scruples to try a
steak from the ribs of the shark, though it may have swallowed
his own grandmother. Of the porpoise he has heard as the seahog,
and the idea of a roast of it, is quite sufficient to justify the
painstaking with which he urges upon the foremast man to take
his place at the prow, in waiting, with his harpoon. Nay, let a
school of dolphins be seen beneath the bows, darting along with
graceful and playful sweep, in gold and purple, glancing through
the billows, like so many rainbows of the deep, he thinks
of them only as a fry — an apology for whiting and cavalli, of
which he sighs with the tenderest recollections, and for which
he is always anxious to find a substitute. I have already observed
that we have two or three specimens of this genus now
on board the Marion.

“I don't know,” said our fair companion, “but that steam
has robbed the sea very equally of its charms and terrors.”

“Ah! we have now no long voyages. Your coastwise travelling
seldom takes you from sight of land, and you scarcely
step from the pier head in one city, before you begin to look out
for the lighthouse of another. Even when crossing the great
pond, you move now so rapidly, and in such mighty vessels, that
you carry a small city with you — a community adequate to all
your social wants — and are thus made comparatively indifferent
to your absolute whereabouts.”

“Well, there is something pleasant,” said one, “to be able to
fling yourself into your berth in one city only to awaken in another.
I confess that it takes away all motive to thought and
survey. Few persons care to look abroad and about in such
short periods. There is little to amuse or interest, traversing
the ship's decks for a night, in the face of smoke and steam,
jostling with strange people wrapped in cloaks, whom you do not
care to know, as it is not probable that you are ever to meet
again when you part to-morrow. You must be long and lonely
on the seas, before the seas will become grateful in your sight

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and reveal their wonders. Steam has removed this necessity
and thus taken away all the wonders of the deep. You now see
no mysteries in the surging billows — hear no spiritual voices
from the shrouds. The spell has been taken from the waters —
the trident is broken in the hands of the great Triton. Steam, a
mightier magic, has puffed away, as by a breath, a whole world
of unsubstantial, but very beautiful fable. The ocean is now as
patient as the wild horse under the lasso — subdued to the will
of a rider who was never known to spare whip or spur.”

“The worst feature in this improved navigation is its unsocial
influence. It deprives you of all motive to break down those
idle little barriers of convention which are apt to fetter the very
best minds, and cause a forfeiture of some of their sweetest humanities.
You seek to know none of the virtues of your companions,
and certainly never care to put in exercise your own.
One ceases to be amiable in a short voyage. A long one, on
the contrary, brings out all that is meritorious as well in yourself
as your shipmate. A sense of mutual dependence is vastly
promotive of good fellowship.—Then you see something of one
another, and hear something of the world. People show what
they are, and tell you what they have seen; and intimacies,
thus formed, have ripened into friendships, which no after events
have been able to rupture. Commend me to the ancient slow-and-easy
packet ships that left you time for all these things; —
that went between Charleston and New York, and never felt
any impatience to get to the end of their journey; — that took
every advantage afforded by a calm to nap drowsily on the bosom
of the broad element in which they loved to float; — and
rocked lazily upon the great billows, as if coquetting with the
breezes rather than using them for progress.”

“There was leisure then for study and philosophy and poetry;
nay, love-making was then an easy and agreeable employment,
to such as had the stomach for it. It will not be easy for me
to forget my thousand experiences of the tender passion on such
voyages — by moonlight and starlight — `with one sweet spirit
for my minister,' gazing together on the great mirror-like ocean,
or up into the persuasive heavens, till we drank in floods of tenderness,
from a myriad of loving eyes.”

“Ah!” cried Duyckman archly, “one is reminded of Moore—

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“By the way, why should we not have some tales of wandering
youth to-night — and why not some songs too. Miss
Burroughs, it has not escaped my very curious eye that there is
a guitar among your luggage. May I hope that you will suffer
me to bring it you?”

The lady hesitated. I interposed:—

“Oh! surely; we must not suffer such a night of beauty, such
a sea of calm, such a mild delicious evening, to pass unemployed,
and in the only appropriate fashion. We are a little world to
ourselves — pilgrims to one Canterbury, and we may well borrow
a leaf from Boccacio and a lesson from Chaucer. You will
sing for us, and we shall strive to requite you, each after his
own fashion. Here are several whom I know to be capable of
pleasant contribution in the way of song and story, and my
friend Duyckman can hardly refuse to follow your example, as
he suggests it. In your ear, I may whisper that he is full of romances,
and has a whole budget of legends wrought out of Proven
çal and Troubadour history.”

“Fie! Fie! Honor bright.”

The lady now gracefully consented.

“The temptation is too great to be resisted. My scruples
yield to your persuasions. Will you order the guitar?”

It was brought. We had the music, but not alone. To the
great delight of all parties, the fair charmer gave us her lyrics
woven in with an historical narrative — a romance in itself,
which, in a brief and pleasant introduction, she mentioned that
she had gathered herself from the lips of the celebrated General—
of Venezuela, who was only last year in the country. I
must deliver the story, as nearly as possible as it came from the
lady's lips, not forgetting to mention that, in the lyrical portions,
the guitar contributed the accompaniment, and the effect of
the pieces, thus delivered, was singularly dramatic and effective.

Our circle contracted about the fair raconteur, silence followed,
and raised attention, and she began.

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