The Sea: Its Perils
On the surface of the globe there is nowhere to be found so inhospitable a desert as the “wide blue sea.” At any distance from land there is nothing in it for man to eat, nothing in it that he can drink. His tiny foot no sooner rests upon it, than he sinks into his grave: it grows neither flowers nor fruits; it offers monotony to the mind, restless motion to the body; and when, besides all this, one reflects that it is to the most fickle of the elements, the wind, that vessels of all sizes are to supplicate for assistance in sailing in every direction to their various destinations, it would almost seem that the ocean was divested of its charms, and armed with storms, to prevent our being persuaded to enter its dominions.
But though the situation of a vessel in a heavy gale of wind appears indescribably terrific, yet, practically speaking, its security is so great, that it is truly said that ships seldom or never founder in deep water, except from accident or inattention. How ships manage to get across that still region, that ideal line, which separates the opposite trade-winds from each hemisphere; how a small box of men manages, unlabelled, to be buffeted for months up one side of a wave and down another; how they ever get out of the abysses into which they sink; and how, after such pitching and tossing, they reach in safety the very harbour in their native country from which they originally departed—can and ought only to be accounted for, by acknowledging how truly it has been written, that “the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters.”
It is not, therefore, from the ocean itself that man has so much to fear: the earth and the water each afford to man a life of considerable security, yet there exists between these two elements an everlasting war, into which no passing vessel can enter with impunity; for of all the terrors of this world, there is surely no one greater than that of being on a lee-shore in a gale of wind, and in shallow water. On this account it is natural enough that the fear of land is as strong in the sailor’s heart as is his attachment to it; and when, homeward bound, he day after day approaches his own latitude, his love and his fears of his native shores increase as the distance between them diminishes. Two fates, the most opposite in their extremes, are shortly to await him. The sailor-boy fancifully pictures to himself that in a few short hours he will be once again nestling in his mother’s arms. The able seaman better knows that it may be decreed for him, as it has been for thousands, that in gaining his point he shall lose its object—that England, with all its virtue, may fade before his eyes, and,
“While he sinks without an arm to save,
His country blooms, a garden and a grave.”
Nor can it be regarded as improbable that in the beds of the present seas the edifices and works of nations, whose history is altogether unknown to existing generations, are embedded and preserved:
“What wealth untold,
Far down and shining through their stillness lies;
They have the starry gems, the burning gold,
Won from a thousand royal argosies.
Yet more—the depths have more—their waves have roll’d
Above the cities of a world gone by;
Sand hath fill’d up the palaces of old,
Sea-weed o’ergrown the halls of revelry.”