mysterious blending of terror and ecstasy cannot be restrained. Hoarsely
the breeze shrieks in the cordage, savagely the water roars as it darts
away astern like a broad fierce white flame. The vessel seems to spring
forward and shake herself with passion as the sea retards her, and the
whole wild symphony of humming ropes, roaring water, screaming wind,
sets every pulse bounding. Should the moon shine out from the charging
clouds, then earth has not anything to show more fair; the broad track
of light looks like an immeasurable river peopled by fiery serpents that
dart and writhe and interwind, until the eye aches with gazing on them.
Sleep seems impossible at first, and yet by degrees the poppied touch
lulls our nerves, and we slumber without heeding the harrowing groans of
the timbers or the confused cries of the wind.

So much for the glad weather; but, when the sky droops low, and leaping
waves of mournful hue seem to rear themselves and mingle with the
clouds, then the gladness is not so apparent. Still the exulting rush of
the ship through the gray seas and her contemptuous shudder as she
shakes off the masses of water that thunder down on her are fine to
witness. Even a storm, when cataracts of hissing water plunge over the
vessel and force every one to "hang on anywhere," is by no means without
its delights; but I must candidly say that a ship is hardly the place
for a woman when the wild winds try their strength against the works of
man. On the whole, if we reckon up the pains and pleasures of life on
board ship, the balance is all in favour of pleasure. The sailors have a
toilsome life, and must endure much; but they have health. It is the
sense of physical well-being that makes the mind so easy when one is on
the sea; and refined men who have lived in the forecastle readily
declare that they were happy but for the invariable dirt. Instead of
trooping to stuffy lodgings, those of my readers who have the nerve
should, if not this year, then next summer, go right away and take a