SEA MAGIC.
THERE is nothing in this world so clean and clear as the skyline at sea. The first sight of it on leaving land, when fields and hills and houses sink out of sight and all around is nothing but that vast unbroken circle of which the ship is the centre, with the great arch of sky meeting it delicately at the edges, affects one with sheer amazement,— so immense is it and so simple. Kipling speaks of the I "excellent loneliness" of the sea ; but till one grows used to the vast emptiness of its solitudes, this loneliness is almost appalling. It is a curious thing to feel the interest aroused by any sail or funnel during a voyage, The ocean solitude fosters a strong sense of comradeship with anything that sails or swims, so that it becomes possible to throw oneself outside, as it were, and survey the liner in which ,comfortable people travel from a humbler level,—with the eyes of the deep-sea fisherman or the master of a tramp steamer. Imagine the sentiments of half-wrathful admiration with which those who go down to the sea in the 'Minn; ' of the ocean—" over- loaded, under-manned, meant to founder "—meet and see, green upon the starboard bow, red upon the port, "some damned Liner's lights go by like a grand hotel."
The sea magic is sure and indestructible, preserved in salt,
and s6 is the beauty of ships. Even in these 'days when the sailing line-of-battle ship and the swift and graceful frigate have vanished utterly-from the face of Die (Mean, while the "wind-jammer" is slowly following them,- there' is 'still the beauty of strength and true purpose to be found' in the 'ocean liner. They trick her up ineidein-Velvet and gildIng,, so that land bred and Sea-sick passengers niay delude themsebies into thinking that they are still on shore. The sea has nothing to do with the liner's cabins and saloons ; but where the water closes round' her stark `smooth sides the old sea lined and the old sea grace perforce come back,—for the -sea endures no foolish excrescences. To get' some gliinpse of "the way of a 'ship upon the sea," it ie well to go to the bows where the high- 'peaked forefoot lifts so sharply from the water,—there the wind and the dancing movement of the vessel are of an intoxicating quality. The motion at the forecastle bead is quite different 'from that' amidships, where there is the constant underground throb of the engines. But at the bows there is a lift and a tremble, a springing forward that com- bines the grace of a dance 'with the resistless strength of a marching army. The firm,' clean cntwater parts the heavy seas on either hand into miniature Niagaras, a smooth, glassy outward curve and then the plunge of foam—a foam that is of an .absolute whiteness—delicate, evanescent, always new- - created. Nor must we forget the little rainbow that lies on the water close under the bows, always going before the moving vessel when'the sun is shining.
Each time it is an amazement to realise anew. the weight and depth of that wonder of water we call a sea-wave,—to see with the ectual eye (as Ruskin says in a fine if somewhat overburdened passage) "its green mountainous giddiness of wrath, its over- whelming crest—heavy as iron, fitful as flame, clashing against the sky in long cloven edge,—its furrowed flanks, all ghastly clear, deep in 'transparent death, but all laced across with lurid nets of spume, and tearing open into meshed interstices their churned veil of silver fury, showing still the calm grey abyss below; that has no fury and no voice, but is as a grave always open, which the green sighing mounds do but bide for an ,instant as they pass."
.Leaning over the rail at the bows one can understand what . a beautiful idea was the old figurehead,—now, alas ! almost departed from the ocean. It was the expression. of a true instinct the watchful spirit looking out and forward over the waters. All old - figureheads have that eager outward curve, a very embodiment of the thought of the home-coming sailor, always surpassing the speed of his ship. The figure- heads of the old sailing-ships were completely in harmony with the tall and tapering masts and the wing-like spread of canvas. It is only in the uncrowded spaces of the sea that the beauty of sails can be properly understood, for then the curves of the sails repeat and yet break the long line of that horizon which is itself a curve. No " star-ypointing pyramid" in the desert can have the strange significance of the solitary sail at sea. And because it grows more rare and more solitary, because the smoke-plumed funnel and not the raking mast is becoming - the commonplace of the ocean, the sight of a full-rigged sailing-vessel to-day has not only an unsurpassable grace, but all the pathos of a passing thing, into the vanished years she is sailing at such speed as the wind will give her, beloved by the sea, moulded .slowly by generations of man's skill and dear-bought knowledge, beautiful exceedingly because in every line of her attuned. to wind and wave, because she speaks in all her sturdy timbers- of the triumphant daring which first .ventured upon the trackless ocean,—high-hearted. in face of the unknown, valiantly adventuring in a cockle-shell. The ship is a symbol and the great civiliser ; she links land to land, and• brings men from far countries into touch. Her keel follows the sun around the world. Arctic night and tropic morning. are alike to her, and the circumnavigation of the globe. was one of the supreme events in the history of
mankind. .
. The ships that sail upon the sea have grown and altered from truck to keelson. Even the names have changed. Who now would ,recognise a cog, crayer, or snake ? But -if ships pass and change, the sea is unalterable and ageless. Nothing in Natant:has ao many moods. One day it is grey and lumpy, with a Sulk* internal heive; another it is a mysterious green, crossed by yeinings and fmger-markings of foam ; and again it will be a radiant blue with crests of white that toss a veil of dying spray all along the decks. 'Yet with' what suddenness fog' will dim this blue !—and fog is' always'h'overin'g in certain latitudes. It is die Of the strangest things at sea to watch 'fog slowly, stealthily closing in the ship, while the circle of 'the' horizon' grows smaller and the waves stand weirdly silhouetted upon the grey curtain which gradually drops down in silent stifling folds. Caught in fog, a ship becomes curiously human ; the melancholy howl of the fog-horn is likethe cry of a frightened creature feeling her way throttgh unknotni though not unguessed-at danger. The more seamen know of fog the more they bate it, for its blind' helplessness sett all their skill at naught. But those who are not responsible for the navigation of the vessel may find a half-fearful satisfaction in leaning over the rail in the strangest solitude known to man. Then is the time to recall sea-legends of Vanderdeeken and the albatross known to the Ancient Mariner. The pallid white gleam of fog forebodes and menaces; it makes uncanny disasters instant probabilities. Hinds may not -grasp it, yet it seems to turn all solid things to unreality and ghostli- ness,—a few hours of thick fog make one feel that fog is the only element, that in it man was born and walks his days, and that befogged he dies.
But a fresh strong breeze will drive away the oppressive presence and once more bring back the wide horizon that sea- trained eyes so ache for' and "the sight of salt water -unbounded." Once more the great invigoration returns, and it is surpassingly good at sea to remember that apostrophe of Joseph Conrad's i—" Glamour and the sea ! The good, strong sea, the salt, bitter sea, that could whisper to you; and roar at you, and knock your breath out of you."
The heart rises to it as on the 'crest of a shoreward-sweeping wave. That is. how we know and love the:" many-twinkling smile of ocean," which is at once both- terrible- and dear, but never "the unplumb'd salt, estranging sea" of Matthew Arnold's melancholy line. Instead, the sea is now and always "the mother of prosperity," the highway of the nations,. the sepulchre of the brave. " Who bath desired the ? " Surely all true children of England, for to each one it is
- "His Sea in no wonder the same—his Sea and the same through
each wonder His Sea at the first that betrayed—at the last that shall never betray him—His Sea that his being fulfils."
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