The storm at sea presents a class of peculiar dangers and a variety of thrilling experiences, such as the landsman never knows. The stories of great shipwrecks and other purely naval disasters form some of the most interesting narratives in history: and doubtless the reader will be pleased to notice in detail the perils of the deep, and to learn of the precautions taken and the means in common use for averting, as far as possible, the disastrous results of the tempest. Certainly, the brave tars who peril their lives on the ocean to bring us the luxuries of a foreign land deserve especial attention, and no apology need be given for devoting a portion of this volume to the story of their perils and daring.
“Daughter, the night was made for sleep; Why dost thou moan, why dost thou weep? Wherefore thy mournful vigil keep? Daughter, daughter, my daughter!”
“Mother, to me the night wind cries. Cold on the sands thy lover lies, With none to close his glazed eyes; Nello, Nello, my Nello!”
The Storm at Sea! From the days of David to the present, the poet and the novelist have taxed their energies to portray the perils of those who go down into the deep in ships. The ravages of the hurricane on shore are confined largely to those portions of the world unknown to the ancients; but the treacherous deep has been sung in every age. We may hardly choose which of the myriad wrecks to describe. St. Paul’s perilous voyage to Rome is familiar wherever the gospel is preached; Jonah has furnished a comparison for the unlucky for centuries; Virgil has sung of the perils of exiled Æneas in his search for a foreign home.
The sea has dangers peculiarly its own, and likewise charms possessed by nothing else in nature. Every one may have heard of the little earnest woman who at her first sight of the ocean sighed: “Ah--at last here is something there is enough of!” The sailor knows the ocean’s every mood, and may sing with Barry Cornwall:
“HE SINKS INTO THY DEPTHS, WITH BUBBLING GROAN, WITHOUT A GRAVE, UNKNELLED, UNCOFFINED, AND UNKNOWN.” ]
“I love, oh, how I love to ride, On the fierce, foaming, bursting When every mad wave drowns the moon, Or whistles aloft his tempest tune, And tells how goeth the world below, And why the sou’west blasts do blow!”
