THE VOYAGE. 5 



across the Caribbean Sea to Santa Marta, after the 

 tumblings and bufferings that would have been 

 good training for an acrobat, endured betwixt 

 England and St. Thomas, seemed to me the 

 very perfection of sea-travelling. Although a 

 most enjoyable passage, still it became mono- 

 tonous: one tires of old threadbare jokes and 

 yarns, and Avearies even of gazing day after day 

 into the clear blue sea, each day appearing the 

 very counterpart of the other. 



Sluggish lump-fish, with their uncouth heads 

 and misshapen bodies, continually wriggle slowly 

 and idly along with us ; sun-fish, in their parti- 

 coloured armour, float by, ever performing ec- 

 centric undulations. Now a stiff black fin 

 cleaves the water suspiciously, leaving a wake 

 behind, as would a miniature ship the danger- 

 signal of a greedy shark; huge leaves of kelp, 

 wrack, and sea-tangle drift by, rafts to myriads 

 of crustaceans and minute zoophytes ; the rudder 

 creaks and groans to the music of its iron chains, 

 clanking over the friction-rollers, as the helms- 

 man turns the wheel; sea-birds peep at us, then 

 wheel away to be seen no more; whilst ever 

 folio whig are the ' Chickens of Mother Carey,' 

 dipping, but never resting, on the ripple at the 

 stern. 



