210 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



more than loosened fear in their joy at once again seeing 

 the dear familiar face. The sea was a passion to the 

 Greeks ; they took naturally to the water, like ducks, 

 or Englishmen, who are, if we truly consider it, fonder 

 of water than the ducks. We are sea-dogs from our 

 birth. It is in our race — bred in the blood. Even 

 the most inland and bucolic youth takes spontaneously 

 to the water, as an element he is born to rule. The 

 winds carry ocean murmurs far into the inland valleys, 

 and awaken the old pirate instincts of the Norsemen. 

 Boys hear them, and although they never saw a ship in 

 their lives, these murmurs make their hearts unquiet ; 

 and to run away from home, " to go to sea," is the 

 inevitable result. Place a Londoner in a turnip-field, 

 and the chances are that he wiU not know it from a 

 field of mangold-wurzel. Place him, unfamiliar with 

 pigskin, on a " fresh" horse, and he will not make a 

 majestic figure. But take this same youth, and fling 

 him into a boat, how readily he learns to feather an 

 oar ! Nay, even when he is sea-sick — as unhappily 

 even the Briton will sometimes be — he o-oes through it 

 with a certain careless grace, a manly haughtiness, or at 

 the lowest a certain " official reserve," not observable 

 in the foreigner.''^" What can be a more abject picture 

 than a Prenchman sufiering from sea-sickness — unless 

 it be a German under the same hideous circumstances? 

 Before getting out of harbour he was radiant, arrogant, 



* '' Had a furious gale oflF Flamborough Head ; saw many a dandy's 

 dignity prostrated by sea-sickness ; was sick myself, hut managed to Jceep 

 it secret" — Haydon's Journal {Life, iii. 62.) 



