THE SKA IN THE LIFE OF THE NATIONS. 395 



sailors, the Lapps arc at present eking out a paltry existence as fisher- 

 men. The Anglo-Saxons, on their arrival in Britain, were so absorbed 

 by combats with the native Celts, and later by agriculture and cattle 

 raising, that they completely abandoned all vocations connected with 

 the sea. Alfred the Great had to have his vessels built in German 

 dockyards. To this day few of the inhabitants of the Cyclades take 

 to a life upon the sea; they plant wheat, cultivate the vine, or pasture 

 their goats. Since the Dutch have become affluent, the nautical activi- 

 ties energetically prosecuted by their ancestors in more straitened 

 circumstances have fallen into neglect, and in the Belgian provinces 

 of Flanders and Brabant, the Netherlander, more easily winning a 

 subsistence on his fruitful soil by agriculture, industries, and domes- 

 tic trade, has always been apt to resign to foreigners the very consid- 

 erable sea traffic of his country. 



If, however, man ventures to pit his strength against the elemental 

 power of the sea; if he goes further and elects as his vocation the 

 sailor's struggle with storm and seething breaker, then the poet's 

 word in its full significance may be applied to him: '"Man's stature 

 grows with every higher aim." The mariner's trade steels muscle and 

 nerve, it sharpens the senses, it cultivates presence of mind. With 

 each new triumph of human cleverness over the rude force of nature 

 it heightens the courageousness of well-considered, fearless action. 

 Observe the weather-beaten countenances of our tars under their 

 sou'westers, how it has become almost a habit with them to dart 

 searching looks into the distance. Their manner is taciturn, but 

 betrays efficiency and alertness. No sooner are their latent reserve 

 powers challenged than the apparent sluggishness of their inactive 

 moments is replaced by energy and amazing endurance. In those 

 countries in which, as in Great Britain and Norway, the sea attracts 

 votaries from extended circles of the population, and the seafarer's 

 calling enjoys respect as a pillar of the commonwealth, the admirable 

 traits of the seaman's character stimulate wholesome imitation even 

 among the landsmen, an effect that is heightened when the coast is but 

 little removed from the interior, so that seacraft in all its clearly 

 defined peculiarity is present to the minds of the people. Further- 

 more, if in the wake of greater intimacy with the ocean, and through 

 it with all parts of the world, the masses come to entertain transma- 

 rine commerce and colonization schemes as familiar notions, as so 

 often happens in the great nations that are the bearers of civilization, 

 then the people as a whole fall heir, in large part, to the sailor's fresh, 

 venturesome spirit; to his daring courage and his wide intellectual 

 horizon, enlarged by contact with foreigners. A typical illustration 

 of this truth is afforded by the contrast between the Spartans and the 

 Athenians of ancient times — the former, brave but narrow-minded, 

 living a conservative life, walled in by the mountains that define their 



