The Mighty Deep 



Spain, to Germany or Ireland or America. 

 Grand and far-reaching the sea still is, but to 

 us no longer " boundless." 



In ages gone by, those who stood upon the 

 coasts of Palestine or Egypt, of Greece or Italy, 

 gazed towards unknown horizons, across what 

 was to them an illimitable ocean. The civilised 

 world consisted of a few countries bordering the 

 Mediterranean on the east ; and those countries 

 shaded off into unexplored barbaric regions. As 

 for the " great Sea," as they called that which 

 we regard as hardly more than a huge inland 

 lake, it was in their eyes the embodiment of 

 Infinitude. 



At a very early period, long before the English 

 Nation was dreamt of, before the Roman Em- 

 pire had grown into being, while the polished 

 Greek of the future was still a semi-savage, 

 a nation of Ocean-lovers already existed. These 

 were the Phenicians, foreshadowing in their pluck 

 and enterprise the sea-going British of later times. 



They, unlike the sailors of other nations, did 

 not merely hug the shore, but ventured out into 

 the trackless ocean. They, unlike the sailors 

 of other nations, did not go upon the sea only 

 in daylight, but they traversed it also in the dark 

 hours of night. 



4 



