MELLOW ENGLAND. 155 



Amidst the tossing and rolling, the groaning of 

 penitent travelers, and the laboring of the vessel as 

 she climbed those dark unstable mountains, my mind 

 reverted feebly to Huxley's statement, that the bot- 

 tom of this sea, for over a thousand miles, presents 

 to the eye of science a vast chalk plain, over which 

 one might drive as over a floor, and I tried to solace 

 myself by dwelling upon the spectacle of a solitary 

 traveler whipping up his steed across it. The imag- 

 inary rattle of his wagon was like the sound of 

 lutes and harps, and I would rather have clung to his 

 axletree than been rocked in the best berth in the 

 ship. 



LAND. 



On the tenth day, about four o'clock in the after- 

 noon, we sighted Ireland. The ship came up from 

 behind the horizon where for so many days she had 

 been buffeting with the winds and the waves, but had 

 never lost the clew, bearing straight as an arrow for 

 the mark. I think if she had been aimed at a fail- 

 sized artillery target, she would have crossed the 

 ocean and struck the bull's eye. 



In Ireland, instead of an emerald isle rising out of 

 the sea, I beheld a succession of cold, purplish mount- 

 ains, stretching along the northeastern horizon, but I 

 am bound to say that no tints of bloom or verdure 

 were ever half so welcome to me as were those dark, 

 heather-clad ranges. It is a feeling which a man can 

 have but once in his life, when he first sets eyes upon 

 a foreign land, and in my case, to this feeling was 



