56 THE SEA. 



CHAPTER V. 

 WOMAN AT SEA. 



Poets' Opinions on Early Navigation Who was the First Female Navigator ? Noah's Voyage -A Thrilling Tale A Strained 

 Vessel A Furious Gale A Birth at Sea The Ship Doomed Ladies and Children in an Open Boat Drunken Sailors 

 Semi-starvation, Cold, and Wet Exposed to the Tropical Sun Death of a Poor Baby Sharks about A Thievish Sailor 

 Proposed Cannibalism A Sail ! The Ship passes by-Despair Saved at Last -Experiences of a Yachtswoman Nearly 

 Swamped and Carried Away An Abandoned Ship The Sunbeam of Service Ship on Fire ! Dangers of a Coal Cargo 

 The Crew Taken off Noble Lady Passengers Two Modern Heroines and their Deeds The Story of Grace Darling 

 The Longstone Light and Wreck of the forfarshireTo the Rescue ! Death of Grace Darling. 



" Hearts sure of brass they had who tempted first 

 Rude seas that spare not what themselves have nursed." 



So sings Waller, and his words are only the repetition of a sentiment much more grandly 

 expressed by Horace, who wrote now near two thousand years ago : " Surely oak and three- 

 fold brass surrounded his heart who first trusted a frail vessel to the merciless ocean/' And 

 once more, just to show the unanimity of the poets on this point, Dr. Watts has said : 



' ' It was a brave attempt ! advent'rous he 

 Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea." 



Now, if all this is said of man, what shall be said of the woman who first trusted herself 

 on the great deep ? Who was she ? It would be most difficult to satisfactorily answer this 

 question, but there can be no doubt that " Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons/' 

 whose voyage and enforced residence in the ark lasted no less than twelve months and three 

 days* are the earliest females on record who embarked in a great vessel on a boundless expanse 

 of waters. 



These pages have already presented episodes in the lives of many seafaring ladies, but 

 till now no chapter has been specially devoted to the subject. In these days of general travel 

 ladies make, as we have often seen, long voyages to and from far distant parts. One of them, 

 some nineteen years ago, underwent the horrors of shipwreck, and her subsequent sufferings 

 were admirably told by her under the title of " Ten Terrible Days." The account, which 

 should be read in its entirety, is here, for obvious reasons, considerably condensed. 



One day late in the year 1861 a grain-laden vessel, a fine clipper, might have been seen 

 slowly and gracefully sailing out of the noble bay of San Francisco. On her as passengers 

 were two or three ladies with children, among them Mrs. William Murray, the authoress, 

 who had been recommended to take the long voyage home in a roving clipper, in pre- 

 ference to taking a passage in the over-crowded steamers running to Panama and New York. 

 Let her open the story. " The sun," says she, " was shining as it always does in California, 



* Let the reader compare the following verses of Genesis : " In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the 

 second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, 

 and the windows of heaven were opened." Chap, vii., verse 11. 



" And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the 

 waters were dried up from off the earth : and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the 

 face of the ground was dry. 



"And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried." Chap, viii., 

 verses 13 and 14. 



