INTRODUCTION 



" The ocean is the seat of enduring power. So long as they held 

 the sea the small States ruled the world : little Greece, Tyre, 

 Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa, Venice, Portugal, Holland. . . . That Rome 

 triumphed over Carthage, that she became the Roman Empire, was 

 due to the fact that she won the sea from her enemy. The Spain of 

 Charles V. fell miserably when she lost the mastery of the sea. 

 Napoleon assembled Europe beneath his eagles, but he possessed 

 nothing permanently, because the inexorable ocean remained in the 

 hands of the English." * 



So says M. de Vogu : so might some ocean deity 

 speak, patron god of Argonauts, . in humour more 

 didactic than Olympian ; and indeed the calling of his 

 voice has been always heard by the active peoples who 

 have loved and lived the strenuous life. Words of his 

 are graven in letters of bronze upon British hearts ; they 

 summoned Japan to battle and to victory ; they inspired 

 in the Kaiser Wilhelm II. his famous motto : Our future 

 is on the water. There was a time when the French were 

 the favoured followers of the sailor's god ; but we have 

 grown too quickly, and the Master of the Seas appears to 

 us through the veil of years as an old surly pedagogue, 

 remembered as immoderately given to setting impositions 

 and bestowing raps upon the knuckles. 



Yet the old sea-god, who now teaches other disciples, 

 was a beneficent master, and his punishments were far 

 less to be dreaded than our present oblivion of his 

 salutary counsel. 



1 Le Mattre dt la Mtr, by M. de Vogue. 



