34 THE CALL OF THE SEA 



name of hurricanes, that the shores are covered 

 with marine shells, which greatly compass in lustre 

 and beauty those of the European seas. 



P. F. Xavier de Charlevoix. 



The Image of It -=i>- -^^ ^=^ 



(From The Harbours of England) 



T)UT Turner found during his Southern Coast 

 tour that the sea was not this : that it was, on 

 the contrary, a very incalculable and unhorizontal 

 thing, setting his " water-mark " sometimes on the 

 highest heavens, as well as on sides of ships ;— very 

 breakable into pieces, half of a wave separable from 

 the other half, and on the instant carriageable 

 miles inland ;— not in any wise limiting itself to a 

 state of apparent liquidity, but now striking like 

 a steel gauntlet, and now becoming a cloud and 

 vanishing, no eye could tell whither ; one moment 

 a flint cave, the next a marble pillar, the next a 

 mere white fleece, thickening the thundery rain. 

 He never forgot those facts ; never afterwards was 

 able to recover the idea of positive distinction 

 between sea and sky, or sea and land. Steel 

 gauntlet, black rock, white cloud, and men and 

 masts gnashed to pieces and disappearing in a 

 few breaths and splinters among them ; — a litde 

 blood on the rock angle, like red seaweed, sponged 



