WASHINGTON IRVING 1 35 



Charm of a Sea Voyage •^^y ^o 

 (From The Sketch Book) 



T SAID that at sea all is vacancy ; I should cor- 

 rect the expression. To one given to day- 

 dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a 

 sea voyage is full of subjects of meditation ; but 

 then they are the wonders of the deep and of the 

 air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from 

 worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the 

 quarter-railing, or climb to the main-top, of a 

 calm day, and muse for hours together on the 

 tranquil bosom of a summer's sea ; to gaze upon 

 the piles of golden clouds just peering above the 

 horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people 

 them with a creation of my own ; — to watch the 

 gentle undulating billows, rolling their silver 

 volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores. 

 There was a delicious sensation of mingled 

 security and awe with which I looked down, from 

 my giddy height, on the monsters of the deep at 

 their uncouth gambols. Shoals of porpoises tum- 

 bling about the bow of the ship ; the grampus 

 slowly heaving his huge form above the surface ; 

 or the ravenous shark, darling, like a spectre, 

 through the blue waters. My imagination would 

 conjure up all that I had heard or read of the 

 watery world beneath me ; of the finny herds that 



