132 WINTER SUNSHINE 



leap off into the interstellar spaces. In voyaging to 

 Mars or Jupiter, he might cross such a desert, — 

 might confront such awful purity and coldness. An 

 astronomic solitariness and remoteness encompass the 

 sea. The earth and all remembrance of it is blotted 

 out; there is no hint of it anywhere. This is not 

 water, this cold, blue-black, vitreous liquid. It sug- 

 gests, not life, but death. Indeed, the regians of 

 everlasting ice and snow are not more cold and in- 

 human than is the sea. 



Almost the only thing about my first sea voyage 

 that I remember with pleasure is the circumstance 

 of the little birds that, during the first few days out, 

 took refuge on the steamer. The first afternoon, 

 just as we were losing sight of land, a delicate little 

 wood- bird, the black and white creeping warbler, — 

 having lost its reckoning in making perhaps its first 

 southern voyage, — came aboard. It was much fa- 

 tigued, and had a disheartened, demoralized look. 

 After an hour or two it disappeared, having, I fear, 

 a hard pull to reach the land in the face of the wind 

 that was blowing, if indeed it reached it at all. 



The next day, just at night, I observed a small 

 hawk sailing about conveniently near the vessel, 

 but with a very lofty, independent mien, as if he 

 had just happened that way on his travels, and was 

 only lingering to take a good view of us. It was 

 amusing to observe his coolness and haughty uncon- 

 cern in that sad plight he was in; by nothing in his 

 manner betraying that he was several hundred miles 

 at sea, and did not know how he was going to get 



