140 STORMY PETTIEL. 



the life-blood sv^eep over the wilderness of waters, as if the very 

 Furies were let slip, whirling along the driving snow, or thick 

 showers of heavy rain, whose drops, mixed with spray, sleet, 

 and hail, seem part of the squalls themselves; you hear even 

 if you are not there you hear the loud shrieks of each gust 

 of wind, and are aware of every coming blast. Whither is the 

 stray bird to wing its way? Where is it to 'flee away and be 

 at rest?' Where is it now gone? Where is it next to be seen? 

 Change the scene, and in the low latitudes how impressive 

 the stillness of the glorious main! 'how awful is this place!' 

 What must it, too, be when there is none there on the bosom 

 of the great deep to hear the sounds that are there to be heard, 

 and see the sights that are there to be seen? Now the Petrel 

 follows in the wake of some gallant ship sailing on in mistaken 

 security, and on a sudden a white squall, typhoon, or tornado 

 sweeps across her course, and in an instant she is upset, founders, 

 and goes down among the gurgling waves, it may be not to 

 the bottom, for there is in the lowest deep a lower and deeper 

 still, and a fathomless abyss which the plummet has never 

 sounded, whether it be that its depth is so profound, or whether 

 that there is far down below a current so strong that nothing 

 can sink through it, but must be whirled adown this true and 

 potent 'Gulf Stream' round and round the world. How is the 

 ship borne along this 'Race?' Is she dashed to pieces by the 

 terrific eddies of some 'Maelstrom?' and, if so, where, how, and 

 when, if ever, will her shattered fragments re-appear? or does 

 she, righted again, glide on once more, with masts standing and 

 sails set, and perform, year after year, in some 'under current/ 

 her 'voyage round the world?' Where is the 'Return of the 

 Admiral' to be welcomed again? There stands the captain on 

 his quarter-deck, and there are his crew 'those for whom the 

 place was kept at board and hearth so long,' 'loved and lost,' 

 but still expected perhaps by those at home, looking out in 

 death with glazed eyes, now on the valleys, and now on the 

 hills and mountains that bound the scene or either side, now 

 on the Mark un fathomed caves' that lie hid in the solitudes of 

 the ocean bed, and now on the coral banks that rise far above 

 to the surface. Now they overtake or now are passed by some 

 other 'Phantom Ship,' a terror neither of them to the other; 

 now overhead pass and re-pass the vessels of the naval nations 

 of the world, the noble man-of-war, the stately merchantman, 

 the fast and the slow, squadrons and convoys, the pursuers and 

 the pursued, the 'Homeward' and the 'Outward-bound:' nothing 



