96 



THE OPAL SEA 



Eiifliiravce 

 of the sea. 



The Pacific 



from 



M exico. 



it with ocean currents, tides sway it in its 

 basin, but it alwa3's returns to itself. The sun 

 drinks it up in evaporation day by day, but 

 it is not empty; all the rivers run into it, but 

 it is not full. Oh, the immutability, the eter- 

 nal endurance of the sea ! The earth and that 

 Avhich rests within it is ground to dust at last 

 and blown about the windy heavens; but the 

 sea never fades or disintegrates. Indestructible, 

 imperishable, it lives forever — always the same 

 sea, always the same beauty. 



Type of all the oceans, sea of all the seas, 

 serene in its unconquerable might, rests the 

 vast Pacific. Seen from the high tablelands 

 of Mexico and by contrast with the uneasy 

 peaks of the Sierra Madre how supreme is its 

 repose ! The white cone of Popocatapetl seems 

 struggling with its encompassing clouds or 

 straining upward at the heavens; but the Pa- 

 cific is at rest, self-contained, aspiring to 

 nothing, disturbed by nothing. How could 

 such an immensity be otherwise ! The " West- 

 ern Ocean " of the Greek, the Seven Seas of 

 the Arab,* the Atlantic of the fifteenth-century 



* The Seven Seas were the Green (Indian), the White 

 (Mediterranean), the Black (Euxine), the Blue (Per- 

 sian), the Red Sea, the Dead Sea, and the Caspian — all 

 of them near the cradle of Islam. 



