2.52 



THE OPAL SEA 



The per- 

 sistent 

 engines. 



The pie- 

 tjiresque 

 ship at sea. 



hold are a series of crashes and smashes, but 

 those indomitable engines keep up their pulsa- 

 tions. You lie awake in the middle of the 

 night clinging to your berth, hearing the whip- 

 like swish of the spray flying by the port hole, 

 listening to the roar of the wind in the rigging, 

 feeling the vessel pitch and stagger under you, 

 and perhaps wondering if rivets and plates of 

 steel can long hold out against such wrenching ; 

 but still beneath you, skipping no beat, is the 

 welcome thump-thump, thump-thump, thump- 

 thump of the engines. She was designed to 

 defy the winds and fight the elements and she 

 does it — with some groanings from strained 

 partition, beam, and girder it may be, but still 

 she does it. 



All ships that come and go along the water- 

 ways, whether by steam or by sail, have pic- 

 torial importance in the panorama of the seas. 

 Not pleasure yacht or ocean "greyhound" 

 alone, not the lateen sails of Venice or the gray 

 wings of Newfoundland; but the lone bark 

 that stands up along the horizon like a square 

 tower, the coasting schooner that trails her flat 

 sails along some rocky shore, the tank steamer 

 slowly moving with her own cloud of smoke, 

 the big freighter lumbering up and down the 

 distant waves — they all have their measure of 



