Ch. XXII.] ASPECTS OF TKE SEA. 387 



ever-changing colour of the sea. The surface of the ocean 

 is not the monotonous plain which some would make it out 

 to he ; it is ever varying with a succession of aspects hoth of 

 form and colour. Now it is smooth and glassy, now break- 

 ing into dimpled smiles, the avr]pi,dfj.ov yeX-acriia of the 

 dramatist, now capped with foam and breaking all around 

 into white horses, and now rolling in majestic billows, which 

 I for one never tire of watching, as they bound along from 

 afar off as though they meant to engulf the ship, and then 

 raising her gently up to their highest crest, poise her above 

 the boiling plain, and as gently lower her again into a smooth 

 hoUow valley, the emerald sides of which are streaked with 

 foam. The sudden and rapid changes, and the ever varying 

 prospect, form as near an approach to the wavy, skimming 

 flight of a sea-bird as can well be imagined. 



Nor is the colour of the sea more monotonous than its 

 other aspects. Now a pale sapphire blue, it deepens into 

 ultramarine, and then again into intense indigo, or blue-black. 

 Again it may assume a pale yellow-green colour, and become 

 bright emerald ; and when the setting sun bathes the clouds 

 with gold, the sea partakes of their glory, and dazzles the 

 eye with a flood of light, which fades away like the dying 

 hues of the dolphin through shades of purple and rose, until 

 it once more assumes its twilight tint of deep indigo-blue. 



The natural colour of the deep sea when perfectly at rest, 

 in fine weather, is a rich violet blue, of an intensity and in- 

 describable briUiancy which no pigment ever equalled. Nor 

 is this colour in any degree dependent upon the blueness of 

 the sky in the way of reflection, which not only does not 

 cause, but in no way assists in intensifying the blue of the 

 sea. For not only is this coloiu- of the sea to be observed 

 when the sky is cloudless, but also when, although bright, 



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