THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 211 
the wishes expressed by passengers on their first 
voyage, when a vessel is speaking at what they think 
a most uncivil distance, that she would but come 
nearer, particularly if the wind is light, as “there 
can be no danger then.” Little. do they think that 
when in a perfect calm the danger of contact is even 
greatest, as, if there be wind enough to give the ves- 
sel “steerage way,” she is under control, and the 
evil may be avoided. On this subject, and on the 
motions of ships in calms, an unexceptionable autho- 
rity, Captain Basil Hall, thus speaks :— 
“ How it happens I do not know, but on occasions 
of perfect calm, or such as appear to be perfect calm, 
the ships of a fleet generally drift away from one 
another, so that, at the end of a few hours, the whole 
sircle bounded by the horizon is speckled over with 
these unmanageable hulks, as they may for the time 
be considered. It will occasionally happen, indeed, 
that two ships draw so near in a calm as to incur 
some risk of falling on board one another. I need 
scarcely mention that even in the smoothest water 
ever found in the open sea, two large ships coming 
into actual contact must prove a formidable encounter. 
As long as they are apart, their gentle and rather 
graceful movements are fit subjects of admiration; 
and I have often seen people gaze for an hour at a 
time at the ships of a becalmed fleet, slowly twisting 
round, changing their position, and rolling from side 
to side as silently as if they had been in harbour, or 
accompanied only by the faint rippling sound trip- 
ping along the water-line, as the copper below the 
bends alternately sunk into the sea, or rose out of it, 
