HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



Then he who first my secret reign descried, 



A naked corpse, wide floating o'er the tide, 



Shall drive. Unless my heart's full raptures fail, 



0 Lusus, oft shalt thou thy children wail ! 



Each year thy shipwreck'd sons shalt thou deplore, 



Each year thy sheeted masts shall strew my shore !' " 



The illustration given opposite — a copy from an antique 

 original — represents da Grama's ship and the Spectre of the 

 Cape. The table-land of the promontory is seen through the 

 drift of the tempest, towards the east. The ship is broached to, 

 her sails close-furled, with the exception of the foresail, which 

 has broken loose and is flapping wildly in the hurricane. Both 

 the engraving and the description we have quoted from Camoens 

 are strikingly illustrative of those visionary horrors which per- 

 vaded the minds of the navigators of the period, and are also 

 characteristic of that peculiar cloud whose sudden envelopment 

 of the Cape is the sure forerunner of a storm. The artist seems 

 to have chosen the moment when the spectre, having uttered his 

 dreadful prophecy, is vanishing into air. 



