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136 AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



and remoteness encompasses the sea. The earth and 

 all remembrance of it is blotted out ; there is no hint 

 of it anywhere. This is not water, this cold, blue-black, 

 vitreous liquid. It suggests not life but death. Indeed 

 the regions of everlasting ice and snow are not more 

 cold and inhuman than is the sea. 



Almost the only thing about my first sea voyage that 

 I remember with pleasure is the circumstance of the 

 little birds that, during the first few days out, took 

 refuge on the steamer. The first afternoon, just as we 

 were losing sight of land, a delicate little wood bird, — 

 the black and white creeping warbler, — having lost its 

 reckoning, in making perhaps its first southern voyage, 

 came aboard. It was much fatigued and had a dis- 

 heartened, demoralized look. After an hour or two it 

 disappeared, having, I fear, a hard pull to reach the 

 land in the face of the wind that was blowing, if indeed 

 it reached it at all. 



The next day, just at night, I observed a small hawk 

 sailing about conveniently near the vessel, but with a 

 very lofty, independent mien, as if he had just happened 

 that way on his travels, and was only lingering to take 

 a good view of us. It was amusing to observe his 

 coolness and haughty unconcern in that sad plight he 

 was in ; by nothing in his manner betraying that he 

 was several hundred miles at sea, and did not know 

 how he was going to get back to land. But presently 

 I noticed he found it not inconsistent with his dignity to 

 alight on the rigging under friendly cover of the tops'l, 



