To California 
ing power to present the distance from friends 
and home, and the completeness of my isola- 
tion from all things familiar. 
Elsewhere I have already noted that when 
I was a day’s journey from the Gulf, a wind 
blew upon me from the sea — the first sea 
breeze that had touched me in twenty years. I 
was plodding along with my satchel and plants, 
leaning wearily forward, a little sore from ap- 
proaching fever, when suddenly I felt the salt 
air, and before I had time to think, a whole 
flood of long-dormant associations rolled in 
upon me. The Firth of Forth, the Bass Rock, 
Dunbar Castle, and the winds and rocks and 
hills came upon the wings of that wind, and 
stood in as clear and sudden light as a land- 
scape flashed upon the view by a blaze of light- 
ning in a dark night. 
I like to cling to a small chip of a ship like 
ours when the sea is rough, and long, comet- 
tailed streamers are blowing from the curled 
top of every wave. A big vessel responds awk- 
wardly with mixed gestures to several waves 
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