112 
CAPE COD. 
the columns of smoke above the horizon, the motions 
of the steamers in Calais Harbor [on the coast of 
France] are at all times observable at Ramsgate [on 
the English coast], from the first lighting of the fires to 
the putting out at sea; and that in America the steamers 
burning the fat bituminous coal can be tracked at sea at 
least seventy miles before the hulls become visible, by 
the dense columns of black smoke pouring out of their 
chimneys, and trailing along the horizon.” 
Though there were numerous vessels at this great dis¬ 
tance in the horizon on every side, yet the vast spaces 
between them, like the spaces between the stars, far as 
they were distant from us, so were they from one an¬ 
other — nay, some were twice as far from each other as 
from us, — impressed us with a sense of the immensity of 
the ocean, the “ unfruitful ocean,” as it has been called, 
and we could see what proportion man and his works 
bear to the globe. As we looked off, and saw the water 
growing darker and darker and deeper and deeper the 
farther we looked, till it was awful to consider, and it 
appeared to have no relation to the friendly land, either 
as shore or bottom, — of what use is a bottom if it is out 
of sight, if it is two or three miles from the surface, and 
you are to be drowned so long before you get to it, 
though it were made of the same stuff with your native 
soil ? — over that ocean, where, as the Veda says, “ there 
is nothing to give support, nothing to rest upon, nothing 
to cling to,” I felt that I was a land animal. The man 
in a balloon even may commonly alight on the earth in 
a few moments, but the sailor’s only hope is that he may 
reach the distant shore. I could then appreciate the 
heroism of the old navigator. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, of 
whom it is related, that being overtaken by a storm 
