404 
SCENES IN THE PACIFIC 
forecastle, eaten at the windlass, sung at the halyards, danced 
on the yards to the music of the tempest, and hailed the tu¬ 
mult of the seas as a frolic in which they had a joyful part. 
We respect these poets. Indeed, the Ocean to them is a 
world, the theatre of their being ; and by inhabiting it all 
their days, these singular men become changed from partici¬ 
pants in the delights of natural life on land, to creatures of 
memory. Memory ! that mental action which sifts the past 
of its bitterest evils, and gives only the blossom and the fruit 
to after-time. These they enjoy in the midnight watch, at the 
dawn, in the storm, the calm, and in visions of sleep; but for 
ever upon the deep, on the great expanse of the Sea ! Is it 
wonderful, then, that they should love it ? that their affections 
become poetry ? See them seated at their meal before the 
mast; their wide pants lap over their sprawled limbs; the 
red flannel shirt peers out at the wrists, and blazes over their 
broad chests between the ample dimensions of the heavy pea- 
jacket ; and crowning all is the tarpaulin with its streaming 
band, cocked on one side of the head ; and grouped in the 
most approved style of a thoroughly lazy independence, they 
eat their meal. At such times, if the weather be fine, stud¬ 
ding-sails out, and top-gallants pulling, they speak of the 
ship as a lady, well decked, and of beautiful bearing, gliding 
like a nymph through the gurgling waters. If the breeze be 
strong, and drives her down on her beams, they speak of her 
as bowing to her Lord and Master, while she uses his might 
to bear her on to her own purposes. And if the tempest 
weighs on the sea, and the fierce winds howl down upon her 
dead ahead, and the storm-sail displays over the fore-chains 
its three-sided form, and the ship lays up to the raging ele¬ 
ments, breasting every swoop of wave and blast, she still is a 
lady, coming forth from her empire of dependent loveliness 
to bow before an irresistible force, only to rise again, and 
present the sceptre of Hope to dismayed man. These Salts 
believe in the poetry of the sea, and of the noble structures in 
