XXI 
RETROSPECT 
533 
excepting from accidents, of a sea-life are at an end. The 
short space of sixty years has made an astonishing difference 
in the facility of distant navigation. Even in the time of 
Cook, a man who left his fireside for such expeditions under¬ 
went severe privations. A yacht now, with every luxury of 
life, can circumnavigate the globe. Besides the vast improve¬ 
ments in ships and naval resources, the whole western shores 
of America are thrown open, and Australia has become the 
capital of a rising continent. How different are the circum¬ 
stances to a man shipwrecked at the present day in the Pacific, 
to what they were in the time of Cook ! Since his voyage a 
hemisphere has been added to the civilised world. 
If a person suffer much from sea-sickness, let him weigh it 
heavily in the balance. I speak from experience: it is no 
trifling evil, cured in a week. If, on the other hand, he take 
pleasure in naval tactics, he will assuredly have full scope for 
his taste. But it must be borne in mind how large a pro¬ 
portion of the time, during a long voyage, is spent on the 
water, as compared with the days in harbour. And what are 
the boasted glories of the illimitable ocean ? A tedious waste, 
a desert of water, as the Arabian calls it. No doubt there are 
some delightful scenes. A moonlight night, with the clear 
heavens and the dark glittering sea, and the white sails filled 
by the soft air of a gently-blowing trade-wind ; a dead calm, 
with the heaving surface polished like a mirror, and all still 
except the occasional flapping of the canvas. It is well once 
to behold a squall with its rising arch and coming fury, or the 
heavy gale of wind and mountainous waves. I confess, however, 
my imagination had painted something more grand, more terrific, 
in the full-grown storm. It is an incomparably finer spectacle 
when beheld on shore, where the waving trees, the wild flight 
of the birds, the dark shadows and bright lights, the rushing of 
the torrents, all proclaim the strife of the unloosed elements. 
At sea the albatross and little petrel fly as if the storm were 
their proper sphere, the water rises and sinks as if fulfilling its 
usual task, the ship alone and its inhabitants seem the objects 
of wrath. On a forlorn and weather-beaten coast the scene is 
indeed different, but the feelings partake more of horror than 
of wild delight. 
Let us now look at the brighter side of the past time. The 
