Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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“Roll on, thou dark and deep blue ocean—roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin—his control

Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain

The wrecks are all thy deeds.”

And though this is but the exaggerated and not strictly accurate language of poetry, we may, with Pollok, fairly address the great sea as “strongest of creation’s sons.” The first impressions produced on most animals—not excluding altogether man—by the aspect of the ocean, are of terror in greater or lesser degree. Livingstone tells us that he had intended to bring to England from Africa a friendly native, a man courageous as the lion he had often braved. He had never voyaged upon nor even beheld the sea, and on board the ship which would have safely borne him to a friendly shore he became delirious and insane. Though assured of safety and carefully watched, he escaped one day, and blindly threw himself headlong into the waves. The sea terrified him, and yet held and drew him, fascinated as under a spell. “Even at ebb-tide,” says Michelet,3 “when, placid and weary, the wave crawls softly on the sand, the horse does not recover his courage. He trembles, and frequently refuses to pass the languishing ripple. The dog barks and recoils, and, according to his manner, insults the billows which he fears. … We are told by a traveller that the dogs of Kamtschatka, though accustomed to the spectacle, are not the less terrified and irritated by it. In numerous troops, they howl through the protracted night against the howling waves, and endeavour to outvie in fury the Ocean of the North.”