the men who make her prosperity.  Let any one who is well informed enter a theatre when a nautical drama is presented; he will find the most ridiculous spectacle that the mind of man can conceive.  On one occasion, when a cat came on to the stage at Drury Lane and ran across the heaving billows of the canvas ocean, the audience roared with laughter; but to the judicious critic the real cause for mirth was the behaviour of the nautical persons who figured in the drama.  The same ignorance holds everywhere.  Seamen scarcely ever think of describing their life to people on shore, and the majority of landsmen regard a sea-voyage as a dull affair, to be begun with regret and ended with joy.  Dull!  Alas, it is dull for people who have dim eyes and commonplace minds; but for the man who has learned to gaze aright at the Creator’s works there is not a heavy minute from the time when the dawn trembles in the gray sky until the hour when, with stars and sea-winds in her raiment, night sinks on the sea.  Dull!  As well describe the rush of the turbulent Strand or the populous splendour of Regent Street by that word!  I have always held that a man cannot be considered as educated if he is unable to wait an hour in a railway-station for a train without ennui.  What is education good for if it does not give us resources which may enable us to gather delight or instruction from every sight and sound that may fall on our nerves?  The most melancholy spectacle in the world is presented by the stolid citizen who yawns over his Bradshaw while the swift panoramas of Charing Cross or Euston are gliding by him.  Men who are rightly constituted find delight in the very quietude and isolation of sea-life; they know how to derive pure entertainment from the pageant of the sky and the music of winds and waters, and they experience a piquant delight by reason of the contrast between the loneliness of the sea and the eager struggling life of the City.  Proceeding, as is my custom, by examples, I shall give precise descriptions of specimen days which anybody may spend on the wandering wastes of the ocean.  “All things pertaining to the life of man are of interest to me,” said the Roman; and he showed his wisdom by that saying.

Dawn.  Along the water-line a pale leaden streak appears, and little tremulous ripples of gray run gently upwards, until a broad band of mingled white and scarlet shines with cold radiance.  The mystery of the sea is suddenly removed, and we can watch the strange serpentine belts that twine and glitter all round from our vessel to the horizon.  The light is strong before the sun appears; and perhaps that brooding hour, when Nature seems to be turning in her sleep, is the best of the whole day.  The dew lies thickly on deck, and the chill of the night hangs in the air; but soon a red arc looms up gorgeously at the sea-line; long rays spread out like a sheaf of splendid swords on the blue; there is, as it were, a wild dance of colour in the noble vault, where cold green and pink and crimson wind and flush and softly glide in mystic mazes; and then—­the sun!  The great flaming disc seems to poise for a little, and all around it—­pierced here and there by the steely rays—­the clouds hang like tossing scarlet plumes.