“They that sail on the sea tell of the danger thereof; and when we hear it with our ears, we marvel thereat.”—Ecclesiasticus, xliii. 24. “The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.”
Ancient Mariner.
To be alone on the great ocean, to feel besides the ship that bears you, nothing human floats within your world’s horizon, begets in a thoughtful mind a deep solemnity. The voyager is, as it were, at once brought before the material image of eternity. Sky and sea, each recedes without limit from his view; a circle above, a circle around, a circle underneath, no beginning, no ending, no repose for the sight, no boundary on which to fix the thought, but growing higher and higher, wider and wider, deeper and deeper, as the eye gazes and finds no resting point,—both sea and sky suggest, with overpowering force, that condition of soul which, knowing neither time nor space, forever[12] mounts Godward. In no mood does Nature speak louder to the heart than in her silence. When her thunders roll through the atmosphere and the hills tremble, the ocean surges and the wind wails; when she laughs through her thousand notes from bird or blossom, the heart either exults at the strife, or grows tender with sympathy in the universal joy. But place man alone on the ocean, shrouded in silence, with no living thing beyond his own tiny, wooden world for companionship, he begins to realize in the mighty expanse which engulfs his vision his own physical insignificancy. The very stars that look down upon him, with light twinkling and faint, from the rapidity with which they have sent their rays through distant firmaments to greet his vision and tell him there are countless worlds of greater beauty and higher perfection for his spirit to explore; even they deepen his feeling of littleness, till, finally, his soul recovers its dignity in the very magnitude of the scenery spread for its exploration. It knows that all this is but a portion of its heritage; that earth, air and water, the very planets that mock its curiosity, are ministering spirits, given with all their mysteries to be finally absorbed into its own all-penetrating nature.
Few, however, can so realize their own spirit-power, as to be calm in a calm. A motionless ship upon a silent ocean has a phantom look. The tall, tapering spars, the symmetrical tracery of ropes, the useless sails in white drooping folds, the black body in sharp relief in the white light, added[13] to the ghost-ship,—the twin of the one in the air,—in dimly-shadowed companionship, hull uppermost and her masts pointing downwards in the blue water, make up a spectral picture. As day after day passes, overhead a hot burning sun whose rays blind without rejoicing, no ripple upon the water, no life, because neither fish nor bird can bear the heat; the very garbage thrown overboard floating untouched, as if destruction rejected her own; the night mantling all in darkness, making silence still more oppressive,—for even the blocks refuse their wonted creaking;—all this consumes the body like rust slowly eating into iron. Nature faints and man sinks into her lassitude. He feels deserted of his own mother. She that bore him mocks him. Perchance a cold grey sky, pregnant with gloom, shuts down all around him, reflecting itself in the ocean which looks even greyer and colder. The atmosphere grows barren of light. No wind comes. Silent, motionless, and despairing, the vessel lies upon the waters; not slumbering, for every nerve within is quickened to unnatural keenness to catch a sign of change. It comes not. The seamen’s hearts, too worn to pray or curse, daily sink deeper within them, like masses of lead slowly finding their way through the fathomless depths of the ocean. A sail, a floating spar, a shark or devil fish, anything that were of man or beast, a shrub, the tiniest sea-snail or wildest bird, would be welcomed as Columbus hailed the floating signs that told to his mutinous crew a coming shore.
[14]
But none come. Weeks go by thus. Is man a god that his soul cannot fail within him! Must he not sympathize with the surrounding inanition! Welcome battle, welcome storm, welcome all that excites his energies, though it consume blood and muscle; be the mind racked and the body tortured; still man marches triumphantly on to his object. But take away opposition, reduce him to nothingness, convince him that action begets no result, that will is powerless, and he is no longer man. Not to act is conscious annihilation. But Nature never wholly deserts. She leaves hope to cheer humanity with promises that sooner or later must be fulfilled. There is, however, no condition so destitute of all that makes man Man as helpless solitude, when mind and body alike without action, stagnate and forget their origin.
Such was the condition of the crew of a vessel about the year 1530, lying motionless on the waters of the Pacific, not far from 25° north latitude and 140° west longitude. The bark was of that frail class, called caravel, scarcely fitted to navigate a small lake, much less to explore unknown seas. Yet, in those days European navigators did not hesitate to trust their lives and fortunes, on voyages of years’ duration, to craft which would now be condemned even for river navigation. The one of which we speak was of about seventy tons burden, with a high poop, which gave a comfortable cabin, a half deck and a forecastle, raised like the poop, sufficient to give partial shelter to the numerous crew. One mast with a large lateen sail rose from[15] the centre of the vessel, but her progress was aided as much by oars as by canvas. At the masthead was a castle-shaped box, in which the seamen could comfortably remain, either as lookouts, or for defence. This gave to the spar a clumsy, top-heavy look, wholly inconsistent with our modern ideas of nautical symmetry.
It was plain that the caravel had been long from port, and had suffered much from stress of weather. Her sides were rusty grey; barnacles clung so thickly below and above the water line, as to greatly interfere with her sailing qualities; the seams were open, and as the hot sun poured upon them, pitch oozed out. A tattered and threadbare sail hung loosely from the long yard which swayed from the masthead. The cordage appeared strained and worn to its last tension. Iron rust had eaten through and stained the wood in all parts of the hull. If paint had ever existed, the elements had long since eaten it up. Everything indicated long and hard usage. Yet amid all there were signs of seamanship and discipline; for bad and shattered as were rope, spar, and sail, everything was in its place and in the best order its condition permitted.
Within the cabin was a weather-beaten young man, well made, of a strong and active frame, features bronzed by long exposure to varied climates, and fine soft hair, somewhat light in color, which even now would have curled gracefully, had it been properly cared for. He lay ill and panting on the transom, with his face close to the open[16] port, gasping for air; not that he was seriously reduced, for it was readily seen that fatigue, anxiety and scanty fare had more to do with his weak condition than actual disease. Near him was a rude chart of the coasts of Mexico and adjacent sea, which he had long and carefully, and, to all appearance, fruitlessly studied. It was covered with a labyrinth of pencil marks, indicating a confused idea both of navigation and his present position. He had been recently poring over it, and at last had thrown it aside as utterly worthless, or at all events as affording him no clue by which to extricate himself from his present situation in a sea wholly unknown to the navigators of his day.
Near him sat a priest, whose thoughtful, benevolent face was far from expressing despair even under their present circumstances. He talked to the young man of the necessity of trusting themselves to the guidance of Providence, and sought to cheer him by his own hopeful serenity and untiring action.
Around the deck and under such shelter from the heat as they could contrive, the crew reclined in mournful groups; some with faces hardened into despair, and others careless or indifferent. A few only manifested a spirit of pious resignation. The strongest seldom spoke. Their looks were as sullen as their tempers were fierce, and if they opened their mouths, it was to mutter or curse, daring Nature to do her worst. Nothing but their physical debility prevented frequent violent explosions of the pent-up irritability arising from their[17] helpless state. Disease and starvation were rapidly adding fresh horrors to their situation. One seaman lay on the hard deck with a broken thigh, in which mortification had already begun, groaning and piteously asking for water. In his thirst he would have drank more in one hour than was allowanced to the entire crew for a day’s consumption. Several others, whose fevered tongues rattled from dryness, were also tossing and moaning on the rough planks, too weak or hopeless to join in the fruitless appeal of their dying comrade. Such water as they had was clotted with slime, and impregnated with foul odors. Their meat was all gone, and the little bread left, musty and worm-eaten.
All wore the look of having long struggled with adverse fortune. They were men whose element was made up of hardship and adventure; men, who, forgetting in one hour’s better fortune all that had brought them to their present condition, would not hesitate to embark again on a similar errand. Here they were, bowed in spirit, haggard in features, their hardy limbs lying torpidly about, indifferent to death itself, but worn to worse than death by drifting for weeks about under a pitiless sun on an unknown sea, which the oldest of them had never heard of, and which seemed to them as if they had arrived within the confines of stagnant matter, where they were doomed to rot in body and decay in mind, coffined in their vessel, whose slow destruction kept even pace with their own.
Five of their number had already died and been cast overboard. Gladly would they have seen[18] sharks gorge themselves on their late shipmates, as that would have shown them that the water still contained life. But no carrion fishes came near them. With faces upturned and glassy eyes fixed upon the caravel, those corpses floated about them so long that the crew were at last afraid to look over the bulwarks for fear of seeing what they desired so much to forget.
But humanity had not altogether abandoned them. The frailest in body among that vessel’s company proved the strongest in faith and action. A woman was of their number. Consuming even less of their provisions than the others, she reserved herself, and in great measure her allowance of food, for those whose necessity she considered as greater than her own. At all hours was she to be seen moving quietly about, speaking hope and courage to one, giving to eat or drink to another, or fanning the hot brow of a half delirious sufferer, while she talked to him of a home into which no suffering could enter, if the heart once were right. Especially was she devoted to the young man in the cabin. He evidently relied even more upon her than upon the priest, and imbibed fresh strength and hope from her voice and example. The priest was equally unwearied with his bodily aid and spiritual counsel to the crew. Thus it was that amid the most trying of the experiences of ocean-life, despair did not altogether quench hope.
Yet what situation could be more cheerless! One altogether similar in the history of navigation had never occurred before, and by the hurried course[19] of discovery and civilization, would not again occur. They were literally alone, drifting on an unknown, motionless sea. No winds stirred its surface; no birds flew by; no fishes came up from beneath their keel; there was no change except from the burning day to the feverish night, which brought with it no cooling dew, nor any sign to excite a sailor’s hope. Although they could not know the fact, not a vessel beside theirs for thousands of miles east or west, north or south, floated on that ocean. Driven thither against their wills, they were the first to explore its solitude. It was true that continents and archipelagoes thickly peopled were around them, but for all they knew, they were being carried by an irresistible fate to the boundary of nature, whence they would drop into a fathomless void. They were therefore literally alone.